Haula traded to Hurricanes by Golden Knights

Erik Haula was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes by the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday for Nicolas Roy and a conditional fifth-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.

Haula had seven points (two goals, five assists) in 15 games for Vegas this season but didn't play after being taken off on a stretcher after sustaining a knee injury against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 6. Haula had surgery later that month.
"Erik is a skilled, experienced player who has been productive at even strength and on special teams," Carolina general manager Don Waddell said. "We expect him to be healthy and ready to go for training camp."
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The 28-year-old forward was selected by the Golden Knights from the Minnesota Wild in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft and had NHL career highs in goals (29), assists (26) and points (55) last season.
He has one season remaining on a three-year, $8.25 million contract ($2.75 million average annual value) he signed with Vegas on June 21, 2017.
"While it helped us on the [NHL salary cap], we made a good hockey trade," Vegas general manager George McPhee said Thursday. "We like Nicolas Roy a lot. We watched him a lot. He's a 22-year-old player we hope will be with us for a long time. Erik Haula would be [an unrestricted free agent] a year from now, so we thought what we made was a good hockey trade. That's where we sit today."
A seventh-round pick (No. 182) by the Wild in the 2009 NHL Draft, Haula has 151 points (73 goals, 78 assists) in 357 regular-season games and 22 points (nine goals, 13 assists) in 44 Stanley Cup Playoff games.

Roy, a forward who was selected by Carolina in the fourth round (No. 96) in the 2015 NHL Draft, didn't have a point in six games with the Hurricanes this season. He played most of the season with Charlotte of the American Hockey League, where he had 36 points (17 goals, 19 assists) in 69 regular-season games and 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in 19 playoff games to help Charlotte win its first Calder Cup championship.
"At training camp, we'll decide if he's ready to play here, and if so where," McPhee said of Roy (6-foot-4, 205 pounds). "He's an intelligent player too. Good hockey sense. There may be even more upside there than people would anticipate, so we'll see how this plays out, but we like him a lot."
It was the third trade Carolina has made in the past week. On June 22, the Hurricanes acquired forward Patrick Marleau, a conditional first-round pick and a seventh-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a sixth-round pick in the 2020 draft, and two days later they acquired goalie
Anton Forsberg
and defenseman Gustav Forsling from the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Calvin de Haan and forward
Aleksi Saarela
.
McPhee said Vegas may make a few more moves before free agency begins Monday.
"We have a little more work to do," said McPhee, who added that the Golden Knights are close to a contract with pending restricted free agent forward Tomas Nosek. "We'll see where things go in the next few days. We made a move yesterday and there's probably another one coming."