EHM The Blue Line

I'm getting tired of real life Modo filling up the squad with signings that turn out as players who have passed their primes and end up just costing a lot of money without delivering. I decided to play through the first season with minimal changes to the squad (as they gave me a wage budget way under what they were actually paying when I took over the team). This is in Swedish kronor but you'll understand what I mean

In my first season I decided to hire a few scouts so I'd be able to find cheaper and better players for the future. I also signed a goalkeeper, Johan Backlund, and ended up dividing the amount of games between him and Adam Reideborn. I only set the lineup, and let the head coach take care of the games. After 31 games I was top of the table


Then I ended up getting a couple of injuries to my more experienced players


I ended up in fourth place and advanced to the semi finals after winning against Skellefteå in a close series (4-3 in games) , only to get swept 4-0 by Luleå who also ended up winning the championship.



Part 2 will come soon, with my off-season management

In my first off-season, since I was way over budget, I decided to try to terminate a contract a bit early (two weeks before it actually expired) to free up some space to renew the players I actually wanted to stay in the team. Since that was succesful and didn't give any hard feelings from the player, I did it with four more players before letting one contract expire by date since I had enough wage budget space left to succesfully keep the players I wanted.
Well, except for one that is, since Nashville signed my most promising centerman Emil Pettersson who I would have hoped to make my first center 2017/2018




I decided to use a transfer policy where I should only sign players who are actually better than the ones I already have, instead of signing squad players that would steal ice-time from my own young players. But I also signed some prospects to make sure I can fill out my squad instead of having to sign new players in case there will be long-term injuries and so on.
I signed Kyle Cumiskey from Rockford IceHogs (former Modo player and still a fan-favourite we hope for every year),
Bud Holloway from St. John's Icecaps (former Skellefteå player who has won the cup twice, being the leading scorer one year),
Niclas Andersén from Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins (former Brynäs player and SHL champion plus Sweden international) and also
Miikka Salomäki from the Milwaukee Admirals (former Finland international who I hope can be a high-scoring player for me).
I also paid a ridiculous over-price to bring home local lad Jesper Olofsson (older brother of Sabres prospect Victor Olofsson) from the southern part of Sweden.
The only player I missed out on of those I tried to sign was former Modo-keeper Anton Forsberg, which lead to the only available keeper being left on free agency at the time, Linus Fernström from Karlskrona. My plan from the beginning is to let him and Reideborn split the games, unless something too good to say no to turns up later.
Since I lost out on a promising center in Emil Pettersson, I added Jonathan Dahlén (son of Ulf Dahlén) to my team when he was finally available, he was aiming to play Canadian junior hockey but as no offers turned up, I was able to snatch him up.

Soo, my second season hasn't gotten off to the best of starts, mainly because my producing players has done the opposite of that, no production at all..
So far, the only player with an okay track record is Kyle Wilson (who was dropped in real life but has remained on my team for another year) who was scored 5 goals and added upp 7 assist for 12 points in 17 games.


After the first 5 games I was in a disappointing 10th place, with a bad track record of 10 team goals, it was a wonder I had taken a win. Without a 93.3% of goalie Linus Fernström I don't think I would have been that high up in the standings.
Jonathan Dahlén and Gustav Possler were my leading scorers with 4 points each in those 5 games.



As you can see, after another five games and only racking up 9 more goals, I felt the need for some slight changes in my lines, since two of my first-liners had 0 points, and the third only had 1 point to his name. I had also had an injury on Bud Holloway, so when he returned I decided to put Possler-Wilson-Holloway as my first liners, and moved the utterly disappointing line of Salomäki-Lapierre-Thomas in different lines, I even let Salomäki, Thomas and Carl Grundström (who also had 0 points and a bad -6 to his name) sit out a game hoping that would help.
At that time I also adjusted the training schedule so it tilted a little more in the favour of powerplay, since my boxplay was okay percentage-wise but my pp% was a mere 12.



As you can see, by game 17 I have started to bounce back a little, not a small thanks to my pp guys who are now up to 20%, which makes it the third best in the league, and it has been game-deciding a bunch of times. My top pp-player so far has been Jesper Lindgren who has netted 4 times from the blue line.
My third keeper Jonathan Bjurö has in one game produced the same amount of points that Bill Thomas and Carl Grundström has in 16 respective 15 games, one point.
Bud Holloway is up to 6 points in 10 games, and Salomäki just scored his first goal in the last game i played, assisted by the promising Åhström in his first game of the season. So I hope that the trend will keep going up from now

BREAKING NEWS!



Modo Hockey has picked up ex-Calgary Flames keeper Karri Rämö on a free transfer. Manager Kempe was quoted saying :

Even though we're more than satisfied with the performance of Linus Fernström in net, a signing like this is just to good to turn down.

