- After assigning him to the minors yesterday upon clearing waivers, the Hurricanes announced that they’ve once again recalled Riley Stillman from AHL Chicago. Despite being promoted on numerous occasions, the 26-year-old has only played in three NHL games this season along with 20 outings with the Wolves where he has five points. Stillman is likely to continue to serve as a depth defender but with recall limits now in effect, it’s unlikely he’ll be shuffled down daily as he was earlier this season. Accordingly, while yesterday’s demotion keeps him playoff-eligible in the minors, he’ll probably have to pass through waivers again later to get back down there as he’s likely to remain on Carolina’s roster for 30 days, the threshold in which he’ll become waiver-eligible again.
Hurricanes Rumors
Carolina Hurricanes Reassign Riley Stillman
- According to a team announcement, the Carolina Hurricanes have reassigned defenseman Riley Stillman to their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. Stillman filled in for Dmitry Orlov in last night’s contest but didn’t make it through the full game due to getting his face cut by a skate. He finished last night’s contest against the Boston Bruins with zero points after skating in 18 seconds of the game’s action.
[SOURCE LINK]
Predators Trade Mark Jankowski To Hurricanes
The Hurricanes and Predators got a minor deal done before the deadline. Forward Mark Jankowski is headed to Carolina in exchange for the Hurricanes’ 2026 fifth-round pick, the team announced.
Jankowski has spent the entirety of the season on the NHL lineup after splitting the last two seasons between the NHL and AHL. He’s totaled nine points, 15 penalty minutes, and an even plus-minus through 41 games while serving in a bottom-six role for the Predators. The performance is a slight downtick from the 15 points, eight PIMs, and plus-11 that Jankowski managed in 32 games last year. He also scored 47 points in 40 AHL games last year, good for third on the Milwaukee Admirals in scoring.
Jankowski has filled the role of depth forward throughout his 11-year professional career. He was originally drafted 21st overall in the 2012 NHL Draft by the Calgary Flames. He went on to play a productive four years at Providence College before turning pro at the end of the 2015-16 season and playing his rookie AHL season in 2016-17. Jankowski was instantly effective, netting 62 points in his first 72 games in the AHL. That scoring wasn’t enough to make the full-time jump to the NHL, but Jankowski made sure to earn the call-up wiht eight points in six AHL games of 2017-18. With that, Calgary awarded him his first full season at the top flight. Jankowski seemed to be taking early advantage, netting 17 goals and 25 points in 72 games as an NHL rookie. He improved on the performance with 14 goals and 32 points in 79 games in his second year, but quickly fell off a cliff after that.
Jankowski spent one more season with Calgary after his 32-point campaign – and only managed seven points in 56 games. He spent the next three seasons between stops in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Nashville – all while averaging just nine points each season at the NHL level. He curbed the slow performances with 27 points in 32 AHL games in 2021-22 – but nonetheless fell firm into the rut of menial NHL scoring and near point-per-game minor scoring.
Jankowski will bring modest depth and a six-foot-four, 212-pound frame to the bottom of Carolina’s lineup. He should be in for routine minutes – likely bumping Tyson Jost back out of the lineup and filling the hole left by Jack Drury’s departure. But Jankowski will need to stay on his toes to hang onto a lineup role. Carolina is currently tied for fourth-place in an Atlantic Division that got some major upgrades at the deadline. They’ll need all hands of deck as they start to fight for playoff seeding, and aim for an extended postesason.
Jankowski is signed through the end of the 2025-26 season with a cheap $800K cap hit.
Stars Acquire, Extend Mikko Rantanen On Max-Term Deal
4:00 p.m.: Official now, Rantanen is a Star. The deal is accurate as reported aside from the 2027 first-round pick being a 2028 selection instead. Both first-rounders are top 10 protected.
12:55 p.m.: The Stars placed defenseman Miro Heiskanen on long-term injured reserve today, per PuckPedia. The move opens up some additional cap flexibility with the Rantanen pickup and still leaves them with roughly $10MM in flexibility to add another asset before the deadline, assuming the move indicates Heiskanen is done for the regular season following knee surgery early last month. Additionally, Seravalli reports Rantanen receives a full no-movement clause in his contract.
