Articles in Carolina Hurricanes

RALEIGH, NC.- Don Waddell, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has acquired forward Jake Guentzel and defenseman Ty Smith from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for forwards Michael Bunting, Ville Koivunen, Cruz Lucius, and Vasily Ponomarev, as well as two conditional draft picks in the 2024 NHL Draft. As a condition of the trade, the Penguins will retain 25% of Guentzel’s salary.

Connor Bedard and below is Pyotr Kochetkov.

RALEIGH, NC. - Don Waddell, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has signed defenseman Tony DeAngelo to a one-year, $1.675 million contract.

"Tony is an elite offensive defenseman who had a great season with us in 2021-22," said Waddell. "We wanted to re-sign him last summer, and now we're thrilled to bring him back to Raleigh."

DeAngelo, 27, posted 42 points (11g, 31a) in 70 NHL games with Philadelphia in 2022-23. He recorded 51 points (10g, 41a) in 64 regular season games with Carolina in 2021-22 and added 10 points (1g, 9a) in 14 Stanley Cup Playoff games. The Hurricanes traded DeAngelo to the Flyers on July 8, 2022, in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft (Simon Forsmark), a third-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft (traded to San Jose - Brandon Svoboda), and a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. The 5'11", 180-pound blueliner has registered 199 points (45g, 154a) in 340 career NHL regular season games with Arizona, NY Rangers, Carolina and Philadelphia. The Sewell, N.J., native was drafted 19th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft.

Just over six minutes to watch.

from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

Hurricanes GM Don Waddell wasted no time after his team’s playoff exit in reaching out to agent Gerry Johannson about his client Sebastian Aho to get the ball rolling on contract talks.

Aho is the top priority for the Hurricanes this summer, the team hoping to extend him a year ahead of his deal expiring in 2024. It’s amazing how time flies, but it was already four years ago that Aho made headlines after signing a five-year, $42.295 million offer sheet contract with the Canadiens — one which Carolina owner Tom Dundon matched without hesitation.

Also noteworthy is how little bitterness there ever seemed to be between the organization and Aho over that. It’s not something that the Hurricanes have made a point to hold against Johannson and Aho. They turned the page quickly. Business is business. And so that relationship has stayed healthy, and now that’s going to be important as the organization tries to get Aho signed long-term as early as July 1 when he’s allowed to get an extension done. Both sides have agreed to get talking on it in very short order.

I think Aho wants to stay, and the Hurricanes no doubt will want to do the max eight years. So what does that deal look like? Too early to know, but what we do know is that Johannson negotiated an eight-year, $76-million extension for his client Brayden Point with Tampa Bay two years ago, a deal with a $9.5 million cap hit that kicked in this past season. I would imagine the Hurricanes would like to get Aho below that threshold, and I would imagine Johansson would counter that the Point deal is two years old.

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from Luke DeCock of the News & Observer,

Even with a week to digest the unappetizing finish, Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon still can’t believe how the team lost.

The Stanley Cup finals will go on without them Saturday, despite outplaying the Florida Panthers in all four games in every metric except the only one that matters. The owner’s takeaway from that unlikely sweep: Let’s run it back again.

That means going to quick work on new contracts for Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal, Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei (more or less in that order of priority), and giving strong consideration to bringing back most of the Hurricanes’ unrestricted free agents, with Staal and Jesper Fast atop that list, Dundon said.

Because as bizarre as the finish may have been, the Hurricanes like their odds of getting back to that point.

“You have to look at all 97 games we played,” Dundon said Tuesday. “The last four I actually thought we played pretty well in most of them and didn’t win. You’re going to tweak around the edges but I don’t want to overreact and get worse. It’s hard to get better from where we are. It’s easier to get worse.”

While general manager Don Waddell and coach Rod Brind’Amour will meet with the media on Wednesday for the annual public debriefing, some of the offseason goals are already clear beyond a reasonable doubt in the owner’s mind.

On a contract extension for Aho, who has a year to run left on his deal: “We want to get him on an eight-year deal, done as soon as possible. It’s a top, top priority. I think we’re on the same page. It’s kind of his team now.”

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from Matt Larkin of The Daily Faceoff,

This trend isn’t new during the highly successful era that began when Brind’Amour took over as head coach starting in 2018-19. Over that five-season span, the Canes have the fourth-best points percentage in the NHL at .661. But they’ve fallen short of the Stanley Cup Final all five of those seasons despite perennially being perceived as one of the best teams in the NHL.

In 2018-19: They lost the Eastern Conference Final to a Boston Bruins team that got six goals in four games from future Hall of Famers Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak.

