Man of the Week: Johan Mattsson
KHL.ru continues its weekly column with Johan Mattsson. The Swedish netminder had a productive week, with his second career shutout, and helped Avtomobilist winning two games.
Last week, Mattsson won two games from two with Avtomobilist, getting his second shutout of the season when the Motormen blanked Barys in Astana. With Pavel Kulikov and Brooks Macek scoring for Avto, Mattsson contributed with 27 saves as he recorded his second shutout this year. The Kazakhs are one of Mattsson’s best clients – it was against Barys again, on Nov 15, that the Swedish netminder had his first KHL shutout.
Avtomobilist this season has a strong goaltending squad, with three capable netminders in Mattsson, veteran Igor Bobkov, and youngster Vladimir Galkin. The Swede has the best numbers of the trio, with a saves percentage of 93.8 – a mere 0.4% more than Bobkov – but in goals-against average the difference is more striking, with Matsson having a sub-2.00 GAA (1.77), with Bobkov recording 2.13 and Galkin going over three. However, all three can sport a winning record and, as numbers hardly tell the whole truth, all three looked very good between the piping, making hard for the coaching staff to ultimately decide on a starting goalie.
“It's a mystery to the whole team, just like it is to us,” said Avtomobilist’s head coach Vladimir Zavarukhin after one of his team’s wins in the early season. “There is a certain plan, we bring a particular goalie to specific games, and we tell him about it beforehand. Today we have three good goalkeepers in our lineup.”
“We don’t have a first, second, or third goalie,” added Oleg Gross, the Motormen’s GM. “Everyone works for the team. Maybe Bobkov played less in September than Galkin or Mattsson. But there was one game where the whole team didn’t act as it should, and Bobkov had to take the blame for everyone.”
Early years
Johan Mattsson was born on Apr 25, 1992, in Huddinge, Sweden, where he started playing. Huddinge is a town in the Stockholm urban area that produced a series of players with KHL experience. Other than Mattsson, another five players skated in our league, including Jhonas Enroth, Lukas Bengtsson, and Philip Holm. Today’s Huddinge IK head coach is Peter Nylander, who represented SKA St. Petersburg and Amur Khabarovsk in different stages of his playing career.
Mattsson played in Huddinge until his 16 – after that, he moved to a bigger organization, Sodertalje. He had a successful junior career there, and started playing for the Swedish junior national team of different ages. Following his latest year in Sodertalje, he was the last players picked at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, by the Chicago Blackhawks.
Move to North America
After the NHL Entry Draft, Mattsson was also picked in the CHL Import Draft by the Sudbury Wolves, where he played in 2011-2012 season for his first year abroad. In the meantime, he was called up as Team Sweden’s third goalie at the 2012 World Juniors in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. Mattsson didn’t actually line up for any game back then, but the Swedes returned home with a gold medal after a 1:0 OT win over Russia on a tight final game.
Mattsson ended up playing another season in North America, with the Tri-City Storm of the United States Hockey League, after returning in Europe in the 2013 offseason.
Return home
After his two-year tenure in North America, Mattsson returned home, first signing with Djurgardens IF of the Swedish AllSvenskan (the second-tier league). He helped the team moving up to the Swedish Hockey League, but wasn’t confirmed with Djurgardens and signed with Timra IK instead. After two seasons with Timra, he finally moved up to the SHL, signing with one of the top teams of the country – Frolunda HC.
There, he enjoyed great success, establishing himself as one of the top goalies in the league and winning two straight Champions Hockey League titles in 2019 and 2020, other than the SHL crown in 2018-2019.
Move to the KHL
After his success with Frolunda, Mattsson decided to try his worth in the Kontinental Hockey League, signing a deal with Dinamo Riga in the 2021 offseason. Despite Dinamo’s struggles in the Western Conference standings, Mattsson was one of the few positive notes in the team, as he managed to post a 91.6% saves percentage throughout the first part of the season. By the deadline, he was then moved to Avtomobilist. However, he played only two games for the Motormen as the Yekaterinburg-based franchise failed to quality for postseason.
As said before, his second year with Avtomobilist is now much more of a success, and the Motormen – not by chance – are the top team in the Eastern Conference. Perhaps Mattsson will once again show his worth on another playoffs run as he did successfully in the SHL.
