Carolina Hurricanes: Revisiting Eddie Lack’s Tenure
After the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Nashville Predators in the first round of the 2021 NHL Playoffs, fans asked for a certain former goalie to come sound the siren for either Game 1 or Game 2 of the second round against the Tampa Bay Lightning. It is uncertain if he’ll sound the siren for either game, but fans really want Eddie Lack to come back to Raleigh. With the hope he returns, let’s look back at Eddie’s tenure with the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Carolina Hurricanes goal crease from 2006-2018 only had one constant presence: Cam Ward. Who the second goaltender would be in any given season was a complete mix with players like Anton Khudobin, who would go on to do much better things in his career, and then sometimes Justin Peters, who never really got a foothold on a NHL starter’s position but was a staple in the AHL for a long time. One of the more notable names in the long list is Eddie Lack, who was and still might be a fan favorite.
Eddie Lack went undrafted in 2009, being ranked as high as the 9th best international goaltender behind names like Mikko Koskinen, Robin Lehner and Antti Raanta. Lack would then have to wait a year before the Vancouver Canucks offered him a contract to play for their AHL affiliate at the time, the Manitoba Moose, where he make his AHL debut on October 9th, 2010. Lack would make 23 saves en route to a 5-2 win over the Rockford Ice Hogs.
Stuck behind both Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider, Eddie Lack wouldn’t suit up for a NHL game until November 16th, 2011 when Luongo had an injury. Lack didn’t play any further, and was subsequently sent back down to the AHL the next day. He wouldn’t see any more time in the NHL until the 2013-2014 season, where he would be named the Canucks’ backup. Eddie Lack would record his first NHL start and his first win on October 6, 2013.
Now, during the 2013-2014 NHL season, the Vancouver Canucks goalie situation would go through a lot of changes. Cory Schneider was traded to the New Jersey Devils before this season began, and then coach John Tortorella would cause a larger rift between the Canucks and Roberto Luongo when he started Eddie Lack over Luongo in the Heritage Classic, a year after Luongo was quoted as saying “My contract sucks,” in a press conference following the trade deadline.
Luongo would later be traded to the Florida Panthers for goaltending prospect Jacob Markstrom and Shawn Matthias, which gave Eddie Lack the starting job for the first time in his NHL career. Lack would share the crease with Markstrom and then Ryan Miller until 2015, where on June 27th 2015, Eddie Lack was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for a 2015 3rd round pick and a 2016 7th round pick.
What Eddie Lack Was Traded For
So, Eddie Lack is traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for two picks in the 2015 NHL Draft. Let’s find out what the Carolina Hurricanes gave up with those picks for Lack. The 2015 NHL draft was headlined by some interesting players like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Zach Werenski, Mitch Marner, Mikko Rantanen and many more. But these picks weren’t until the 3rd and 7th round respectively where there was still a ton of NHL talent left.
The 2015 3rd round pick that the Canucks acquired turned into Guillaume Brisebois, who is a 23-year old left-handed defenseman who has had a decent start to his career. Brisebois has played a total of 9 NHL games, has yet to score a NHL point, and is listed as a -4 overall. Brisebois is described as being a two-way defender with excellent hockey IQ and decent skating. He has spent the majority of this year with the Vancouver Canucks’ taxi squad but had 3 points in 14 games with the Utica Comets and the Laval Rocket.
The 2016 7th round pick that the Canucks acquired was used on Brett McKenzie. McKenzie was described as a smart defensive forward who isn’t known as overly physical. From what I can find, McKenzie was never offered a contract by the Vancouver Canucks, put up 3 points in 6 games with the Providence Bruins and Chicago Wolves over a 2 year span, 105 points in 118 ECHL games and is now playing in Poland with Unia Oswiecim.
Obviously, that isn’t a ton of value for a guy like Lack, who at the time of the trade was a NHL starter who had a 2.45 Goals Against Average and a .921 save percentage in 41 games. But how did he play in backup to Cam Ward?
Spoiler alert: not great.
