Carolina Hurricanes to Face Most Important Offseason in Years
With several key UFAs and RFAs to sign and/or extend, the Carolina Hurricanes are facing down one of the most important off-seasons in franchise history. Tom Dundon, Don Waddell, Eric Tulsky and Co. have their work cut out for them in the coming weeks, but they haven’t really given us a good reason to not trust them – yet.
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This offseason has technically been underway for several weeks now, since the Tampa Bay Lightning claimed their 2nd Stanley Cup victory in as many years back on July 7th. The past several days, though, have been particularly tumultuous.
All 30 teams required to participate in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft were required to have their protected lists sent in to the Kraken organization yesterday (at the time of writing); the offseason ‘trade deadline’ before the roster freeze prior to the cutoff time for submitting protection lists saw several top-tier trades including a three-way trade that sent Nolan Patrick to Vegas by way of Nashville, Ryan Ellis to Philadelphia, and Philippe Myers alongside Cody Glass to Nashville by way of Philadelphia.
The New York Islanders also sent Andrew Ladd, a 2021 2nd round pick (60th overall), a conditional 2nd round pick in 2022, and a conditional 3rd round pick in 2023 to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for…. absolutely nothing, so there’s that, too.
The Carolina Hurricanes have remained mostly quiet so far this summer. All they’ve done as of yet is re-sign Morgan Geekie to a one-year, two-way deal, and acquired goaltending prospect Dylan Wells from Edmonton for an absolute NHL legend: Future Considerations. The Canes also subverted most of the fanbase’s expectations with their protected list, as seen below.
https://twitter.com/Canes/status/1416765779379466243
After this Wednesday’s Expansion Draft (in which the Canes are likely to lose one of Nino Niederreiter or Jake Bean), the Carolina Hurricanes have their work cut out for them. With the Metropolitan Division getting back together for this upcoming season, the Carolina Hurricanes have no choice this offseason but to get better. Read on to find out how they can do just that.
Notable UFA’s to Re-Sign
Let’s dive into this.
The Carolina Hurricanes have about $30 million in cap space heading into the offseason ($29,426,417 to be exact). I’m going to be operating under a couple assumptions here, so bear with me.
The first assumption? The Carolina Hurricanes lose Jake Bean to the Seattle Kraken in the upcoming Expansion Draft. This doesn’t change their projected cap space this summer by much, if at all. The next assumption is that the Carolina Hurricanes do not extend a qualifying offer to controversial goaltending prospect Jeremy Helvig, thereby releasing him to free agency.
These assumptions out of the way, let’s look at which players the Carolina Hurricanes have that are about to hit either unrestricted free agency. The list is as follows: Dougie Hamilton, Jordan Martinook, Cedric Paquette, Brock McGinn, Jani Hakanpaa, Petr Mrazek, James Reimer, Max McCormick, Sheldon Rempal, David Gust, Roland McKeown, and Antoine Bibeau.
Right off the bat, there should be a few names that stick out. We’ve already covered just how irreplaceable Dougie Hamilton is, but aside from him, the Carolina Hurricanes should absolutely re-sign Brock McGinn, and at least one of Petr Mrazek or James Reimer.
Without going on too much of a tangent on goaltending, the Canes seem to have fully committed to a 1A/1B system, even with the meteoric rise of Alex Nedeljkovic; Mrazek and/or Reimer would have to be comfortable being firmly in the 1B slot behind Ned, especially if he continues providing the Carolina Hurricanes with the best goaltending they’ve received in well over a decade.
Guys like Martinook, Paquette, Hakanpaa, McCormick, Rempal, Gust, McKeown, and Bibeau are likely on the way out or, at the very least, going to accept either a two-way deal, a league minimum deal, or just re-sign to remain in the AHL barring any miraculous steps forward in production.
After all is said and done, Dougie should easily command close to $8M AAV on a 4-6 year deal (he could easily get that dollar amount and longer term elsewhere, but it has been reported that he could likely circle back to Carolina), and Brock is definitely due for a pay raise.
In my opinion, put BCB in at $3M AAV and let him do what he does: kill penalties and embody everything it means to be a “Rod Brind’amour“-style player. These two re-signings would leave the Canes with roughly $19M in cap space with a few key pieces left to sign. We’ll talk about those guys in a minute.
The Carolina Hurricanes actively take a step back if they fail to re-sign Dougie Hamilton or Brock McGinn. The jury is still out a bit as far as goaltending goes, since there are a few names out there that would be an upgrade over Mrazek or Reimer as a backup to Nedeljkovic, so I’ll reserve judgment on that front for now. On to the RFA’s.
Notable RFA’s to Re-Sign
This is where things get a bit tricky, seeing as how the Carolina Hurricanes have several key pieces that are set to hit RFA status this summer. The list of upcoming RFA’s is as follows: Andrei Svechnikov, Warren Foegele, Jake Bean, Alex Nedeljkovic, Yegor Korshkov, Spencer Smallman, Maxime Lajoie, Dylan Wells, and Jeremy Helvig.
First and foremost, Andrei Svechnikov needs to be extended, like, yesterday. The young Russian phenom admittedly had a down year last year, but this is by no means the yardstick by which his potential should be measured.
