Magnus Paajarvi was at one point one of the league's most highly anticipated prospects causing the Edmonton Oilers to draft him with the Tenth Overall selection at the 2009 NHL Draft. He put together one of the best U-18 seasons in the history of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) — was previously named Elisterien — especially when accounting for games played.
In 50 games with Timra IK of the top league, he scored seven goals and 10 assists for 17 points. Even beyond that, he was utterly dominant at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament. He led the Swedes and tied the tournament lead in scoring in 2007 with six points (two goals and four assists) in four games. The following year he scored an even more impressive nine points (three goals, six assists) in four games to lead the entire tournament and of course, Sweden, helping to capture tournament Gold.
His international dominance would not end there as he scored seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games at the World Juniors and then 12 points in six games (six goals and assists) at the Men's Worlds U-18 tournament, leading his country in scoring. He looked like a budding star at every stage and his actual attributes made him even more alluring as a prospect.
Paajarvi had a combination of size, speed, and skill that every front office in the league would covet and with the recent success they had drafted from Sweden with Linus Omark, the pick made sense. The Oilers were clearly trending down after making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2006. Now, with a handful of high picks in recent years, the club was going to soon be trending up or so they thought.
Paajarvi early career
After his draft in 2009, the Oilers would send Paajarvi back to Timra IK, his club in Sweden. There he would play one more season, a good improvement on his draft year, scoring 12 goals and 17 assists for 29 points in 49 games. Internationally, he put together another impressive WJC with 10 points in six games and then a point-per-game showing at the Men’s World Championships with five goals and four assists in nine games.
The following year, he would skip the Oilers farm team entirely, playing 80 games with the big club in 2010-11, debuting with many young stars like Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall. Here he would score 15 goals and 19 assists for 34 points, nothing eye-popping but an all around solid rookie year especially for a 19 year old.
This is the turning point though sadly because it would never get better than this for Paajarvi. He would spend the next couple seasons splitting time between the Oilers and their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Oklahoma City Barons. Unsurprisingly he looked good and produced well for the Barons but just could not score beyond 16 points in 41 and 42 games in the next two NHL seasons, respectively.
His stagnant play would force the Oilers to give their young forward a fresh start and package him to to the St. Louis Blues with a 2014 Second Round pick and Fourth Round pick in 2015 for David Perron and a Third Round pick in 2015. Paajarvi would battle injuries and find himself up and down between the NHL and AHL over the next five seasons until being claimed off waivers by the Ottawa Senators in 2018.
After the half-season with the Sens, the Swedish winger would re-sign with the club for the 2018-19 season, scoring 11 goals in 80 games for a total of 19 points. After this year, Paajarvi would sign a contract to join the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) with the club, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. He would end his North American career having played 467 NHL games with exactly 62 goals and assists for 124 points. In the AHL, he featured in 141 games, scoring 33 goals and 66 assists for 99 points.
Since then, Paajarvi would spend the 2019-20 season with Lokomotiv, showing some real promise scoring 19 points (11 goals, eight assists) through 39 games before the season was abruptly halted due to the pandemic. Mid-way through the following year, he would find himself getting shipped off to Dynamo Moscow from Lokomotiv, putting together a combined seven goals and 12 assists for 19 points in 50 games with both clubs.
He would then head back to his home country, playing with the Malmo Redhawks and junior club, Timra IK. Since going back to Sweden, he has played 152 SHL games, scoring 27 goals and 20 assists for 47 points in the regular season and seven points (five goals, two assists) in 15 games.
Although he did not live up to the hype that he garnered, Paajarvi has been able to put together a solid professional career. He has been playing professional hockey since 2007, when he was 16 years old and now at 34, he is heading into his 19th season at the top league level.