11:31 a.m.: The Stars will get an extension done for winger Mikko Rantanen and acquire him in a blockbuster deal with the Hurricanes. Per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, it’ll be an eight-year contract worth $96MM, worth a cap hit of $12MM. Jeff Marek of Daily Faceoff reports Dallas is sending rookie forward Logan Stankoven and a pair of first-rounders to Carolina in return. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff confirms the picks are the Stars’ own 2026 and 2027 selections, leaving Dallas without a first-round pick until 2028. The Hurricanes are also receiving a pair of third-round picks in the deal, per Emily Kaplan of ESPN. Those picks are also Dallas’ 2026 and 2027 selections, per Seravalli.
Dallas thus holds firm at their initial offer to the superstar winger, who will now be traded twice in under two months. Darren Dreger of TSN reported earlier today the $96MM offer was “well short” of what Rantanen would accept to get a deal to the Stars across the finish line. However, he’ll take the under-market value deal to join the league’s deepest offense in Dallas.
Rantanen notably accepts a lesser extension than what Carolina offered him: an eight-year contract worth at least $100MM in total with a $12.5MM AAV. He’ll likely earn more in take-home pay in a lower-tax state in Texas, but it’s still clear Dallas was a preferable long-term destination for the Finnish star.
The 28-year-old finds his long-term home in the same division as his longtime home in Colorado, where he was coming off back-to-back 100-point seasons before failed extension discussions with the Avs precipitated his move to Carolina in January. Colorado’s best offer on an eight-year deal reportedly fell in the $11MM range, so he’s getting more before-tax dollars by meandering his way toward his former Central Division rival.
Rantanen’s reputation needs no introduction, especially since the scale of a player of his caliber moving mid-season was covered extensively when he was traded to the Canes. The 2015 10th overall pick and 2022 Stanley Cup champion with the Avs has produced well over a point per game over his 10-year career, including a raucous 371 points in 299 games since the beginning of the 2021-22 campaign. On a per-game basis, only Nikita Kucherov, David Pastrňák, and Mitch Marner have scored more over the past decade among right wings.
Despite keeping up his production in Colorado whenever he was briefly separated from franchise center Nathan MacKinnon, he simply didn’t click alongside Sebastian Aho during his short stint in Raleigh. Rantanen managed just 2-4–6 in 13 games for the Canes, shooting at 5% and averaging under 20 minutes per game for the first time since the 2020-21 campaign. His possession impacts were expectedly sterling, posting a 64.1 CF% at even strength, but it just didn’t translate to the point totals he’s used to producing.
Rantanen should immediately slot in as Dallas’ first-line right winger alongside Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson, filling the hole vacated by Joe Pavelski when he retired last offseason. They’ve rotated multiple players in that role throughout the season, including Stankoven, while also elevating Evgenii Dadonov and Wyatt Johnston from their usual third-line homes at times to ride shotgun. That instability will end with the Robertson-Hintz duo receiving their most talented complement yet out of an already fairly strong group over the course of their careers.
Carolina has now remained unable to upgrade their top-six throughout the year, taking a winding road from Martin Nečas to Rantanen to now, presumptively, the 22-year-old Stankoven getting an extended run in first or second-line minutes barring a subsequent trade. They will open up roughly $3.8MM in cap space in the trade, assuming no other roster players are involved.
Stankoven is a significant loss for the Stars in this deal off their active roster. After performing well in a late-season call-up last year, he’s posted 9-20–29 in 59 showings for Dallas in 2024-25 while averaging north of 15 minutes per game. Selected 47th overall in 2021, he’s already outperforming his draft billing. He’s a significant injection to a Hurricanes pool of U-23 players that already ranks among the strongest in the league. Dallas, though, determined him expendable to land a top-line talent with names like Johnston and Mavrik Bourque still in the system as current and likely future top-six threats.
It would make sense for the Canes to flip one of the first-rounders they’ve acquired for a big-fish forward in the next few hours. They already had their entire arsenal of firsts over the next few years, a significant excess for a team in a playoff contention window.
