Carolina Hurricanes: Top 5 Trades in Franchise History

4. “The Trade Was One-for-One”

Y’all know I had to do it to ’em.

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. Victor Rask to Minnesota for Nino Niederreiter. That’s it, that’s the trade. Rask for Nino, one for one.

This trade, which took place on January 17th, 2019, was really the first trade that really cemented Don Waddell as a mastermind of negotiations for me.

Both players needed a change of scenery, that much is easy to tell, but to move a player like Victor Rask for a player like Nino Niederreiter without any additional pieces going to Minnesota was just pure highway robbery that ultimately resulted in then Wild GM Paul Fenton losing his job after just one season in the role.

Nino would go on to score 30 points in his first 36 games with the Carolina Hurricanes. Granted, Nino would have a down year in 2019-20, but he looks to have rebounded solidly so far this season, having played some of his best hockey with the Carolina Hurricanes over the course of the past few weeks.

Rask, on the other hand, would only score 5 goals and 8 assists, totaling 13 points in 43 games played with the Minnesota Wild in 2019-20.

Any way you look at this trade, it’s a win for Carolina. Nino is quite a bit more expensive than Rask, but his floor is higher than Rask’s ceiling on any day of the week. In the words of the legendary late MF Doom, “Check them stats and you know where I’m at, and that’s that”.