Markus Naslund never got a proper send off from the Vancouver Canucks and their fans.

They’re making up for it in a big way.

One of the major announcements to come out of Wednesday’s Summer Summit at Rogers Arena was that as part of Markus Naslund Night on December 11, the Canucks will retire Naslund’s jersey.

Naslund will become the third Canucks player with his number retired following previous Canucks captains Stan Smyl and Trevor Linden.

The December 11th game versus the Tampa Bay Lightning will mark Naslund’s first return to the arena he called home for 12 seasons, eight as captain, and he’s anticipating the night will be one to remember as the Canucks and their fans pay tribute to one of the greatest players and people to ever wear a Canucks sweater.

“It’s going to be special and neat to have a chance to come back to the arena and I’m sure there will be a lot of memories going through my head and that I’ll be nervous too, but I’m really looking forward to it,” Naslund told Canucks.com from his home in Sweden.

“It’s definitely a great honour and I’m very humbled and thankful to Mike Gillis and the Aquilini family and the whole organization. It’s been a privilege spending such a large part of my and our family’s lives in Vancouver and having a chance to play for the Canucks for such a long time, it’s a special place for us and it always will be.”

When Naslund suited up to face the Calgary Flames on April 5, 2008, his future with the Canucks was in limbo, but certainly not over. It ended when he signed with the New York Rangers in the off-season, meaning the final game of the 2007-08 season was his last with the franchise he adored. There was no salute to Naslund as Trevor Linden had confirmed his retirement and that night was also his final outing with the Canucks. Fans gave Linden the rousing standing ovation he deserved and Naslund faded into the background.

Per Slam Sports:

Markus Naslund is the last guy who thought he’d be making a comeback.

After stepping away from the NHL in May, the 36-year-old rarely thought about hockey and was plenty busy with the construction of a new house in his hometown of Ornskoldsvik, Sweden.

But his plans started to change during a recent conversation with Peter Forsberg. The two old friends discussed the struggles of Modo, the local Swedish Elite League team, and felt compelled to try and help – by volunteering their services.

Just like that, Naslund was on the comeback trail.

“It might sound weird, but I haven’t missed playing,” Naslund told The Canadian Press on Sunday. “I still felt that I made the right choice in retiring. This was just a different scenario with coming back here and playing in my hometown because I’m helping the team.

“They were in dead last place and they were struggling financially. It’s just one of those things where both me and Peter felt that it was a good thing to do.”

Forsberg and Naslund were born 10 days apart in Ornskoldsvik and started playing for Modo as 17-year-olds. They spent three seasons together with the team before moving to North America and becoming stars in the NHL.

Now they’ll be bringing some star power back to Modo and they’re doing it for free. Neither man will collect a salary this season.

They each felt it was important to give back to the franchise that helped launch their careers and the town where they were raised. Ornskoldsvik has a population of roughly 30,000 – most of whom are passionate Modo followers.

“The hockey team means everything to this city,” said Naslund. “In everyday life, that’s the only real thing that they have here in this town as far as entertainment goes. Now when the team is not doing well, you can tell a lot of people are down here too.”

Naslund has begun practising with the team and figures it’ll be a couple weeks before he’s ready to play. Forsberg, meanwhile, has already been stellar – racking up six goals and 12 points through six games.

The last time Naslund played competitively was as a member of the New York Rangers in the spring. Shortly after the team was eliminated from the playoffs, he decided to opt out of the final season of his NHL contract, leaving US$4 million on the table in retirement.

It looked like the end of the line for him as a professional athlete.

“I worked out until maybe mid-June or so,” said Naslund. “I’ve been really busy with building a house here and I’ve been at the house site for full days the whole time.

“But it’s not like I’ve let myself go, I feel that it shouldn’t take me too long to get back into game shape.”

It’s been a busy couple weeks for Naslund.

Not only did he announce his comeback with Modo and move into a new home, he also joined the NHLPA’s Goals & Dreams anniversary tour. That program saw former NHLers hand out hockey equipment to children in 10 different countries over 10 days.

Naslund hosted the kickoff event in Ornskoldsvik before joining two former teammates on their stops – Jyrki Lumme in Helsinki and Pavel Bure in Moscow.

“I had a great few days there with the crew,” he said. “I’m very proud to be part of that whole thing. I see what it does to kids around the world, I think that’s what it’s all about.”

His focus now turns back to the ice.

