Silfverberg Speaks Out On Cronin and His Response

By Michael Walters

The first segment below is translated from a recent Expressen interview with Jakob Silfverberg. He covers several topics in this interview and briefly talks about Head Coach Greg Cronin toward the end. This was translated with Google, so keep in mind this might not be 100% accurate. The second segment is Cronin’s response to the Silfverberg’s comments.

The Silfverberg family is back home and initially it was a bit strange for six-year-old son Theo when Jakob dropped him off at school and they were met by people who recognized his father.

– Wait, Silfverberg!

– Hello Jakob!

Theo didn’t really understand what it was all about.

– Why does everyone say hello to you, dad?

– It’s because I play hockey in Brynäs.

During eleven years in California, Jakob could mostly go about town completely undisturbed.

In the hockey town of Gävle, everyone knows who he is.

– The children have learned how big hockey is here in town. And Theo, who previously didn’t want to play hockey, has started the hockey school and in our last game he was in as “Mini-tiger” (mascot). He was so damn charged and when he was interviewed he said he wants a gold helmet too.

Dad has had his gold helmets since his last season in Gävle. Before moving to North America in 2012, he had a spring unlike any other in the SHL.

Jakob Silfverberg won the SM gold with Brynäs and his 13 playoff goals is still an SHL record. He scored the winning goal in the decisive final match and received the Stefan Liv Memorial Trophy, as the best player in the playoffs. He received the Golden Puck as player of the year in Swedish hockey and the Golden Helmet as the league’s MVP.

In autumn 2012, he left Sweden as a 21-year-old young man.

Now 34, he’s back home after a year with the Ottawa Senators – which also included 34 games with farm team Binghampton in the AHL – and eleven years with the Anaheim Ducks, which ended with fine accolades for long and faithful service.

The club management went behind his back, when they contacted his wife Clara so that they could thank their Swedish star properly.

– I had refused any extra celebration and said that maybe we could post a letter of thanks from me after the season. But they made it up with Clara, wanted to celebrate me properly and I’m very happy it turned out that way. The kids got to come out on the ice and it was awesome for them and I was applauded by the crowd.

You really won the audience’s heart and received a standing ovation?

– I really did not expect such an ending. It turned out great.

Jakob admits that his own brother became insecure. – Everything was a pancake.

-I was dying to go there, but never got around to it. It didn’t turn out well. I didn’t really care what others said, but I knew the talk was going. And even the brother asked: “how will it be when you get home?”.

Jakob smiles as he tells the story.

– That was a real wake-up call for me. I had one year left with Anaheim and we had decided to go home. I thought: if I’m going home to Sweden, it will be with expectations, I have to make a real push and show some fucking embrace to turn this around.”

But how could it turn out like it did in the World Cup?

– I know damn well, actually. I think I was a little mentally broken. We had missed the playoffs several years in a row. I had had a defensive role in Anaheim, where I just played simply: one touch, edge out – not offensive. I couldn’t switch to the WC. I wanted to contribute more offensively, but had a hard time getting into situations and the puck wasn’t bouncing my way.

Last summer he trained more carefully than in years and above all he focused more on his diet. The secret to the transformation lies in the details.

– I lost five to six kilos before this season and even though I have gained a couple of kilos back, I am much more careful with what I eat. I cut back heavily on certain things. I really made a change with the diet. Avoids gluten.

Already in the pre-season he got a good feeling in his body.

– I knew that I really had eyes on me. and I was reminded of it X number of times. When people asked how it would go, I just said: “I’ll do my best”. I prepared in the best way I could. I trained hard.

He says that he understands that people were unsure of him, he himself was sure of his hockey skills, he would not have lost and in the first training matches things went well for the return.

– I have always been strong on the puck, good at holding onto it and it is difficult to take it away from me. The bigger rinks at home benefited me, I could hold the puck even more. I quickly felt that I can create a lot by breaking away from my man and finding a pass or shooting position. I’m not “fancy” and tunnel people, but I use power and move a lot and then I have an advantage against most in this league, there are few backs who can push me off balance, he says.

With the goals, self-confidence grew. He has scored 13 goals and a total of 33 points.