When Rantanen’s extension is registered, the Stars will be down to $13.8MM in cap space for next season with eight open roster spots. That’s not nearly enough cash to re-sign all of their pending free agents, a list that includes Johnston on the restricted front and top-nine forwards Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene, Mikael Granlund, and Dadonov as unrestricted assets. It’s likely only one of that group will be returning next season unless they trade away a salary currently on the books for 2025-26.
Nonetheless, Rantanen’s $12MM AAV currently makes him the fifth-highest-paid player in the league next season behind Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, and his former teammate in MacKinnon. He will remain in a Stars uniform through the 2032-33 season and will be 36 years old when his contract expires.
Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Hurricanes Place Riley Stillman On Waivers
D Riley Stillman (Hurricanes) – Today’s waiver placement marks the second time Stillman has been exposed on the wire this season. He didn’t start his 2024-25 campaign until mid-November thanks to a lower-body injury, and he was waived then upon his activation from Carolina’s injured non-roster list. Despite being limited to two games with the Hurricanes this season and frequent taxiing with their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves, Stillman has reached the collective 30 days spent on Carolina’s roster requiring waivers for any future reassignment.
Stars “Well Short” On Extension Offer For Mikko Rantanen
Late last night, the biggest domino yet to fall at the deadline saw movement. Multiple reports indicate the Hurricanes and Stars have agreed on the framework of a deal to send star winger Mikko Rantanen to Dallas just weeks after Carolina paid a premium to acquire him from the Avalanche, but it’s contingent on Rantanen and the Stars being in agreement on an extension to keep the pending UFA around past this season.
Progress on that front is minimal, significantly limiting the likelihood of the trade getting across the finish line. Darren Dreger of TSN reports the Stars have offered Rantanen a long-term deal worth upward of $12MM per season, but that’s “well short” of the player’s ask.
The Hurricanes’ efforts to extend Rantanen were similarly unproductive, sparking intense trade discussion this week to avoid losing him for nothing this summer. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet said last month they’d submitted an eight-year offer to Rantanen with a total value of at least $100MM, translating to an AAV of at least $12.5MM, but that he was unwilling to commit to the Carolina market.
Financials may not have been the principal issue with the Canes’ offer, but it does appear to be the issue with Dallas. Trade talks likely wouldn’t have advanced this far if Rantanen was generally disinterested in an extension with the Stars, so there’s presumably a price point at which Dallas can get this done without vastly overpaying on his market value. Whether the Stars, who need to conserve space for an extension for pending RFA Wyatt Johnston and potentially retaining captain Jamie Benn past this year, are willing to go much higher than their initial offer remains to be seen. Leading scorer Matt Duchene is also a pending UFA.
Dallas currently has $25.8MM in projected cap space for 2025-26 with nine open roster spots, per PuckPedia. An extension for Rantanen in the $13MM range annually, which is looking more like his demand, would leave the Stars with around $12.5MM in space for eight players, with Johnston likely to take at least 65-70% of that on his own. It’s not a feasible pickup for the Stars unless they’re willing to make some tough decisions about letting core pieces reach the open market or trading players with term off their roster.
Even if a Rantanen deal falls through, it’s hard to imagine Dallas is done for the day. They’ve still got holes at right defense that need filling, currently rolling out a trio of Cody Ceci, Mathew Dumba, and Ilya Lyubushkin while Miro Heiskanen is sidelined. For now, they’ve got a good deal of cap flexibility to accomplish it with Tyler Seguin and Nils Lundkvist on LTIR, both of whom are either likely or confirmed to be done for the regular season.
Stars Working On Acquiring Mikko Rantanen, Extension Talks Underway
6:55 a.m.: As of yet, a deal is not done, cautions TSN’s Darren Dreger. Unless the two sides can agree on an extension, Carolina may have to consider other options. Discussions about an extension are expected to resume this morning, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli adds.
6:17 a.m.: The Hurricanes and Stars have agreed on a deal to send Rantanen to Dallas in principle, Friedman reports, but it’s contingent on an extension being agreed to or extremely close. As of early Friday morning, that hasn’t happened yet.
