On Saturday, Jakob Silfverberg played his first game for Brynäs IF in the SHL since the 2012 playoffs. He scored a power-play goal in the first period to give his team a 1-0 lead but Linköping HC then scored three straight to take a 3-1 lead into the third period. Brynäs pressed hard in the third period and got one back, but lost 3-2.
“We woke up a little too late,” the 33-year-old winger told Hockeynews.se after the game. “They seemed more stable most of the game and we may have to be a little more consistent, but we were one shot away from making it 3-3. We had the momentum on our side at the end and then you never know what can happen, but overall, we have to find the level we were at in the last 10 minutes a little faster.”
His goal came at the 8:16 mark. Stationed at the top of the left-wing faceoff circle, he took a pass from Victor Söderström, then patiently picked his spot and beat Christian Heljanko with a wrist shot inside the far post.
“It was incredibly nice for it to go in,” he said. “But otherwise, our power play was a little too lax today. We need to create a little more pressure.”
On scoring the goal, he said, “On a day like this when you lose, it doesn’t mean much. Of course, it’s always fun to score goals, but then they scored on us a minute later and that energy was sucked out of us pretty quickly.”
Brynäs is back in the SHL after spending last season in the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan. After earning its way back following a series sweep over Djurgården, the club from Gävle – 175 km north of Stockholm – stood notice that it didn’t intend to be a league doormat this year. In addition to signing Silfverberg – who signed with the club of his youth in April after 12 years in the NHL with the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks – Brynäs also signed goaltender Erik Källgren, defensemenSöderstrom and Christian Djoos forwards Oskar Lindblöm and Jordan Schroeder, among others.
But all the new blood in the lineup didn’t translate into a win. Brynäs’ second game isn’t until Thursday in Örebro. The team finally plays its home opener next Saturday against Frölunda.
Despite playing on the road in Linköping, some 370 km away, there was a healthy contingent of Brynäs fans among the crowd of 8,150 at Saab Arena.
“Absolutely fantastic,” he said about the fans. “It’s a slightly different culture, I’m not really used to the standing-room culture. Playing in front of 17, 18 thousand is great, but when you squeeze six or seven thousand into a standing room area, it’s really something else. It’s fun to be back and have them there, especially all the Brynäs fans.”
He continued, “We walked 200 meters across the square to our lunch spot earlier today and all the Brynäs fans were sitting there, so there was good atmosphere already at lunchtime. It was awesome to see. It’s a shame we didn’t manage to come all the way back today.”
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