Carolina Hurricanes right to potentially blow up roster
By Matt O'Leary
The Carolina Hurricanes could potentially be blowing up their roster and starting a rebuild. Now is the perfect time for Carolina to do so.
In sports, you never want to be mediocre. You want to either be really good so you’re a playoff team competing for a championship or bad enough to get a good draft pick and help your rebuilding process.
For almost a decade, the Carolina Hurricanes have been just that, mediocre. They’ve missed the playoffs, for now, nine years in a row. Over that span, the team has only been under .500 three times, the lowest win percentage coming in at .433 in 2014-2015.
Usually, the Canes have hovered around the .500 mark. After almost a decade of repeating the same lackluster formula, we might finally be seeing a change in Carolina.
According to Bob McKenzie, everyone on Carolina is available except for the 20-year-old Sebastian Aho. It’s the perfect time for the Hurricanes to launch a much-needed rebuild. They have a ton of movable pieces, outside of Aho, that could yield a nice return.
Victor Rask
Victor Rask is a 25-year old center who has proven to be a 40 point player at this level. In just 71 games this year, Rask put up 31 points (14 goals, 17 assists) but each of the previous two years he put up over 45.
With four years left on his contract at just $4 million against the cap each year, the Hurricanes could get a nice return.
Teuvo Teravainen
Teuvo Teravainen is another very movable piece. He can play all three forward positions, he put up 64 points (23 goals, 41 assists) last year and he’s under contract for $2.86 million next year before he’s an RFA.
Teams would give up loads of picks and prospects for that kind of scoring talent coming at that cheap of a price. Carolina may be apprehensive to flip him due to his young age and cost efficiency but if you’re going full rebuild you’d likely get the most for Teravainen out of all players deemed “tradeable”.
Justin Faulk
It’s hard for any team to trade their captain, but we just saw the Rangers do it this past year so it’s not impossible. With youngsters Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin locked up long-term Justin Faulk is an extremely moveable piece.
He’s a right-handed defenseman who has potential to score 15 or more goals in a season, he’s done it three times in the past four years. He’s relatively cost effective as well, with a $4.83 million cap hit over the next two years.
If Carolina just moves these three guys they should receive a haul of picks within the top two rounds and potentially blue-chip prospects on top of that. The oldest player on this list is Faulk at 26 and they’re all under team control for long-term fixes.
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Carolina also holds the second pick in the 2018 draft. There was rumblings that they were open to trading the second overall pick but they’d be better suited to hold on to it, acquire more picks and prospects by selling off the NHL caliber talent they do have and rebuilding this thing around Sebastian Aho and whoever they nab second overall.