Heading into the 2026-27 Swedish league year, Nicklas Backstrom keeps a spot on his hometown club's roster, although whether he ever suits up for them across the season is far from guaranteed.
On Friday, the team revealed that both parties had elected to exercise the option on Backstrom's deal for an extra year, while disclosing that the veteran center, who is 38, is contending with certain "injury problems" expected to sideline him for an unspecified stretch.
Per the club's statement, Backstrom has spent the entire spring battling injury setbacks that demand continued rehab with no clear conclusion, which leaves his readiness for the coming year uncertain, per the team's release. The organization, it noted, would therefore grant him as much time as needed while building the lineup on the assumption that suiting up might not be possible for him.
He had joined the Gävle-based club this past year after years of dealing with persistent hip ailments, a stretch that featured a prolonged leave from the NHL's Capitals once he underwent a hip-resurfacing procedure in 2022. In his comeback year in the league, the silky Swede tallied a 30-point line (3g, 27a) over 45 contests and chipped in two helpers through five postseason outings.
Once the Lakers from Växjö dispatched his side in a five-game quarterfinal during the league's postseason, Backstrom sounded unsure how much longer his career would continue.
He described it at the time as a difficult thing to answer just then, saying the group would have to assess matters and gauge what management wanted before anything became clear. For the moment, he said, he was simply heading home to his family.
The roster the club iced in 2025-26 leaned heavily on veterans and was packed with plenty of former NHL faces, several of them recognizable to Backstrom from his time in Washington: Christian Djoos, Michal Kempny, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, and Johan Larsson.
At present, the organization intends to field yet another contender while keeping the veteran in a peripheral role, holding onto the hope that he recovers sufficiently to emerge as a welcome boost somewhere along the way this year.
In a released statement, the club's sporting boss, Johan Alcén, noted that Backstrom carries enormous meaning for the franchise, something universally understood, and that the side would give him every bit of time and backing his recovery calls for. There is no preset window, Alcén added, yet the club obviously also takes on the duty of putting together a competitive roster where Backstrom can register as a bonus during the season to come.
The team additionally indicated that it has begun a partnership with a Stockholm-based specialist clinic, one set to operate together with the existing Brynäs rehab group in a push to bring the center back onto the ice.
Since Backstrom's deal extends no further than next year, 2026-27 may prove to be the closing chapter of his on-ice career.