Trevor van Riemsdyk
I’m a fan of Trevor van Riemsdyk. While he doesn’t bring much in the way of offense from the back end, he does bring effort and solid, positional defense. While his second season with the Hurricanes saw a bit of a step back defensively (his plus-minus dipped by 13 and his ratio of giveaways to takeaways dropped by 33), van Riemsdyk still has a lot to offer in the right situation.
There are two things that make van Riemsdyk expendable for the Carolina Hurricanes: defensive depth and his contract status. We’ll get more into defensive depth later on, so for now, we’ll focus on his contract. 2019-20 marks the final season under his current pact and, with young players vying for an NHL job, van Riemsdyk could be the odd man out.
As with all of the players listed, everything rides on a combination of how the individual performs and how the team performs. A caveat with van Riemsdyk is that he is currently recovering from shoulder surgery. How well that recovery goes will have a large impact on the course that his season takes.