Carolina Hurricanes Trading Justin Faulk Is Ridiculous

Trade talk centered around Justin Faulk is a hot topic these days, but trading him would be a big mistake.

The other day my esteemed colleague wrote a piece about the possible acquisition of Matt Duchene by the Carolina Hurricanes. In discussing one of the trade possibilities he offered up Justin Faulk to pry Duchene out of Colorado. Now look, I know it’s fun to play armchair GM and move pieces around; I’m guilty of this myself. But if it came down to it, I don’t think I could let Faulk go unless the return was astronomical. The strangest thing though is the number of people who are not only on board with this move, but who actually think Justin Faulk is a bad player. Maybe this is just a vocal minority, I don’t know, but trading Justin Faulk for just one player would be a disaster for the team.

But the team needs offense!

Yes, every team could use more offense, but at what expense? I don’t think most fans have thought about the domino effect Faulk’s absence creates . No Faulk leaves the Hurricanes asking Ryan Murphy or Klas Dahlbeck to play significant minutes every night, and we all saw how that worked. Even if Carolina brings up one of the prospects like it doesn’t mean they will be successful.

And don’t point to Slavin or Pesce to prove your point. There is a reason the Carolina Hurricanes defensive corp is the envy of the league with two top pairing players, and a potential in Hanifin, on entry level contracts. To have one prospect to come in and excel is unusual, but to have

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three is almost unheard. Plus the success of those two says nothing about the team’s top prospects of Hayden Fleury and Roland McKeown. I’m sure the Hurricanes did their due diligence in scouting but scouts are often wrong. Even with Faulk out of the picture, Francis might not bring them up to Raleigh. He didn’t do it when Faulk went on IR so why would he do it for a much longer stint?

This doesn’t even touch on Hanifin’s improved play on the third pairing. The loss of Faulk would force him into more minutes and higher leverage minutes. Could he succeed? Sure but the philosophy so far with the coaching staff is to bring him along slowly and not rush. Getting rid of Faulk throws those plans completely out the window. All of this chaos to increase your goals by 15 or 20 and with no idea how many you’d give up in the process. Doesn’t really sound like a good plan to me and I doubt it does to Ron Francis.

But he hasn’t been good this year!

I won’t bore you with stats that still puts him as one of the top offensive defensemen despite his lack of goals. Or how his defensive metrics are actually a bit better this year despite a couple bad plays leading to goals. Heck, I won’t even mention how he drags a broken down Ron Hainsey up and down the ice every night. The fact is Faulk’s production this year is not up to his usual level in the first 25 games this season. But does 25 games completely invalidate the level of play from the past two?

If you answered yes, or even maybe to that question, let me pose this scenario. Because there is another player on the Carolina Hurricanes this year whose play has been different than his past. The only difference is this player is playing at a much higher level. Can you guess his name? If you said Cam Ward step up and collect your prize. If you use the same logic for wanting to trade Faulk, then why aren’t people clamoring for the Hurricanes to give Cam Ward another extension? Maybe it’s because deciding a player’s worth with such a small sample size is an exercise absurdity.

So what should the Carolina Hurricanes do?

Nothing. They should probably do nothing. Complaints about lack of offense are valid, but what’s the point of improving one thing while actively destroying another? It’s like renovating your kitchen with the insurance money from setting your bedroom on fire. It just doesn’t make sense. Now if the right deal comes along and makes the team better overall then Francis should make the trade. But the idea a one for one trade involving Justin Faulk improves the team is the same thing as the trade actually happening: a fantasy.

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