When you look at some rebuilding teams you can tell what phase of the rebuild they’re in. Edmonton is in the last phase ready to take that next step (Even though we’ve been saying that for the last four or five years), The same could probably be said for Buffalo with a stockpile of high end prospects it won’t be long before they take off.
Then you take a look at the Carolina Hurricanes, a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2008-09 season. A franchise that has only made the playoffs twice since the 2004-05 lockout. One of those two appearances was a Stanley Cup victory in 2006 while the other was a conference finals appearance getting swept by eventual champion Penguins. Since then, very little success.
This past season never had much hope for the Hurricanes, many people stating before the season even started that the Hurricanes were in the McEichel sweepstakes. With star players struggling like Eric Staal former one hundred point scorer hovering in the mid fifties or low sixties in recent seasons, brother Jordan Staal struggling to stay healthy and not being able to hit the point totals of his Pittsburgh days. You can blame other players as well, like Jeff Skinner not being able to hit thirty goals like he’s able to as well as having injury problems and Alex Semin not showing up and producing next to nothing and a team with very little depth for a while now.
It’s fairly clear that this team is smack in the middle of a rebuild which means at least one or two more years of bottom dwelling. That starts to raise some questions about some of the teams veteran players. Should the Hurricanes trade Eric Staal and Cam Ward? Both being thirty-one years old next season does it make any sense to keep older players during a rebuild? Staal could definitely bring back some valuable pieces like draft picks and maybe a prospect. On a good team in 2005-06 Staal scored forty-five goals and one hundred points, on bad teams he has trouble getting his high point totals but a good team should be willing to take a risk on him. He has a high cap hit of $8.25 but is a UFA after next season a typical rental player for a contender maybe like an Anaheim who still has a ton of cap space. Maybe other teams like Nashville, New York Islanders, even the Los Angeles Kings if they could find some room. The Hurricanes have options with Eric Staal if they choose to trade him because I’m not sure he fits in this team in the long term, by time this team is good again he’ll be on the decline.
Cam Ward is a different situation. The thirty-one year old will be thirty-two mid season and the Hurricanes just traded for Eddie Lack from the Vancouver Canucks this off-season. The Canes say that they traded for Lack with the idea of him being the backup but Lack has proven to be a pretty good goaltender and a younger cheaper option than Ward. Ward is a good goaltender, but the numbers he’s posted are just average, a career 2.73 goals against average and .910 save percentage. In Eddie Lack’s eighty-two career games he’s posted a 2.43 average and .917%. Lack was on better teams for sure but put a better team in front of him in a couple of season and Lack is the better choice.
If we’re talking about trading Ward what teams would be willing to take him? A $6.3 cap hit and a pending UFA after this season. Looking at teams with cap room I don’t see to many fits, maybe a New York Islanders but they have a solid back up there already and Halak seems good enough as the starter. The Hurricanes may be stuck with Cam Ward for the next season and let him go in UFA or trade his rights after the season or find a way to make a trade work by retaining a lot of salary to a contending team looking to upgrade their goalie situation.
It’s going to take a couple of seasons for the Hurricanes to get to a competing level but they do have some nice young talent to work with already. Young Swedes Elias Lindholm and Victor Rask look to be pretty good young players, I’m not sure you can build teams around them but solid players for the future. Jordan Staal is still only twenty-six and has nearly scored thirty goals and sixty points in season even though that was with a great Penguins team but put him on a good team again and maybe that will happen again. Young Jeff Skinner has scored thirty goals twice in his short NHL career, if he can stay healthy and produce like that there is another good building block.
The defensive side looks fairly promising too. Justin Faulk an American Olympian is just twenty-three years old and almost scored fifty points this past season. 2014 first round draft pick Haydn Fleury being the Hurricanes top prospect before this past draft is another hopeful piece. Then you have the fifth overall pick from the 2015 draft Noah Hanifin. Before the season started people were saying that the McEichel draft could become the McEichifin draft. Hanifin didn’t quite get to that level but the 6’3 205lbs defenseman has been compared to players like Rob Blake and Scott Niedermayer, two hall of famers, if Hanifin can get anywhere close the Hurricanes have themselves a steal at the number five pick.
According to Hockey’sFuture.com the Carolina Hurricanes are ranked twenty-eighth in prospect rankings. Not something you want to see from a rebuilding team. But as we can see the Hurricanes do have some nice young pieces to build around. Still, it’s pretty obvious this team needs to get prospects and very good prospects and it would benefit them to try to get the best draft position next year and try to land Auston Mathews.
After a not so busy off-season from the Carolina Hurricanes where they traded for a “backup” goaltender in Eddie Lack and traded for defenseman James Wisniewski the headline was definitely the drafting of Noah Hanifin. After missing the playoffs for six straight seasons there isn’t much hope for a return anytime soon. Instead the Hurricanes need to consider trading veterans and draft well and build a winning team in the coming years that way.
