Hurricanes’ trade for Jake Guentzel is a statement of intent. They are in it to win it
So there it is. The big splash. The swing for the fences. The Carolina Hurricanes are all in.
They didn’t just dip a toe in the trade-deadline rental market. They dove all the way into the deep end.
Jake Guentzel. Why not.
In their biggest deadline rental deal since the Hurricanes added Mark Recchi from the PIttsburgh Penguins in the spring of 2006, they went out Thursday and got the best goal-scoring winger on the market, again from the Penguins.
Guentzel, who has returned to practice after missing three weeks with what was reported to be a broken finger, scored 22 goals in 50 games this season. He has averaged more than 30 goals over the previous five years, including 40 twice, and was perhaps the top impending free agent available on the trade market.
In a sharp departure from recent practice, the Hurricanes were willing to do what it takes — overpay, even — to get the deal done.
The Hurricanes put three players on waivers Thursday — Tony DeAngelo, Brendan Lemieux and Antti Raanta — to clear space for a trade and held Michael Bunting out of Thursday’s 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens before finalizing the deal after the game, long before Friday’s 3 p.m. deadline.
It is, far more than any point in this six-year run of playoff appearances, a statement of intent.
The Hurricanes are in it to win it.
Over the past five years, since Tom Dundon bought the team, the Hurricanes have stayed away from these kinds of deals and the craziness of the deadline bazaar. They have made deals that would have made sense at any time of year, acquiring Vincent Trocheck and Brady Skjei, but never for a guy who could leave for nothing in the summer.
Guentzel can, although the Hurricanes believe they have a good chance to re-sign him, but either way it was worth the risk. After a fatal failure to finish in their last two playoff eliminations — against the New York Rangers in 2022 and the Florida Panthers last year — they did the utmost to address their biggest weakness.
After poking around on Vancouver Canucks star Elias Petterson before he ended up signing a long-term deal with that team, Guentzel was the next best option.
Like Doug Weight in 2006, several contenders wanted him. The Hurricanes moved early that year and jumped the market. This time, they waited until the end, although they were able to concoct a deal at the lower end of what had purportedly been the very high asking price — two first-round picks or a first-rounder and a prime prospect — by including Bunting, who played for Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas in Toronto.
Instead, the first-round pick is conditional and the prospects, forwards Ville Koivunen, Vasili Ponomarev and Cruz Lucius, were not among Carolina’s best. Koivunen and Ponomarev were Carolina’s 7th- and 10th-ranked prospects by The Hockey News, while Lucius was just outside the top 10. It’s just as notable who’s not in the deal. No Alexander Nikishin. No Scott Morrow. No Bradly Nadeau. No Felix Unger Sorum.
It’s actually similar to how little the Hurricanes gave up for Weight 18 years ago: A first, two fourths, Jesse Boulerice, Mike Zigomanis and Magnus Kahnberg. The Penguins even retained 25 percent of Guentzel’s $6 million salary and threw in depth defenseman Ty Smith. And after all that, the Hurricanes still have enough cap space left to add a right-shot depth forward.
There’s a mild irony in Bunting going the other way, since he was signed over the summer expressly to help the Hurricanes score goals in the playoffs. With 13 goals in 60 games with the Hurricanes, there wasn’t enough evidence to believe he could be the kind of difference-maker Guentzel has been over the course of his career. There’s no question Bunting would have been a postseason asset. There’s also no question Guentzel, a point-per-game player in his playoff career, is an upgrade.
Guentzel will face heavy expectations in Carolina, but in that respect, he won’t be alone. Every player on the roster knows that their time has come, and it is fleeting. This team has been knocking on the door for five years, the champions of close but not quite.
Whether it works or not, they took a big swing Thursday night.
The future is now.
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