The Oilers improved their forward depth for the upcoming season by signing 34 year old Jussi Jokinen to a one-year, $1.1 million contract on Friday. In 891 NHL games, Jokinen has scored 546 points, and an additional 32 points in 54 playoff games. It’s a reasonable bet that comes with little risk, and has the potential to be a value contract for the Oilers if Jokinen can replicate some of the success he had in Florida over the last three seasons.

Jokinen became available this summer after having the final year of his four-year $16 million contract bought out by the Panthers. In 69 games last season, Jokinen’s production took a dive, as he mustered 28 points, only half of which came at even-strength. A points-per-60 of 0.94 at even-strength was a career low for Jokinen, a rate that’s comparable to replacement-level players.

Looking at his last four seasons, we see that his rate of production was pretty similar to that of recent Oilers castaway Benoit Pouliot. Pouliot, oddly enough, was set to make the same amount of money Jokinen was scheduled for in Florida this upcoming season. But because of their poor 2016/17 seasons, and their teams desire to shed salary, both Jokinen and Pouliot are now bargain-bin reclamation projects elsewhere.

Not only have Jokinen and Pouliot had similar rates of production at even-strength, but both players have also been good possession players for their former teams. With them on the ice, their teams often got a higher share of the shot attempts (Corsi) relative to the team averages. Jokinen has had slightly better underlying numbers than Pouliot, but his on-ice goal share (GF%) took a dive last season, thanks in large part to a PDO of 96.8, the lowest on Florida.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.