Love those Vikings!

The Edmonton Oilers love those Swedes and increasingly are spending their valuable draft picks on Finnish kids too. For the second season in a row Edmonton invested a pick in a player from Finland, and Magnus Pääjärvi-Svensson from Sweden represents the highest ever selection by the Oilers for a European player.The staple centers are still the CHL and American locations and the Russian kids are a distant bell. But Sweden and Finland are not only hotbeds for the Oilers, the selection of MPS signals a willingness to (for the first time) use the very important top picks on European kids. Here's the rundown since 2001, which signals the post-Barry Fraser era:WHL-14 (latest Cameron Abney '09)Sweden-13 (latest MPS and Lander '09)QMJHL-10 (latest Olivier Roy '09)OHL-8 (latest Sam Gagner '07)USHS-6 (latest Troy Hesketh '09)Finland-6 (latest Toni Rajala '09)US College-4 (last played drafted Wild '06) Czech-3 (last player drafted Hrabel '03) USHL-2 (last pl...