On this day in 2017, the Edmonton Oilers acquired Mike Cammalleri from the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for forward Jussi Jokinen.
When Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli made the trade for Cammalleri, he had one pivotal aim: getting more pucks in the net.
“We made this trade to improve our shooting. Mike’s always been an effective offensive player with his shot and ability with the puck,” Charelli told the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson.
Despite coming to Edmonton from sunny Los Angeles in mid-November, Cammalleri didn’t have cold feet as it wasn’t his first rodeo in Alberta. He had spent four years with the provincial rivals Calgary Flames on two separate occasions (2008-09 and 2011 to 2014), which meant he’d had experience playing alongside new teammate Kris Russell.
“I’ll get to feel the Battle of Alberta from the other side now,” Cammalleri told Matheson. “Yeah, that’ll be a pretty cool experience. They’ve got a lot of capable (offensive) guys.”
The addition that came along with his one-year contract was a $200,000 bonus if he were to score 20 goals. Although he’d done so in the past with the Flames, it didn’t turn out that way with the Oilers. His talents were outshone by the young stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, slotting him with one of the lowest averages of ice time in his career at 14:06 per night.
Cammalleri only stuck around for one year in the City of Champions, playing 51 games and scoring four goals and 22 points. After the season, he hung up his skates, marking his time with the Oilers the last of his NHL career.
The forward was originally the 49th overall selection in the 2001 NHL draft by the Los Angeles Kings. He remained in the organization until 2008-09, when he was traded to the Calgary Flames for a single season before opting to sign with the Montreal Canadiens for the next two and a half seasons. In 2011-12, he returned to Calgary through a trade, this time for a two-and-a-half-year stint. In 2014, he signed with the New Jersey Devils and became the team’s top scorer, but his performance declined by 2017, and he rejoined the Kings as a free agent for 15 games before coming to Edmonton. Besides being successful on the ice, Cammalleri also found success off the ice as he and John Celenza became the cofounders of the well-known sports hydration brand Biosteel.
As for Jokinen, the 192nd overall selection by the Dallas Stars in 2001, he was initially signed to the Oilers as a supposed ‘jack-of-all-trades’ in the summer of 2017. His performance with the club ultimately proved otherwise when he only made one assist in 14 games, which concerned the organization. When he switched to the Kings, things didn’t look overly bright. The forward only made 18 appearances that season, scoring one goal and five points. He was later selected off waivers by the Columbus Blue Jackets and then later traded in February of 2018 to the Vancouver Canucks. In Vancouver, he appeared in 14 games, scoring four goals and 10 points, but ultimately chose to finish his time in the NHL and signed with the Oulun Karpat in Finland.
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