Predators First to Shop Leafs Fire Sale

This week, it was announced that the Board of Governors for the Toronto Maple Leafs gave their hockey ops the green light to dismantle the team and start the rebuilding process.  On Sunday morning, the first dominoes fell with this deal.

		2015 Season				Cap Hit
To Nashville	POS	GP	G	A	P	2015	2016
Cody Franson	D	55	6	26	32	$3.3 mil	UFA
Mike Santorelli	F	57	11	18	29	$1.5 mil	UFA
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To Toronto	POS	GP	G	A	P	2015	2016
Olli Jokinen	F	48	3	3	6	$2.5 mil	UFA
Brendan Leipsic	F	0	0	0	0	$653k	2 years, $653k
2015 1st Round Draft Pick

The Predators took advantage of a pretty good situation, as they acquired a pair of previous Nashville players in the fire sale from Toronto, picking up defenseman Cody Franson and forward Mike Santorelli, sending their top pick in this year's draft, forward Olli Jokinen and prospect Brendan Leipsic the other way.

Of course, the headlining piece of this deal is Franson, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent in the Summer, as he has been having a pretty decent year with a club that hasn't been very good for the better part of this season.  His 32 points this season ranks him in the top 20 in defensemen scoring this season and joins two other defensemen on the team that are higher in the scoring race than he in both Shea Weber and Roman Josi.

Santorelli has also been pretty decent for the Maple Leafs this season, picked up in free agency by Toronto and has provided a solid level of offense, but with being a free agent in the Summer, he becomes expendable as a good rental player.

Jokinen in Nashville has been very disappointing, being a healthy scratch often of late and only scoring 3 goals for a pretty good Predators team, he was definitely some dead weight that the Predators could off-load.  Since he's a free agent in July as well, there is no pressure on Toronto to keep him around any longer than they have to.

Only one of the three active players in this deal are still in the pool.  Two of them were taken at the draft, but had since been dropped in Waiver Drafts.  Franson, the centerpiece of the deal, belongs to Cam, who is still in the money hunt, heading into Week Twenty, starting Sunday out in 5th place, 11 points out of 3rd.  The move for Franson could be a positive one, as they have been scoring more goals than Toronto and doing so from their blueline as well.