The Anaheim Ducks finished the 2022-23 season with the worst record in the NHL. With the season finally over in Anaheim, players begin to make plans for their offseason and look to the future. One player, according to Rasmus Kagstrom of Hockeysveirge.se, is Jakob Silfverberg, who has an eye on returning to play in Sweden.
The 32-year-old winger has one more season on his contract with the Ducks and it comes with a cap hit of $5.25M. He will play out that final season, but it sounds like he wants to return to Sweden and play with Brynas as soon as the 2024-25 campaign.
Silfverberg grew up in the Brynas program, last playing there in the 2011-12 season when he scored 24 goals and 54 points in 49 games. He left at the end of that season to join the Ottawa Senators who had selected him in the second round of the 2009 NHL Draft. The smart, two-way winger quickly earned a reputation as one of the best defensive forwards in the league and was a key piece in a trade that saw Bobby Ryan head to Ottawa while Silfverberg headed for warmer climes in California.
His best offensive season came in 2016-17 when he scored 23 goals and 49 points in 79 games. He also stepped up in the playoffs, helping the Ducks reach the Western Conference Final by scoring nine goals and 14 points in 17 playoff games. In a three-year stretch on a deep Ducks squad, Silfverberg scored 13 goals and 37 points in 40 playoff games.
His offensive numbers have dried up recently, as the veteran winger scored ten goals and 26 points in 81 games in 2022-23. It appears he will now head into his final NHL campaign as a veteran leader on a young, inexperienced Ducks squad. If those young, talented Ducks players learn how to pay attention to defensive detail and bring out their best in the postseason like Silfverberg has in his career, they will be set up for long-term success.
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