The Carolina Hurricanes are far ahead of schedule in their journey to success, but they still need to add some key pieces in order to be a true contender.
For the first time in half a decade, the Hurricanes are optimistic about their future, not left wondering what it will hold.
The past seven months have been, largely, a pleasant surprise for the Canes, a team which saw young defensemen excel in increased roles, and they only seem to be getting better going into the 2016-2017 season.
The Carolina Hurricanes are in a situation that required them to add skilled pieces to an already strong core, but thankfully, the Canes only need to look to add in a few places.
Unfortunately, the upcoming free agent class doesn’t appear to be star-studded, excluding the biggest named free agent in recent history, Steven Stamkos.
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Stamkos would fit in perfectly on this Hurricanes team, but with big name free agents come a lot of teams looking to sign that free agent, which creates an all-out bidding war.
A more realistic and sensible move for the Canes would likely be pursuing a position of need via the trade market. With a plethora of draft picks and cap space, general manager Ron Francis could hit the jackpot.
The trade market is ripe with options, options which could drastically improve the current and future state of the Carolina Hurricanes.
First Line Center
Carolina has very good center depth. The emergence of Jordan Staal and the steady development of Victor Rask has made the club very capable down the middle, even with the loss of long-time first line center Eric Staal at the trade deadline.
The problem is that the Hurricanes don’t have a legitimate first line centerman who can produce offensively.
When he is rolling, Staal is an elite second-line center. He is a top-flight defensive forward who has the size to make an offensive impact, but at his best, he is likely a 50-55 point player. That isn’t bad at all.
Rask has been fantastic over the past two seasons, and the current RFA looks like a long-term top-six center, but, like Staal, he doesn’t project to be a top-flight first line guy.
Carolina Hurricanes
Elias Lindholm got a short audition down the middle near the end of the regular season, but it looks like that won’t last given that Rask and Staal have the second and third line center positions locked going into next season.
Fortunately, there are options in the trade world for the Hurricanes if they want to get that big-time center.
The first name is Matt Duchene. The 2009 third overall draft pick has been a consistent offensive producer on an up and down Avalanche team ever since he broke into the league several months after he was drafted.
He is coming off of a 30-goal, 59-point season with the Avs, a club that missed out on the postseason under head coach Patrick Roy.
Duchene and Roy haven’t always been on the best of terms, which has led to the 25-year-old being floated around in trade rumors over the past few months.
Matt Duchene is an incredibly skilled centerman who has the ability to finish and also play an elite playmaking role. In five 60+ game seasons, he is a five-time 20+ goal scorer and a four-time 30+ assist man. He was one assist from being a five-time 30+ assist man this past season after tallying 29 with the Avs.
Duchene is fast, skilled, and flashy. He will make the plays that very few players can make, and he could add a lot for a Canes forward unit that has been thin in the terms of putting the puck in the net. He would add speed to the lineup which could blend in very well with Carolina’s transition offense.
There are red flags. His defensive game is suspect at times, which is apparent when you look at his far-below-par goals against/60 and shot suppression. He is very comparable to Jeff Skinner in those categories over the past three seasons.
In review, the positives far outweigh the negatives for this two-time all-star.
Like all highly-touted players, he won’t come cheap in a trade, meaning the Hurricanes would likely have to part with a first-round draft pick and potentially one of their many defensive prospects at the minimum. For a player like Duchene, it could be worth it. Putting him alongside a steady two-way forward like Elias Lindholm or maybe another very skilled player in Jeff Skinner could render impressive results.
Duchene is under contract for a reasonable $6 million AAV through the 2018-2019 season, making an affordable commodity for the Hurricanes.
Another player that has been rumored to be available is 2011 first overall pick Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in Edmonton.
He may be shipped out by the Oilers this offseason as they look to add to their defense and turn around what has been an abysmal decade of hockey.
A five-year NHLer, Nugent-Hopkins is a three-time 50-point getter, the other two seasons being shortened by either injury or lockout.
He is a pure playmaker down the middle, and like Duchene, he doesn’t stand very tall. He is listed at 6-feet and 190 pounds.
While RNH is less proven than Duchene, he is two years younger and has a similar pedigree as a talented and skillful player down the middle.
There is a question as to just how good Nugent-Hopkins is. He has spent all of his pro career on a dreadful, bottom-dwelling Oilers club and hasn’t necessarily had the opportunity to really show his top-end ability.
He is an upgrade defensively over Duchene, but the difference there is fairly slim. They are both offensive players, not bruising two-way men like Jordan Staal. That isn’t a bad thing, however, given Carolina’s already stellar two-way system.
Nugent-Hopkins, who carries a $6 million AAV through 2020-2021, would likely draw a defensive prospect and a draft pick from the Hurricanes, like Duchene. Edmonton is in dire need of defensive help for the long-term, and that is what Carolina is stockpiled with.
