Waiver Target: Jussi Jokinen

It's not often you see players on the waiver wire that can legitimately help your hockey team. Today, the Carolina Hurricanes made one of those players available today in Jussi Jokinen.

He's rather famous for his shootout abilities, but he's actually much more versatile than most people think. He's an excellent face-off man (over 55%), he's a guy who can drive possession while playing in your bottom 6 (positive corsi and relative corsi the past few years while getting ~50% o-zone starts) and he's been a rather useful penalty killer the past couple of years.

Kind of sounds like something the Oilers could use doesn't it?

There one biggest question mark is why are the Hurricanes putting him on waivers? He currently has a $3 million cap hit (through the end of next season) and some of his minutes have been taken by Jordan Staal. Spending that kind of money on what is basically your 4th best centre is probably something the Hurricanes can't afford to do.

Thankfully, the Oilers don't have that problem. Jussi Jokinen gives them some much needed depth at C, a position that hasn't seen the Oilers dress all 4 of their regular centres for the whole game since the 2nd week of the season. Further to that, claiming Jokinen would allow the Oilers to use an amnesty buyout on Eric Belanger and have his replacement already in the organization. Or better yet, it would allow the Oilers to keep Belanger and not have to use sub-replacement level centres when an injury arises.