Swedish
Hockey League club Brynäs IF has called a press conference for
Monday, at which time it is expected to announce the signing of
veteran center Nicklas Backström, HockeyNews.se
has reported.
For
37-year-old
Backström,
it
would be a return to the club he played with from age
13
to 19. Backström
has
73 points in 121 career SHL games, all for Brynäs.
He
last played for the Gävle-based
club in 2007, the year after the Washington
Capitals made him the fourth overall pick in the 2006 NHL Entry
Draft.
Backström,
37,
has not played any competitive hockey since October 2023, when he
played the first eight games of the season for the Capitals.
At that point, he decided to pause his career, as his hip had not
responded well to surgery in 2022, although he did not announce his
retirement.
Backström
recorded
271 goals and 762 assists for 1033 points along with 504 penalty
minutes in 1105 NHL regular-season games between 2007 and 2023. He
also recorded 114 points in 139 playoff games and was a major part of
Washington’s 2018 Stanley Cup championship team, recording 23
points in 20 playoff games that spring.
Throughout
his NHL career, he usually played on a forward line as winger
Alexander Ovechkin, the league’s all-time leading goal-scorer.
It's official: Jakob Silfverberg returns to BrynäsIt was highly expected last week when Jakob Silfverberg of the Anaheim Ducks announced he was leaving the NHL and now it’s official. The Brynäs IF website has announced that the 33-year-old is coming home to the city of Gävle and the club he grew up playing for.
Despite
just being
promoted from the tier-two HockeyAllsvenskan last season, Brynäs
finished first in the SHL regular-season standings and went all the
way to the league finals, losing to Lulea in six games.
Brynäs
has
been busy this off-season building a team that should be again
considered a front-runner for the title.
Just
days ago, the Anaheim Ducks lent the team a pair of prospects –
goaltender
Damian Clara and forward Lucas Pettersson. The team has also
signed free agent goaltender
Collin
Delia and former
NHL first-round
pick Kieffer Bellows this off-season.
Other players under contract for
the coming season include Jakob
Silfverberg, Johan Larsson, Robert
Hägg, Oskar
Lindblom, Michal
Kempný and Christian Djoos.
Photo © Brad Mills-Imagn Images.
goaltender Damian Clara, has been loaned by the Anaheim Ducks to
Brynäs
IF, the Gävle-based
SHL club announced on Saturday.
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