After four years of being at or near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, the Carolina Hurricanes are working hard to ensure that they team begins to make a turnaround. Their offseason spoke to that as they went out and acquired goaltender Scott Darling, signed former Hurricane Justin Williams to a two-year deal and traded for center Marcus Kruger and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk.
What the team is lacking however, is a top center that could help anchor their first or second line. The Hockey News’ Lyle Richardson writes the team should consider moving some of their young defensive depth to accommodate this need. While general manager Ron Francis has done an excellent job stockpiling talent, the team suddenly has quite a bit of it on defense and might be able to pull off a deal for a quality center, perhaps even being a good trading partner for the Colorado Avalanche’s Matt Duchene.
The team already has three defensemen locked up long term. Justin Faulk had an excellent season last year and still has three years left on his deal at $4.83MM per season. The 25-year-old blueliner is coming off a 17-goal season. The team also inked two of their young defenders within the last month to long-term deals in Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce. Slavin finished the year with five goals and 29 assists, while Pesce tallied two goals and 18 assists, both in their second year in the league. Former fifth-overall pick in 2015 Noah Hanifin is also looking good and was picked as a third-year breakout candidate by PHR’s Gavin Lee. In his second year in the league as well, Hanifin had four goals and 25 assists. Throw in 26-year olds Klas Dahlbeck and van Riemsdyk as well as 2016 first-round pick Jake Bean and the team’s defense is deep.
One holdup may be that Francis may want to see how each of these young defenders develop before trading them off. Any of them could have a breakout season in the next year or two. So while a deal may not be imminent, the Hurricanes do have the assets to pull off a major deal.
Wrong Justin Faulk in the picture
Ron is not trading any of his defense.