Nearing the midway point of the 2019-20 season, the trade market that has been pretty quiet so far should start seeing some business. Today’s Daily Cup of Joe starts to look at the possibility of the Hurricanes adding help from outside the organization by assessing the current situation.
In a good place – no urgency
An important starting point for considering the trade market for the Hurricanes is recognizing that there is no desperation or even urgency to do anything. Tuesday’s win pushed the Hurricanes to 19-11-1 and up above Pittsburgh into fourth place in the Metropolitan Division which is good for the first wild card slot. The margin for error is fairly small, but the Hurricanes are in a good place right now. In addition, the current three-game winning streak has the Hurricanes rising not falling right now. As such, there is no reason the Hurricanes need to do anything. Riding the current roster deeper into the season is a viable option and not one that necessarily discounts the team’s chances to return to the playoffs.
Limited cap room – potentially only one bullet available
With the Hurricanes up against the salary cap this season, the team does not have a ton of room to add players if there is not a corresponding decrease in salary. As such, the team might only have one bullet to add a single player and still stay cap compliant. As such, one school of thought would be to keep that one bullet available in case injuries create a bigger need later.
The Justin Williams situation
The other thing still looming is the potential return of Justin Williams. As noted above, cap space is limited, so adding another player from outside the organization could eliminate the potential for a Justin Williams return. So if the team is still holding a place for a possible Williams’ return, that could preclude a trade.
Potential needs
Right now, I think adding a more offense-leaning center is the move with the greatest potential to take the team up a notch. Best bet is that Erik Haula will be limited for the remainder of the 2019-20. As such, the Hurricanes are minus a center and arguably light offensively at the position. Higher-end centers are nearly impossible to come by, but could the Canes find a middle-tier center capable of centering a scoring line? Alternatively, I think the Hurricanes could benefit from having one more power forward type of wing. In some ways, I think the Hurricanes and the forecheck miss what Micheal Ferland brought to the lineup. Could the Hurricanes benefit from adding a middle-tier power forward to the mix?
The financials
As note above, making a deal work for 2019-20 could be challenging with the Hurricanes right up against the salary cap. But interestingly, I think the Hurricanes could easily fit a contract for 2020-21. The Hurricanes recoup nearly $7 million in salary cap just from Patrick Marleau’s contract and the small retained portion of Justin Faulk’s contract. And for 2020-21, the team does not have any re-signings that figure to escalate dramatically. As such, the Hurricanes could have a decent amount of budget for 2020-21. But past 2020-21, the team would want to be careful adding salary that decreases flexibility heading into the summer when Andrei Svechnikov and Dougie Hamilton need new contracts that could require significant raises (especially in the case of Svechnikov). So for the right player, the Hurricanes could take on two years of contract but ideally not three.
My two cents
Part two to follow in the next few days will look in more detail about needs and possible options or at least types of players. Assuming there is not a schedule and a budget in place for Justin Williams, I do think it makes sense for Don Waddell to explore options to add one more forward. The tricky part is figuring out what the Hurricanes would give up to clear cap space.
What say you Canes fans?
1) With the team in playoff position and playing fairly well, would you even consider adding a player from outside the organization? Or would you be fully in the mode of riding the current roster right now?
2) If you were to consider a trade or addition from outside, what skill set/position would you be targeting?
3) What are the odds that Justin Williams becomes an addition at some point?
Go Canes!
The key is your first point “no urgency.” The team is playing well and trending upward. Honestly, if Gardiner can continue to not make mistakes that cost seemingly a goal a night they Canes will be much better. He’s played that way the past few games. Hope he can keep it up.
The other important issue is the longer they wait, the more cap the Canes can afford. Currently CapFriendly has the Canes with $1.633M in cap space. If they wait until the deadline they have $4.737M in cap space. That’s a big difference. Keep the call-ups to a minimum and see what’s available in late January/February.
I wouldn’t bet on JW returning and I am not sure if it is good for the team at this point.
He is not in game shape right now, (however much he’s hitting the gym it takes 5 to 10 games to really get into game shape).
