We talk about how good the Tampa Bay Lightning are and how strong their chances are but they’ve arguably had the toughest road to get to where they are in these playoffs and the Hurricanes are a big part of that. The Carolina Hurricanes fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning four games to one but the series was a lot closer than it sounds. The majority of those games were one goal games, including an overtime. The Hurricanes have such a strong group of defensemen, some of the league's most talented goal scorers and a young promising goaltender in Alex Nedeljkovic. It’s been a couple of close but not close enough kind of years for Carolina but you have to think they’re on the brink of something the way they’ve been building up.
With Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, and Andrei Svechnikov, that’s three star player calibur players the Hurricanes hope to have for a long time. In addition to them, Martin Necas had a great year and has the potential to be a real promising talent right up there with those three. Another thing we talk about with these top teams is the big trades that go down and picking up Vincent Trochek from Florida in February of last year has to be one of Don Waddell’s best moves. Not to mention Nino Neiderreiter and Jordan Staal are pretty darn good too.
So what does the future look like in Raleigh? Well, the biggest concern right now is bringing back head coach Rod Brind ‘Amour and if they’re unable to do that then figure out who they’re going to have coach this team. After that, filling the void that will be Dougie Hamilton is the biggest task for the Hurricanes as we approach the off season. The 27 year old defenseman has really become an elite defender in this league, I feel it would be in Carolina’s best interest to try and keep him, however they’ve already made it clear they are willing to trade him before he hits free agency. They’ll still be left with a solid group of defensemen in Slavin, Pesce, Skjei, Gardiner, and Bean but that group certainly takes a hit when you take Hamilton out of the equation.
Aside from Dougie Hamilton, the biggest task on the to do list of Don Wendell this off season is re-signing Alex Nedeljkovic and addressing their goaltending situation. Petr Mrazek and James Reimer are both set to become UFA’s. It’s safe to assume Reimer will hit free agency but you have to think they may look to keep Mrazek around. Nedeljkovic has definitely proved to be this franchise’s goalie going forward but you have to have a solid number two. Mrazek would give the Hurricanes options and a pretty darn good goalie tandem.
As for the rest of Carolina’s upcoming UFA’s, they’re not at risk of losing any integral pieces to their roster. Jordan Martinook, Brock McGinn and Cedric Paquette are among the more significant names. If anything, Don Wendell might see what a McGinn extension would look like but for the most part, I wouldn’t be surprised to see all three names available this summer. Warren Foegle and Jake Bean are RFA’s who will need new deals, assuming they don’t take huge pay raises, Carolina should be in a solid spot to re-sign them and still have some money to play with this summer.
Carolina isn’t in a position where they need to make a bunch of big moves this summer in order to be better going into next season. We talked about how they were right there this year and gave Tampa a run for their money. It’d be most ideal if they’re able to keep Dougie Hamilton in town, but as long as they keep Mrazek a part of their goalie duo, bring in a couple solid depth/secondhand scoring options, and find a way to replace the hole Hamilton leaves them with they’re going to be right back there in contention next year. It’s taken some doing but Carolina is in a good spot, the worst thing they could do is make a bunch of panic moves attempting to fix what isn’t necessarily broken.
Chris Feldman
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