Will Hurricanes go all in at the NHL trade deadline? This might be a year to go crazy

Nobody expects the Carolina Hurricanes to do much ahead of Friday’s trade deadline. It’s not their style to follow the herd and overpay for rental players to bulk up for a playoff push, and everybody knows it.

Still, it’s not unfair to ask: If there was ever a year to push their chips into the middle of the table and go for it, isn’t this it?

Under Tom Dundon’s ownership, the Hurricanes have always taken a more patient approach, a longer view, and that means placing a higher priority on cap flexibility and draft picks than other teams.

And … it’s worked. They’ve built a roster and a system that should ensure competitiveness for years to come without having their hand forced by cap issues, in part because they haven’t splurged on overpriced rentals. And in return, they’ve been able to take advantage of teams that haven’t been so forward-thinking.

But there does come a moment when the present should perhaps take precedence. For the Hurricanes, this is the closest they’ve come to it since beginning this run of playoff appearances in 2019. It may be time to pay the price for a premier rental like Jake Guentzel, and that price figures to be high — the Pittsburgh Penguins, at one point, were reportedly holding out for multiple first-round picks or a first and a prospect.

That’s not their style, but the left winger is the type of finished that could put them over the top, not to mention the kind of player they could have used last spring.

If the Hurricanes were ever going to make that kind of splash, the time is now.

Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei, Teuvo Teravainen, Jordan Martinook and Antti Raanta are all free agents after the season, and Martin Necas is a restricted free agent with a difficult contract negotiation ahead, the kind where players are as often traded as re-signed. The core of this team will still be in place, but it appears likely some pretty important players will be headed elsewhere this summer.

That’s all part of the cycle of NHL life, the inexorable progression of the natural order. Sometimes, it’s even a chance to get better. But you’d like to see this group that has left such an imprint on the Triangle have the best possible chance to win a Stanley Cup before that happens.

No one foresaw losing Andrei Svechnikov last year. Insurance is expensive, but it can be a bargain if you need it.

In the end, it’s futile to argue. The Hurricanes do things their way and they’re not going to change now. If there’s a deal to be made that would make sense regardless of deadline pressure — Nino Niederreiter, Vincent Trocheck, Skjei — they’ll make it, which is how they ended up sniffing around Elias Petterson before he re-signed with the Vancouver Canucks. They’d much rather take a big swing like that.

So they’re not going to go after a goalie, even though Frederik Andersen still hasn’t played since November and Pyotr Kochetkov runs hotter and colder than a North Carolina spring. The asking prices are too high and they feel like it’s a worthwhile gamble that out of four goalies, one has to be good enough at any given time. Time will tell.

They’re unlikely to go get a defenseman after adding Shayne Gostisbehere last year, since Tony DeAngelo has played well coming off the shelf when needed. Dylan Coghlan is the next man up in the AHL in the case of an injury crisis; he may be limited, but he’s a veteran who is probably better than anything available for a reasonable price.

If they add a depth forward, it’ll likely be a right shot, preferably one who can take faceoffs, although even that pool is pretty shallow if you’re not willing to pay a ridiculous ransom. But that might be an area worth thinking bigger and stretching the budget given their recent postseason history — maybe even going after a big fish like Guentzel, a left shot but perhaps the premier goal-scorer left on the rental market.

Their past two playoff exits have come at the hands of a team they were favored to beat because their offense dried up in the face of a hot goalie — and while Andrei Svechnikov’s injury came right after the trade deadline last year, they also didn’t add any insurance — that feels like an area worth pushing a little harder than usual.

Then again, this is a team that has proven it can beat anyone, that has some of the best special teams in the league, that has as good a chance as anybody to win it all. That is certainly an argument to stand pat and preserve the future. The marginal return on what you give up may indeed be negligible.

But there are also no guarantees the Hurricanes find themselves back in this position again. Only three months ago, their goaltending looked shaky enough that they might play themselves out of playoff position entirely.

They have, right now, as good a chance as anyone. That shouldn’t be taken for granted.

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