Nicklas Backstrom is reportedly ready to play hockey again as soon as next season.
According to Aftonbladet’s Tomas Ros and Hans Abrahamsson, the 37-year-old Swede plans to sign a one-year contract with Brynäs, his former SHL team. Backstrom came up through Brynäs’s junior ranks and played three seasons with their senior team before arriving in the NHL with the Washington Capitals for the 2007-08 season.
“Yes, the rumor has been going around for a long time – Nicklas Bäckström to Brynäs,” the two Swedish insiders wrote as translated via Google Translate. “The dream comeback. And the information we receive never stops. What we hear now is that he is signing a one-year contract with Brynäs and is treading very carefully. Maybe only playing half the games until Christmas. Then it will be more and more.”
In what was then known as the Swedish Elite League, Backstrom recorded 66 points (22g, 44a) in 110 games from 2004 to 2007. He also had 7 points (4g, 3a) in 11 playoff games.
The news comes with Backstrom’s final playing contract with the Capitals set to expire on July 1. The franchise’s top assist man spent the entire 2024-25 campaign on long-term injured reserve and has not played in a game since October 29, 2023. He officially stepped away from the club on November 1, 2023, due to lingering issues with his surgically-repaired hip.
Backstrom will be three years removed from his hip resurfacing surgery in June. The last time he was on the ice in any public capacity for the Capitals was when he laced up his skates in December to help long-time teammate and friend Alex Ovechkin rehab from a broken leg.
He has attended practices after that just as an onlooker and was in the team’s locker room for an emotional moment with Ovechkin when the latter broke Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record.
Reports of a possible return to pro hockey in his native Sweden come less than a month after Backstrom put his Northern Virginia home on the market. The Capitals’ all-time leader in assists owns a luxury villa in his native Gävle, Sweden, which he had built in 2010.
Backstrom will finish his NHL career with 1,105 career games for the Capitals — the team that made him the fourth-overall pick in the 2006 NHL Draft. He recorded 1,033 points (271g, 762a), was a 2016 NHL All-Star, and won the 2018 Stanley Cup as an alternate captain.
