Hurricanes made a big splash, but are they done? With deadline a month away, maybe not
It’s hard to imagine the Carolina Hurricanes making a bigger splash than the blockbuster trade for Mikko Rantanen — maybe they can invent a time machine and shove Wayne Gretzky into it? — but there is still a month to go until the trade deadline and anything is possible.
More likely, March 7 passes quietly, the Hurricanes having shot their shot in January with the most notable trade of the NHL season so far, and with very little cap space to spare after the addition of Rantanen and Taylor Hall.
But that doesn’t mean the roster is set for the postseason, either. There are a couple reinforcements that should be coming from within the organization, one well known, the other not as much. There’s still a potential need to add some veteran center depth after Jack Drury’s departure in the Rantanen deal, and while Frederik Andersen has made a successful return from surgery, the Hurricanes are always one awkward lunge away from crisis.
Here’s who’s coming for certain: hockey-knowers have been talking about Russian defenseman Alexander Nikishin as one of the best players in the world outside the NHL, if not the best, for years. His contract is finally up at the end of this season, and whenever SKA St. Petersburg’s season is over, the 23-year-old is expected to be signed and on a plane to Raleigh within hours.
He’s big (6-foot-4, 215 pounds) with a mean streak, and nearly a point-per-game scorer in the KHL. You can’t do any better than this in the third round, and the Hurricanes have been trying to get him to North America for two years. He’ll provide instant quality on the left side whenever he gets here. At worst, the KHL playoffs end in late May, but Nikishin could be here before the NHL regular season ends if SKA goes quietly and quickly.
The anticipation surrounding Nikishin’s eventual arrival has been building for years; he’s expected to be a cornerstone of the blue line for a decade. But he could also have an immediate impact in the postseason if the Hurricanes need him, and it obviates the need to pursue any defensive depth at the deadline, with Ty Smith and Scott Morrow in the AHL as needed as well.
There’s another defenseman in the system who’s expected to be here as well, without any of the fanfare or hype surrounding Nikishin. Joel Nystrom was a seventh-round pick in 2019, a little guy — seven inches shorter than Nikishin — with big-time skills who has blossomed playing against older, stronger players in his native Sweden. The Hurricanes signed him to an NHL deal last spring and loaned him back to Farjestads for this season; he too will be in North America by the end of April, if not sooner.
Nikishin (on the left) and Nystrom (on the right) are like deadline pickups on defense, which means the Hurricanes can focus on an upgrade at center if they decide they need one there.
There’s one longshot wild card here. If the Hurricanes decide there’s no chance they’ll be able to re-sign Rantanen — and, keep in mind, they have the cap space to meet his demands and there’s no obvious reason why he wouldn’t want to stay — they could still potentially flip him before the deadline.
That was not the plan when they acquired him, and there’s an argument to be made that even if the Hurricanes overpaid for a rental player, they have a better chance to win the Stanley Cup this year with him than in future years without him. The Hurricanes want Rantanen here.
But in a worst-case scenario, they could conceivably punt and still get something back for him. In his brief time as general manager, some of Eric Tulsky’s moves have been predictable through the lens of publicly available analytics; his ability to think creatively to get deals done has been anything but.
In that respect, while there might not be anything as dramatic as the Rantanen deal left to pull off the deadline, Tulsky might not be done surprising, either.
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This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Hurricanes made a big splash, but are they done? With deadline a month away, maybe not."
