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.
More from the Metropolitan:
- Speaking to reporters yesterday including Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Penguins president Kyle Dubas indicated that he might be open to taking on a contract from a team needing to open up cap space this summer. Pittsburgh has around $20MM in cap room this summer per CapFriendly and while some of that will need to go toward re-signing or replacing goaltender Tristan Jarry, defenseman Brian Dumoulin, and winger Jason Zucker, they could have enough flexibility left to take on a pricey but capable player, giving them a boost as they look to get back to the playoffs.
- There has been some speculation that Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov might welcome a change of scenery. However, Russian player agent Alexei Dementiev told RB Sport in Russia that Kuznetsov’s discontent has been around a lack of offensive freedom. It’s worth noting that Dementiev is not Kuznetsov’s agent (that would be Newport’s Craig Oster) but he suggested that if new coach Spencer Carbery is willing to give the 31-year-old some more room to try to create offensively, the relationship between him and the team could be repaired. Kuznetsov is coming off a 55-point season but is only a year removed from a 78-point campaign. Getting him back in form would certainly go a long way toward trying to get Washington back into the postseason picture.