NHL Free Agency Is Finally Over Now That The Carolina Hurricanes Have Locked Up Nik Ehlers For 6 Years, $8.5M AAV
Darcy Finley. Getty Images.For some reason, it feels like Nik Ehlers has always been a Carolina Hurricane. It seems like they've had every single variant of Nik Ehlers on their roster over the last 5-6 years.
He's Scandinavian. He's skilled. He's slightly undersized. He can consistently produce offensively, and he's a really good player to add to any roster. The only thing is that he's never going to be the best player on the ice. That sounds like every single player on the Hurricanes already.
So it only makes sense that Eric Tulsky was able to get the job done here and get him to sign with Carolina.
This has been a great offseason for Tulsky so far. Obviously things went a little sideways with the Rantanen trade last season. But they were still able to come out of that ordeal by landing Logan Stankoven from Dallas. They just re-signed to a 4-year, $6M AAV extension. They pulled off a trade with New York to bring in K'Andre Miller to strengthen their blueline. And now they add Nik Ehlers to an already loaded group of forwards.
Ehlers, Aho, Jarvis, Svechnikov, Stankoven, Kotkaniemi. That's an entire top 6 who can get you anywhere from 50-70 points. There might not be another team in hockey that has that sort of depth. You're not going to find a better top 6 than that in the NHL.
But none of those guys are going to give you 100+ points. The Carolina Hurricanes might have the best top 6 in hockey, but they'll never have the top 2. You need to have a bonafide alpha somewhere on the ice if you want to win a Stanley Cup. The Carolina Hurricanes have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Robins, but they don't have a single Batman.
So are they going to be a wagon this season? For sure. No doubt about it. Their floor should be the Eastern Conference Finals. But their ceiling is also the Eastern Conference Finals. You can have all the Nik Ehlers in the world. All it takes is one Matthew Tkachuk to completely offset that.