The Hurricanes are loading up.
Carolina acquired star right winger Mikko Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche, the teams announced on Friday night.
The deal is part of a three-team trade involving the Chicago Blackhawks. The Hurricanes will also acquire left winger Taylor Hall, the Avalanche will receive centres Martin Necas and Jack Drury, and the Blackhawks will get a third-round pick and retain 50 per cent of Rantanen's $9.25M cap hit.
Colorado is also receiving Carolina's 2025 second-round pick and 2026 fourth-round pick in the trade.
According to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, there is no extension for Rantanen as part of the deal at this time.
"I believe that Carolina wants to see if they can sign Rantanen," Friedman said during a radio appearance on Sportsnet Tonight on Friday night. "I don't think this is only just about trading for him as a rental, I think this is about seeing can we sign him."
On his second trade board of this NHL season, Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reported on the possibility of a trade exactly like this one after it was believed Rantanen turned down an eight-year, $90 million extension from the Avalanche.
“It never got close between Rantanen and Colorado,” Kypreos said Friday night. “They did not want to spend money close to Nathan MacKinnon ($12.6 million AAV). Colorado now feels even after next season when they have to re-sign Necas, that he won’t come close to what they had to spend on Rantanen. They feel like they can eventually re-sign Necas for much less than Rantanen, if he can deliver like a true front-line player.”
Last season, the Hurricanes made a trade deadline move for rental scoring winger Jake Guentzel, who then left in the summer and signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning as a UFA. Kypreos says that at this time, Hurricanes ownership will do whatever it can to get Rantanen signed.
“The Guentzel situation last year really bothered Tom Dundon,” Kypreos said. “He doesn’t want Rantanen to be another Guentzel situation. He’s going to push hard to make Rantanen stay. No deal is done. No talk of an extension yet. But the focus in Carolina now is on turning Rantanen into a long-term acquisition.”
Rantanen had been with the Avalanche for his entire 10-year career, winning a Stanley Cup with the squad in 2022. He was drafted 10th overall by Colorado in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.
The one-time All-Star has yet to miss a game this season, putting up 25 goals and 39 assists through his 49 appearances. He leads Colorado in scoring — including a team-best five game-winning goals — while ranking second in assists, second in points and fourth in total ice time.
In a press release, Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky said Rantanen "is one of the premiere power forwards in our sport."
"It’s no secret that we’ve wanted to add elite skill to our lineup, and this is a player who should fit our system and locker room well. And Taylor gives us another high-skill option to bolster our attack," Tulsky said.
Rantanen's 64 points currently rank sixth in the NHL, while his goal total sits seventh. If he maintains this pace with the Hurricanes, he would be Carolina's first player to finish in the top 10 in scoring over an 82-game season since Eric Staal in 2005-06.
Rantanen has the fourth-most points (431) in the league through the last five seasons, only behind now-former teammate Nathan MacKinnon (479), Leon Draisaitl (502) and Connor McDavid (578).
Carolina also adds a former Hart Trophy winner as NHL MVP in the 33-year-old Hall, who missed most of last season due to right knee surgery. Hall was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft who had 39 goals and 54 assists for New Jersey en route to winning the Hart for the 2017-18 season.
Hall, who is making $6 million this year with free agency looming, has nine goals and 15 assists in 46 games.
Blackhawks coach Anders Sorensen looked on the positive side of the move for Hall.
“For him, he gets an opportunity somewhere else,” Sorensen said. “It’s part of the business, right? So he’s got to deal with it. He’s a good pro. Been around the league for a long time. Has some good insight in terms of ideas, especially offensively.”
Hall's teammate and Chicago's captain, Nick Foligno, said the team carries some responsibility for the Blackhawks moving the Hart winner.
"We have no one else to blame but ourselves really in putting ourselves in the situation where they have to start thinking about the future and selling off. It’s not a fun feeling for anybody in here,” he said.
Carolina is currently 30-16-3 and sits second in the Metropolitan division with 63 points.
The Hurricanes have made the playoffs for six straight years, with two of those pushes reaching the Eastern Conference Final. But they're still looking for a breakthrough to the Stanley Cup Final in this current run under coach Rod Brind'Amour, the captain on Carolina's 2006 Cup winner.
Necas, 26, led the Hurricanes with 55 points (16 goals, 39 assists) and places fifth league-wide with 22 power-play points.
The native of Czechia was a first-round pick of the Hurricanes in 2017 and has spent his whole 411-game career with the club, tallying 298 points (113 goals, 185 assists).
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old Drury has nine points (three goals, six assists) in 39 contests on the season.
The New York native and nephew of longtime NHLer and New York Rangers GM Chris Drury was picked in the second round of the 2018 draft by Carolina, where he has spent his entire 153-game NHL career to date.
Carolina also acquired the rights to forward propsect Nils Juntorp in the deal, which comes as the NHL approaches its 4 Nations tournament break. There's also just more than a month before the league's trade deadline on March 7.
Teams are attempting to get a jump on the trade market with tightly contested races in both conferences. Trade talk had heightened, too, with speculation surrounding Vancouver shopping forward J.T. Miller.
Per Friedman, the Hurricanes had discussed separate trades with Vancouver for Miller and Elias Pettersson, with Necas being involved in a potential Pettersson deal, but not a Miller one.
— with files from The Associated Press
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