his spicy moments<\/a> with commissioner Gary Bettman. \u201cThis year, we tried very hard to shake a player like that loose, and there was nobody who we felt we could get who would really push us forward in that way.<\/p>\n\u201cThere were a lot of players available who we felt like would make us deeper, and that has value, but we\u2019re also a little price-sensitive when it comes to just adding depth,\u201d Tulsky added. \u201cWe don\u2019t mind putting all the futures in to get a high-end player who makes us better, but if we\u2019re just adding depth, we\u2019re a little sensitive on price. And the prices were high for players who we felt like would have just been depth guys for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
They did add rugged winger Nicolas Deslauriers, but overall, by their standards, it was a quiet deadline.<\/p>\n
On the flip side, the Canes have taken a look under the hood at their depth, because of all the injuries they\u2019ve had this season, and have liked what they\u2019ve seen from the call-ups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt we would be OK with what we had,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Big-game hunting is a year-round sport for the Canes. Per league sources, they inquired about Kirill Kaprizov when news surfaced that he rejected the first offer from the Minnesota Wild at the start of the season. They tried on Artemi Panarin before the Olympic break. There was some level of interest in Vincent Trocheck.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a big name out there, chances are Carolina will look into it.<\/p>\n
But this year, no big splash. And coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour didn\u2019t hide his feelings post-deadline, telling local media the next day: \u201cI know there\u2019s a lot of disappointment. I\u2019m going to be honest. (The players) were hoping to see us make a splash. It\u2019s tough. We\u2019re one of the best teams in the league right now. Teams are making deals to try to catch us, and to try to catch the teams that are ahead of them, and that is us \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
That raw, honest disappointment can almost be taken as a compliment if you\u2019re management, because clearly there\u2019s an expectation, even from within, that the Canes swing big. And when it doesn\u2019t happen, it\u2019s almost surprising.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all disappointed,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cLike, everybody on the team: management, coaches, players, everybody wants to get better. That is absolutely part of how we see things. And we\u2019re always going to be disappointed when we don\u2019t do it. The opportunities just weren\u2019t there this year. That\u2019s the way it is. You have to roll with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in saying all that, the Hurricanes remain a first-place team. Lots of people will pick them to get to the Stanley Cup Final out of a wide-open Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I mean, the team has been playing great, and we\u2019ve had more injuries this year than the last three regular seasons combined,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cAnd to come through all of that with a big lead in the Metro, it\u2019s incredible. And we\u2019re just starting to get a handful of games where the team is healthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, of course, you always want to add, I don\u2019t want to imply that there is such a thing as good enough. It\u2019s not a phrase we use, but we do have a strong team and we are very comfortable that this group can compete with anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes didn\u2019t upgrade in goal, most notably.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried, we try everywhere,\u201d Tulsky said.<\/p>\n
So they\u2019ll roll with what they have there. Brandon Bussi has emerged this season, 36-year-old Frederik Andersen has won his last three starts but overall has an .872 save percentage on the season and Pyotr Kochetkov had hip surgery in December but is working hard in rehab and trying to get back to full health.<\/p>\n
Is it good enough goaltending to win the Cup?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got two goalies that we\u2019re comfortable with and a third goalie who is working to coming back in time to help for the playoffs,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cSo again, we\u2019re always going to be looking for opportunities to get better. But there aren\u2019t many goalies where you look at and say it\u2019s a clear step forward. If we had the opportunity to add a top-five goalie in the league, it would have been a no-brainer. We would have put in whatever we had to, to get that done. Shy of doing that, there were a lot of players (goalies) available that we felt would have added some depth. But not made us measurably better than what we have. And that\u2019s always the goal for us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the Jordan Binnington-to-Carolina chatter, obviously Tulsky did not comment on that. But league sources suggest that while the Canes checked in on Binnington, that was about the extent of it, just a check-in. Talks never got serious.<\/p>\n
So, is this the year Carolina gets to the Cup Final? The Canes have been knocking at the door for a long time. What do they need to get over that final hurdle?<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say that several years now, we were good enough to win if things went our way,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cSome years we\u2019ve had injuries, some years we\u2019ve faced a hot goalie, we haven\u2019t had a year where things have gone our way.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to be good enough that we can win even when things don\u2019t go our way,\u201d he added. \u201cSo we\u2019re always pushing to get better because we haven\u2019t got to that place yet where we\u2019re going to win unless there\u2019s a disaster. \u2026 It hasn\u2019t been any one thing. Every year, there\u2019s been something that\u2019s gone against us, and we haven\u2019t been good enough to overcome it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As mentioned, the East looks wide-open this year, and certainly different. Longstanding contenders such as Florida and Toronto are having down years. Washington was the No. 1 seed a year ago and may miss the playoffs this year, while Buffalo, Montreal and Detroit have announced themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I mean, it\u2019s an interesting year,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cI think teams like Buffalo, Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, we\u2019ve seen for years that they were on the verge. It was never a question of whether; it was just a question of when. What\u2019s been weird is some of the old-guard teams that have been good for a while, like New Jersey, Toronto and Florida, have all just been wrecked by injuries this year. And that\u2019s part of what\u2019s opened up the path for these other teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose teams probably won\u2019t have the same injuries next year. So I expect it to be really tight going forward. It\u2019s going to be a tough conference. We were fortunate; we had a lot of injuries ourselves but were fortunate that the players who stepped into those roles were able to keep us winning. It\u2019s a real testament to our depth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of whether the Canes finally get to the promised land or not, the offseason is shaping up to be rather interesting league-wide. The salary cap is going up in a meaningful way, but the UFA crop is thin, so it all points to trades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen teams were under really tight cap pressure (flat cap out of the pandemic), it was easier to find opportunities to add players because there were teams that couldn\u2019t keep everyone,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cWe were one of them two years ago, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canes lost UFAs Brady Skjei, Teuvo Teravainen, Brett Pesce and Jake Guentzel all at once in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t keep everyone. Teams came and raided us,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cThere won\u2019t be very much of that going forward with the cap going up as fast as it is the next couple of years. Teams can afford to keep their players if they want them.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
So the UFA market won\u2019t be as appealing a tool, which will force more trade discussions on signed players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be actively pursuing any means we can to make our team better,\u201d Tulsky said.<\/p>\n
Of that, we have no doubt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANALAPAN, Fla. \u2014 A year ago, no team grabbed more headlines than the Carolina Hurricanes, on either side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,3615,575,85],"class_list":["post-553212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}