Carolina Hurricanes: The Second Ron Francis Trade Tree

White-ing a Wrong

Anton Babchuk was traded on Novemeber 10th, 2010 alongside Tom Kostopoulos to Calgary in exchange for Brett Sutter and Ian White. Not a blockbuster trade, this was more of the Carolina Hurricanes trying desperately to pull more value out of these players. In this case, it worked.

Kostopoulos only played 99 games as a Carolina Hurricane. He tallied 9 goals and 16 assists for 25 points during his time in Raleigh, but he wasn’t there for his scoring. He was there more to scare people and hit anything that moved in the other color jersey. He was a grinder; not someone you would expect to hit the headlines every single game.

We will get to White in a second, but let’s start with Brett Sutter. One of the infamous Sutter family, Brett never reached the height of his uncles, or even some of his cousins. More of a grinder, he’s still in the AHL playing with the Ontario Reign, the AHL affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings. Brett played 36 games for Carolina tallying a goal and 4 assists.

Ian White is the important part of this trade. He was a big, physical defenseman who hit anything that moved, and punched what hit him back. He would play 39 games in Carolina, tallying 10 assists and drastically raising his own value to be traded to a contender before the trade deadline. Playing as well as he did was good for Carolina, and he wanted a chance to win the Stanley Cup.

Carolina gladly obliged and sent him to the San Jose Sharks for a 2nd round pick in the 2012 NHL entry draft. This pick was used to select someone who is on the active roster, so we will revisit him at the end of this whole thing. This pick is actually the reason I started to dive into this entire thing, and you will see why at the end.

If you remember, I said that the Carolina Hurricanes acquired a pick with Babchuk, right? So whatever could have come of that? In 2005-06, Carolina found themselves towards the top of the NHL standings. Genuine cup contenders, they decided to go for it. Why not? They traded that pick along with the kitchen sink, the next door neighbors dog, and part of the constitution for some help.

In all seriousness the trade was:

To St Louis: Michael Zigomanis, Jesse Boulerice, Magnus Kahnberg, 2006 1st round pick (Matthew Corrente) , 2006 4th round pick (Reto Berra) , 2007 4th round pick (Cade Fairchild)
To Carolina: Doug Weight, Erkki Rajamäki

This isn’t really and truly part of the trade tree itself, but I thought it was a cool little thing that a piece they got from trading down years in a draft would help them pick up Weight, who would be a key contributor on the path to the Canes 2006 Stanley Cup triumph. Not that it was the main piece, the main piece was the 1st round pick, but still, it’s a cool little addition.