Why the Carolina Hurricanes Should Re-Sign Dougie Hamilton
Going into the 2021 offseason, the Carolina Hurricanes have a lot of questions that need to be answered. One is going to be how they’ll shape up after the expansion draft; another is going to be free agency.
The biggest question, though, is going to be contract extensions, mainly with Andrei Svechnikov and Dougie Hamilton. I personally believe that it is a no-brainer to re-sign Dougie Hamilton, but for the right price.
Dougie Hamilton, who will be 28 by the time his current contract is up, is obviously a top offensive defenseman in the NHL. His numbers prove that. But injuries and some interesting comments by the media about “being a locker room cancer” have put him where he is today. Before the media and injuries drove him out of Boston, in a trade that sent him to the Calgary Flames, he had 83 points in 178 games, which was pretty good for a teenager.
Calgary didn’t treat him much better, with the “inside” joke of him and his love for museums starting here, even though he put up 137 points in 245 games. This, put together with the Hurricanes having a new owner and a new GM looking to make a change, put Dougie Hamilton in a trade. Alongside young prospect Adam Fox and known enforcer Micheal Ferland, these three were traded to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for LHD Noah Hanifin, a promising young center in Elias Lindholm and essentially Bill Peters.
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I will say that if Adam Fox wasn’t a person who only wanted to play for one team and not sign for any other team besides the New York Rangers, this article wouldn’t exist. Adam Fox has been a stellar player in a two way game, being ultra effective on both sides of the game.
In 2 years in New York, Fox has 81 points in 111 games, including 39 in 41 this year. Unfortunately, he only wanted to play in the Big Apple, leaving us here (but not without giving us the picks that were used to draft Jamieson Rees and Anttoni Honka in the process).
Since being traded to the Carolina Hurricanes, Dougie Hamilton has been absolutely stellar, putting up 112 points in 170 games, including 40 points in 47 games in 2019-2020 before going down with a horrific leg injury. Since Calgary was incredibly nice and signed Dougie to a 6 year, $34,500,000 million dollar contract in June of 2015, we haven’t had to worry about a new contract until now.
Now, Dougie obviously has his own shortcomings. Most people can see that his footspeed is in constant decline, as he gets beat by someone faster than him about once a game. He then has to use his stick to try and either stop the player or take the puck, which has lead to him taking a hefty chunk of penalties. Most of the time, though, as long as Jaccob Slavin is his partner (and he plays like Jaccob Slavin), he gets away with it.
Now, the Carolina Hurricanes have no shortage of cap space this offseason as they are predicted to have around have around $30 million or so to play with. But you need to think about what you need with the money and decide if re-signing Dougie is necessary. I truly think the Carolina Hurricanes need to re-sign him, as the expansion draft is likely going to poach a defender anyways and not re-signing Dougie leaves a huge hole in your defense, with the options in free agency being super weak this summer.
Options If Dougie Doesn’t Get Re-Signed
With the expansion draft, you are completely bound to losing one defender if you play your protections right. The best case scenario is you lose one of Brady Skjei or Jake Gardiner, and you’ll have 4 defenseman ready to play and under contract, with Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Jake Bean and then one of the two aforementioned defenseman that aren’t selected in the expansion draft.
This is good, but you still need a defenseman that can effectively drive play and preferably be a RHD, which describes Dougie Hamilton. You can pay him the $8-$8.5 million he would like and still have money left over for Svechnikov and the other notables, like the goalies and some depth forwards.
But not re-signing him is where you are going to find a problem. The options in free agency are not great, with some of the top names being Tyson Barrie, Brandon Montour, Alec Martinez, Vince Dunn and Ryan Murray. None of those names inspire confidence and that’s if any of them even make it to free agency. The best names out of the list are Tyson Barrie and Alec Martinez, but Martinez plays on the left and Tyson Barrie is just a shorter, worse version of Dougie Hamilton.
Don’t get me wrong, though- if you want a replacement for Dougie Hamilton, Barrie is going to be your best option. Like I mentioned earlier, he is going to be a shorter and much less effective version of Dougie Hamilton, but he would be the closest thing to Dougie available on the free agency market.
Barrie started his career in Colorado, where he put up 307 points in 484 games. After a stop in Toronto which, to say the least, didn’t help his career, he’s found a home in Edmonton where he has 35 points in 42 games.
The problems with Barrie mostly lie with the other parts of his game. If you think Dougie is a liability on defense, Barrie is a whole different beast. You could also make the argument that Barrie is more injury prone. As of right now, it also seems as if the Edmonton Oilers are going to try their hardest to keep him, as his numbers show that he plays a pivotal part in getting that puck in the hands of two of the top 5 centers in the NHL to do what they do best.
Then you would have to look at trade options, and then finally the draft/your own prospects. I’m not incredibly well-versed in the trade market options and truthfully, there aren’t going to be a ton of names out there since right-handed defensemen are already a scarcity in the league, with offensive-minded ones being even more rare.
This then leaves your own prospects, and then the draft. Now, you do have some options within the organization in Joey Keane, Anttoni Honka, Roland McKeown and Oliwer Kaski. Kaski and McKeown are likely done after this year with the Carolina Hurricanes, and Honka is a little too young and raw and would likely need a year in the AHL before getting a crack at the NHL roster.
The real name to watch here is Joey Keane. Acquired in the trade that sent fan-favorite Julien Gauthier to the New York Rangers, Keane was (and still is) a highly touted blueliner. In his first year in the AHL, which was 2019-2020, he had 37 points in 58 games with the Hartford Wolf Pack and the Charlotte Checkers. This year, in limited action as he has been up and down with the Chicago Wolves, he has 8 points in 13 games with all 8 of the points being assists.
The problem with trying to use Keane in the Dougie Hamilton top-pairing role, is that he doesn’t play that style. His development path, at least from what I’ve seen in his time with the Chicago Wolves, is more of a two-way game a la former Hurricane Haydn Fleury.
Draft wise, there are some solid options in Carson Lambos, Brandt Clarke, Luke Hughes, Owen Power, Daniil Chayka and Corson Ceulemans. But none to most of those guys are a.) going to be on the board when the Canes pick and b.) NHL-ready.
This brings me to the overall point of this whole article. Offensive-minded right-handed defensemen don’t grow on trees anymore, and the Carolina Hurricanes have one of the best ones in the league. Losing him for nothing doesn’t make a ton of sense, given the other options available around the league that are up for grabs. Term and money is going to be a roadblock, but at this moment, it would be absolutely stupid to let Dougie Hamilton walk in free agency.
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