D.Sedin on maybe going home to play if season axed: "We’re going to talk to Markus (Naslund) in the next few days. You have to be prepared." — Elliott Pap (@ElliottPap) January 4, 2013

Based on the Daniel Sedin quote above, it sure sounds like it.

Read past the jump for more.

Back in the summer, Daniel Sedin was quoted by Swedish tabloid Nyheter24 as saying that he and his brother Henrik were considering just taking a full year off of hockey in the event of a full season lockout. They rather quickly backed away from such an absolute statement by clarifying that they’d sit out the first few months of a lockout but would probably look to play with Modo if the lockout cancelled the entire season. They also mentioned that they’d already spoken to Modo General Manager and former Canucks captain Markus Naslund about that possibility.

Today’s quote from Pap would be the second public instance in which the Sedins have copped to chatting with Naslund about the prospect of joining their hometown team. This would suggest that the Sedins and Naslund have been in touch, with at least some degree of consistency during the lockout about the prospect of the Sedins playing in Örnsköldsvik (if the NHL season is cancelled in its entirety which, reports indicate Bettman is prepared to do next week). Needless to say, this isn’t much of a surprise.

I’d note that Daniel’s comments to Pap this afternoon are the second instance in recent weeks of Daniel talking openly about his plans to head to his hometown team with Henrik if the season is scrapped. In late December, Expressen’s Jonatan Lindquist e-mailed me a translated quote from Daniel Sedin that was published in Expressen but never made it onto their site in digital form (wait, it’s 2013, right?), in which the Canucks sniper reportedly said: "Yes, we have decided to go back to Ö-vik if the season is cancelled. And we are obvisiouly hoping to play with Modo then."

According to Lindquist’s translation, Daniel also touched on the subject of insurance in that Expressen interview, saying: "I think that will work out. More than half the season over here will be lost and we only have one year left on our contracts."

If the Sedin twins were to sign with Modo for the rest of the season in a few weeks time, they’d presumably be able to get around the short-contracts hornet’s nest that has caused the Swedish Elite League to miss out on so many top-end players during the course of this lockout. They’d also form the Se-Teen triplet line with St. Louis Blues forward Alexander Steen, which would make me very happy.

As would the ability to watch the Sedins play hockey again; even if I’d be resigned to watching their jaw-dropping no-look back-hand passes on grainy, pirated web-streams.