One thing that didn’t motivate Naslund’s return is the prospect of playing at the Olympics in Vancouver, where he spent the majority of his career and was the longtime Canucks captain. He wasn’t included on the Swedish team’s long list of potential players and is ineligible for the Games.

There have been no shortage of chances to come back before now. In fact, Modo has been trying to lure him for some time.

“They’ve asked me throughout the summer and even in the fall when they’ve been struggling and I haven’t felt that it was even on the horizon for me to come back,” said Naslund. “And then a lot of things just happened at once there and I just decided to go ahead and do it. I had no intentions of playing at all when I left New York.

“It wasn’t in the back of my mind at all.”

Now that he’s made the commitment, he’s starting to get excited.

“It will be interesting to see what it feels like to play again,” said Naslund. “Hopefully, it will be something where we have some fun and are successful on the ice too.”

Per NHL.com:

Markus Naslund’s retirement from pro hockey was short-lived.

Naslund left the New York Rangers this spring, announcing his 15-year NHL career was done. He didn’t say anything about playing in Europe, though. Naslund has announced he is coming out of retirement to play with Modo, his first pro club.

It appears the lure of playing with Peter Forsberg was enough to coax the 36-year-old out of retirement.

“I will do anything to get in shape and hope I can add something on the ice, but as everybody understands it’s not just to get on the ice and perform,” Naslund said in a statement. “I’m really looking forward to play with Modo again and the fact that Peter and I will do it together is of course something really special.”

Forsberg announced Monday that he would forego his plan of returning to the NHL this season in order to play for Modo, also the club of his youth. Forsberg is trying to come back from debilitating foot injuries that have sidetracked his career.

Both players have talked wistfully about playing on the same team since they left Modo, a team famed for its pipeline of players shipped to the NHL. Forsberg and Naslund went to high school together in Ornskoldsvik and played for Modo for four seasons before Naslund left for the NHL in 1993. Forsberg followed two seasons later.

The players have also played together, often on the same line, for Sweden during international competitions for much of the past two decades.

Part of the reason Forsberg is coming back is in the hopes of impressing Team Sweden management enough to earn an invitation to the Olympics in February. Naslund did not mention the Olympics in his release, but would have to be considered an option if he can get into the proper shape.

Naslund spent most of his NHL career with the Vancouver Canucks, playing a dozen seasons there. He also made brief appearances with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Rangers. In 1,117 games, Naslund scored 395 goals and finished with 869 points.

The additions of Forsberg and Naslund will help a Modo club that has fallen on hard times. Usually among the most successful teams in the Swedish Elite League, Modo sits at the bottom of the SEL table with just 16 points in 19 games.

Per Calgary Sun:

No Swedish player enjoyed a longer or more prolific career than Mats Sundin, but does that make him the greatest Swede ever to lace up a pair of skates?

With the big centre’s retirement last week, now is the perfect time to look back and assess his legacy. And while he may be the highest-scoring Swede in NHL history, he is by no means the only one to leave an indelible mark on the North American game.

To see how far they’ve come in the 44 years since the fragile Ulf Sterner became the first European-trained player to skate in the NHL, one needs only to consider the accomplishments of some of his fellow countrymen:

There’s Hakan Loob, whose brief tenure with the Calgary Flames included a 50-goal season; budding superstar Henrik Zetterberg, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy in Detroit’s 2008 Stanley Cup run; gritty winger Tomas Sandstrom, who scored 857 points in 15 NHL seasons; and Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh, who won the 1985 Vezina Trophy before dying in a car crash that same year.

And those are the guys who didn’t make the list.

10. Anders Hedberg

Like the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, the now-demolished Winnipeg Arena was the spot where Swedish players first gained a foothold in their invasion of North American hockey. Together with countryman Ulf Nilsson, Anders Hedberg was one of the first players to storm the beach in 1974, scoring 100 points in his rookie season with the World Hockey Association’s Winnipeg Jets. He led the Jets to a pair of Avco Cups, in 1976 and 1978, before fleeing to the New York Rangers of the NHL in 1978. Although he didn’t dominate as he had with the Jets, Hedberg was still a solid player, scoring 398 points in 465 games over seven seasons.

9. Thomas Steen

If he had played on a better team, Thomas Steen would likely rank much higher on this list. Instead, he toiled for 14 years on some mostly mediocre Winnipeg Jets teams of the 1980s and early ’90s, scoring 817 points in 950 career games. Unlike many of his countrymen, Steen went about his business with a minimum of flash and was consistently one of the league’s top two-way forwards. In 1990, he was named in a poll of his peers as the NHL’s most underrated player.

