Schenn has proven to be a good offseason addition for the Predators, and the team is fortunate to have a driving reason behind that.
Schenn has proven to be a good offseason addition for the Predators, and the team is fortunate to have a driving reason behind that.
Luke Schenn made a return to the Toronto Maple Leafs last season when he was traded from the Vancouver Canucks at the trade deadline. It surprised some people why Schenn decided not to stay in Toronto and sign a new deal in the offseason, but he was being pulled somewhere else.
That somewhere was Nashville. The Predators are the eighth different franchise Schenn has played for in his NHL career and it may very well be the last. The 34-year-old veteran signed a three-year, $2.75 million AAV deal in the offseason, and there was a big reason for choosing the Predators over every other team that was interested, and that was because of Ryan McDonagh.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR9YKearCxE[/embed]
Schenn was asked about playing with McDonagh and said, "we’re really close off the ice. He was one of my best buddies in Tampa. We’ve kept in touch when we were apart the last couple years. One of the main, driving reasons behind coming to Nashville was Ryan." per Robby Stanley, the Nashville correspondent for NHL.com.
Schenn has a two-year stop in Tampa Bay where he played with McDonagh and it just so happened to be the two years the Lightning won the Stanley Cup. The team spent a ton of time together and they were partners on the ice at five-on-five for over 130 minutes (regular season and playoffs) in those two seasons.
Schenn and McDonagh have played 322 minutes together this season and the way things are going, it seems like it was a great choice for him to move closer to a close friend and try to bring some of that magic to Nashville.
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