With names like Jake Bean, Nicolas Roy, Morgan Geekie, heck even Janne Kuokkanen gaining more prominence after leaving the Hurricanes franchise, I have to ask what is going on with the Hurricanes ability to develop the depth forwards they have coming through the pipeline? I mean I know they successfully developed guys like Alex Nedeljkovich (hopefully), Warren Foegele, and Brock McGinn in the past, but they elected not to hold onto those guys long-term because they felt that none of those guys were worth the pay raise

Now of course, they their have cornerstone pieces that are actually home-grown in Aho, Necas, Svechnikov, Slavin, and Pesce (No! Kotkaniemi does not count), but that is just five players and I dunno that the Canes pipelines have much contents that can ripen encouragingly. I guess we'll at least see how guys like Seth Jarvis, Jack Drury, Dominik Bokk, and Ryan Suzuki pan out

I get that the team is good at cap management, but can the same be said about their ability to develop players?

I guess you could argue that they're better at picking prospects than at developing them (I said "picking" rather than "drafting" because they've also traded for some good ones), but I think you have to give them some credit for developing players like Roy and Kuokkanen to the point where they're ready to be successful at the NHL level with another team. Those guys never really got much of a chance to make it with the Hurricanes, but that's partly because the Canes don't have a lot of spots available for developing prospects in the NHL, so they're using them as trade bait instead.

Yeah, that's interesting, although I seriously wonder if they regret trading Kuokkanen and a 3rd rounder for renting Vatanen considering how well Kuokkanen is doing over in Jersey. I also think they don't have anybody to blame but themselves for Jake Bean's development or lack their of, no wonder Seattle passed on him lol, I don't actually know if that's the case. I guess half a year of Erik Haula wasn't a bad return for Nicolas Roy, and I've never been high on Morgan Geekie, still not convinced he can be a full time NHLer

They probably do regret the Kuokkanen trade since Vatanen never did much for them, though covid was probably to blame for that. They canceled the season before he could play, then when they tried to throw him in in the playoffs he didn't seem to fit. He seemed to go downhill pretty quickly after that and now he's out of the league, so I don't think he was the player they thought they were getting. You win some you lose some but I think Waddell has won more trades than he's lost. Half a year of Haula wasn't the only thing they got out of the Roy trade. They flipped him to Florida for Trocheck. There were other pieces in both trades but chances are they wouldn't have Trocheck now if they hadn't traded Roy for Haula.

Yeah, I suppose, although after the Jake Bean and Alex Nedeljkovich trades, good luck convincing anybody that Waddell has won more trades than he has lost. I thought the Foegele for Bear trade was pretty even, the Fleury for Hakanpaa trade was okay, some more noteworthy Canes trades include:

Edmundson/Faulk: Win
Skjei/1st rounder: Loss
Reimer/Darling: Win
Niederreiter/Rask: Win

I suppose he's been around 50/50 with his trades, because he and Tom Dundon can sometimes be arguably a little bit too cheap on certain players when they don't need to make a desperation move. I don't know how you feel about the Hamilton + Ferland/Hanifin + Lindholm trade. Honestly, I just write that one off as a fair deal looking at the value that both teams got out of that trade. Adam Fox is negligible to me in that trade since he was still unproven and wouldn't sign with either team

(First time I'm splitting a quote so I hope it works.)

The uncertainty with Bean not being signed made him not worth more than a 2nd, but it was hard to believe they could only get a 3rd for a Calder finalist, even unsigned. I think they were worried he'd go to arbitration and get awarded $4M. They decided he wasn't going to be their #1 and they didn't want to pay that much for a backup.


I agree. I didn't like it at the time because I thought they needed a forward more than another defenseman, but then they signed Kotkaniemi, Jarvis became and NHL player, and Gardiner went on LTIR so it's worked out well.


Hakanpaa was only a rental and Fleury was signed, but I think it was good. Fleury was stuck and Hakanpaa was more what they needed going into the playoffs in a year that they thought they could win the cup.


I'm not sure I agree with you on this one. I like Edmundson but they were both 1-year rentals and Faulk was the better player. They weren't going to sign Faulk but it seems they didn't try to sign Edmundson either, so I think it was actually Bokk, the throw-in prospect, where Waddell was hoping to get the win. Better than the prospect they got for Skinner, but he doesn't seem to have amounted to much so far.


Popular opinion seems to be with you on this one, but I think it was ok. It was a late 1st rounder which is not bad for a 2nd pair defenseman.


Huge win. Darling was a liability and Reimer played great for them. Their only saving grace on Darling was that his contract didn't cost as much to buy out as Reimer's would have, so Florida was willing to make this deal.


Big win. Pretty close to an old-fashioned hockey trade in that both players were struggling at the time and on similar contracts where they were both being overpaid by about the same amount, but Niederreiter was the better player and made an immediate impact in Carolina. He's had his ups and downs but overall has been a good investment. Nice to see Rask finally getting some of his mojo back in Minnesota.


I agree. Even with Dougie gone now I still say it was a great trade for both teams.


True but they flipped him for two 2nd rounders, which seems like a pretty bad return for a future Norris trophy winner, but I think they were a few months away from losing his rights for nothing so that's not a bad haul.

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I don't suppose Darling will ever get another opportunity in the NHL ever again will he. In what way was he a liability? Just financially?

And in what way was Haydn Fleury "stuck" towards the end of his time in Carolina?

Yes, financially. I don’t know if he was bad for team chemistry or anything like that, but they were paying him to be their #1 goalie which he never was and by that time they knew he never would be. I thought the Canes were going to buy him out, so finding a way to get a useful player for him instead seemed like a stroke of genius.



Stuck in that he couldn’t get above the third pair, and he wasn’t progressing in his development. I thought he took a step up in the 2020 playoffs but he couldn’t seem to build on that.

Darling hasn't gotten a goaltending gig since he was bought out, and Fleury has been healthy scratched some games on a weak Seattle Kraken team