Rämö picked Modo over 8 finnish teams who had also wanted his signature.
Excited Modo fans will have to wait until Thursday the 17th of November to see Rämö play for the first time

I have simmed up to the christmas break now and noticed some improvements stats-wise. With Karri Rämö in net (although it took a couple of of 3-goal games for him to get started because lacking match fitness) we have also been able to play even with, and beat, the first-placed teams a couple of times. And Linus Fernström keeps his high standards as well and was rewarded with a year extension, as well as Adam Reideborn who was then sent on loan to Sundsvall Hockey to get valuable playing time. If he needs to be an injury replacement it would be good to have him in match fitness.. Former third keeper Bjurö is now fourth and gets to play out his contract on loan at Karlskoga.

This is how Rämö has done stats-wise so far.



This, his third game, was the first time he really made a difference


I made the decision to send some players on loan, Per-Åge Skrøder is at Örebro, earlier mentioned Reideborn plus Ludvig Nilsson are at Sundsvall Hockey, Albin Carlson is at AIK and disappointing Bill Thomas is at Karlskrona for the remainder of his contract with me, which shall not be renewed.

Here is the table going into christmas break, as you can see I would probably be even better placed if my team could have finished some of the 12 games going into OT/Shootout so far.


And as you can see in players stats, Possler, Cumiskey and Holloway have really started producing lately. I will probably lose Possler after the season though, since Buffalo Sabres right expires, and they will either sign him or some other team will probably want to.




Next installment will be about coping with the losses of Jesper Lindgren and Tobias Åhström to the U20 World Cup and so on

So I actually had four players picked for the U20 World Championship, last I wrote her I thought I would only have two


Walfridsson was in my juniors so I didn't need a replacement for him.
I could replace Lindgren with Erik Ullman from my own juniors, ha managed 2 points on his 6 games as a replacement.
With both Grundström and Åhström gone from my forwards I decided to bring in Tyler Sikura on a try-out since he was one of the few players I had been offered by various agents who actually had producing seasons behind him, even if they were at College and ECHL-level. I had low expectations and he really managed to be off the charts, so now I'm trying to give him a two year contract.



I have also been able to resign a bunch of players for next season already, since I don't want to change my roster too much.

My results during the U20 world championship and a couple games after have been pretty good, so I moved up a couple of places in the standings as well

Besides from having added Sikura as a permanent member of the squad, I let young swiss Tino Kessler make his debut in a home game against Djurgården since regular first center Kyle Wilson was out for a week with an injury, he made quite the impact, and has been a regular member of the team ever since.




In an out-of-character move, General Manager Kempe made former head coach Andreas Johansson, now the highest paid assistant coach of the entire league, stand down to reveal a shocking acquisition with only 5 games left of the regular season.

"Bob Hartley was made available by his former team Calgary Flames, and he wanted to sign for us for 4 seasons so me and Andreas Johansson decided that he was going to have another role in the club. I know it may seem like a rash decision but Bob here will give us an edge going into the playoffs, as well as the upcoming seasons. His experience from coaching in the NHL will give the club profile a lift, and he will be able to develop our younger players as he is used to taking in young talent on high levels.

I'm in a close 5th place going into the last stretch of the regular season

I ended up a close 5th place, a little bitter since we made a strong push for 4th in the last few games, and we're going into the playoffs on a 3-game winning streak while our upcoming opponent Örebro are going to have to shake off their 2 straight losses going into the post-season.
It has been a second year in a row close battle with Örebro for a better league position ending up on the short side, and GM Kempe is looking forward to having the opportunity to defeat his beginning-to-be rival Pontus Gustafsson in the quarter finals.

Sure, they may have finished above us in the standings, but we did end up with the same amount of points, and I don't think they have the edge to be named favorites for this series, and don't forget that we're coming into this matchup having won 3 straight games while they're on a losing streak. All-in-all we're pretty close squadwise, but I think it will be our top quality players that will give us the little extra push to get us through this round.

Kempe also revealed that Modo have made an agreement with Conor Garland for the upcoming season for him to play in Örnsköldsvik unless he gets the NHL contract he is hoping for

After a surprisely easy series against Örebro (Sweep 4-0 and no games going to Overtime) with a great display of games by Kyle Cumiskey who rallied the forces of Modo Hockey, we advance on to a probably tougher semi final battle against Linköping.



Linköping, lead by new GM for the season Eric Lindros, rely heavily on north american players, and I hope that my teams backbone of players having played longer in scandinavia will prove their plan wrong, I'm expecting a series going into 7 games. Since Linköping placed in 3rd place in the table, Modo will probably be underdogs which I think may fit us well since we've had minor injuries on Salomäki and Kyle Wilson going through the quarter finals.

