The 33-year-old homecomer was back after twelve years in NHL.
Jakob Silfverberg scored the SM gold to Brynäs in his last match before he left for NHL.
Now, twelve years later, he scored a goal almost immediately when both he and Brynäs made their SHL comeback.
It was incredibly nice to see it go in, but overall I think our line was a bit too pale today. We should be able to create a bit more pressure. We have a few notches to go, just like I do myself, says Silfverberg who scored as early as 11.44 in the first period.
The big Brynäs crowd in Linköping's sold-out home arena, 8,150 spectators, started chanting "Oh, ah, Silfverberg, sing oh, ah, Silfverberg".
"Completely fantastic"
Just like twelve years ago.
Completely fantastic. It's a different culture with standing room, I'm not quite used to it. 16,000-17,000 in all respect (in NHL), but when you have 8,000 with a standing room that fires up both teams, it's something completely different, says Silfverberg and adds:
But it's a shame we couldn't give them a point.
Silfverberg is one of four well-known homecomers in Brynäs, but the pressure on him is the greatest. It's the 33-year-old homecomer who is supposed to make sure Brynäs' comeback season becomes successful.
What does it mean to score a goal directly?
It's always fun to score a goal, but a day like this when we lose doesn't mean much.
Rib shot in the end
Brynäs lost their 1-0 lead to 1-3, but a final push could have ended with points.
Jack Kopacka, top scorer in hockeyallsvenskan last year, reduced to 2-3 and was only a rib shot away from equalizing in the final seconds.
I think we wake up a bit too late. I think they (Linköping) feel more stable. We need to get a bit straighter. We need to get the pressure we had in the last ten minutes much earlier, says Jakob Silfverberg.
He still thinks there are things for the newcomer to take with him to the next match, also away, against Örebro on Thursday.
Special teams, we do it fantastically. We score a goal and boxplay is stable (no goals conceded on five numerical inferiorities) Then the push we make. If we can play a bit straighter and get pucks on goal, we're strong, that's what we showed during the preseason, he says.
