What is Mika Zibanejad's Net Worth and Salary?
Mika Zibanejad is a professional ice hockey player from Sweden who has a net worth of $50 million. As a professional hockey player, Mika Zibanejad has played for the New York Rangers, the Swedish team Djurgårdens IF and the NHL team the Ottawa Senators. Zibanejad has also represented his country on the international stage at such events as the IIHF World Junior Championship and the World Championships, both of which he helped win for Sweden.
Early Life
Mika Zibanejad was born on April 18, 1993 in Huddinge, Sweden to Iranian father Mehrdad and Finnish mother Ritva. His father fled Iran in 1983 due to religious persecution for being Christian. Zibanejad has a half-brother named Monir who plays ice hockey in Europe.
Career Beginnings
As a young child, Zibanejad played association football. When he was six, he began playing ice hockey with the club Hammarby IF. After the club went bankrupt in 2008, Zibanejad started playing junior hockey with AIK IF's youth organization. For the 2009-10 season, he was acquired by Djurgårdens IF to play for the organization's under-18 and under-20 teams. He went on to make his Swedish Hockey League debut in December of 2010 in a game against Luleå HF. In early 2011, Zibanejad scored his first career goal in a game against Modo Hockey. A month later, he signed a two-year contract extension with Djurgårdens IF. Becoming a regular player in the club's senior roster, Zibanejad scored five goals across 26 games during the season.
Ottawa Senators
In the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, Zibanejad was chosen sixth overall by the Ottawa Senators. He subsequently signed a three-year entry-level contract with the team. In his first game as a Senator, Zibanejad recorded his first NHL point by assisting Filip Kuba's goal. However, after going pointless for the next eight games, Zibanejad was reassigned to his former team, Djurgårdens IF. He returned to North America for the 2012-13 season to play with the Ottawa Senators' AHL affiliate the Binghamton Senators. Across 23 games for the team, Zibanejad recorded 11 points. In January of 2013, he was called up to Ottawa for his first NHL game of the season. The next night, facing off against the Montreal Canadiens, he scored his first NHL goal. Zibanejad concluded his tenure with the Senators in 2015-16 with a career-high 21 goals and 30 assists.
New York Rangers, Part 1
Zibanejad was traded to the New York Rangers in the summer of 2016. Early in his first season with the team, he suffered a grisly injury when his left leg slammed into the boards during overtime in a game against the Florida Panthers. Sustaining a broken fibula, Zibanejad was sidelined from playing for around two months. He returned in early 2017 to score two goals in a loss to the Dallas Stars. The Rangers went on to make it to the NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinals, where Zibanejad scored the winning goal in overtime in Game 5. Moving on to the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Rangers fell to Zibanejad's former team the Senators.
Zibanejad had his best season yet with the Rangers in 2019-20. In the season opener, he recorded one goal and three assists; following that, he notched his third career hat-trick in a game against the Senators. Zibanejad became only the second player ever in Rangers history to record eight points across the first two games of a season. Later, in March of 2020, he became only the third Rangers player to score five goals in a single game, which he did in a win over the Washington Capitals.
(Photo by Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images)
New York Rangers, Part 2
Zibanejad had a slow start to the 2020-21 season, scoring a meager three goals in the season's first 27 games. He picked up steam in March when he recorded a hat-trick in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers, and during the same game, tied the NHL record for most points in one period, with six. The Rangers went on to win 9-0. A week later, Zibanejad posted another hat-trick in another winning game against the Flyers. In April, he scored his third hat-trick of the season, and his seventh overall, in a game against the Buffalo Sabres.
Zibanejad signed an eight-year contract extension with the Rangers in October of 2021. Early the next year, he earned his first career All-Star selection; however, he chose not to attend the All-Star game on account of personal reasons.
International Playing
On the world stage, Zibanejad has helped win medals for Sweden in numerous competitions. In 2010 at the World U-17 Hockey Challenge in Ontario, Canada, he won the bronze medal with the Swedish national team. The following year, he and the team took silver at the IIHF World U18 Championship in Germany. Zibanejad subsequently helped Sweden win the gold medal at the 2012 World Junior Championship in Calgary. He took home another gold medal in 2018 at the World Championships in Denmark.
Music Career
Beyond the ice hockey rink, Zibanejad is a DJ and music producer. He has released such songs as "Forever," "Can't Go Back Home," "Moves," and "By My Side."
