A day after the Nashville Predators beat the floundering New Jersey Devils 3-1, where coach Peter Laviolette shuffled the lines for no other reason than he thought that they should be playing better hockey on their four game win streak to lead the NHL with 82 points, GM David Poile brought back former Preds Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli from the Toronto Maple Leafs for Olli Jokinen, prospect Brendan Leipsic and a first-round pick in 2015.

Franson, 27, a defenseman, has 6 goals & 26 assists in 55 games and Santorelli, 29, a center, has 11 goals & 18 assists. Both are pending unrestricted free agents.

Predators general manager David Poile said in a statement on the Predators website; 

“In preparation for the 2015 playoff run, our goal was to add a veteran defenseman who could play in all situations and a proven forward who could move up and down lineup based on the situation.  We were fortunate to do this in the same transaction with players who are in the prime of their careers more than two weeks before the trade deadline in order to give them more time to contribute and gel with their teammates.

“Both Cody and Mike were drafted, developed, and began their NHL careers here. They know our organization and still have former teammates and friends on the roster. We are fully confident that they will seamlessly fit into our team.”

In 48 games, Olli Jokinen had 3 goals, 3 assists and 6 points as a Nashville Predator, which is quite a dropoff from his last year as a Winnipeg Jet (2013-2014) where in 82 games, he had 18 goals, 25 assists and 43 points.  However, as an elder statesman of sorts, his off-ice leadership role had been geared more towards the younger players as was shown on in the web series  – Nashville Predators Beneath the Ice, where his family was making sure that the younger Nordic players (including Filip Forsberg who recently broke a previously held record for Preds rookies with 19 goals) were being taken care of.

His wife today tweeted a tongue-in-cheek tweet about Olli being traded in the middle of the season (she’s already apologized because some people don’t have a Finnish sense of humor):

Katerina Jokinen
‏@MrsJoki

Never did like mustard yellow

11:26 AM – 15 Feb 2015

Born and raised around the swamps of Northern New Jersey, 6 minutes away from East Rutherford and 11 minutes away from Newark (all with no traffic, of course), she is a giant New Jersey Devils fan whose greatest pieces of hockey memorabilia include a Patrik Elias Team Czech #25 shirsey, a Theo Fleury Calgary Flames action figure and a signed picture of Kevin Weekes smiling for the camera. She learned a long time ago that every Devils player that isn't Patrik Elias who she loves will probably be traded away, sent to Russia or just never get a call from Uncle Lou during contract negotiations and she has learned, after drinking a lot of Kool-Aid, that that is okay sometimes because Uncle Lou will always bring them back for the last year or so of their hockey life. Speaking of, she is also been one of the few women in the Bobby Holik Appreciation Fan Club since 1996 or so.

1 COMMENT

  1. Very informative, right up to the “lol” moment at the end.
    Someone who has “world’s okayest mom” in her personal description is clearly a joker, but I’m glad she didn’t take down the tweet! (Especially since before then the posts were all supportive).
    By your definition of “an apology” you clearly do have a Finnish sense of humor. Or is that Czech?

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