Carolina Hurricanes Prospects: Carter Sandlak Hopes Grit, Toughness will Make Him a Good Pro
By Brett Finger
Between now and the start of the preseason, Cardiac Cane will preview every Carolina Hurricanes prospect as they enter the 2015-2016 season and what we expect from them in the coming year and beyond.
Player: Carter Sandlak
Position: Left Wing
Date of Birth: May 18, 1993 (22)
Birthplace: Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada)
Height/Weight: 6’2″/200 lbs.
2015-2016 Team: Carolina Hurricanes (NHL), Charlotte Checker (AHL), and/or Florida Everblades (ECHL)
There’s a lot of ways for a player to make it to the professional hockey ranks, and 22-year-old forward Carter Sandlak hopes that his grit and toughness can set him up for a prosperous career.
Sandlak has always been unique. He is a penalty minute machine, he is a player that stands out as a physical presence on the ice, he isn’t afraid to drop the gloves, and he was a five-season player in the OHL, making him an over-ager in the league.
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He played parts of his first four seasons in the OHL with the Guelph Storm and Belleville Bulls from 2009 to 2013. In that span, the grinding forward never topped the 25-point mark, but he consistently averaged near 2 penalty minutes per game. This led him to go undrafted.
The undrafted free agent went into his final year of OHL eligibility with a lot to prove. All 30 NHL teams passed him over multiple times, and he was fighting for a professional hockey career. He fought.
He posted career numbers with the Plymouth Whalers in year five of his OHL career. He tallied career-highs in goals (24), assists (24), and points (48). He also spent 95 minutes in the penalty, just 3 minutes less than his career high of 98 that he had the year before.
In December of 2013, the Carolina Hurricanes had seen enough, and they decided to give Sandlak a shot. The team signed him to a three-year entry-level contract.
Ron Francis, then just the Vice President of Hockey Operations, seemed optimistic about the move and what Carter Sandlak could do on the ice.
"“Carter is a gritty, tough competitor who is having a good year for Plymouth in the Ontario Hockey League,” said Francis. “He’s got an edge to his game and the work ethic to be a good pro.”"
A year and a half later, Sandlak has completed his first year as a professional hockey player.
Carter Sandlak skated in 44 games with the Charlotte Checkers last season, tallying 2 goals and 2 assists to go along with his 69 penalty minutes. He also laced up for 3 ECHL games, in which he failed to find the score sheet, but he did spend 14 minutes in the penalty box.
It is clear that Sandlak is not an offensive asset, if anything, he is a liability in the attacking zone, but where he comes useful is his grit and fearlessness. Go back 10 years, and you will see a lot of players in the NHL that fall in that category, but nowadays, it is rare to see a player that is strictly a “tough guy” or just a pure “energy player”. It just doesn’t happen as often, which makes Sandlak’s journey to the NHL pretty difficult.
He is still just 22, and he has time to get to a point where he’d be considered worthy of an NHL call-up, but that day is pretty far away.
Carter Sandlak just lacks the intangibles to make him anything more than an AHL player, and unless he can really break out in the next couple seasons, he may be a guy that the Canes don’t see worthy of a contract extension.
I hope I am wrong and he turns into a solid all around player who strives at making the game difficult for opponents, but I don’t think that will ever happen at the NHL level. He lacks the foot speed and talent to create an NHL career for himself.
Later this month, Carter Sandlak will attend Carolina Hurricanes training camp. He is projected to be an early cut considering the stiff competition that he will face.
Expect Sandlak to head back to the Charlotte Checkers this season and be a role player for them, like he was last season. He now has a year of AHL experience under his belt, and hopefully he can learn from a rocky rookie campaign.
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Down the road, Sandlak projects as a career minor leaguer that will bring grit and hard work to the ice day in and day out.
Carter Sandlak has leadership-type compete level and effort, but unfortunately he lacks the talent that makes it go to good use.