I got sidetracked with other hockey stuff on Sunday afternoon (see below) and then had to spend an hour or two calming down before writing part two of my article on Saturday’s big trade. That article which is the meatier entry today is up now and can be found HERE. 

#4 if it doesn’t jump to there instantly…

Will have to share some of the details of the full story at some point.

 

But back on the beat of real hockey players who can score goals without massive fits of hockey god-gifted luck, today’s Daily Cup of Joe takes a quick look at the Hurricanes unique entries to bolster its blue line prospect pool.

As I have written a couple times, because the team’s blue line is so young and because the prospect pool in total is so much improved, fans sometimes like to leap to the conclusion that the blue line prospect pool is deep as well. But when you do the math that is not really true. With Hanifin jumping straight to the NHL from the draft and Pesce and Slavin mostly skipping the AHL, a gap developed age-wise in the prospect pool. The majority of the Charlotte Checkers blue line is comprised of veteran AHLers. I wrote up the details HERE, but the short version is that the Hurricanes are a bit lite on defense prospects.

Trevor Carrick who is on the older side to still be called a prospect would seemingly be NHL-ready for depth on the left side, and Roland McKeown seems similarly ready on the right side. Jake Bean who will move up to the AHL this season represents the highest ceiling player in the current group. Past that, the team has a couple of lower probability prospects in Josh Wesley and Tyler Ganly (who would need to be re-signed) otherwise at the AHL level. The team does have the beginnings of a next wave in Luke Martin, Brendan De Jong and Ville Rasanen from the 2017 draft.

But entering this summer, there was still room for more depth. And the Hurricanes added a couple interesting prospects creatively without spending an early-round draft pick to do so. First, the team signed Michael Fora out of Switzerland. He is a big older at 22 years old still a prospect. He adds a bigger defenseman and a physical presence. Then in Saturday’s trade, the Hurricanes added Adam Fox. He might or might not be signable coming out of college hockey, but if he is, all indications are that the Hurricanes added a really good one with a really high ceiling because of his offensive ability. Then the team did add Jesper Sellgren from Sweden in the sixth round of the 2018 draft. In the end, the Hurricanes spent only one draft pick on a defenseman but managed to bolster the blue line prospect pool with three players. And just like that the Hurricanes blue line organizational chart looks a bit fuller.

 

What say you Canes fans?

 

1) Does anyone have any kind of wild guess as to whether Adam Fox is signable?

 

2) What, in general, do you think about the current state of the Hurricanes defense prospect pool?

 

Go Canes!

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