12:18 a.m.: The eve of the Trade Deadline has turned into a thriller. Per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, The Dallas Stars are working to land superstar winger Mikko Rantanen from the Carolina Hurricanes. News of this move comes just over an hour after division rival Colorado Avalanche acquired Brock Nelson from the New York Islanders.
This was certainly the move many were waiting for at this year’s deadline. Rantanen will leave the Carolina organization after just 13 games with the club. The Hurricanes traded top winger Martin Necas, young NHL center Jack Drury, a 2025 second-round pick, and 2026 fourth-round pick to the Avalanche in exchange for Rantanen in late January. The move came suddenly, and speculation that Rantanen wouldn’t sign the extension Carolina hoped for quickly formed. With a quick-forming impasse, Carolina has opted to flip Rantanen before their chance ran out.
Trade details haven’t yet been revealed, but the return will need to be expansive for a player of Rantanen’s caliber. He scored 25 goals and 64 points in 49 games with Colorado before his first trade. That’s an incredible 82-game pace of 41 goals and 107 points, which would have been well in line with Rantanen’s performances over the last two seasons. He was a star after just two seasons in the NHL, posting 84 points in his sophomore season. But Rantanen became a superstar in 2021-22, when he recorded 92 points in a full regular season then added 25 points in 20 games on Colorado’s Stanley Cup run. He followed it with a career-high 55 goals and 105 points in 2022-23. Even better, he showed he could do it again with 104 points last year.
Rantanen is a star – and became the preferred battery mate for Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon. Now, Rantanen will face the incredibly difficult task of playing across from MacKinnon as Dallas and Colorado battle for playoff standing. Both teams seem well on their way to a postseason berth, and stand as constant threats to make a late run once they make it to the playoffs.
Dallas will certainly part with key stars in the acquisition of a multi-time 100-point scorer. But Rantanen will inevitably join a loaded offense in Texas. The Stars rank fourth in the NHL in goals-per-game (3.40) – two spots ahead of the Colorado Avalanche (3.30). Their offense is led by top shooter Jason Robertson with 27 goals and 64 points in 62 games. Robertson is backed by Matt Duchene (63 points), Wyatt Johnston (59), and Roope Hintz (52). The Stars have dazzling young stars like Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque – the former a proven hot commodity and the later one of the youngest AHL MVPs of the 2000s. Neither has managed top scoring this season, which could help Dallas move on from a high-value item without hindering their top-echelon offense.
The cap implications of this move are sure to be interesting. Rantanen carries a reduced $4.625MM cap hit through the end of the season, after Colorado retained 50 percent on the original trade. That’s just narrowly more than Dallas can afford with their $4.60MM projected cap space. That could necessitate additional cap exchange in this swap. It will undoubtedly be an exciting trade – one that Friedman shares could unfold through the depths of the night.
Injury Notes: Orlov, Stillman, Mazur, Quinn
The Carolina Hurricanes announced in the minutes leading up to Thursday night’s game that top-four defenseman Dmitry Orlov would sit out with a day-to-day injury. His last-minute absence forced defenseman Riley Stillman, Carolina’s only extra skater, into the lineup. Stillman was placed on waivers earlier in the day with the intention of being assigned to the minor leagues.
Stillman suffered an injury of his own partway through the game after taking the skate of Boston Bruins forward John Beecher to the face. Stillman headed immediately down the tunnel. He was ruled out for the rest of Thursday night’s game per Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News and Observer, but no further updates were provided.
Orlov’s absence leaves a sizeable hole on the Hurricanes’ blue-line. He ranks second among the team’s defenders with 24 points in 62 games. Orlov also averages the third-most ice time on the team, with 19:42 putting him just a couple of minutes behind the top pair of Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns. Orlov is also Carolina’s second-most-used defenseman on the penalty-kill behind Burns. The Hurricanes will be forced to fill all of his roles in the short term and will need to make a roster move to do so, with Stillman likely out. Top prospect Scott Morrow – the points leader among Chicago Wolves defenseman (39 points) – will be the most likely candidate for a call-up.
