The Hurricanes wanted Mikko Rantanen. They got Markko Jankinen. And they’re better off
Who needs Mikko Rantanen when you have Markko Jankinen?
Look, no one expected Mark Jankowski to score like this, nor should it necessarily be expected of him in the future. He was the replacement for Jack Drury at center, not the centerpiece of a blockbuster trade.
But the Carolina Hurricanes will take it.
They made lemonade from a Finnish lemon.
(In Finland, it’s called sima, and it gets you drunk.)
Sometimes, you don’t need a telestrator to figure this stuff out. After excising the poisonous Rantanen from their midst, they didn’t lose for more than two weeks, a five-game post-deadline winning streak that’s now six of seven — nine of 10 overall, thanks to three wins predating the deadline. Hockey is like that, especially when it comes to effort and commitment. When someone isn’t pulling on the same rope, and by Rantanen’s disastrous final game for the Hurricanes against the Boston Bruins, that could not have been more clear, it drags everyone down together.
The Hurricanes took a swing at Rantanen, they missed, they made the best of it and have not looked back. As they return home Tuesday from the West Coast to play Jankowski’s former team, the Nashville Predators, they’ve proven to be a better team without the superstar winger they so badly wanted than they ever were, briefly, with him.
Jankowski, acquired from the Predators for the token compensation of a fifth-round pick, scored his sixth goal in seven games with the Hurricanes on Sunday, pure gravy from a guy expected to anchor the bottom six. Taylor Hall, the cherry on top of the Rantanen deal, had a hat trick in the 5-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks and has six goals in 20 games with the Hurricanes.
And Logan Stankoven, eight inches shorter than Rantanen but far more excited to be here, by all appearances, has four points in seven games after being the consolation prize when Rantanen was flipped to the Dallas Stars in the middle of the night. Rantanen had six in 13 games with the Hurricanes.
If Rantanen had wanted to be here, he would have made the Hurricanes a better team. There’s no doubt about that. As sour as things went with the Hurricanes, he’s a legitimate superstar — as he demonstrated in his first couple games with the Stars, if not so much since. But a disgruntled superstar is the worst kind of dressing-room cancer, and if where he lived was so important, maybe Rantanen should have taken the reasonable offer the Colorado Avalanche made him instead of fighting for nickels and dimes on an eight-digit salary?
The final toll will be told at the end of all this, especially if the Hurricanes turn out to be a better postseason team with this collection of new arrivals than with Martin Necas, the centerpiece of the original Rantanen trade. Likewise, if the Hurricanes accidentally delivered the difference-maker to their Stanley Cup finals opponent, it will be hard to say things worked out for them.
But they did about as well as they could on short notice to flip Rantanen and make the best of things at the deadline. (If there’s an asterisk here, it’s that the deal was so complicated and was finalized in such a small window, they didn’t have a chance to convert either of the first-round picks they acquired into immediate help.) Stankoven is the kind of winger who’s traditionally had success in the Hurricanes’ system, Hall is a veteran whose greatest contributions may be yet to come, and Jankowski has already exceeded expectations.
Everything about the way they have played since Rantanen left indicates they’re a better team without him than they were with him — and that goes beyond Jankowski, Hall and Stankoven. Sometimes, the worst-case scenario turns out to have a best-case conclusion.
Sometimes, obvious talent aside, you’d rather have a Markko Jankinen that wants to be here than a Mikko Rantanen that doesn’t.
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This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 11:45 AM with the headline "The Hurricanes wanted Mikko Rantanen. They got Markko Jankinen. And they’re better off."
