{"id":22601,"date":"2025-07-25T08:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22601\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T08:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:13:08","slug":"hurricanes-sign-jackson-blake-to-eight-year-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22601\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricanes Sign Jackson Blake To Eight-Year Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hurricanes announced<\/a> Thursday night that they\u2019ve signed winger Jackson Blake<\/a>\u00a0to an eight-year, $45MM extension that will kick in for the 2026-27. While that would normally mean an average annual value and cap hit of $5.625MM, the actual cap hit of the contract will fall in the $5.1MM range due to deferred compensation, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet<\/a> reports. The contract buys out the extent of Blake\u2019s RFA eligibility and will make him a UFA following the 2033-34 season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Blake\u2019s stock has been on the rise since immediately after Carolina selected him in the fourth round in 2021. He was a USHL All-Star in his post-draft season with the Chicago Steel before making the jump to NCAA hockey with North Dakota, where he totaled 102 points in 79 games in two seasons \u2013 earning a Hobey Baker finalist nod in his sophomore year. He signed his entry-level contract with the Hurricanes in April 2024 and joined them for the brief remainder of the regular season.<\/p>\n

In his first full pro season, Blake hit the ground running. He made the Canes out of camp and had five points through his first nine games despite seeing less than 12 minutes of ice time per night. That offense didn\u2019t quite hold up the rest of the way, though.<\/p>\n

While he ended up seeing significant deployment alongside\u00a0Sebastian Aho<\/a>\u00a0at even strength, he ended up finishing the year with a 17-17\u201334 scoring line in 80 games, finishing ninth on the team in scoring and ninth in Calder Trophy voting as the league\u2019s Rookie of the Year. That\u2019s fine production, especially considering he averaged under 14 minutes per game on the year. He\u2019ll need to build on it to justify that cap hit, though, especially with so much risk attached to a max-term deal.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Blake has another year left on his entry-level contract to continue his development before he\u2019ll need to start justifying that cap hit. The son of former NHLer\u00a0Jason Blake<\/a> turns 22 next month, yet with this deal, he\u2019s guaranteed to surpass his dad\u2019s career earnings.<\/p>\n

Carolina has historically opted to sign their young players for as long and as early as possible, a trend that continues here. Sometimes, it\u2019s paid off \u2013 their eight-year, $59.4MM commitment to\u00a0Seth Jarvis<\/a>\u00a0last offseason looks like a steal after he put up a repeat 67-point performance in 2024-25. There\u2019s also the glaring example of where that strategy has failed regarding center\u00a0Jesperi Kotkaniemi<\/a>, whose $4.82MM cap hit looks more stomachable now with a rising ceiling but is still well above his market value four years into the deal. The jury is still out on newly-acquired\u00a0Logan Stankoven<\/a>, who they inked to an eight-year, $48MM extension<\/a> at the beginning of the month.<\/p>\n

Blake\u2019s deal will be one of the last of its kind. It contains two elements \u2013 deferred compensation and an eight-year term \u2013 that will be outlawed when the new CBA Memorandum of Understanding takes effect on Sep. 15, 2026. If he waited until reaching RFA status next summer to sign, a lengthy negotiation could have lost him that eighth year if the two sides didn\u2019t come to terms until the beginning of training camp.<\/p>\n

With the salary cap\u2019s Upper Limit projected to reach $104MM in 2026-27, the Hurricanes have around $16MM in projected space with Blake\u2019s and Stankoven\u2019s deals taken care of. While they\u2019re projected to be Carolina\u2019s 11th and 12th highest-paid forwards on their opening night roster this season, they\u2019ll be their fifth and sixth-highest paid forwards in 2026-27.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hurricanes announced Thursday night that they\u2019ve signed winger Jackson Blake\u00a0to an eight-year, $45MM extension that will kick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,748,18653,4247,82,4584],"class_list":["post-22601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-jackson-blake","tag-newsstand","tag-sports","tag-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}