- Brynas IF signed Calle Jarnkrok to a three-year contract running through 2028-29
- The 34-year-old leaves the NHL after 13 seasons, 774 games and 316 points
- Read below for how Jarnkrok fits on a Brynas roster already stacked with ex-NHLers
Calle Jarnkrok is going home.
Brynas IF announced Monday that the Swedish forward signed a three-year contract through the 2028-29 season, closing out a 13-year run in North America. He is headed back to Gavle, the city he grew up in and the club he came up through.
Here is the announcement from Brynas, with a message that translates to “welcome home”:
This is a second run with the club for Jarnkrok. He played parts of four seasons with Brynas before heading over in 2013-14, putting up 44 goals and 118 points in 185 SHL games plus another 21 points in 28 playoff contests.
Detroit took him in the second round in 2010 and never dressed him for a game. Nashville acquired him in 2014, and he stuck there for seven years, including the 2017 run to the Stanley Cup Final where he chipped in seven points in 21 playoff games.
Seattle claimed him in the 2021 expansion draft and flipped him to Calgary at the deadline. Toronto signed him as a free agent that summer.
The Maple Leafs years started about as well as anyone could have asked. Jarnkrok scored 20 goals and posted a career-high 39 points in 2022-23, then added 21 points in 52 games the following year.
Then the injuries piled up. A sports hernia limited him to 19 games in 2024-25, and last season he managed six goals and eight points in 56 appearances while bouncing in and out of Craig Berube’s lineup. His four-year deal at a $2.1 million cap hit ran out this summer.
Four NHL stops, one final line: 143 goals and 173 assists in 774 games, with 23 points in 105 playoff appearances.
Jarnkrok walks into a dressing room full of guys who took the same flight. Brynas has quietly turned into a landing spot for NHL veterans, with Julien Gauthier signing there in July and Kieffer Bellows, Oskar Lindblom, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby and Jaret Anderson-Dolan all in the forward group.
Nicklas Backstrom is on the roster too, though the former Capitals center has been on medical leave and missed the start of on-ice training in July.
Three years is a long commitment for a 34-year-old forward, and Brynas clearly wants Jarnkrok around for more than a farewell lap.
