Carolina Hurricanes: The Jack Johnson Trade Tree
By Conor Power
Carolina’s side of the trade.
Carolina would give up a former 3rd overall pick, but it wasn’t for nothing. Tim Gleason and Eric Belanger would be the players heading back to Raleigh. Belanger played 56 games for the Hurricanes amassing 8 goals and 12 helpers for 20 points in just 1 year with the team. He would walk into free agency where he would sign with the Atlanta Thrashers.
Belanger would later be traded to the Nashville Predators for Josef Vasicek. However, it’s not the trade that springs to mind right away. Vasicek was originally traded to Nashville in exchange for Scott Walker. This is the trade that bought him back to Carolina after they realized that trading him to the Predators in the first place might have been a gigantic mistake.
A player was taken from us all far too soon, Vasicek was not a headline grabber. He wasn’t someone who scored 19 goals and 46 points to lead the team in scoring, which is why it was so strange when he did just that in 2003. He would tally 57 goals and 78 assists during his time in Carolina. Over 341 games, his 135 points would help the team capture the cup in 2006.
Moving on to Tim Gleason, he would become a staple of the Carolina Hurricanes for a long time. Across 9 years with the Carolina Hurricanes, he played in 546 NHL games with the organization. He collected 14 goals and 93 assists for a total of 107 points in the regular season. However, perhaps his most memorable moment as a Cane came in the shock at the rock in 2009.
On his knees, he keeps a puck in at the blue line after an errant pass, which allowed the Canes to go tick-tack-goal on the Devils and tie the game up with a little more than a minute left before a late goal from a future Canes captain would seal it and pave the way for the Canes to the second round against the Boston Bruins, another series in which Gleason was a massive factor.
However, as with most players, there became a point where he was trade bait, and being the caliber of player he was, it was only right to expect him to be on the move, which he was. He would be moved to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for John Michael-Liles and Dennis Robertson. Two players who make this trade tree a real pain in the neck to make.
John Michael-Liles wasn’t anything special in Carolina, however, he was far from a major issue. Across 3 seasons, he played in 156 games while scoring 10 goals and 36 assists for 46 points. However, his time in Carolina would come to an end the same way it started, on the move again. He was flipped to Boston for Anthony Camara, a 2016 3rd and a 2017 5th.
Picks are magic beans, but the 2016 3rd would become Jack Lafontaine. Not someone who’s likely going to take the NHL by storm, but there’s still a long way to go with the development of this goaltender. The 2017 5th would move to Vegas for expansion draft considerations, but Jack Dugan is not someone who is going to be remarked as a blue-chip prospect.