Södertälje eased to a 4:1 victory over Modo Hockey in the Hockey Allsvenskan on Wednesday evening. The visitors had little trouble managing the pace, and the result puts a bit of distance between the sides in the table. To be fair, the away side knew what they were doing from the first period.
And here's the thing about this match — it never really got complicated. Södertälje came in with something to prove after those heavy defeats earlier in the month, and they didn't need much to make their point. Modo looked like a team that had seen too much of themselves in recent weeks, and the visitors took advantage.
By then, the visitors had already shifted the balance. Three wins from seven games had put them eighth, but beating a team sitting fourth with five victories changed the arithmetic. The gap between them isn't narrow, but matches like this remind you how quickly things can turn in this league.
Modo's recent form had been mixed at best. A 4:0 win over Visby/Roma and a 3:2 victory against Nybro Vikings IF had been followed by that 6:1 hammering from Leksand. The captain dragged them through it last week, but against Södertälje the wheels came off a bit sooner than anyone expected.
We had backed the hosts at 55 per cent confidence, but this one went the other way. Sometimes the form line just tells a different story than the table suggests, and by Thursday morning the visitors would be looking at this as a turning point.
The standings don't change dramatically, but momentum matters in this league. Södertälje needed the points badly, and Modo — fourth with seven games played — will be wondering where the confidence went.
