They moved to Sweden with his Finnish-Swedish stepfather, Yngve Widing, when he was four years old, and he received Swedish citizenship.
After only 44 games he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings along with Réal Lemieux for Ted Irvine.
In Los Angeles he developed into a legitimate scoring threat, garnering at least 55 points in five consecutive seasons.
Kings' owner Jack Kent Cooke gave him the nickname "Whitey" and instructed his announcers to pronounce his last name as "why-ding" as opposed to the real pronunciation of "vee-ding".
In 1977–78, he played for the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association, scoring 42 points in his final professional season.