Svech’s extension can go one of two ways: given the flat cap for the next several years, Andrei could decide to bet on himself and take a bridge deal (roughly $5-$7M or so for the next 3 years) just to really cash in at over $10M afterward. The other route could see Svech signing a long-term deal right off the bat and becoming a Carolina Hurricane for the next 7-8 years or so at a price tag of right around $7.5M-$8M per season (as rumored – grain of salt, folks).
Next up, in order of importance, is Alex Nedeljkovic. Now, I know there have been several rumors surrounding Ned and the Canes this summer. These range anywhere from “Ned’s camp and the Canes are $1-$3M off of each other” to “the Canes might not extend Ned a qualifying offer because they might not like how much he could be awarded in salary arbitration” (as if they can’t just walk away from that offer and let him become a UFA anyway, but I digress).
As far as I’m concerned, Ned deserves a solid contract, but not an extravagant one. Taking in his Calder-caliber season into account, as well as the relatively small sample size of NHL-level play we have on him, I’d clock him at around $3.5-$4M on a short-term deal, maybe 2 years or so. The Carolina Hurricanes have had a revolving door at the goaltending position for what seems like a decade, with players like Cam Ward, Anton Khudobin, Eddie Lack, Curtis McElhinney, and Scott Darling entering and exiting the organization without making too much of an impact or improvement stats-wise.
Ned has finally brought stability and elite-level goaltending to Raleigh-Durham, and deserves a pay raise as well as the chance to really cash in the event he does, indeed, “prove it”.
Now, rumor has it that Warren Foegele wants more playing time, and the Canes might not be in the place to give it to him; this, coupled with the rumor that the Canes are close to having a trade in place for him, I’m going to assume he (like Jake Bean) will not be a Carolina Hurricane for much longer.
The only other guy set to hit RFA status that I think the Carolina Hurricanes should re-sign is Maxime Lajoie. The Canes’ defensive depth of yore has dwindled down to almost a barebones prospect pool. Aside from Joey Keane, Anttoni Honka, and Jesper Sellgren, Maxime Lajoie is probably the next-best defensive prospect for the Canes, and is likely closer to the NHL level than all of those guys except Keane. I’m of the mindset they’ll sign him to a short-term two-way deal, a la Morgan Geekie, thereby not moving the needle much on cap space.
Korshkov is staying in the KHL for next season, and the rest of those RFA guys are either out the door, or career AHL/ECHL’er’s. Taking into account Ned’s theoretical $4Mx2 deal, as well as Svech’s well-deserved $7.5M longer-term deal, the Carolina Hurricanes would be looking at right around $7.5M in cap space left, with a few holes in the roster left to fill. We’ll get into that next.
Free Agency, Trades, and the Entry Draft – Oh, My!
So, as it stands, the Carolina Hurricanes’ lineup would look something like this after all these re-signings:
- Svechnikov – Aho – Teravainen
- Necas – Trocheck – Niederreiter
- McGinn – Staal – Fast
- Lorentz – Geekie/Suzuki/Matheos – Jarvis/Geekie/etc.
- Slavin – Hamilton
- Skjei – Pesce
- Gardiner – Lajoie/???
- Nedeljkovic
- ???
Now, the Carolina Hurricanes have a choice to make here, and it honestly remains to be seen how the prospects I slotted in up there even do, especially in training camp and preseason – the Canes could lean on their offensive depth and see how that works out, or they could focus on bringing in a proven upgrade to their Top 6/Top 9 forward group.
Our very own Nick Bass and Conor Power have discussed targeting several options, including acquiring Sean Monahan, trading for Vladimir Tarasenko in the event Seattle doesn’t claim him, swinging for the fences to get Jack Eichel, etc., so I won’t get too far into detail with that aside from mentioning that the money aspect could be figured out.
Luke Schull, another of our fantastic writers, made an incredible case for bringing back Trevor van Riemsdyk, which would definitely work out on the Canes’ 3rd defensive pairing.
When it comes to backup goaltending, the options are more optimistic than most of the other positions. It’s almost like that’s an article waiting to be written…
As far as free agency and trade acquisitions go, the Carolina Hurricanes have options to explore, especially if they can move some money off the books in the form of a trade involving Jake Gardiner.
Looking ahead to the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, the Carolina Hurricanes are yet again in a position to win the draft, as they have done most every year since 2018 or so, though the options there are almost assuredly not ready for NHL-level hockey just yet.
I put together a mock draft of the first three rounds of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, and the outlook is definitely positive for the Canes this year; they should be able to add to their already impressive forward prospect pool, and easily begin rebuilding their defensive prospect pool with the 2021 NHL Draft Class.
For the first time in a long time, the Carolina Hurricanes have quite a bit to lose this offseason if I’m being pessimistic. If I’m being optimistic, the Canes have quite a bit to gain this offseason. If I’m being realistic (which I tend to err toward), we’ll likely see them end up somewhere in the middle.
Even this is a far cry from the basement-dwelling Carolina Hurricanes of yesteryear. Time flies when your favorite hockey team is good again, eh?
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