With the Carolina Hurricanes’s playoff hopes in this 2018/19 season already hanging by a thread due to the team’s inability to score goals, there is pressure from all sides to resolve whether the Canes will be buyers or sellers.
The prospect of being buyers is almost alien to fans of the Carolina Hurricanes, coming so many years after the team’s last playoff appearance. As we discuss below, the Canes are in an unusual and unenviable position this year, as they attempt to avoid making the worst kind of NHL history.
The reasons for buying
Under normal circumstances, a team in the Canes’ position would never dream of being buyers at the deadline. This is no ordinary set of circumstances for the Carolina Hurricanes however; a run of nine consecutive seasons without playoff hockey now appears set to become an NHL-record 10th successive season without post-season action.
Were GM Don Waddell to bite the bullet now – and not wait until the deadline, by which time the team’s fate will already be decided – then he may be able to salvage the fans’ hopes of a playoff spot. But he has to act now, not in four week’s time. The team has a busy January schedule with a host of road games in store – this is the month where we find out whether these Carolina Hurricanes, under rookie coach Rod Brind’Amour, have the fight, passion and ability to stay on course for a playoff spot.
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We have suggested several options for scoring additions in recent weeks – there is the option to add the likes of Kevin Hayes and Sam Bennett, Wayne Simmonds, Ilya Kovalchuk or Thomas Vanek – but Canes fans may also like to see players such as Jesse Puljujarvi or Vladimir Tarasenko make their way to Raleigh instead.
No matter what, the Carolina Hurricanes need more scoring. There are too many passengers offensively, as the Canes essentially have one scoring line plus three lines of bottom six talent. Whether the additional scoring comes from the soon-to-return Martin Necas, or via trade, if Waddell doesn’t make some serious changes very soon, we know that the Canes will be sellers come the deadline.
The reasons for selling
If the Carolina Hurricanes can’t improve their goal scoring, they won’t make the playoffs. And that will mean that, yet again, the team is a seller at the NHL trade deadline in February.
Who do the Canes have to sell as rentals? Captain Justin Williams has a modified no-trade clause, but would surely waive it for a chance at a fourth Stanley Cup. Both Jordan Martinook and Micheal Ferland are impending UFAs, but are the kind of players a team needs to be competitive. We would prefer to see both re-signed rather than dealt.
After that it’s down to the two goalies. Curtis McElhinney was a waiver wire pickup earlier in the season, but could be converted into a 4th or 5th round pick; the more appetising option for Cup contenders would be Petr Mrazek, who could command as much as a 2nd round pick, which would prove valuable to the team going forwards. It would also allow the Canes to call up Alex Nedeljkovic to backup McElhinney, and see once and for all whether he is capable of playing at the highest level.
There are some attractive rentals there – ones that could help this team for many years to come if sent away for the right assets.
Buyers or sellers?
This is, sadly, a time where the head should rule the heart. With the team surely unlikely to challenge for a playoff spot, now is not the time to spend draft picks and prospects on a wing and a prayer. That being said: who wants to make it ten years without playoff hockey? Not a single Carolina Hurricanes fan.
We’re going to have to wait and see how Don Waddell sees it – but if we’re forced into betting, then we’re putting money on the Carolina Hurricanes being sellers this year.