Mikael Renberg set a Philadelphia Flyers rookie record with 82 points in 1993-94 and became the right wing on the Legion of Doom, next to Eric Lindros and John LeClair. When he stopped playing, he went back to school. The job he trained for still brings hockey players to him, only not as teammates.
Where is Mikael Renberg now?
Mikael Renberg is a physiotherapist at a clinic in Stockholm, Sportbibeln reported in April 2025, drawing on an interview he gave to Expressen. Some of his patients are hockey players with knee injuries, and he called it a perfect job that he enjoys. Asked whether he might one day work as a physio for a hockey team, he said he did not know, at least not yet.
| Mikael Renberg: then and now | |
|---|---|
| Known for | Legion of Doom line, Flyers rookie record of 82 points |
| Position | Right wing, shoots left |
| Born | 5 May 1972, Pitea, Sweden |
| Drafted | 1990, second round, 40th overall, Philadelphia Flyers |
| NHL career | 10 seasons, 661 games, 464 points, four teams |
| Last pro season | 2008-09, Skelleftea AIK, Swedish Elite League |
| Current role | Physiotherapist, as of April 2025 |
| Employer or business | A clinic in Stockholm |
The road there began about three years after his last game, when he started studying to become a physiotherapist. By November 2014, he was weeks from his degree and about to start work in Stockholm, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote. He told the paper why he chose school after hockey: “I didn’t know if it was Tuesday or Saturday half the time.”
For years he combined the clinic with television as a hockey analyst for SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster, and in a 2021 SVT Sport interview he spoke of his job as a physiotherapist while still on the network’s panel. The TV work once kept him from Philadelphia: in 2011 he passed on the Winter Classic alumni game because SVT had booked him to cover Sweden against Russia at the World Juniors on 31 December, NBC Sports Philadelphia reported. He stepped away from the SVT role after the 2023 World Championship.
READ MORE: How to watch the Philadelphia Flyers
Mikael Renberg’s draft and his Flyers rookie record
Philadelphia picked Mikael Renberg in the second round of the 1990 NHL draft, 40th overall, and he spent three more seasons with Lulea in Sweden before crossing the Atlantic. His first NHL season was the best of his career. He scored 38 goals and 82 points in 1993-94, the Flyers record for points by a rookie, according to the Inquirer’s ranking of the best rookie seasons in team history, which put his season third. He was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team and finished third in voting for the Calder Trophy.
Mikael Renberg, the Flyers and the Legion of Doom
The line that made Renberg famous took shape after the Flyers acquired John LeClair from Montreal during the shortened 1994-95 season. Jim Montgomery, a call-up from the farm team, named it after the WWF tag team the Legion of Doom. In 37 games that season, the three combined for 80 goals and 96 assists, and from 1995 to 1997 they produced 666 points in 201 regular season games, the Inquirer counted.
LeClair later gave Renberg the line’s highest compliment: “There wasn’t a guy that forechecked harder than ‘Renny’ that I have ever played with in my life.” Renberg was as hard to keep off the ice as the night in April 1997 showed when he shocked his Flyers teammates 48 hours after taking 200 stitches to the face.
The line ended in 1997, when Philadelphia traded Renberg to Tampa Bay in the deal for Chris Gratton. He returned to the Flyers during 1998-99, but the three were never reunited, and he finished his NHL career with Phoenix and three seasons in Toronto.
READ MORE: Marian Gaborik: Where is he now?
Mikael Renberg’s career stats
| Season | Team | League | GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989-90 | Lulea | Sweden | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1990-91 | Lulea | Sweden | 29 | 11 | 6 | 17 |
| 1991-92 | Lulea | Sweden | 38 | 8 | 14 | 22 |
| 1992-93 | Lulea | Sweden | 39 | 19 | 13 | 32 |
| 1993-94 | Philadelphia | NHL | 83 | 38 | 44 | 82 |
| 1994-95 | Philadelphia | NHL | 47 | 26 | 31 | 57 |
| 1995-96 | Philadelphia | NHL | 51 | 23 | 20 | 43 |
| 1996-97 | Philadelphia | NHL | 77 | 22 | 37 | 59 |
| 1997-98 | Tampa Bay | NHL | 68 | 16 | 22 | 38 |
| 1998-99 | Tampa Bay and Philadelphia | NHL | 66 | 15 | 23 | 38 |
| 1999-00 | Philadelphia and Phoenix | NHL | 72 | 10 | 25 | 35 |
| 2000-01 | Lulea | Sweden | 48 | 22 | 32 | 54 |
| 2001-02 | Toronto | NHL | 71 | 14 | 38 | 52 |
| 2002-03 | Toronto | NHL | 67 | 14 | 21 | 35 |
| 2003-04 | Toronto | NHL | 59 | 12 | 13 | 25 |
| 2004-05 | Lulea | Sweden | 22 | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| 2005-06 | Lulea | Sweden | 44 | 15 | 19 | 34 |
| 2006-07 | Lulea | Sweden | 48 | 18 | 32 | 50 |
| 2007-08 | Skelleftea | Sweden | 41 | 13 | 20 | 33 |
| 2008-09 | Skelleftea | Sweden | 21 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| NHL total | 661 | 190 | 274 | 464 |
Regular season only. NHL figures are from Hockey-Reference and Swedish figures from Elite Prospects. He added 38 points in 67 NHL playoff games.
Mikael Renberg scored 87 goals in his first 181 NHL games, 0.48 per game. In the 480 games that followed, he scored 103, or 0.21 per game. Nearly half of his NHL goals came in those three seasons, and the first of them came before the Legion of Doom existed.
READ MORE: Ken Baumgartner: where is he now?
Is Mikael Renberg in the Hall of Fame?
No. Mikael Renberg has not been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, as Hockey-Reference notes on his player page. He did attend one Flyers Hall of Fame night. When Lindros and LeClair were inducted in November 2014, Lindros emailed him to ask him to come, and Renberg presented the two with their busts at center ice, the Inquirer reported.
Another Pitea native who made his name in Lulea is Tomas Holmstrom, and you can read what Tomas Holmstrom is doing now. For a Swedish winger of the same era, see where Markus Naslund is now.
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