As GM Kempe had hoped for, the north american influented Linköping just didn't give all that extra effort, and Modo cruised comfortably through the semi finals, the totals ened up 4 to 1. The other series between last years champion Luleå and Färjestad ended up with the later taking home the series 4 to 2.



Except from already mentioned Kyle Cumiskey, Gustav Possler and Kyle Wilson have found a good pairing which has lead to them scoring a bunch of points together.



With Jesper Lindgren playing a U20 tournament during the finals (together with Carl Grundström and Tobias Åhström) Modo has decided to recall Albin Carlson from his loan at AIK, as they aren't going to play any more games this season.
GM Kempe has refused to leave any comments regarding the upcoming finals clashing with the U20 tournament, he only said that he feels his roster has enough depth to cover the losses of three players.
He also mentioned that

Since Modo hasn't been in the finals since the 06/07 season, they can go into the matchup with high confidence, since the earlier part of the playoffs has been going so well for them. Modo are not going to underestimate Färjestad, since they ended the regular season in 1st place and can win against any team on a good day

Modo are the new champions
The newspapers in Örnsköldsvik are filled with glorious headlines today as new champions Modo Hockey manage to win the championship after being only in a 5th place entering the playoffs


Pictures are showing fans hugging triumphant GM Kempe as well as handing him a bottle of champagne to pop open at the Fjällräven Center parking lot as he was on his way down from the interviews to go celebrate with the players outside.
Kempe was quoted saying:

With Bud Holloway suspended for two games going into the finals I thought we were going to have a gap in our line-up, but calling up youngster William Eriksson turned out great, he exceeded my expectations and will get a real chance of snatching one of our roster spots next year.
To win the championship at home in Örnsköldsvik in front of our passionate fans is a thing I have always been dreaming of, to hear them scream as we hit the game-winning goal with one second left was too good to be true, I had to pinch myself after screaming!

When asked about the contributing factors, Kempe had this to say

I feel like we have a great squad here at Modo, but the efforts of Kyle Cumiskey and Karri Rämö will not go un-noticed by the fans. Also the pairing of Wilson-Possler was a stroke of genius that me and Andreas came up with. Speaking of Andreas I am incredibly happy that he accepted to become an assistant coach, because his knowledge of the squad together with Bob Hartleys experience has really made all the difference here in the playoffs.
And of course the way our fans have been cheering our players on has been nothing short of fabulous.

Kempes emotions got the best of him after that, and when asked about the next season he said that it would have to wait until this rush of emotion in the club and town of Örnsköldsvik had settled down




(and as you might have seen in the bug thread, I actually won six games against Färjestad before getting to win the cup)

OFF SEASON REPORT PART 1

This is going to be one challenging off season for Modo, having lost no less than 4 exciting prospects to the NHL.

First of all, one of the championship winning players Gustav Possler signed for Sabres (not unexpected since their claims for him would have expired)


Second, Conor Garland signed for Arizona without playing a single game for my team


Third, a little bit unexpected, Toronto decided to sign Jesper Lindgren, one of my best power play players.


And last, Carl Grundström was signed by the Islanders. Also a bit unexpected, but since he has been underachieving for me it's not going to be as noticable as Possler


I have also managed a couple of signings, one major in Nicklas Danielsson, a former Modo players who has had a couple of good seasons in Switzerland



And also a squad player in Anton Byström, an Örnsköldsvik born left wing who has played the last season for Skellefteå


Unless something more exciting shows up when the NHL/AHL Free Agent Frenzy starts I'm probably going to promote Örnsköldsvik born Victor Olofsson, Sabres prospect, as my leading left wing for the upcoming season, even though his numbers were a little bit disappointing the last season


There's more to come in my Off season management

Off season report part 2

So far I have made a few signings in case the NHL free agent frenzy doesn't turn out the way I have hoped for.

I have concentrated on signing young developable players to fill out the squad, in case I get better free agents I might loan them out to teams in HockeyAllsvenskan instead.
First, I signed former Brynäs defender Adam Deutsch as a free agent after being dropped by his KHL team, mostly just to have another defender, I'm not expecting miracles from him.


Second, I signed free agent Daniel Bernhardt after Djurgården decided to let him go. I feel like given the right surroundings he might be able to produce some points.


Third, I won the race for 19-year old Lukás Kopriva, point machine from his czech junior team, there were about 10 teams trying to get his signature but I was able to land him.


Fourth, in case I won't get a more experienced right-shooting defender to use on the power play, I signed a try-out with 22-year old Mike Brodzinski, one of the San Jose Sharks prospects. I will try to extend him unless I find something else after July 1st.


