Despite being vaguely “in” on trade talks these past few weeks, it looked like the Hurricanes had decided to stand pat as the 3 p.m. ET deadline rolled around Monday.
But the buzzer isn’t always the end of the game, as you’ll remember from when we thought the Hurricanes were done last season and ended up one Brady Skjei deeper.
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That 2020 news conference was delayed by an hour, so I guess we should’ve suspected something was brewing this season when the Canes preemptively scheduled the 2021 post-deadline presser for an hour and 30 minutes after the deadline. And yet again it was a defenseman — Anaheim’s Jani Hakanpaa — welcomed into the Hurricanes’ beloved blue line logjam (plus a 2022 sixth-round pick). The Finland native, who has experience playing with Hurricanes star Sebastian Aho, has played 42 games this season for Anaheim and adds size at 6-foot-5 and 218 pounds. His 168 hits rank third in the NHL.
But this time the Hurricanes took a log out of the jam, too, by sending homegrown defenseman and 2014 seventh overall pick Haydn Fleury to the Ducks.
On the surface, the move was somewhat surprising on multiple levels. After The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported that the Canes were holding Fleury out of the lineup Saturday ahead of a potential trade, I was told the move was just part of the ongoing defense rotation, with Jake Gardiner needing to get some reps in after ample time on the taxi squad. Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said this morning that Fleury would be in the lineup tonight, with Jake Bean sitting out. But, as noted, these things happen fast, and according to Waddell, this trade was finalized around 2 p.m. — an hour before the deadline.
“We talked throughout the day, and we talked to lots of teams,” Waddell said. “We probably had 10 to 12 deals going on at the same time, and I think the decision was made sometime before 2 o’clock that we were going to go in this direction. Today was one day, but we’ve been talking about different deals regarding this player for a few days now. We had multiple teams that were talking to us, but I felt this fit was the best for our hockey club as we sit here today.
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“When we made this trade, I told our people to keep very quiet until this deal comes down. … When you’re trading players, you gotta be careful. Whenever I make a trade, I want the player to hear from me first, not the media. Today when I called Fleurs, it wasn’t out there at all. They called their player. That’s the way you want a trade to go down — the first time he hears about it, it’s from the general manager.”
Now, to the trade itself: a defenseman for a defenseman (and a low draft pick). What was the point? To me, it’s a lot of little things adding up. Let’s go rapid-fire, here.
• Hakanpaa, 29, gives the Hurricanes the right-shot defenseman Waddell told me (and the rest of the world) they were seeking. “We like our defense, but you know, after you get through our first two sets of pairs, we’ve got three lefties there,” he said a few weeks ago. “They all play well, but they all would be better on their natural side. They’re all left-hands who would be better on the left side. … So if we could add a right-hand-shot defenseman to complement them, I think that would be good.” Hakanpaa will be asked to hold it down and protect the crease on the right side and anchor one of the many offensive-minded lefties. The move also allows the offensively intriguing rookie Bean to play on his natural side.
• The Hurricanes need to think of looming contract negotiations with Dougie Hamilton, Andrei Svechnikov and a goalie with every move they make. They aren’t really in a position to take on money, and they are in a position to actively seek out shedding cap space. Hakanpaa is a pending unrestricted free agent with a $750,000 cap hit, and Fleury has a $1.3 million cap hit this year and next year.
• In the same off-ice vein, the upcoming expansion draft no doubt factored into this trade. The Canes knew that Ron Francis, who drafted Fleury and Bean, would be interested in both players. Let Francis take one “for nothing,” or get something out of it? It’s a tough call. “We know we potentially would have issues with our defense via the expansion draft,” Waddell said Monday. “And so instead of just letting a player walk away potentially for nothing — we’ll still lose a good player one way or another; we just felt that that was part of it. It wasn’t the driver of the decision, but it was definitely a part of it. Right now, we really like our hockey team. That’s why we didn’t make a lot of changes, but we really felt that we needed this stay-at-home, right-hand-shot defenseman.”
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• Fleury likes to play with an offensive edge, and as much as he’d grown over the past two seasons — most notably his impact during Round 1 of the 2020 playoffs — he was tapering off in that aspect this season, with one goal and no assists in 35 games. I wouldn’t fully blame that on the player — it was more of a structural dilemma because the Hurricanes have so many like-minded defensemen and he was getting bottom-of-the-barrel minutes as a result. But it wasn’t fully serving either side, whereas a player who can complement offense might be a better fit.
• Speaking of which, again, Hakanpaa’s 168 hits are third-most among all NHL players, and the Canes have reluctantly given up that snarl in letting go of defensemen like Calvin de Haan and Joel Edmundson recently. Their acquisition of Cedric Paquette earlier in the season also indicated a desire for more grit in the lineup as the Canes prepare to make a run at a Cup.
• The Hurricanes have expressed over and over that they didn’t want to do too much and mess with the dressing room chemistry when the team is hovering around No. 1 in the league standings. This seems like something that could provide a little spark without a huge risk of regret. They’ve talked to countryman and former teammate Aho about Hakanpaa for years since he came over to play in North America.
• For a final assessment of the fit, we turn it over to The Athletic’s Ducks reporter, Eric Stephens: “Depth is always a valuable element for a team that envisions having a long playoff run, and while Hakanpaa isn’t going to move the needle much on his own, his presence on a deep Carolina blue line could come in handy if injuries do arise. Ideally, he can slot in best on a third pair and can certainly be used on the penalty kill. Hakanpaa has made the transition to NHL hockey in his second try after being a St. Louis draft pick a decade ago. The 6-foot-5 Finn brings huge size, some physical play and shot-blocking ability (his 65 over 42 games led Anaheim). While he won’t win many races from a standing start, he can skate well enough to get to pucks first and move them out of trouble areas. He has been steady working off Cam Fowler this season and could operate in the same role alongside a mobile, offensive-minded defender.”
(Photo: Debora Robinson / Getty Images)