Skilled Wingers
Outside of Jeff Skinner, the Hurricanes struggled to get much offensive production from the wing positions this past season.
18-year-old Sebastian Aho has a chance to step in and make an impact next season and for many seasons to come, but he likely won’t be able to do the things that a select few trade-wire players could next season.
A pair of wingers in Detroit make a lot of sense for the Hurricanes, and those players are Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist, who, according to Ted Kulfan of The Detroit News, could be available this summer.
Like many other teams, the Red Wings will be looking to accomplish two things this offseason – shed cap, to potentially pursue Steven Stamkos, and improve their defense. The Hurricanes can take on cap and they have defense.
Let’s start with Tomas Tatar, a player who is coming off of a down year and could use a change of scenery.
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Tatar isn’t a flashy player like Duchene or Nyquist, but he has shown the ability the finish in around the net and also play an excellent defensive game.
The good thing about both Tatar and Nyquist is that they are both coming from Detroit’s system, which is incredibly similar to Carolina and former Red Wings assistant Bill Peters.
The Slovak is still just 25, and despite seeing his goal total go from 29 to 21 from 2014-2015 to 2015-2016, he is still undoubtedly a viable top-six option.
Tomas Tatar is a great two-way player who can score. He takes care of his own end first, which would allow him to fit right in with the Hurricanes.
A downside with him is his size. He stands at just 5-foot-10, 185 pounds, but that hasn’t prevented him from being an effective player before, and there’s very little reason to believe that it will be a big factor going forward. He is entering the final year of his three-year deal which carries an AAV of $2.75 million. He will be an RFA in a year.
Gustav Nyquist is the second option out of Detroit, and he is a very good one.
Nyquist, 26, also comes from that Detroit system, but he is an offense-heavy player. He produces points at the rate of a first-liner both in goals and assists.
He has incredible foot speed and elusiveness, which makes him a chore to deal with in the offensive zone. He’s hard to cover and he finds ways to generate offense both for himself and for his teammates.
The Swede has been a dominant offensive player since coming to North America, dating back to his days at the University of Maine in the NCAA. Since earning his first NHL stint in 2011, Nyquist has logged 158 points in 261 games with the Wings.
I’m slightly biased towards him, because the thought of an all-Swede line of Nyquist, Rask and Lindholm excites me. Sounds pretty neat, eh?
Starting Goalie
The goalie situation is set up to be the most interesting and controversial topic going into the offseason.
The Eddie Lack and Cam Ward experiment rendered mixed results. Both goalies posted league-worst type numbers in the first half of the season, then rebounded to average, if not above average, status in the final few months of the regular season.
Ward’s future hangs in the balance as Ron Francis and his staff continues to evaluate the best course of action in net. The long-term anchor of the franchise could have a new home when October rolls around.
If this is the case, Carolina will have to find a replacement, and it will likely be through the trade market, given there are few decent options through free agency.
The most notable backstop that could be available is Anaheim’s Frederik Andersen, whose ice time has been cut in half due to the emergence of young star John Gibson.
The Ducks will be going with Gibson moving forward, potentially for the next ten seasons, so they will likely be listening to offers on Andersen this offseason. They can also only retain one goalie in 2017’s expected expansion draft, and Andersen would be a lock to be selected in said draft.
Carolina drafted Andersen back in 2010, but the two sides failed to agree to terms on an entry-level deal.
For many, this would appear to be a big factor today, but there’s a lot to consider. Andersen didn’t sign because, at the time, the Hurricanes had goalie depth with a young Cam Ward at the helm and a 24-year-old Justin Peters backing him up and doing it well.
There is also new management in place. Ron Francis has proven to be a very different GM than Jim Rutherford was.
There’s very little reason to believe that this issue would still be present to this day, so let’s take a look at what Andersen would provide the Hurricanes on the ice.
He is a big goalie who is incredibly sound and composed. He is smart and he lets the puck come to him. Through three seasons with the Ducks, Andersen has been fantastic. He hasn’t posted a goals-against average north of 2.4 in a full season since 2010-2011 when he was playing in Denmark at the age of 21.
Andersen also has playoff experience, and he has been dominant in the postseason with the Ducks.
If the Canes were to make a move for him, they would be getting their starting goalie for the next several years, which would lead into the Alex Nedeljkovic era, which looks to be a good one for the organization. A tandem of Andersen and Lack would likely be more than good enough to launch Carolina back into the playoffs on an annual basis.
Detroit’s Jimmy Howard will be another option, but he carries a hefty AAV, and his underlying numbers aren’t significant enough upgrades over Cam Ward to be a decidedly better option than just re-upping the 2006 Conn Smythe winner.
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As the summer wears on, things will continue to intensify in the rumor mill. The Carolina Hurricanes are heading into their most important offseason since the beginning of their playoff drought.