I was kind of hoping to get Magnus Pääjärvi, but unfortunately he just signed a one-year extension with the Blues. To be continued

Emergency press conference called by Modo Hockey this evening

General Manager Peter Kempe and Modo Hockey call for an emergency press conference this evening, speculations have been going on during the day of why, and the reason was a pretty big one, Kempe had been offered the GM position by the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL, and this is what he had to say:

I admit that it was a tough decision, but in the end I had the feeling that I wasn't done here in Modo, we have something good going on, and leaving now wouldn't feel right. We won the championship last year, but I still feel like we are in a process and if we can replace the players that left us during this summer we can still accomplish other things during this season, we aim for a better position in the table, and where that can take us in the playoffs we will just have to wait and see.

Kempe also unveiled former Modo player Robert Hägg as his latest signing after being released by the Philadelphia Flyers organisation.


As another piece of the puzzle, Andy Andreoff of the Los Angeles Kings was picked up as a free agent for the upcoming season


Fans of Modo were seen all over Twitter and different message boards being happy what they had heard during the press conference

Heading into August, Modo are happy to announce another signing, KHL player Joakim Lindström, former Modo player who had his best SHL seasons in Skellefteå where he won both the SHL best player award and the award for most SHL points





(sorry for the lack of playing and updating, I recently got myself a girlfriend, so that has cut my playing time a little)

So, quite a lot has happened since my last update, I'll try to take them in the order they happened.

The first 5 games went pretty much as expected, maybe except for the shootout loss against Örebro.


Then an injury happened.


This made me promote young prospect William Eriksson to the second line, where he and Nicklas Danielsson found a good chemistry together and produced some points.



Unfortunately, the rest of the team didn't deliver like them the upcoming five games, so after 10 games I was in an unflattering 6th place


That's when I decided to shake things up a little, since my backup goaltending had been sub-par and former Modo keeper Linus Ullmark was available as a free agent, I offered him a one-year deal


Since I went into the season with only two centers over 20 years old, when Kessler got injured I decided to bring in some more experience. Luckily for me, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was unsigned, so I brought him in on a two-year contract. He had a pretty interesting debut, one goal, one assist, two slashing penalties and a misconduct for telling the referee only a blind man would have taken that second slashing.


This did put me a bit over the wage budget, so I decided to put the underachieving, well-payed Miikka Salomäki on the market. There was interested suitors from Russia, Finland and Sweden, but I only ended up getting serious bids from Finland, and HIFK won his signature.


I also decided to loan former backup keeper Linus Fernström to Sundsvall for the remainder of the season (I had already loaned Adam Reideborn to Asplöven). I will have to think about who I can/want to keep at the end of the season.


So far I have played 13 games in the SHL, and the last three games were 3 point wins, so I am now threatening the 1st placed Linköping even though I have two games less played.

After almost 20 games I have climbed to a (for the moment) secure 1st position, mostly thanks to great goaltending from both Rämö and Ullmark, I hope they can keep it up

We have now come up to christmas, and are still at the top of the table, with a steady stream of goals forward, a decent special teams record and, of course, solid goaltending.


Homegrown talent William Eriksson leads the point totals in my team, and is showing no sign of slowing down. Another homegrown player, Jesper Olofsson (signed from Karlskrona), had a great game last night with 4 points to his name which made him climb a couple of places in the stats of the team. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare is proving to be a great signing this season, and since I mixed the lines up a little I have seen signs of other players starting to score more points too, there's no way I'm separating the tandem of Eriksson/Danielsson though


It's nice to see the team getting some encouragement from the fans aswell


I also decided to loan out the disappointing Bobby Butler, and to no surprise the almost all-american Linköping wanted to take him for the rest of the season

Modo pick up free agent Viktor Arvidsson, who last played for Nashville in the NHL. Arvidsson is a proven point producer who can take the vacant spot in the first line that hasen't been filled by Joakim Lindström as expected. It's a good signing to strengthen the squad before a hopefully extended playoff campaign.



In other news, Modo are qualified for the playoffs already, even though there's still 10 games to play in the league campaign

ANOTHER CHAMPIONSHIP FOR MODO!

In the first round we beat Djurgården with 4 wins to 1. I had injuries and suspensions on two of my regular centers, Bellemare and Kessler, but unproven 21-year old Bengt Söder from my hometown Härnösand turned out to be a clutch player, giving me the OT winners in two close games.










In the semi finals we beat HV71 by 4 games to 2, after great goaltending by Rämö that turned the series to our favor.



In the finals we were never really in any danger since we went up to 3-0 in games, lost the fourth but ended up getting the series 4 games to 1.



The upcoming off-season might get interesting since I dediced to let some players go that have been with me for this entire trip (for example Noah Welch and Kyle Wilson), I have signed a couple of players from Hockeyallsvenskan and lost some prospects to the NHL (Kopriva to the Ducks and Victor Olofsson to the Sabres). More on that as I progress further down the NHL Free agency options.