Tweetmail: Should the Canes Make a Move at the Deadline?

Hello and welcome to Tweetmail presented by Segra. This is a regular feature on Hurricanes.com in which I answer your Twitter questions, which are mostly about the Carolina Hurricanes, but sometimes also about travel or television or life. It's a mailbag of tweets. It's Tweetmail. Maybe you learn a little something, and maybe we have some fun, too.
Let's get to it.

Should or will the Canes make any moves at the trade deadline? And oh, by the way, when is it? - @tubbeed
This year's trade deadline is slated for
3 p.m. ET on Monday, April 12
, which is just about three weeks away.
Should the Canes make any moves? If there is an opportunity to improve the roster at a reasonable price, then yes, the Canes should make a move.
Will the Canes make any moves? The answer is more indeterminate, but I'll say yes, the team will make a move before the trade deadline.
There's also a decent chance that the team doesn't make a move. There are a few factors at play, so let's talk through them.
Salary cap space is the obvious big one. The Canes did a commendable job in not only finding a better fit for their lineup but also saving a little over $1.7 million in cap space in their trade (and subsequent secondary move) for Cedric Paquette. Like many other teams in the league, they've also been active in yo-yoing players on and off the taxi squad on off days because very little bit of cap space the team can bank is valuable moving forward. At this point, the team has probably freed up enough space to take on some money at the deadline, but money going the other way wouldn't be a bad thing, either. Again, it's worth considering that high-dollar contract extensions are due to Andrei Svechnikov and Dougie Hamilton, not to mention the fact that the Canes don't yet have an NHL goaltender under contract for next season, all while operating on what's likely to be a flat cap ceiling.
The other big factor at play in the trade market would be asking prices. The Canes' collaborative front office is savvy when it comes to asset management. Surrendering future pieces for a rental player at the deadline is a risky proposition. Recall last year: Vincent Trocheck and Brady Skjei were acquired with term still built into their contracts, while Sami Vatanen ended up playing only seven playoff games with the Canes before departing as an unrestricted free agent (though the team did kick the tires on resigning him).
Speaking of rosters …
The roster turnover from last year's squad to this year's has been minimal. How much would you say that continuity has been important to the team's success this season compared to last year? - @jmart604
I think the continuity of the roster - this year more so than a typical season, especially - was crucial to the Canes' early success.
The offseason was truncated. Lockdown restrictions limited what players could and couldn't do in certain parts of the world. Training camp was abbreviated. There were no exhibition games. It was basically 0 to 60 in a Tesla Model S Plaid.
It was a huge benefit, then, that the coaching staff didn't have to do much teaching in camp. It was more a review of concepts from just a few months prior. There was also a built-in chemistry on and off the ice. In a season during which the players can't do much of anything away from the rink, already having that family mentality made up for the lack of team building.
Aside from signing Jesper Fast, the Canes had a relatively quiet offseason, and that was OK! They made their big deals at the trade deadline, and the resulting roster continuity certainly helped the team prevail over early-season obstacles like a COVID-19 shutdown and various injuries.
Is Seth Jarvis coming up next year? - @jason\_\_lee97
Seth Jarvis just turned 19 on Feb. 1, so assuming a "normal" 2021-22 season across the board from the NHL to the American Hockey League to the Canadian Hockey League, Jarvis would either have to play with the Canes or head back to Portland of the Western Hockey League. This is per the transfer agreement between the NHL and CHL (and its member leagues), which stipulates that drafted junior players must be 20 years old to compete in the AHL. Debates about the agreement have been thrust back into the spotlight this season especially after Jarvis and other touted teenage prospects put up sterling numbers in the AHL while waiting to join their respective junior leagues.
In nine games with the Chicago Wolves this season, Jarvis led the AHL in scoring with 11 points (7g, 4a).
RELATED: SETH JARVIS IMPRESSES IN AHL STINT
It's fair to wonder whether that could translate to Jarvis making a jump to the NHL next season, but the Canes don't want to tack a hard timeline to his development. Instead, the team wants to see continued improvement from an already skilled and mature prospect.
"The key takeaway here is that now he has a baseline of where his game needs to be. He has an understanding of where the next level is. He got a little bit of a taste, and now it's on him to continually jump over that bar," Assistant General Manager
Darren Yorke said
. "This puts him in a position to take what he's learned here, go to Portland, own that league, continue to be that offensive player with the understanding that he still needs to work on defensively, have a great summer and continue this skyward progression to take it into training camp next year."
How did you come to the Canes or hockey? Did you play in college? Did you start as a print editor before joining? - @gdizz79
I am a proud homegrown product. I fell in love with hockey when the Hurricanes moved to North Carolina in 1997. I grew up just outside of Greensboro, so I was lucky enough to see some games live at the Coliseum. I vividly remember being in the building for Game 5 of the quarterfinals in the 1999 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Sami Kapanen tied the game at three late in regulation, and the Bruins' Anson Carter (future Hurricane) scored the game-winning goal with about five minutes left in the second overtime. It was crushing, and the Canes bowed out of the series after losing Game 6 in Boston.

I majored in journalism at UNC and interned with the Canes in 2010-11. It's been nearly 10 years since I began working full-time for the team in a position that's grown and evolved but remains a perfect fusion of my education and my passion for hockey. (I haven't played ice hockey, but I've played roller and can't wait to get back on the sports court for ball/dek hockey once its safe to do so again.) It's truly enjoyable, and I hope that enthusiasm shines through in this and everything else that I do.
Join me next Friday for more questions and more answers!
If you have a question you'd like answered or you'd like to reminisce about the Greensboro days, you can find me on Twitter at
@MSmithCanes
, or you can
drop me an email
.