Sunday Canes Chronicle – Free agent frenzy edition

The NHL free agent season kicked off with fireworks at 12pm on Friday. Within the first hour, more than $300 million had been spent largely on big 5-6-year contracts in the range of $6 million per year. This time last year, Canes GM Ron Francis more or less sat out the event with his lone deal being a 1-year deal to re-sign Riley Nash. But in 2016, Francis was a bit more active adding NHLers Viktor Stalberg on a 1-year deal for $1.5 million and Lee Stempniak on a 2-year deal for $2.5 million per year. Along the way, Francis also signed veteran AHLer Andrew Miller to a 2-way contract.

On Saturday morning, I posted my thoughts on Francis’ moves on the first day of free agency.

Today’s Sunday Canes Chronicle features articles from around the internet about the Canes moves and the 2 NHL players that they acquired.

 

Lee Stempniak

Carolyn Wilke from Today’s Slapshot profiled Stempniak as a free agent option.

‘Creativeanomaly’ from SB Nation’s Daily Cup of Chowder offers this assessment of Stempniak’s 2015-16 play in Boston after the Bruins acquired him at the trade deadline.

 

Viktor Stalberg

Joe Fortunato at SBNation’s Blueshirt Banter offered a pretty glowing review of Stalberg in his “Keep or Dump” article.

Dave from Blue Seat Blogs noted Stalberg favorably as a player that the Rangers were trying to retain only 2 days ago.

 

Assessment of Hurricanes’ moves and checking what’s left

Ken Campbell from The Hockey News rated winners and losers on the first day of free agency.

Mark Jones from Today’s Slapshot wrote about both signings and how the players fit into the Hurricanes lineup.

And if you want to shop the clearance rack for what’s left, Matt Larkin at The Hockey News selected the 10 best remaining free agents on day 2 (of which 3 of those were signed today.

 

Go Canes!