The Carolina Hurricanes have been to the postseason six straight times, losing in the first round only once. They’ve been to the Eastern Conference Final twice in that time. Their roster is primed for significant turnover, where are they headed?
Roster Ruminations
NHL Roster
The Hurricanes have been one of the NHL’s dominant teams over the past six seasons, although it hasn’t translated to the ultimate prize yet. With the team agreeing to extensions with Head Coach Rod Brind’Amour and his assistants over the weekend, we’ll continue to see more of the same style of hockey out of Raleigh. The model projection for next season predicts another dominant 5v5 team that struggles to finish.
Salary Cap Management
The Hurricanes are well known for their frugal spending at this point. They have only about 65% of their cap space committed to next season and a large drop again for the following year. With a list of UFAs this summer that includes Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei, Jake Guentzel and Teuvo Teravainen, the Canes could look a bit different by opening night.
Future Assets
The Hurricanes have done an excellent job of holding on to their future assets while they’ve been contending. Hockey Prospecting still ranks the Canes prospect pool 6th in the NHL and they have nearly a baseline set of picks over the next three drafts.
What’s Next?
The Hurricanes are entering a stage where we could see some incredible turnover on their roster over the next 18 months. On the blue line, Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei and Jalen Chatfield are UFAs this summer and Dmitry Orlov, Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns will all be UFAs in 2025. The Canes aren’t known for overpaying aging players to stay, so it would not be a surprise to see a very different looking blue line by the start of the 2025-2026 season. They have a few good looking prospects in the system, including Scott Morrow and Domenick Fensore, and it seems likely we’ll see a few of them manning the point for the NHL club in the near future.
The potential for change in the forward group is lower than it is for the defense corps but it still exists. The Hurricanes have four of their regular forwards set to hit the UFA market this summer. They do have a few players locked up on long term deals that will surely continue to form the core of the forward group for a while. Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho have been the face of the Hurricanes forwards for some time. If there are tweaks to be made to the Canes roster building process, it may be finding a high end forward or two that can help bring their finishing up.
A look at the Hurricanes roster building process would not be complete without mentioning the last successful RFA offer sheet in the NHL. The Canes pulled Jesperi Kotkaniemi out of Montreal after their cup final run with a one year offer sheet and subsequently signed him to an eight year extension. Kotkaniemi has done a decent job of living up to the deal. The Hurricanes have a lot of cap space this summer. Will they consider another offer sheet as they reshape their roster?