8. Markus Naslund

After starting his career slowly with three lacklustre seasons in Pittsburgh, Markus Naslund was dealt to the Vancouver Canucks in 1996 for prospect Alex Stojanov. The trade soon turned out to be one of the most lopsided in NHL history, as Naslund became a prolific scorer, racking up 869 points in 1,117 games, while Stojanov scored exactly two goals in his entire career. Naslund’s best season came in 2002-03, when his peers awarded him the Lester B. Pearson Award as top player, and he was narrowly edged out by good friend Peter Forsberg for the Hart and Ross trophies.

7. Mats Naslund

Quick quiz: Who is the only Montreal Canadiens player to have a 100-point season in the last three decades? Yes, it was little Mats Naslund, who had 43 goals and 67 assists in 1985-86. Although he never wore the “C” as captain, Naslund established himself as one of the team’s leaders during his eight seasons with the Habs, scoring 634 points in 651 games and leading them to their 23rd Stanley Cup in 1986.

6. Kent Nilsson

Another Swede whose talents were first displayed in the WHA, Kent Nilsson was one of the most skilled offensive players of his era. After two 107-point seasons with the Winnipeg Jets, the Magic Man continued to put up big numbers after entering the NHL with the Atlanta Flames in 1979. In 1980-81, the team’s first season in Calgary, Nilsson was third in league scoring with 131 points, still a franchise record. In 553 career NHL games, Nilsson scored 686 points.

5. Daniel Alfredsson

The heart and soul of the Ottawa Senators for the past decade, Daniel Alfredsson is the longest-serving captain in the NHL. Since winning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1996, the Sens winger has scored at a point-a-game clip, while at the same time establishing a reputation as one of the best defensive forwards in the game.

4. Borje Salming

The man who singlehandedly destroyed the stereotype of the “chicken Swede,” Borje Salming was signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1973 and quickly established himself as one of the best two-way defencemen in the game. He played 1,148 games over 17 seasons, scoring 787 points and compiling more than 1,300 penalty minutes. As the first of his countrymen to make a mark in the NHL, the gritty Salming is owed a debt of gratitude by all the Swedish stars who followed him to North America.

3. Mats Sundin

In the two decades since he became the first European ever to be drafted first overall, Mats Sundin has been a poolie’s dream, scoring at least 72 points in every full season except his rookie campaign. But as the lone bright spot on some mediocre Leafs teams, Sundin never had the supporting cast to elevate his game among the NHL’s elite. His 1,349 points in 1,346 regular-season games makes him easily the highest-scoring Swede of all time, but he never reached the pinnacles — either individually or as part of a team — achieved by the two men ahead of him on this list.

2. Peter Forsberg

If not for a series of injuries brought on by his aggressive, atypically Swedish style of play, Peter Forsberg might be the No. 1 player on this list. When he wasn’t getting in the faces of his opponents, he was baffling them with his puck-handling skills, often dancing through or around defencemen to set up or score big goals. In his 13 seasons in the NHL, mostly with the Colorado Avalanche, Forsberg scored 885 points in just 706 games for an average of 1.25 points per game — a quarter-point more than Sundin. He also won two Stanley Cups, two World Championships, two Olympic golds and is the only Swede ever to win the Art Ross and Hart trophies.

1. Nicklas Lidstrom

Arguably the second-best defenceman in NHL history — behind Bobby Orr — Nicklas Lidstrom has won six Norris Trophies and four Stanley Cups in his 17-year career with the Detroit Red Wings. Despite continually drawing the toughest defensive assignments, the Wings captain has been one of the highest-scoring defencemen of his era, racking up 997 points in 1,330 games going into this season.

Per NY Post:

Proud and classy to the apparent end, Markus Naslund has told his Rangers teammates he is retiring despite having one season at $3 million remaining on the two-year, $8 million free agent contract he signed last summer, The Post has learned.

It is believed that the 35-year-old Naslund, who wore down dramatically as the season and then the seven-game series against the Caps progressed, notified GM Glen Sather of his decision at his exit interview on Thursday, though The Post has not been able to confirm that.

Great career for Markus Naslund. I wish he would have ended it in Vancouver, but what can you do? He is doing the Rangers a huge favor here and this frees up some cap space for them to most likely try and get a huge signing done in the offseason.