The Carolina Hurricanes pulled off the first major blockbuster of the 2024-25 NHL trade deadline when they acquired forwards Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall on Friday night as part of a massive three-team trade with the Colorado Avalanche and Chicago Blackhawks.
The Hurricanes are getting Rantanen from the Avalanche and Hall from the Blackhawks.
In exchange, they are sending forwards Martin Necas and Jack Drury, as well as two draft picks (2025 second-rounder and 2026 fourth-rounder), to the Avalanche.
Chicago is also retaining half of Rantanen’s remaining salary for this season in the trade and receiving a third-round pick from Carolina. That pick originally belonged to Chicago and was traded to Carolina at last year’s draft.
The real winner in this trade is clearly Carolina in the short-term, which is sending a massive message to the rest of the NHL that it is all-in on trying to win the Stanley Cup this season.
Rantanen is one of the NHL’s best players and entered play on Friday night as the sixth-leading scorer in the league with 64 points (25 goals, 39 assists). He is a pending unrestricted free agent after this season, while he and the Avalanche were unable to make any progress on a new contract extension. Even though Colorado is still very much a contender in the Western Conference, it obviously felt that it was not worth risking losing him for nothing after the season.
Carolina has been one of the league’s best teams the past six years, but it has been unable to break through and reach a Stanley Cup Final. One of the biggest obstacles has been the lack of a true top-line offensive force that can strike fear into opposing teams and demand attention.
Rantanen is very much that player, and when joining forces with Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis — Carolina’s top-two remaining offensive players — should give the Hurricanes the type of elite talent it might need to finally break through.
There is a risk Rantanen could leave after this season in free agency, but by trading Necas and his $6.5 million salary-cap number next season, the Hurricanes opened up some future cap space. The league’s salary cap is also expected to take a significant jump after this season.
Hall is also a pending unrestricted free agent after this season. Even though he is not the player he was at his peak, he still provides some strong complementary scoring and just adds to Carolina’s all-in approach.
From a Colorado perspective, even though Necas is clearly a step down from Rantanen in the short-term, he does still have term remaining on his contract beyond this season and gives them some additional salary-cap space to work with this season. Necas is also a very good player who is averaging more than a point-per-game this season offensively. He will give them value, and they still have the flexibility to add more before the March 7 deadline.
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