MANALAPAN, Florida — Eric Tulsky’s hair was not, in fact, on fire as he sat down for an interview to discuss the events of the past several weeks.
But his team sure is. Winners of seven straight games, the Carolina Hurricanes have parked a drama-filled trade deadline behind them.
And the general manager at the center of it all isn’t surprised his team has found its sea legs.
“We have a good team, and when we play the way we’re capable of, we’re a tough out for anyone,” Tulsky said Sunday as a late afternoon sun beamed down on the oceanside resort where NHL GMs are meeting this week.
The hot streak started three games before the trade deadline, as the entire hockey world waited to see what would happen with superstar rental Mikko Rantanen — which, in Tulsky’s mind, had nothing to do with his team losing six of eight games before the current win streak.
“We went through a stretch where pucks just weren’t going in the net,” he said. “We were still getting our chances, but it’s hard to win games when they don’t go in. And right now they are, so I’ll take it.”
Tulsky, wearing a Hurricanes golf shirt, cracked a smile at the end of that comment. He can afford to breathe a little after a pressure-filled few weeks as he attempted to re-sign Rantanen to no avail and then aggressively felt out a trade market ahead of March 7 before pulling the trigger with the Dallas Stars on deadline day.
He slept literally eight minutes — eight minutes! — between Thursday night and that Friday morning when he was working to figure out the Rantanen trade.
“It was a busy week for sure,” Tulsky said. “Obviously we had one big thing to sort out that absorbed the lion’s share of the attention. Ultimately, we felt like we knew what this team needed to keep going forward and we went after it.”
Logan Stankoven being part of the haul from Dallas was key in Carolina’s decision to go ahead with that offer.
Going back to an interview with The Athletic on Jan. 25, the day after acquiring Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche, Tulsky told me that the Hurricanes were comfortable with the risk they were taking in Rantanen being a pending unrestricted free agent. What changed?
“No, we were comfortable with the risk,” Tulsky insisted again Sunday. “We’re really happy to get Logan. He’s a really good young player. And if we hadn’t gotten a deal offered to us with a player like him, we wouldn’t have made a deal.”
Logan Stankoven has played in four games for the Hurricanes — all wins. (Kyle Ross / Imagn Images)
Confirmation, therefore, that the option of keeping Rantanen as a high-end rental and rolling the dice ahead of July 1 was still on the table. But by the end of things, and given how many teams heard from Carolina on Rantanen, it didn’t feel like a likely option. Not when Rantanen didn’t look like a fit in Carolina.
The Canes offered Rantanen $12.5 million per season on a max eight-year deal, with the stated willingness to negotiate up from that, but Rantanen never engaged meaningfully in contract talks with them. He just never felt right there. The gamble back on Jan. 24 from the Hurricanes’ point of view was that Rantanen would get to Carolina and within a few weeks get to enjoy the market and team and want to stay on long term. The Hurricanes were genuinely surprised when that didn’t happen.
“Just about everyone who has come to Carolina has decided they wanted to be there,” Tulsky said. “We haven’t always been able to make it work, with the finances and the roster, but this is the first player I can think of who just said it didn’t feel like home to him.
“So you know, we moved on.”
Lesson learned from the entire process? Would Tulsky take the same type of swing again on a rental player of that caliber without assurances of an extension?
“Yeah, I think you have to,” he said. “Honestly, I think it’s much more common to make a trade for a player who isn’t extended than one who is. You go through the deadline, I think Mikko is the only player who signed the day he got traded in the whole deadline, and people are acting like that’s the norm and you can’t make the trade without that.
“That’s not how it works usually.”
True enough.
Adding to the stress in those final 12 hours ahead of the deadline, the trade with Dallas appeared off at one point because the Stars at first couldn’t come to terms on an extension with Rantanen. What was the communication like with Dallas GM Jim Nill in those stressful moments as Tulsky tried to figure out what was happening on that end but also stayed ready to pivot to another team?
“The conversation was less with (Nill) and more with other people about what else we might do if we didn’t get a deal done (with Dallas),” Tulsky said. “Ultimately, we didn’t see another player out there who we wanted as much as Logan. So that was the deal we focused on.”
How many teams got engaged in talks with Carolina on Rantanen?
“I mean, every team took our call when we were calling around,” Tulsky said. “I would say the number that were serious was lower than that. And really there was only one deal that we wanted to do.”
Tulsky wouldn’t get into teams, of course, but the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers were among the serious bidders, as well as interest from the likes of the Vegas Golden Knights, Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings — even some calls from Utah, the Calgary Flames and the Anaheim Ducks, among others.
Some of the offers were mostly futures-based in assets, which didn’t work for the Hurricanes, who didn’t want to give up on this season.
“There were some offers on the table that were all futures,” Tulsky confirmed. “There were some offers on the table that had current players that we didn’t feel would help us as much as Logan would. And ultimately, if the value wasn’t there, we were just going to take our run with Mikko.”
The seven-game win streak now suggests otherwise, but the easy analysis in the wake of the trade was that while Carolina got great value given the two first-round picks being part of it as well, the Canes would likely take a step back for their Cup chances this very season given the loss of Rantanen.
“I think Logan is an impact player, and I think Taylor (Hall) is an impact player, and he gets forgotten in all this,” Tulsky said, referring to the original Jan. 24 three-team trade which also brought Hall from the Chicago Blackhawks. “He’s been really good for us, too.
“The two of them, plus we added Mark (Jankowski) at the deadline, too, put us in a really good situation to make our run here.”
After on-again, off-again talks with the Anaheim Ducks about John Gibson dating back to last summer, Tulsky decided to not tweak his goaltending at the deadline, having faith in Pyotr Kochetkov and Frederik Andersen. Andersen coming back in January after knee surgery and looking to be in top form was the evidence the Canes needed not to act.
“He’s been healthy and he’s playing well, and Pyotr has been playing the best hockey of his career,” Tulsky said. “Between the two of them, we’re very comfortable where we are right now.”
Looking ahead, the Canes have ample salary-cap room this offseason to be aggressive, which they plan to be.
“Yeah, my first two offseasons as a GM are going to be very different,” Tulsky said. “The first year trying to keep everyone would have put us $20 million over the cap. And this year, we can probably keep everyone and be $20 million under the cap. So it’s a very different situation to be in. It gives us a different opportunity to try and take a step forward this summer.”
Knowing how the Canes operate, one can expect them to be in the middle of many things this summer. That’s for sure.
(Top photo of Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon, GM Eric Tulsky and coach Rod Brind’Amour: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
