The NHL is headed to Europe once again. The league announced early Friday morning that the Ottawa Senators and Colorado Avalanche will play two regular season games next season in Stockholm, Sweden on November 10th and 11th. The games are the first announced matches in the new 2017 SAP NHL Global Series, which will include preseason games in China according to John Shannon of Sportsnet. Those games will be announced on March 30th at an event in Beijing.
This isn’t the first time the NHL has played regular season games in Sweden, but it has been many years. 2011 was the final year of the NHL Premiere Series, a tradition of starting the regular season with games across Europe. In that last example the New York Rangers took on the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks in back to back games in Stockholm, led of course by the Swedish netminding of Henrik Lundqvist. 
This time, the two teams heading to Europe are both captained by Swedish-born NHLers. Erik Karlsson and Gabriel Landeskog told NHL.com it is quite a rare experience and they’re both looking forward to it. From Karlsson:
Who thought they would have been able to play NHL games in your hometown. It’ll be surreal to do that. Stockholm is such a great hockey town and a great city overall. I’ll be really excited to show the boys around and show the team staff around the city.
In Colorado, the announcement of these games does come at an awkward time. With GM Joe Sakic publicly shopping captain Gabriel Landeskog at the trade deadline, and likely looking to move him this summer to start his rebuild, there is now likely pressure to wait at least through November. Landeskog was born and raised in Stockholm, and was surely the reason for the NHL choosing Colorado to participate, just as Karlsson was for Ottawa.
The announcement comes as the league continues its battle over whether to allow players to play in the upcoming Olympic Games in South Korea. As they try to grow their brand globally, the league seems to want to control the circumstances in which it sends its players, instead of participating in a tournament completely out of their control. Commissioner Gary Bettman has been as clear as ever recently, saying “assume we’re not going” when asked about the Olympic negotiations.
It amazes me how the NHL is willing to send players to play preseason hockey in China, but won’t send them to the Olympics in Korea. I understand China is starting to get into hockey, but the Olympics are a globally televised event that brings hockey to all corners of the globe.
Lot more games in the Olympics then in the Preseason in China, greater injury risk