After 35 games, he is in eighth place in the SHL’s scoring and only four players have scored more goals than Silfverberg this winter (Oskar Steen, David Tomasek, Filip Hålander and Henrik Borgström).

Brynäs tops the series ahead of Färjestad. The newcomer is in the gold race for real.

-It has felt great throughout the season. We had a small slump, but we got out of it quickly.

You are of course aiming to win gold in the spring?

– Yes, really. We can’t think of anything else. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years is how hard it is to win. You get few chances to do something real. We have a good team here, we have to take care of that. We don’t know what kind of team we have next year. We don’t know when we’ll get a chance like this again. On a good night we can beat any team in the league. But we mustn’t pat ourselves on the back, we have to go up another notch.

The NHL return is impressed by the quality and competition in the SHL, where many teams are ready for the playoffs. Silfverberg still dares to daydream about doing as he did in 2012 and winning SM gold with his favorite team.

– It is clear that I can think about it. And the homecoming so far has been absolutely fantastic. For the family and life outside the ice. We are at home where we have the children’s grandmother, grandfather, grandmother and grandfather and cousins. Then it helps when things have gone so well sportingly. I couldn’t have dared to hope for a better start.

Something you miss from the US?

– No, nothing.

When we look at some old photos, he laughs at how time “passed so fast”.

It’s been 13 years since he won gold with Brynäs and in the NHL he got to experience two semifinals and when the Ducks were at their best, the team was just one game away from the Stanley Cup final.

– The majority of the years over there were positive, even if it didn’t go well for us at the end. Then I lost the spark a little. It wasn’t as much fun, before the final year when I at least finished in an honorable way, he says and continues:

– During our best years with the Ducks, we could have a crisis meeting if we had lost three straight games. I remember one of my first years there when Ryan Getzlaf explained to us that we can never take anything for granted. Few are blessed to really have the chance to win. Then I had thought that what, it is clear that we will always go to the playoffs. Then bang, bang, I was involved in missing the playoffs for several years in a row and then it felt impossible to even go there. I really got to experience both.

He appeared in over 800 NHL games and remembers those conference finals against Nashville and Chicago with both pride and a little sadness.

– We were 3-2 in games against Chicago, we cod game six in Chicago and seventh decisively at home and then they became champions. Nashville beat us 4-2 in games. After that we were never really close.

Is it a small thorn in your heart that you never got to win the Stanley Cup?

– In the last few years I was in the selection and the qualifier if I would demand to be replaced for a last chance to win. But no, I didn’t want to leave Anaheim. It felt wrong. I wanted to end there.

The semi-final against Nashville, by the way, was that when you and Mattias Ekholm weren’t exactly best friends?

– He and I cross-checked each other a bit back and forth. Or, it was mostly him who beat me, haha. Mattias is one of my best friends. But then it was the playoffs. I kept calm for the most part, but many Americans and Canadians had a hard time with Ekholm, they thought he did a lot of crap with the club and should go to jail. Then he is a player everyone wants in their team. He was a monster in Nashville for many years and he is a monster in Edmonton now.

Jakob also learned the lack of patience in NH. He had five different head coaches during his eleven years in Anaheim. The last was Greg Cronin, who is still at the club.

– He was very special. He was very much in favor of “analytics” and Sorsi, i.e. statistics and numbers. And it was completely new to me. I liked it although you shouldn’t stare blindly at it. It wasn’t something that my former coaches Randy Carlyle and Bruce Bodreau were doing, says Jakob and laughs.

– By the way, it was Bruce Bodreau who scratched me for our first away game. It was the first time I was scratched in the NHL. I didn’t get to play the away game at Dodger Stadium, the coach chose a kid who got to play a few minutes instead of me. I wasn’t so happy then.

Randy Carlyle is notorious for gaping and yelling at his players. But the worst abuse was given to Silfverberg and the Ducks by Greg Cronin.

– We were under 0-5 away against Edmonton. Then he took a timeout. And forced us out onto the ice. Then all of us players would stand on the ice and watch him in the booth. “Look me in the eyes,” he shouted. I thought: “what the hell are you doing? It is enough that we are overrun in the match. Shall we be humiliated too?” Then he behaved like a complete idiot.

Home again after all these years abroad and we talk about everyday life in Gävle and then suddenly Jakob changes his mind.