In 2019-20: They lost in the first (second) “playoff” round of the bubble tourney, lit up again by Boston’s Perfection Lne, this time in five games, with Bergeron scoring the game winner in two of them.

In 2020-21: The eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning took them down in five games, buoyed by a combined eight goals from Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos.

In 2021-22: Done in by the New York Rangers, who got a .949 save percentage from Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin across seven games of their round-2 matchup.

Defeated because the other team had at least one superstar-grade player. Every. Time.

Ask around the league – other players, coaches, scouts, analysts – about the Carolina Hurricanes’ identity in the Brind’Amour era, and you typically get similar answers:

“They all play the same way.”

“Total buy-in.”

“They keep coming at you in waves.”

The Brind’Amour Way has pretty much universally been perceived as a strength, but it also highlights a weakness that was on display during the Eastern Conference Final: the Canes don’t have a dominator who can will them to victory, particularly at the forward position.

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from Luke DeCock of the News & Observer,

In their minds, they were still ready for overtime, for what would have been the third time in the series. The end came so quickly, it was almost impossible to comprehend.

The Carolina Hurricanes fought back twice to tie the score, their season on the line, ready to carry the battle into another 20 minutes, only for Matthew Tkachuk to beat them.

Again.

With 4.9 seconds to go. If there’s a more painful way to end an excruciating playoff series, science is going to have to get back into the lab.

“Really confused,” Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said. “I don’t know if confused is the right word but obviously, don’t know how did that happen. It didn’t feel like a 4-0 series to me, but it is what it is.”

The Florida Panthers won four one-goal games — two in overtime, three on Tkachuk goals that left the Hurricanes no answer — to sweep the Hurricanes, bookended by a quadruple overtime win in Raleigh in Game 1 and Wednesday’s 4-3 win on a late power play, given for a tripping call on Jordan Staal behind the Florida net that was patty-cake compared to the gross bodily harm allowed over the previous 19 minutes.

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A good one tonight.

from Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet,

Sergei Bobrovsky picked a perfect time for his first career Stanley Cup playoff shutout.

Thanks to the 32 saves he made on Monday night in a 1-0 triumph over the Carolina Hurricanes, the Florida Panthers now hold a commanding 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Final.

The Panthers goalie has now made 67 consecutive saves and accumulated 131 total stops over three games — and it certainly looks like he’s had numerous Carolina Hurricanes players shaking their heads in utter disbelief through three games.

Bobrovsky, who made the 58th start and 64th playoff appearance during his 10-year NHL career on Monday, has expressed gratitude throughout this series whenever he’s been in front of a microphone and after the final buzzer, his teammates once again were tossing compliments in his direction.

“We have so much confidence with him back there,” Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe told reporters inside FLA Live Arena. “It seems like every day he’s making another huge save, changing momentum and helping our team win games. He’s so important, he’s so calm.

“He’s our backbone and our best player.”

You won’t get any argument from anyone playing in, covering or watching this series.

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from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

Another overtime win by the Florida Panthers tonight, this time a 2-1 win.

Matthew Tkachuk with his 2nd ot winner in a row, he now has three ot winners this post season.

Below watch the game winning goal and game highlights.

from Kurt Dusterberg at the NHL's website,

Matthew Tkachuk scored with 13 seconds remaining in the fourth overtime, and the Florida Panthers won their seventh straight on the road in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, 3-2 against the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final at PNC Arena on Thursday....

It was the sixth-longest game in Stanley Cup Playoffs history (79:47 of OT length), and the longest in franchise history for each team.

"Probably my favorite [goal] so far in my life," Tkachuk said. "Big to not let it go to five overtimes there. [Sergei Bobrovsky] played great, everybody followed. Total team effort for two games, basically."

Bobrovsky made 63 saves, and Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe each had a goal and an assist for the Panthers, the second wild card from the East.

Florida is 5-0 in overtime in the postseason.

"At the end of the day, both teams spent what they had; that's a huge cost for both teams," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "There were pieces of that game that both teams owned and looked exactly like they're supposed to look."

Frederik Andersen made 57 saves, and Seth Jarvis had a goal and an assist for the Hurricanes, the No. 1 seed in the Metropolitan Division....

"It's the worst way to lose, there's no way around it," Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "A lot of ups and downs in that game. At the end of the day, it's one game."

read on

Below. watch the game highlights.

With 13 seconds left in the 4th overtime, Matthew Tkachuk scored to give the Florida Panthers a 3-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Team Stats

More in the morning but in the meantime catch the game winner and the highlights below.

Best of luck to both teams.