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Carolina Hurricanes Free Agency Recap: Day 1

July 1, 2014, 10:56 PM ET [15 Comments]
Matt Karash
Carolina Hurricanes Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
If you started the holiday weekend way early and were off at the beach with no internet/Twitter access all day, you did not miss much.

The Canes did make 3 moves today, but none are even remotely close to headliners. The team:

--Re-signed restricted free agent Jiri Tlusty for 1 year for $2.95M. I had him pegged at $2.5-3M, so for me that was the high end of fair. I guess the key thing here is the 1-year deal. That builds Jiri a bridge to UFA status next summer. While $2.95M is not dirt cheap or completely risk free, based on today's prices, he is only a very reachable 24-25 goal season away from $4-4.5M on the open market next summer. I would not call it a big miss, but if I could take another year at $2.95M (might not have been an option), I would.

--Signed former Av Brad Malone to 2 years at $1.3M (total). He brings size, jam, youth, some versatility and decent 2-way play to the 4th line. To be honest, I do not know much about him, so I will skip any pretend deep evaluation. At the end of the day, the Canes are not going to make or miss the playoffs because of this signing.

--Signed veteran AHL goalie Drew MacIntyre for the #3 slot and depth. McIntyre is a 31-year-old veteran AHL goalie with only 6 games of NHL experience but pretty good play in the AHL. If pressed into duty, the hope is that he is more hungry and ready than timid.

MacIntyre fills the hole left by Justin Peters who signed a night contract in Washington for $1.9M over 2 years. Good for him! I will root against him every time the Caps come into our building, but other than that I am very happy for him. He worked hard and earned his chance. I am happy to see him get it.

Manny Malhotra also signed today with Montreal for 1 year at $850k. The word recently was that he was looking for a 2-year deal, and I cannot imagine that the Canes would not have paid $850k for 1 year. Without it being spoken, the message seems to be there that he wanted to pursue other options instead of coming back.

Brett Bellemore is still unsigned. With a slew of the top defensemen signed, he could come into play soon.

So with the update completed, what are my thoughts on the 1st day:

--First and foremost, now is not the time to make any judgments. I said before the day started that the Canes were likely to be pretty quiet. I am mostly fine with that. July 1 can be very much a day for future buyout contracts. We cannot afford those. And quick - someone check the date of the big Alexander Semin signing from 2 summers ago.

--The mid-day announcement of Don Waddell joining the Hurricanes staff was actually the big news of the day for me. I called it a massive marketing blunder or similar on Twitter about mid-day. I honestly do not know if he will help the team on the business side of things or not, but the timing was miserable. The hard core dedicated fans with frayed nerves from the 5th consecutive playoff miss are tuned in to Twitter or the TV or wherever else watching anxiously looking for any sign of hope. They need it right now. And they watch the usual parade of teams that were already better than the Canes the previous year add top-end talent, while the Canes do nothing. Then the team picks 2pm on July 1 to announce the addition of Don Waddell to the staff. This is the same Don Waddell who led another struggling southern market team on a path that ultimately led to Winnipeg. The team could have picked 5 days, or even just a couple for that matter, on either side of July 1 and been fine.

--If I could steal a couple deals that happened today, there are actually not that many that I am jealous of. I am on record as wanting another true top 4 defenseman. Many of those signed today, but those contracts tended to range from downright expensive (Orpik, Niskanen, Willie Mitchell-really?, etc.) to on the high side of fair (Quincey, Gilbert, etc.). I guess if I could take a couple contracts I think they might be Ehrhoff for 1 year at $4M, Richards for 1 year at $2M and Gilbert for 2 years at $2.8M/year. To be clear, it is pretty obvious that Ron Francis probably had no shot at Ehrhoff and Richards who took a short deal to play for a contender. (Richards also took way less than market value.) Tom Gilbert maybe was a player that Francis could have had. His deal is not a tremendous bargain, and he is not a pure version of a top4. But I think he could have been a decent complement to Ron Hainsey as a right shot, mobile defenseman with decent puck-moving ability.

I think things could still be slow for awhile on the Canes front. The cupboard is pretty bare on the defense side of the ledger. Michael Del Zotto who I called a high risk/high reward option is still available. If he starts to push toward $2M (I figure Gilbert who had demand for him received $2.8M, so maybe it isn't that outlandish), his price starts to look closer to the 3rd pairing depth defenseman that the Canes need anyway. And the season goes south again, pairing him and young Ryan Murphy on a 3rd pairing would provide an adrenaline rush of some variety every 3rd shift for better or for worse. I still like Braydon Coburn. The unsuccessful shopping of Lecavalier's albatross of a contract should be about over. Now it just takes Philly wanting to spend money on something and looking for the next best thing to cut.

On the forward side of things, there are still a good number of pretty good options available. Kulemin, Legwand, Roy, Grabovski, Stempniak and others all have something to offer. Hopefully the buying will fade quickly such that these players can sit and lose value a bit for a few days at which point Ron Francis can shop in more of a buyers' market.

Finally, at the end of the day, I get some of the frustration and discontent from Canes fans if the team does not step into the market at some point. Minus playoffs for 5 years screams to do something, anything. And I feel some of that too. But I really think that any change in the team's playoff fate will need to come from within. If the big contracts to a man underperform there potential, there is no set of 1-2 free agents that is going to make this team good enough. There is enough upside in enough key players for this team to be better. There is a new coach to try to get more out of them. One of these 2 levers must yield gains in 2014-15 for the team to do better. While this is obviously far from a sure thing after 5 playoff misses, I do not think it is as big of a reach as the media will tell us all summer.

What are your thoughts on the Canes lack of deals today? And on the free agent frenzy and pricing in general?

Twitter=@CarolinaMatt63

Go Canes!
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