Should the Carolina Hurricanes follow The Toronto Maple Leafs’ Lead?

The Toronto Maple Leafs have made a trade with the LA Kings to bring in netminding and offensive help. Should the Carolina Hurricanes follow their lead?

The Carolina Hurricanes are sitting outside a playoff spot going into tonight’s game. They are sitting at 63 points through 53 games. If they lose tonight they will be in exactly the same predicament of another Eastern conference team; the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Both teams are teams that made the playoffs last year and are looking to repeat the visit and go further this season. Both teams have had issues in net and on defense while their offense struggled to be the one that scores the most goals in the game. Both teams are looking for help at virtually each level to enhance their chances of playing summer hockey in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The only difference is that the Maple Leafs took a jump start on the trade deadline and knocked out a big three player trade with the LA Kings that saw Goalie Jack Campbell and Kyle Clifford (50% retained salary) become Leafs while Trevor Moore was sent along with a 2020 3rd round pick and a conditional 2021 3rd round pick to Los Angeles.

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The Trade deadline is only about 19 days away. The clock ticks away with each passing moment. As you are reading this article several GMs are hammering each other with phone calls and trying to craft offers that would benefit both teams. Is Don Waddell one of those GMs? Should he get a deal complete as early as possible to avoid the “last minutism” chaos of deadline day?

Waddell has been a careful GM in his first full year that saw him be a finalist for GM of the year in the NHL. He assembled an excellent Carolina Hurricanes team that made a comeback in the season and took themselves all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Now it is time for an encore this year, but what can he do? And should he take notes from Kyle Dubas?

The Maple Leafs did not hesitate to go and get the help they needed as soon as they felt that their backs were against the walls in this tight playoff race. Right now they are the final team in this race as there is a six point drop between them and the Montreal Canadiens. The Hurricanes are ahead of them courtesy of a game in hand.

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Both are only two points behind the Flyers for the final wildcard spot and three behind the Islanders. The Leafs however are only a single point behind the Florida Panthers for third place in the Atlantic. The Hurricanes are a four points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for third in the Metro. These are tough yet easy point differences to make and crawl back up the standings.

Should the Carolina Hurricanes go out and do the same and do it sooner rather than later? There is still time before the deadline to feel out the market and get a good read on what is available. Still time for a few more teams to fall out of the running and become sellers. But is that time this team has? Toronto decided that they didn’t have that time and pushed to make a move early.

The Hurricanes must do the same.

In fact this team cannot afford to wait until the deadline to make the moves they need to make. Carolina has eight games between now and the deadline. Those are eight important games against opponents of varying degrees. Why wait? Even Toronto is feeling like they should have made their trade two games ago in order to have better placed themselves in a position to make the playoffs.

Carolina should follow their lead and make their move earlier rather than later.

Question for CC Readers: When do you think Carolina should make their deadline move Trade?