Hurricanes could be active in trade market after run to East Final

RALEIGH, N.C. --The Carolina Hurricanes expect to have a busy offseason, even though they're coming off of a trip to the Eastern Conference Final.

The Hurricanes were swept by the Florida Panthers in the best-of-7 series after finishing the regular season with 113 points, second-most in the NHL behind the Boston Bruins (135).

"We don't have a lot of holes, but we have some areas we would like to address, if possible," Carolina general manager Don Waddell said Wednesday. "You look at goal scoring, it's always a premium, as it was in the last series. If we can add the right pieces that could fit in this lineup, we certainly are going to do that."

Carolina was outscored 10-6 in the series, including a 3-2 Game 1 loss in four overtimes. The Hurricanes didn't score a 5-on-5 goal from a forward until Game 4. The Hurricanes reached the conference final despite the loss of forwards Andrei Svechnikov (torn ACL) and Max Pacioretty (torn Achilles) during the regular season. Forward Teuvo Teravainen suffered a broken hand in Game 2 of the first round against the New York Islanders before returning for the start of the conference final.

The Hurricanes are projected to have $24.1 million in NHL salary cap space heading into the summer.

"I still think the trade route is something we're going to explore very heavily, before free agency (on July 1)," Waddell said. "[Some teams] are in situations where they have to move some pretty good players. We want to make sure we're in a position in talking to those teams that, if something does come up that we feel fits our team, that we would be in a position to move on (a trade)."

The future is unclear for Pacioretty, who played just five games with the Hurricanes after he was acquired in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights on July 13. The 34-year-old tore his right Achilles in a preseason workout, then tore the same tendon again in a 5-2 win against the Minnesota Wild on Jan. 19

"I don't even know when he will be able to play," Waddell said. "He's still going through a lot of his therapy and treatment. We have to make sure we don't get caught counting on something that's potentially not there. We will see how the summer plays out with him."

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour would like to see the team improve on the power play. Carolina was 19.8 percent on the man-advantage in the regular season, tied for 19th with the Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken. The Hurricanes ranked 12th of the 16 teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs (17.7 percent).

"During the year, that was something we worked on. We tried to get it to be a little more dynamic," Brind'Amour said. "I don't really see a lot of other areas that I can sit there and say, 'We've got to be way better at.' We were pretty tight on everything.

"We're right there with what we have. Can we get better? Every team is trying to get better. It has to be the right fit. It's all about people. The guys we bring in have to fit and understand what we're trying to do here. Management has done a real nice job bringing in those types of people. Can we get a guy who can score a few? Yeah, that would be great."

The Hurricanes plan to move quickly to address their goaltending. Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta each can become an unrestricted free agent July 1.

"Both goalies want to come back, we know that," Waddell said. "Obviously, it depends what the contract terms are. We just want to make sure we do our due diligence, not only on our guys, but make sure we know what the options are. Those decisions are coming in the near future because free agency starts July 1, and we want to make sure we're ahead of that. In the next couple weeks, I think we will figure the whole goaltending thing out."

Pyotr Kochetkov has played 25 regular-season games over the past two seasons. The 23-year-old signed a four-year, $8 million contract ($2 million average annual value) on Nov. 23.

"We believe Kochetkov is our future for sure," Waddell said. "Is he ready for that full time thing right now? We will find out probably at the beginning of next year. We're going to have to have three capable players, that's for sure. Obviously, Kochetkov is going to be one of the big pieces there. The days of goalies playing 55 to 60 games are behind us for the most part. If we have to use a three-goalie system, we learned this year that we're fine with it. The bottom line is there will be three goaltenders that compete for those jobs."

While the Hurricanes have numerous UFAs, Waddell said he will soon address contract extensions for forward Sebastian Aho and defensemen Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei. Each is under contract for one more season.

"[The contracts] are going to come quickly," Waddell said. "We would like to go into the year knowing we're going to have them for the future. But saying that, players play all this time to become free agents. But we're hoping that what 'Roddy' has created here in the locker room, the culture, they all want to be here and we can figure out what the value of those contracts should be."