from Matt Larkin of The Hockey News,

Trade talk has gone quiet around the league in recent weeks but, in Faulk and Skinner, the Canes are dangling two players who could turn pretenders into contenders.

It’s more or less the Silly Season in hockey now. Fishing lines are cast and sunscreen is rubbed in. Most of the news we’ve seen in the past couple weeks involves contract extensions and arbitration hearings. We’ve seen two trades since July 3, one of them Chicago’s salary dump of Marian Hossa’s contract, the other a minor deal involving low-level prospects from Columbus and Arizona....

But there’s still one team out there with the power to alter the league’s power structure before the season starts. Don’t sleep on the Carolina Hurricanes.

They’ve already been busy under new owner Tom Dundon, nudging out GM Ron Francis and hiring Don Waddell, hiring a new coach in Rod Brind’Amour and swinging a draft-day blockbuster trade, shipping out 2013 and 2015 first-round picks Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin for Dougie Hamilton, Micheal Ferland and Adam Fox.

The Hanifin trade wasn’t a huge surprise because it was widely known the Canes had a monstrous surplus of quality defensemen. Oddly enough, though, they’ve since amassed an even bigger surplus. Not only did Hamilton come back their way, they also landed a good blueline prospect in Fox and signed UFA Calvin de Haan to a four-year, $18.2-million deal. So that gives the Canes a top four likely consisting of shutdown duo Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce, plus Hamilton and de Haan. That leaves two right-handed shots, Trevor van Riemsdyk and Justin Faulk, as the bottom pair, with prospect Haydn Fleury likely ready for NHL duty but without a spot available in the lineup, and with two other good prospects in the system in Jake Bean and Fox.

There is simply too big an overflow on defense for us not to foresee another trade, and it has to involve Faulk. He has two years left on his contract at a highly team-friendly $4.83-million cap hit, he has zero movement restrictions on his deal, and he has been somewhat marginalized in recent seasons, seeing a decline in his minutes and responsibility.

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