The NHL’s Metro Division is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in the league. Let’s take a look at the teams of the east and see how they’ll match up against the Red Wings.
Carolina Hurricanes
Record Last Season: 36-12-8
Playoff Result: Lost in the Second Round
Expectation This Season: the Stanley Cup
What to Expect Heading Into the Season
It’s been a loud offseason for the Hurricanes.
Most recently, the team caught league wide attention with a $6.1 million dollar offer sheet for the Montreal Canadien’s Jesperi Kotkaniemi. The Hurricanes were not shy with their taunting of Montreal – especially on Twitter. Carolina made it very clear they had not forgotten Montreal’s offer sheet move on Sebastian Aho just a few years ago.
However, the move wasn’t purely a revenge story. Although Kotkaniemi might not live up to his $6.1 million price tag, the Hurricanes get a young center full of potential. One can argue about value, but the move certainly bolstered the forward room.
Ethan Bear was another important acquisition by the team. The Hurricanes sent Warren Foegele over to the Edmonton Oilers in exchanged for the 24 year old defenseman. Bear is an agile, talented skater that seems to only be trending upwards. Adding to the blue line was essential, considering the loss of one of the best defenseman in the league, Dougie Hamilton. Bear isn’t at Hamilton’s level, but he’s young enough to continue development and ensures that there isn’t a major hole in the blue line. The team also moved to sign Tony DeAngelo in one of the most controversial moves of the offseason. While DeAngelo is pretty mediocre defensively, he’s effective as a power play quarterback and has a decent offensive skillset – in 2019-20, he scored 15 goals and 38 assists in 68 games.
More relevant to fans of the Detroit Red Wings was the trade of Calder Finalist Alex Nedeljkovic. The young goaltender finished with a .932 save percentage and 1.9 goals against through 23 games. In the postseason, But after a bit a contract dispute, the organization decided to head in a different direction in net. They acquired two goaltenders, signing Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta.
Andresen is a veteran goaltender with a history of good save percentages, although his recent numbers with the Toronto Maple Leafs are on the decline. Last year, he finished with a .895 save percentage in 24 games. Raanta played good when healthy with the Arizona Coyotes. Last season, he had a .905 save percentage through 12 games. The year before that, he finished with .921 in 33 games. While the goalie tandem isn’t bad for the Hurricanes, it’s a stretch to say they are an improvement over last year’s Nedeljkovic-Petr Mrazek duo (especially considering Nedeljkovic’s trajectory).
It’s hard to argue that the Carolina Hurricanes improved on paper in the offseason. The roster saw a major makeover with some key losses – in a boom or bust offseason, management is going to be under heavy scrutiny this year. The team is likely going to be playoff bound, but we’ll see just how far they go with a remodeled roster.
Detroit did quite well in their matchups against the Hurricanes this year, finishing with a 4-4 record against one of the best teams in the division. But Carolina is never an easy victory; they’ve had a solid defense for quite some time, but with all the roster changes, the Hurricanes are a hard matchup to predict.