I think inevitably adding him to the roster is going to slow the team down for a week or two, though our 4th line isn’t doing all that much at the moment so he could be acclimated down there until he’s gelling.
I’m a big JW fan, his leadership is tangible, he’s a fun guy, he’s a hero from 06 and our crazy ride last spring, but I think he’s hit his peak and his decision not to start the season with the Canes was the nail in the coffin. He was every bit a soldier for this team and wrapped up with full honors, but I think his duty is done.
I also think the team will shop dougy starting this summer or next fall. This management avoids huge contracts and prefers to offload players on the last year of their contracts that are due a significant raise, especially if the players are not part of the future core, so I would expect Hamilton’s salary to come off the books sometime next season, or possibly he plays as a rental if the Canes go all in next season and cashes in with another team in free agency.
So I think the canes have some flexibility, especially if they can identify a good guy on a bad team with 1 or 2 years left on his contract.
Gauthier could be the big power forward guy but his play was downright poor last night, much to my disappointment. But he’ got a couple more games to prove himself I’d imagine.
There is no major urgency, the team is finding ways to win and we’ve seen subtraction by addition happen (e.g. Eric staal to the Rangers) so I wouldn’t be in a hurry.
The big question is how the team manages the next 3 weeks, almost entirely on the road against tough teams. IF they hold up they can hold on, if they start to slide it may be time to add reinforcements to help the team avoid sliding wel out of the playoffs.
I think if Hamilton will take a team-friendly deal the Canes may resign him. Hamilton has had his issues in Boston and Calgary. He fits in well in Carolina. It wouldn’t be dumb for him to do so. The union hates guys that do that, so we will see how it plays out.
The culture that didn’t sign big dollar contracts left with Karmanos/Francis. I think Dundon/Waddell would sign Hamilton for a raise with the right term. Hamilton is too good and too good a fit for the Canes. I will be surprised/disappointed if we don’t make a serious run to re-sign him.
I agree with your assessment on JW. Even if we were to add before the deadline, I don’t think he fits the skillset we need.
Given our limited cap space and our player contracts, it’s really hard to see how we can do all that much until we get much closer to the Trade Deadline – without trading a player that we’d view as part of our core.
I agree with breezy on JW – that ship seems to have sailed and I wonder whether after this long a layoff he’d be the productive force we’d be presumably looking for – and I love JW as a player.
Having said that, we have the Cap room and picks and other assets to swing a deal at the Deadline for a nice complimentary player if we think the price is right and we have a glaring weakness.
I’d counsel patience given the trajectory of our recent play; other teams are likely to feel more pressure than we are that might open up opportunity, especially as teams fade from the playoff race: I’m talking to you MTL, BUF, TOR, SJO, VAN, MIN. (I hope I don’t have to eat these words.)
For my taste, the team has 2 needs. First is better defense in late game situations. Right now we need to count on Gardiner to play more consistently to make that defensive improvement. (If you read that as I miss DeHaan you are correct.) Second is a Ferland equivalent. The chance Gauthier can provide at least some of that seems to be falling. Ferland tilted the ice on his shifts and made match ups for the other team more difficult. I miss what Ferland gave us every game he was healthy.
I’m not sure that we had much benefit from ferland the last half of last year. I know what you are saying, but I’m not sure that we really had that… Or that is what is really needed now. I think we need the confidence and chemistry that we have now. Hopefully Haula will be back soon. Then who do you sit? Foggy, mcguin, stall? Those guys are killing it on the PK.
I really shouldn’t reply to these types of posts because I like the team we have and the potential in the wings…. I guess I’m just an old sentimental dude:).
On Haula’s return:
Gauthier->CLT
Martinook->RW
Wallmark->4C
Haula->3C
Right now we are out-gunning our mistakes – makes for fun regular season hockey but poor playoffs (Bolts last year??).
We will need more girt/grind to move forward in the playoffs, preferably with someone capable of depth scoring. So I see us picking up someone in that mold, probably for a draft pick and/or prospect.
I could also see us trading the expiring contract of TvR for picks/prospects and using those to pick up that player (reducing our need to dump cap).