Carolina Hurricanes: The Case for Acquiring Josh Manson
By Nick Bass
The NHL Trade Deadline is less than 48 hours away and the Carolina Hurricanes find themselves in an interesting spot. With Don Waddell wanting to grab an RHD to move Jake Bean back to his natural side, his options have dwindled in a matter of hours with the Florida Panthers snagging Brandon Montour and the Tampa Bay Lightning acquiring David Savard.
With those options gone, the Canes have an option left that I think they should pursue. Josh Manson of the Anaheim Ducks have been a name that the Carolina Hurricanes have been linked with recently and I think that he is the perfect player for them to acquire.
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Josh Manson is a 29 year old right-handed defender who stands at a pretty big 6’3, but even when he plays he still tries to play even bigger than his height. As his point totals and stats would should, he plays more as a shutdown defender than a guy who drives play. His style of play perfectly complements what Jake Bean brings to the table.
So, what would a package look like to acquire someone like Josh Manson. Pierre LeBrun and Darren Dreger have reported in the past that the Ducks are looking for a first round pick and a top prospect to pry Manson away from Anaheim. The top prospect they are looking for would probably be one of Jamieson Rees, Ryan Suzuki, or Dominik Bokk. The choice i’m going to roll with here is Jamieson Rees.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Jamieson Rees. I can see his potentially upside being anywhere from a middle six to even top six center/winger who plays with grit. But for me personally, I like the upsides of Bokk and Suzuki more, especially after what they have shown in their short time with the Chicago Wolves in the AHL.
With Josh Manson acquired, the defensive lineup on any given night could look something like this
Bean/Gardiner/Fleury-Manson
If anyone can find a defensive core better than that, I would love to know because I truly don’t believe that there is a team in the league that could come close to matching that (besides Tampa but I still think that we are better).
Cap wise, could the Carolina Hurricanes make this trade work? The clear answer is yes, but it’s kind of weird. Josh Manson carries a cap hit of $4,100,000 until 2021-2022. But, his effective cap hit is only $989,655. With the Canes cap space standing at around $2,313,612, this trade would leave the Canes with around $1,300,000 million in cap space, which is well more than enough to make another deal.
Like I mentioned, Manson is on a contract that extends through the next year, so he’d have to have some consideration to be protected in the next expansion draft for the Seattle Kraken and former Canes GM Ron Francis. So how could the Hurricanes do this? It all depends on Jordan Staal and his NMC.
So, how could the Carolina Hurricanes trade for Josh Manson and make out of the expansion draft ok? There are two separate scenarios that you’d have to look at. The first one, where Jordan Staal doesn’t waive his NMC (no movement clause).