Maybe Carolina’s roster isn’t as set as we thought
The action may have slowed down to a trickle, but the offseason for the Hurricanes continues to roll on.
As the number of Restricted Free Agents across the league dwindle, eyes have turned to Raleigh to see how the Canes are going to solve the jigsaw puzzle of signing Martin Necas, Seth Jarvis, and Jack Drury to their RFA deals before the puck drops on 2024-25. According to Puckpedia (RIP CapFriendly) the Canes have about $12 million or so in space available for these signings, which could be eaten up on the Necas and Jarvis deals alone. Of course, this accounts for some ELCs that can easily go down to Chicago, as well as there’s some speculation that Jesper Fast will at least begin the season on LTIR.
But is there another way the Canes will get about $3 million in cap space?
We go over that plus more front office moves, and signings around the NHL that are relevant to the Canes in this week’s round up.
- The big story that broke Monday was that Evgeny Kuznetsov was apparently going to get his NHL contract terminated and head back to Russia and play with SKA of the KHL. A good summary of how it transpired is here from The Hockey News’ Capitals Beat:
- However, Kuznetsov’s agent refuted this was going to happen a little later in the day, telling folks to pump the brakes
- Adding to the intrigue around this was Adam Gold’s tweet even after this news that it was indeed something that was being discussed
I’ve seen this. Confident it will happen. Or that he’ll be somewhere else. Sad, to me, as I love the potential of the player. Rather keep him. https://t.co/vChsU2gn9V
— Adam Gold (@AGoldFan) July 15, 2024
- So what’s going on? In short, if SKA of the KHL can make it worth Kuzy’s while to walk away from the $7.8 million he’s earning this year, it sounds like the Canes would be amenable to a mutual termination. The Canes and the Capitals would be off the hook for $3.9 million this season, and both would love the space to finalize other moves as well as, for the Canes, sign their RFA’s. That said, the Canes were planning to go into the season with Kuzy so don’t send him back to Mother Russia yet.
- On the ice, the Canes finished up Development Camp last week. There are a few posts to help catch you up on what happened. First we have Walt Ruff’s take on the Camp.
https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/2024-prospects-development-camp-thoughts
- Canes Prospects also gave us a great breakdown of their observations from Day Three, 32 Thoughts Style.
https://canesprospects.substack.com/p/notes-from-day-3-of-prospect-development
- The man behind the twitter actually jumped on board with Adam Gold to discuss camp and the draft for a great “Canes Corner” podcast last week.
- To fully appreciate just how much Don Waddell did when he was President and GM of the Hurricanes, Tom Dundon has hired yet another person into the management structure of the Canes. Brian Fork was named as CEO of Hurricanes Holdings last Thursday, July 11th. How exactly the jobs between Fork and newly hired President Doug Wharf will be different is unclear, but a look at the background in the link by The Hockey News’ Ryan Henkel below gives you at least some idea. Wharf is familiar with the team runnings and its place in the community, while Fork is just coming out of working for the North Carolina Government under Senate President Phil Berger. With the major expansion of PNC Arena and the area around it about to begin, clearly the thought was that you needed both local and state government experience.
- If you’re wondering what the Canes and Seth Jarvis are going to use for comparison when they try to hammer out their deal, look no further than Quintin Byfield who signed his RFA deal on Tuesday to the tune of five years at $6.25 million per year. Byfield had 55 points for the Kings as a 21 year old last season and was the second overall pick in the 2020 NHL draft. Jarvis had 12 more points despite being picked ten spots later, so the question is now that there’s a comparable contract of someone out there, is that what Jarvis’ camp will demand or will the Canes just do a bridge deal to get some more cap hits (Brent Burns and the aforementioned Kuznetsov) off the books to be able to get him more?
- If you thought concession prices at PNC were too high, there’s proof that the Canes still kept their prices down compared to other markets. CBS 17 has a story noting the Canes had the #1 food venue in the NHL, and the comparable prices for some basic items are amazing.
That’s it for this week. Is Kuznetsov staying or going? That $3.9 million in cap room would be really nice, but so would retaining the value of something that has the potential like Kuznetsov after a full offseason of working out. We’ll see if anything comes of Monday’s rumors.