Gunnarsson's (24 years old, undrafted) season has been pretty insane. He started the season on loan to a newly promoted team (Pantern) in the Swedish 2nd-tier league, where he was splitting time with another goalie. It seemed like a logical step for him to take another year in the 2nd-tier league before maybe aiming for the SHL.
A few games into the season, his situation changed though. Newly promoted SHL team Malmö, who he was on loan from, got injuries on their starting goalie and their backup goalie and Gunnarsson was called back to temporarily fill in the spot as the starting goalie.
He had a solid start and just kept on going. I think most people expected him to dip eventually and that hopefully the starting goalie would be back at that point. But the other goalie never got back fully from his injury during the season and Gunnarsson kept on playing solid.
When the season was summarized, Gunnarsson had been one of the main key players, when Malmö was able to avoid relegation in their first SHL season in 8 years. He also got to play his first game with national team and now he has signed with an NHL team.
I wouldn't say he's ready for the NHL and was hoping he would take another year in SHL, but I can't blame him for taking the chance. He's a promising goalie and guess we'll have to wait and see if he can build on this season.
BTW
the mask he used all season had Pantern's (the team in the 2nd-tier league) team colors/logo on half the mask.
Summary for the lazy: Undrafted Gunnarsson started the season spliting time with another goalie on a newly promoted team in the Swedish 2nd-tier league and summerized it with a solid SHL season, 1 game with the national team and an NHL contract.