Olli Jokinen is a 29-year old center playing for the Florida Panthers. His natural goal-scorer instincts and his above-average hands, as well as his good face-off abilities, have turned him into a star-superstar player at the NHL level. On February 5th, Jokinen reached the 200 goal mark. Over his past 3 seasons, Jokinen has scored at least 29 goals, and over his past 2 (not including 2007-08) has had 89 points or more.
Jokinen’s talent, goal-scoring ability and his “affordable” contract according to today’s market (08-09: 5.25M, 09-10: 5.50M), have turned the Finn into a hot commodity.
Many teams, like the Montreal Canadiens, could benefit from the acquisition of such a talented player, even though the bounty required to acquire him would be quite high. As an estimation of Olli’s worth, from a Habs’ point of view, expect the Canadiens to trade Chris Higgins, Ryan O’Byrne, Mikhail Grabovski and 1st round and 3rd round Draft Picks to the Panthers if Jokinen were to be acquired.
Although Jokinen’s team, the Florida Panthers, seems to be going nowhere, even with the acquisition and stellar play of goaltender Tomas Vokoun, Jokinen hasn’t voiced his displeasure publicly or hasn’t gone to see his GM Jacques Martin to ask him to be traded, but who knows, as the Trade Deadline draws nearer, he might.
Keep faith fellow Habs fans!
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