The Carolina Hurricanes will have plenty of salary cap room to take some big swings again this offseason
TSN: Pierre LeBrun said the Carolina Hurricanes are going to have a lot of salary cap space and Mitch Marner could be one of the players they target if Marner goes to free agency.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Gino Reda: “At the NHL trade deadline, the Carolina Hurricanes, led by General Manager Eric Tulsky, tried to get their hands on Mitch Marner. They didn’t to this point, but Pierre, you spoke to Tulsky, may that battle not be over just yet?”
LeBrun: “Well, and let’s be clear, when we did this interview on Sunday for a piece I wrote in the Athletic on Monday, we did not mention the name Mitch Marner, because that would be tampering.
But what we did discuss is the fact that the Carolina Hurricanes have a lot of salary cap room this offseason. In fact, Tulsky said even if he tried to sign all of his players on expired deals, he would still be $20 million under the salary cap this summer.
So watch out as really the message here because Carolina, as we know, is always an active team trying to take big swings, and they will do that again this summer with all that cap room.
But yeah, I’ll say it. I mean, if Mitch Marner does go to market July 1st, I would expect the Hurricanes to be one of the teams at least finding out if they can be on his list, because they tried to trade for him, as we know that’s been reported.
So it’s fascinating from that point of view. But also in terms of Carolina saying, ‘Hey, we’re contenders right now, but we tend to be very aggressive this summer.'”
Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky doesn’t have any regrets
TSN: Pierre LeBrun spoke with Carolina Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky and he doesn’t have any regrets with how things turned out with Mikko Rantanen.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Gino Reda: “Getting back to your conversation with Eric Tulsky, I saw the two of you talking in the hall yesterday. Does he have any regrets about the way things all played out? Because he’s certainly getting publicly panned for the way this all happened.
LeBrun: “Yeah, and he gets that part. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, the hurricanes traded for Mikko Rantanen and one of the top rentals in the last decade available, and then flipped them six weeks later. He understands the optics of that.
I asked him specifically about lessons learned and all that, you know, would he not go after a player like that again, if he knows he can’t sign him? And he said, ‘No.’ He said, those are the type of players that become available in season anyway. For the most part, they will continue to be aggressive and take swings if they’re Carolina.
But he did add this that it’s the first player that he can think of in his time in Carolina that has come to Carolina and and not loved it right away. A lot of players love it when they get there, and they thought that’s what would happen with him,. And that’s why they took the gamble and they hope they could extend him in those six weeks that they had him. Didn’t happen they moved on.
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