Drafticus 4:103

And thus thy went forth to the podium and bequeath to the masses that it shall be Motin and Motin it shall be.

Although I am nearly two months overdue, I hereby wish to take this opportunity to thank the Edmonton Oilers scouting staff, in particular Kent Nilsson, for giving this blog a new prospect, focal point, and target for the coming years.


Frankly, I had written off the idea of the Oilers going Swede this year, especially considering how few picks (5) they had at their disposal in the NHL Entry Draft.


Selected 103 overall, Johan Motin joins the likes of William Quist, Linus Omark and Björn Bjurling as active Oiler draft picks from, and playing in, Sweden.


The Oilers development system seems to have burgeoned in the past couple years. The direct emergence of young talents like Sam Gagner & Andrew Cogliano along with a gain of depth in all positions allowed Kevin Lowe and entourage to follow a simple draft day strategy. At approximately 5:07 of this clip, Kevin Lowe mentions having seen Motin a couple years ago at the Under 18 World Hockey Tournament. At that time, scouts were projecting Motin as a top 10 pick and yet there he was, still available to the Oilers in the 4th round.

What changed? Well, not so much one realises after having scoured the internet via a Google News (in Swedish) search.


MOTIN: A GOOGLE NEWS SEARCH (SWEDISH VERSION)

• TELEVISION: SVT reported March 5, 2007 about the poise Johan Motin has shown since his call-up to the bright lights of the Elite Series. His size and stability are noted as having been advantageous in handling the big league and when asked what he will work on most in the near future, Motin says primarily his shot.



• PRINT: NWT - Sept 19, 2007. Season preview of Färjestad's team and their young talent Johan Motin. He is studying public/society economics at Tingvalla high school. Motin got prime ice-time last season with Czech veteran Robert Kantor. His first big league fight was with scrappy Finn Sami Torkki, which he claims to have won by "falldown". Motin takes the bus to school and says that he tries to be a normal teen because "one must have one's feet on the ground. I want to finish school in the best way possible, because there will come a life after hockey."



• WEBSITE Kanon wrote about Motin's loan to Allsvenska club Bofors on Nov 21, 2007. Färjestad fired coach Roger Melin and new bench boss (Tommy Samuelsson) played primarily with only 6 D-men. With development and increased ice-time in mind, Färjestad loaned Motin to Bofors, in his home town of Karlskoga. More ice-time was vital given the forthcoming World Junior Championships that was to occur later in 2007 in the Czech Republic. He went on to appear in 15 matches with Bofors IK.



• BLOGS: Scouting report HockeyMagasinet 2007-09-03
  "his mature and unafraid play impressed the Färjestad executive that offered him a 3 year contract in March 2007... his strong play in the U18 tournament (Sweden won bronze) garnered him the award for best Swedish player and he recorded 3 assists in 5 matches. He is a proven winner, having hardware from having won TV Pucken (Swedish rep. team tournament), the Swedish J18 league (junior) championship and a bronze a the U18 Worlds".

Why Johan Motin was drafted in round 4, as compared to Sept 2007 round 1 estimates, is likely due to two factors. Firstly, his move to Bofors looks bad on paper - like a demotion. The reality is that his new coach came under intense pressure to get Färjestad back into winning form and that meant veterans on defense. Motin's youth and development were recognized and he needed more playing time. The second factor, hypothesized by Kevin Lowe, was that his stay-at-home defensive style might also have lead to his drop in draft status. Stay-at-home defensemen do not score a lot of points, nor do they appear often in the spotlight. Lowe too was a stay-at-home D-man in his playing day, although Lowe managed to get drafted 21st overall in 1979 (perhaps stay-at-home defense was sexier back then).


In either case, Johan Motin remains a player with a promising pedigree and has already been a winner on a couple of big stages. His asset was deemed valuable by the Oiler executive and this writer certainly hopes Motin will be in Oilers silks in the future.


Final items from the 2008 NHL Entry Draft: when it came to Swedes, Ottawa managed to win the "Pick The Most Swedes" contest. Thanks in part to having former Swedish National Junior coach Anders Forsberg on their scouting payroll, the Senators selected 3 Swedes in front of their home crowd at the Scotiabank Arena. HockeyMagazinet put out this blog report and also summarized all Swedes selected.



LAST WORD: The Women's Olympic Soccer (hereafter known as football) quarter final between Canada and the USA is being played as I type. Canada has always had problems winning football matches against their female counterparts to the South, especially in major competitions. According to FIFA, they have met 42 times with the USA having been victorious 36 times (85%) and 3 ties. Canada's only victories have been friendly-matches.

After a promising performance against Sweden, the Canadian women have shown that they can match the best. The trend of losing to the Yanks must be broken and it must be today! I hope...