Senators Hire Jimmy Blixt As Their New Swedish Scout

According to a report out of the Swedish tabloid newspaper Espressen, the Ottawa Senators have hired a new European scout named Jimmy Blixt who will predominantly focus on players within Sweden.

And yeah, that’s Jimmy Blixt in the adorning photo that I pulled it from his LinkedIn page where I’m hoping the Senators found him, his resume and this accompanying photo. I can just imagine Randy Lee and Pierre Dorion looking over his page and saying, “Look at the gravitas in that selfie. It’s the embodiment of confidence. That photo says, ‘I’m going to scour the Swedish hinterland for the next Erik Karlsson.”

Here’s how Espressen broke down the story (courtesy of Google Translate):

Jimmy Lightning was the sporting director in Bjorkloven when the team went up in spring 2013.
Since he was sports director during the first season of Hockey Allsvenskan, but finished in spring 2014.

He became assistant coach of the big betting Sodertalje, but was fired when it did not go well and Mats Waltin came into the club in March.
Then it has been quiet about Jimmy. Till now.

According to information provided to the blog to be Jimmy Lightning from this season to be a scout for the NHL club Ottawa Sena Thu. He will be in charge of scouting in Europe, but mainly in Sweden Ottawa, says a credible source.

God help us if the Senators ever get an alternate jersey with ‘Sena Thu’ written diagonally down across the chest like one of these abominations:

I believe Jimmy Blixt becomes the Senators’ first Swedish scout for the Senators since the infamous Anders Forsberg left the organization to become the head coach of the SHL’s Skelleftea AIK. Forsberg, of course, was the man responsible for the selection of Swedish prospects like Erik Karlsson, Jakob Silfverberg and Robin Lehner — key assets that helped shape Ottawa’s roster into what it is now and should continue to help the organization in the future. (Note: even though Silfverberg and Lehner no longer are part of the organization, they were important pieces in the deal to land Bobby Ryan and Colin White.)

There was even a report back in 2013 that detailed how Forsberg encouraged the Senators to trade up to acquire Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the 2009 NHL Draft. Imagine how different things would have been had the Phoenix Coyotes passed on OEL at the number six spot and allowed the Senators to move up to grab him? Yeah, that’s right, imagine swapping Jared Cowen with OEL on this team.

Sigh.

Interestingly, from that same 2013 article, the Senators and a number of other teams had reached to Forsberg about rejoining the organization as a scout, but obviously those negotiations never went anywhere. According to Eliteprospects.com, Forsberg joined the Buffalo Sabres organization to become their Director of European Scouting.

So here we are.

I don’t know whether Jimmy Blixt is the next big Swedish scouting savant like Håkan Andersson or even Anders Forsberg, but his last name literally translates to ‘lightning’. Hopefully the Senators struck lightning with this hire.