Inside look at Carolina Hurricanes

NHL.com is providing in-depth roster, prospect and fantasy analysis for each of its 32 teams from Aug. 1-Sept. 1. Today, the Carolina Hurricanes.

An offseason of change in which the Carolina Hurricanes lost nearly a third of their lineup, plus their general manager, hasn’t tempered their expectations.

Although some might expect them to take a step back this season after six straight appearances in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including trips to the Eastern Conference Final in 2019 and 2023, they have a different view.

“We want to win the Stanley Cup every year and we think we are still capable of it,” new GM Eric Tulsky said. “We lost some good players. There’s no doubt that creates some headwind, but we have a lot of good players coming in and a lot of young players who are getting better. There’s no reason why we can’t continue to compete.”

Unlike the departure of GM Don Waddell to become Columbus Blue Jackets GM, which led to Tulsky’s promotion from assistant GM, much of Carolina’s roster turnover was expected. A host of the Hurricanes’ players were in the final seasons of their contracts last season, when they finished second in the Metropolitan Division with 111 points (52-23-7) before losing to the New York Rangers in six games in the Eastern Conference Second Round.

They’d hoped to re-sign forward Jake Guentzel, their prize acquisition from the Pittsburgh Penguins before the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, but when they couldn’t, they traded his rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning, who signed him to a seven-year, $63 million contract on July 1. Forwards Teuvo Teravainen (Chicago Blackhawks) and Stefan Noesen (New Jersey Devils) and defensemen Brett Pesce (Devils) and Brady Skjei (Nashville Predators) also left as unrestricted free agents.

The mutual decision to terminate the contract of forward Evgeny Kuznetsov made it six of Carolina’s 18 skaters that dressed for its playoff opener last season who moved on.

Tulsky attributed at least part of that to the NHL salary cap, which increased from $83.5 million to $88 million this season, but that wasn’t enough for the Hurricanes to keep all the players they wanted.

“I’ve been going through the salaries people ended up signing for or are likely to sign for, and if we had just tried to bring back the exact same roster, I think it would have cost about $108 or 109 million to match all the salaries, and the League won’t let me do that,” said Tulsky, who joined Carolina as a consultant in 2014 and became assistant GM in 2020. “So, there were some tough choices we had to make.”

Carolina was able to re-sign unrestricted free agent forward Jordan Martinook to a three-year, $9.15 million contract and filled some of their holes by signing defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere (three years, $9.6 million) and Sean Walker (five years, $18 million) and forwards William Carrier (six years, $12 million), Jack Roslovic (one year, $2.8 million) and Tyson Jost (one year, $775,000).

The Hurricanes also believe younger players such as forwards Seth Jarvis, 22, and Jack Drury, 24, and goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, 25 can take on bigger roles.

Much of Carolina’s core remains intact, though, including forwards Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Martin Necas, Jordan Staal and defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns. Slavin is locked up long-term after signing an eight-year, $51.69 million contract that begins in 2025-26 on July 1.

Perhaps Carolina’s biggest offseason transaction was re-signing coach Rod Brind’Amour to a multiyear contract. The Hurricanes have not missed the playoffs during Brind’Amour’s six seasons as coach, and their 278 regular-season wins during that span are third in the NHL behind the Boston Bruins (289) and Tampa Bay Lightning (283).

“One thing that’s amazing about this organization, this team, this leadership group that we do have is we’re a great culture to come into,” Slavin said. “Guys are going to come in, they’re going to feel at home right away, they’re going to feel confident in how they play the game and how we play the game. … So, I don’t see this as a setback losing those guys.

“It’s different personnel, but we still have the same culture, same identity and the same confidence looking forward.”

Whether that will be enough for Carolina to win the Cup for the first time since 2006 remains to be seen. But that remains the objective.

“We’re chasing the Stanley Cup and if you ask anybody on our team right now, that’s the goal,” Martinook said. “It’s not anything else. So, as much as the fans are probably worried that we lost some guys, we’ve got guys coming in that wouldn’t have signed here if they didn’t think that they had a chance to win.”