His Tenure with the Carolina Hurricanes
Good to note, Eddie Lack signed a two-year extension before the 2015-2016 season for $5.5 million that lasted until 2018. Lack had some regression after a litany of injuries that caused his stats to take a decent hit. In the 2015-2016 season, behind Cam Ward, Lack started 31 games, played in 34, with a record of 12-14-6 with a 2.81 GAA and a .901% save percentage. 2016-2017 was also not a great year for Eddie Lack, in which he played 20 games, started in 18, and put up a record of 8-7-3 with a 2.64 GAA and a .902% save percentage.
During this time, Eddie would also be the star actor in the infamous Lacko Taco commercial for Gonza Tacos y Tequila in Raleigh. This honestly isn’t incredibly noteworthy, but the amount of times I have personally seen this commercial is immense. I would honestly call this (and the Justin Faulk Moe’s commercial) the Marley Drug commercial before Marley Drug even thought of having a commercial during Carolina Hurricanes hockey games.
After the 2016-2017 season, nearly 2 years to the day of his last trade, Eddie Lack was once again traded, this time to the Calgary Flames. The Carolina Hurricanes traded Lack, alongside former first-round pick Ryan Murphy and a 2019 7th round pick for Keegan Kanzig and a 2019 6th round pick. As this article is mainly an excuse to have some trade trees, let’s start with the Flames side first.
Ryan Murphy was waived the following day for the purpose of buying out the last year of his contract. He then signed a two-way deal with the Minnesota Wild. He never really stuck with an NHL team and mainly played in the AHL until 2019, where he would sign with HC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk of the KHL. In 2020, he signed with the Henderson Silver Knights of the AHL, where he has 27 points in 37 games.
Now, the Calgary Flames got immense value out of that 2019 7th round pick, selecting Dustin Wolf 214th overall. Wolf has been the starting goalie of the Everett Silvertips in the WHL since the 2018-2019 season, and has never had a season with a GAA above 2.30 and a save percentage below a .928%. In this year, he played 22 games for Everett, putting up a 1.80 GAA and a .940% save percentage.
Eddie Lack played 4 games for the Calgary Flames, putting up a 1-2-0 record with a horrid 5.29 GAA and a .813% save percentage. He was traded to the New Jersey Devils in December of 2017, where he played another 4 games, putting up a 1-2-0 record with a 3.18 GAA and a .903% save percentage. Lack never played a game for the Devils during the 2018-2019 season, playing 6 AHL games with the Binghamton Devils. He underwent hip surgery in December of 2018 and retired in 2020.
The Carolina Hurricanes side of things isn’t as interesting. Keegan Kanzig never grew into the third round pick he was drafted with, as he never put up more than 20 points in a season in the WHL. But, he was a enforcer defenseman listed at 6’7 who once had 159 penalty minutes in 70 games in the WHL. Kanzig wasn’t re-signed by the Carolina Hurricanes and is now playing AHL hockey with the San Diego Gulls.
The 2019 6th round pick is a little more interesting, as the Carolina Hurricanes selected Kevin Wall 181st overall. In Wall’s draft year, he had 31 goals as part of 64 points in 49 games with the Chilliwack Chiefs of the BCHL. He then committed to Sara Civian’s favorite Big 10 college hockey team, the Penn State Nittany Lions, where in his freshman year, Wall had 2 goals and 7 points in 26 games playing minimal minutes.
Wall’s sophomore year saw his role expand, as he’d become a much larger part of the Penn State offense. Kevin Wall had 8 goals and 19 points in 22 games playing mainly top line minutes for a Penn State team that unfortunately lost in the semi-finals to a Cole Caufield-led Wisconsin team. Wall is expected to have a big year for the Nittany Lions in his junior year when that gets underway in late 2021.
In conclusion, Eddie Lack came to Raleigh, was a name on the list of Cam Ward’s backups but was a fan favorite partly because of his play and partly because of his off-ice demeanor and candor that still continues on Twitter to this day. His departure in 2017 gave the Carolina Hurricanes lasting value for the future and he is still well liked by Canes fans after his departure, which is more than one former 2nd line center that currently plays for the Nashville Predators can say.
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