Former NHLers Say "Hello MoDo"

An interesting article on IIHF.com about the hopes of a revival for one of the most recognizable Swedish Elite teams, MODO Örnsköldsvik, also know as MoDo. The point of the article was the return of some of the stars from their North American careers-- like Markus Naslund as the General Manager and Peter Forsberg as the Assistant GM, then hiring Ulf Samuelsson as the head coach. The article basically goes onward to say that it seems that the MoDo organization could be showing a bit of a North American style because of this for the upcoming season.

While the MoDo organization has been quite the factory for producing NHL players, especially with Victor Hedman and Mats Zuccarello Aasen coming out from the team most recently-- is it the best to have the North American/NHL style of play over in the European game??

Sure, there's going to be a change of pace for MoDo as they have all new management and need to get out of their funk of not making the post-season in the last three seasons and not winning a championship since 2007. Yet, is the overhaul of a system going to be the thing that makes this team have a rebound and maybe make this team a force to be reckoned with??

The style it seems that Samuelsson wants to employ is a high-paced action; which on the bigger rink could be great to the start, but if the conditioning isn't there-- the team will falter later on in the season. Plus, the type of player they're bringing in must be comfortable with the system beforehand because of the fact trying to transition to an overly offensive from maybe a more defensive-based system is a shock to the style of play.

One good thing is that it could possibly catch other teams off-guard, which would definitely be a help-- but much like the hot play of an unknown goalie in the playoffs; team may catch on, adjust, and if MoDo can't adjust properly to counteract the change of the opposition, they could very well be looking from the outside of the playoff picture once again.

It should be an interesting year for the MoDo team, with many of their legendary players coming back to be in a higher position, which also seems to be common theme for recently retired NHLers. Whether this will pay off dividends, of course, remains to be seen-- but it's a nice little something to be on the look-out for outside of the NHL storylines that will be happening.