More injury notes around the league:
- Detroit Red Wings rookie Carter Mazur went down the tunnel just one minute into his NHL debut, after awkwardly bumping into Utah Hockey Club forward Jack McBain. His injury was listed as upper-body in a formal statement from the team. No indication of Mazur’s timeline has been provided. The news brings an unfortunate end to what was a dream night for the Michigan-native. Mazur has scored 15 points in 20 AHL games this year and looked set to land fourth-line minutes after the departure of Andrew Copp to injury and Christian Fischer to waivers. But Detroit may need to go searching for a new fill-in, which could define their Trade Deadline approach with less than a day left.
- Top Buffalo Sabres winger Jack Quinn left the team’s Thursday night game midway through the first period due to illness. No further details were disclosed. Quinn skated for four shifts and 2:25 in ice time before exiting. He leaves a notable hole behind him after recording three points in his last five games. That scoring streak has brought Quinn to 10 goals and 24 points in 53 games this season. Buffalo isn’t currently carrying any extra forwards, with Jason Zucker out with a “frustrating” injury per Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic. That could prompt Buffalo to make a roster move, or shop for a depth forward on the open market – should Quinn need to miss additional time with his illness.
Maple Leafs, Stars, Kings, Golden Knights, Panthers Calling On Mikko Rantanen
9:44 a.m.: Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic adds the Golden Knights and Panthers as teams who have made legitimate pitches for Rantanen in the last 24 hours, also moving the player to the top of his pre-deadline board. Vegas would need retention on Carolina’s part to get a deal done with $2.4MM in deadline cap space, with the Hurricanes likely targeting someone like 24-goal man Pavel Dorofeyev as part of the return. Florida wouldn’t need retention after placing Matthew Tkachuk on LTIR for what’s expected to be the remainder of the regular season, and might need to surrender top forward prospect Mackie Samoskevich to get it done. He’s recently been elevated to a top-six role in Tkachuk’s absence.
8:10 a.m.: The Maple Leafs, Stars, and Kings are three teams expressing high levels of interest in star right-winger Mikko Rantanen, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman writes. After reports first surfaced last month that the Hurricanes could flip Rantanen after acquiring him from the Avalanche in a January blockbuster if extension talks weren’t productive, Carolina has “opened the door” on trade talks late this week, Friedman said. There’s a long list of teams to display interest so far – including the Devils, James Nichols of New Jersey Hockey Now said Tuesday.
It remains to be seen how willing the Hurricanes are to move Rantanen, who will likely need to agree in principle to an extension with his new club for them to land the return they desire. Carolina isn’t a seller in any capacity – they’re nine points ahead of the playoff line and have a 99.6% chance at a playoff berth, per MoneyPuck – so they’re presumably not interested in futures as the primary value in a return.
The 6’4″ Finn hasn’t been what the Hurricanes expected when they surrendered Martin Nečas, Jack Drury, and three draft picks to acquire him and Taylor Hall in a three-team deal with the Blackhawks six weeks ago. Despite spending most of his time in the lineup stapled to star countryman Sebastian Aho’s wing as expected, he’s scored just 2-4–6 through 12 games in Carolina with a minus-two rating.
Rantanen’s brief but underwhelming showing outside of Colorado, where he’d torched the league for 1.28 points per game since 2020, will weigh on teams’ minds as they debate how many resources they’ll commit to acquiring and extending him. With an eight-year deal, he’s virtually guaranteed to become one of the four highest-paid players in the league, surpassing Oilers star Connor McDavid’s $12.5MM AAV and likely even former teammate Nathan MacKinnon’s $12.6MM cap hit. AFP Analytics even projects an eight-year extension for Rantanen to cost $13.65MM per season, approaching $110MM in total value and making him the second-highest paid player in the league next season behind Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl, who’ll be kicking off a mega-extension with a $14MM cap hit.
While there will surely be NHL players coming off the acquiring teams’ roster in a Rantanen return, the Maple Leafs are the only one of the above group who would need to make a money-in, money-out deal. Carolina, who has Rantanen on their books for $4.625MM against the cap after Chicago retained half his salary in January’s trade, can make him a $2.3MM player by retaining an additional 50%. That wouldn’t require additional shuffling on the Stars’ or Kings’ end.
