Hurricanes defenseman Brett Pesce is one to keep an eye on this summer. With his recent change and contracts to comparable players given out recently, Cory Lavalette speculates in his latest piece for The Athletic (subscription link) that Pesce could be pushing for a max-term contract around a $6.5MM AAV. Carolina has ample cap room for 2024-25 but also needs to re-sign blueliner Brady Skjei, centers Sebastian Aho and Martin Necas (RFA), and winger Teuvo Teravainen. Doing all of that will be difficult and it wouldn’t be shocking if at least one has to go. Accordingly, if the Hurricanes could work an extension out with Skjei quickly and find Pesce’s price point too high for their liking, he could become a trade candidate in the coming weeks. In a free agent market that doesn’t exactly have a lot of impact right-shot defenders out there, many teams will be watching this situation closely.