– I figured out what we miss from the USA. The children’s babysitter, Robin. She was with us all the years. She became like part of the family. We all miss her. But we will go over and visit her and she will come here, it will be super fun. But for us it is: away is good but at home is best.

Gävle is better than California, thinks Jakob Silfverberg.

– We also enjoyed ourselves there and made many friends. But this is home, this is where we want to be.

The joy of life from everyday life in Gävle affects the joy of playing on the ice. Silfverberg’s 15 goals are actually his best tally in a season since 2019/21, when he scored 21 goals.

He is also back as a deadly penalty shooter.

His first season in the NHL he scored penalty goals on both Martin Brodeur and Henrik Lundqvist and for a couple of seasons he was one of the league’s best penalty shooters.

– One year I was first in the NHL in penalties. Then there were a few years when I wasn’t allowed to take penalties at all. Now I’m doing it again. I’m happy to do it. This season I have scored on three out of four penalties.

In addition to chasing gold with Brynäs, Jakob Silfverberg also has another big goal this season.

– I want to take part in the WC in Stockholm. I really want to get revenge for my last WC. I told Sam Hallam that. Now there is a big difference compared to last time, I am more into the offensive game and more creative. I know it’s tough about the places. But it’s definitely a goal for me.

The feelings are mutual. Sam Hallam selected Silfverberg for the season’s first national team squad, but then Jakob had to decline,

– Then I really needed to rest. It was soppatorsk after an intense period for me. It was a wise decision. But I was anxious because I was so attached to the national team, I called Sam and we had a good chat. Recovery is important. You notice that more over the years.

How long will you play for your dear Brynäs?

– I don’t know. But it’s extra fun if the children think it’s fun to watch me play and I feel energetic and fresh. As long as I maintain the level I am doing now, I will continue.

This second segment is Greg Cronin’s response when asked by Andrew Knoll of the LA Daily News about Silfverberg’s and Ilya Lyubushkin‘s comments.

Knoll: Comments out of Sweden from Silfverberg last year, Lyubushkin’s comments earlier in the year. It’s kind of rare for two veterans that depart to you know… when you look back on last year, what do you think worked well, what do you think kind of needed adjustment year over year you know as far as your approach?

Cronin: Well, it was interesting. Everybody has a style of coaching, and I could be called intense. I talked to Bush (Lybushkin) right after that. He had called me actually, right after that came out, and he said he was misquoted, okay? There was a balance there. There’s a lot of young kids and he was identifying meetings being long, some storytelling that he felt was not relevant to the game. And when you’re trying to coach young kids, you don’t have the time you have at the American League to teach and prepare. So, you know, in these meetings, we’re just trying to make sure that you’re teaching to the lowest learner sometimes. Loobs (Lybushkin) and I had a good conversation , a bit of a chuckle over it. 

Cronin On Silfverberg: Silfverberg’s (comments) I just was made aware of it, and it kind of surprised me because I think the event he’s talking about was during Edmonton’s game, and there was a TV timeout. And I was just trying to get the players to dig in and compete. The game was getting kind of ugly and they were overwhelming us at times. And I do it now, too, I don’t really have them, whether they’re in front of me or on the bench. I don’t care what the score is, when you’re down goals, the message is you gotta keep playing. I don’t care what the score is. That’s the responsibility of the coaches and the players as well. I have a great relationship with Silver. I don’t what context it was said in, but I respect him. He’s a veteran and I think his words have value. 

Going back to your question, what do you learn?

I learn in the NHL there’s a lot of there’s a lot talk, and at the end of the day, there’s a lot of different people, and they take messages differently. The spirit of my messages is to motivate and inspire people and make them better. And as you know it’s a different world. Some people need a customized message, and during that time, you don’t have the ability to do that. You get 30 seconds to try and motivate people. 

*Note: Special thanks to Rickard Franssen for providing the article text. Thank you Andrew Knoll for addressing this issue immediately with Cronin. And lastly thank you to Derek Lee for recording Cronin’s response to Knoll.

We shared our reactions to Silfverberg’s comments and Cronin’s response on our latest podcast. You can listen to our show by clicking below or visiting us at Podomatic, Rumble, Spreaker, or YouTube.

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January 24th, 2025