Carolina will need an immediate replacement at wing in the deal. While it’s likely to be a downgrade in terms of overall reputation, they’ll still be asking for a bona fide top-six piece with other assets in the deal to make up the difference in trade value. For Toronto, that could mean parting ways with pending RFA Matthew Knies, shifting William Nylander to the left wing to replace him and casting Rantanen and Mitch Marner as their top two right wingers. Another bottom-six depth piece, potentially Calle Järnkrok, could also be out the door to help the Hurricanes replace the void left by William Carrier when he underwent lower-body surgery in late January.
The Kings have made their desire for a right-handed scorer public over the last few weeks and will pivot to second-line type names like the Islanders’ Kyle Palmieri if their efforts to land Rantanen are futile. Carolina likely demands someone like Trevor Moore in return, who erupted for 31 goals last year but has just 12 in 51 games this year. Breakout 23-year-old Alex Laferriere, who’s posted 15-16–31 in 56 games, is also an option as a centerpiece, but would require more additional assets from L.A. than Toronto would need to provide on top of the more highly-touted Knies.
Dallas, who’s already added Mikael Granlund to their forward group, has more appealing NHL-ready young talent to offer than their Western Conference rival. Either 2024 AHL MVP turned NHL full-timer Mavrik Bourque or 22-year-old Logan Stankoven could immediately slot into the Canes’ top-nine (or top-six, in Stankoven’s case), and are more in Knies’ territory in terms of long-term offensive ceiling than Laferriere and Moore.
Ducks Likely To Retain John Gibson Amid Weak Trade Market
The Hurricanes and Oilers remain engaged in trade talks with the Ducks regarding netminder John Gibson, but Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports that neither team has put forth a particularly appealing offer. With no other buyers looking for goaltending help, it’s looking likely that another season of trade rumors regarding the Anaheim goalie won’t result in any movement, LeBrun writes.
While Carolina’s dwindling interest in Gibson makes sense given veteran Frederik Andersen’s return to form following knee surgery, Edmonton’s lukewarm interest is puzzling – especially considering LeBrun’s comment that the Oilers “don’t appear to see Gibson as a true upgrade.” While that may have been the case in years past, it’s an objectively incorrect take given Gibson’s 2024-25 performance versus what the Oilers have to offer.
For the first time since before the pandemic, Gibson should be in line for some fringe Vezina trophy consideration. Behind a Ducks defense that allows 32.2 shots against per game, the most in the league, he’s posted a .909 SV% and 2.82 GAA with a 9-10-2 record in 26 appearances. While the 31-year-old has still been outplayed and lost the starter’s crease to up-and-comer Lukáš Dostál, he’s done well enough in his own right to re-solidify himself as a top-15 netminder in the league, at least this season. On top of posting his best raw numbers since the 2018-19 campaign, Gibson’s saved 14.1 goals above expected to tie him for 10th in the league with Mackenzie Blackwood and Adin Hill, per MoneyPuck.
That’s a significant upgrade over what Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard have put up behind an Oilers squad that still ranks among the 10 best shot-suppressing teams in the league despite their recent struggles. After getting Edmonton to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final last year, Skinner has just a .897 SV% and 2.87 GAA with a 20-15-4 record in 40 showings – down considerably from his .909 SV% over the prior two years. The veteran Pickard hasn’t fared any better as a No. 2 option, logging a .896 SV% and 2.76 GAA in 24 appearances, albeit with a 15-7-0 record that translates to a better points percentage than Skinner. The pair have combined to allow 10.4 goals above expected this year, including 3.8 from Skinner and 6.6 from Pickard.
That said, this is Gibson’s best showing in quite some time. As a rental, maybe Edmonton pays up – but in addition to not valuing him as a legitimate playing upgrade over Skinner, they’re not willing to take the risk attached to the remainder of his contract, a $6.4MM cap hit through 2026-27. That’s impossible for the Oilers to accommodate anyway without significant retention, as they enter the deadline with $4.475MM in space, per PuckPedia.