The Carolina Hurricanes are doing what so many teams in today’s NHL are trying to figure out: building a contender without handing out one massive contract after another.
That matters even more now, with the salary cap climbing and the league’s money flowing fast. Around the NHL, teams have been paying up this summer, especially for young restricted free agents they want to keep in the fold.
Eight players have signed deals worth more than $10 million per season, and five of those eight were RFAs or just a year away from becoming one. Macklin Celebrini is set to make $18.8 million beginning in 2027-28.
The Ducks matched Leo Carlsson’s offer sheet from the Flyers at $18 million per year. Connor Bedard is at $15 million.
Those are only the headliners.
Carolina has taken a different road. The Hurricanes have mostly stood pat, and they look set to bring back almost the same roster that just won the Cup. That has long been part of their identity, and it’s also why they keep showing up as one of the league’s most efficient teams when it comes to contracts.
According to The Athletic, Carolina enters the season with the best contract efficiency in the league, based on a model that weighs a player’s performance, age, and other factors before comparing that value to the actual deal. The Hurricanes are getting major bang for their buck across the board.
What makes it work is simple enough: they don’t need a roster built around one or two gigantic salaries. No one on the team is making more than $10 million, with Sebastian Aho leading the way at $9.75 million. The next closest player, Nikolaj Ehlers, is more than $1 million behind him at $8 million AAV.
The front office also looks especially sharp for the way it handled Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven. Both were extended last summer with a full season still left on their entry-level deals, and both have already outperformed those contracts in a big way.
Blake’s eight-year, $5.12 million deal looks like a steal after he topped 50 points in the regular season and then led the team with 20 points in the playoffs. Stankoven, on an eight-year deal worth $6 million per year, led the Hurricanes with 11 goals this postseason.
Seth Jarvis is another huge value piece. His estimated market value is over $14 million, but he’s expected to make $7.42 million over the next six years.
That gap is hard to miss, especially after he has scored more than 30 goals in each of the last three seasons. He’ll miss the start of the year while recovering from shoulder surgery.
Defense is still the heartbeat of this team, and the numbers back that up too. All five signed defensemen are considered positive values for Carolina, with Jaccob Slavin leading the group.
Shayne Gostisbehere’s value is more than double what the team is paying him. In goal, Brandon Bussi and Pyotr Kochetkov are also listed as being severely underpaid.
There are only two players on the active roster with negative values: William Carrier and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Kotkaniemi’s is the one that stands out as especially poor.
Even with that, the overall picture is clear. Carolina has most of its roster locked up for years, which keeps its championship window wide open.
The Canes may not have a player on the level of Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, but they’ve built something that works: a team where everyone has a job, everyone does it well, and the cap sheet looks just as strong as the lineup. Others around the league are going to study this model closely.
In Other News...
Nikishin Just Raised The Stakes In Carolinas Next Contract Call
The ripple effect from Macklin Celebrinis five-year, $94 million extension is already reaching beyond San Jose and into the next round of NHL contract talks, where top young defensemen will have plenty of numbers to study. For Carolina, the conversation has quickly turned to Alexander Nikishin, whose first notable contract ask is being viewed through the same lens as the deals elite players are landing elsewhere, especially as the market keeps creeping upward for impact blue-liners.
Nikishin is reportedly aiming above the $8 million-per-season range, a figure that would immediately reset expectations for a Hurricanes defenseman if it becomes the starting point in serious negotiations. What makes it even more interesting is that there still is not much clarity on the structure of the deal he wants, leaving Carolina with an important question to sort through well before the next contract cycle gets rolling. [Read more 🡒]
The Worst Hurricanes Playoff Pain Still Defines This Team
The Hurricanes have built plenty of good regular seasons in recent years, but their playoff history still carries the weight of three Eastern Conference finals that ended badly. A retrospective ranking of the franchises postseason series puts those defeats at the bottom of the list, with the 2019 loss to Boston standing out for how thoroughly Carolina was controlled, while the 2009 meeting with Pittsburgh is remembered more for being competitive before slipping away.
For a team that has been close enough to taste a Stanley Cup Final berth, those series remain a reminder of how narrow the margin can be at that stage. Even in a rankings exercise, the same theme keeps surfacing for Carolina: when the pressure rises in the Eastern Conference finals, the Hurricanes have too often found themselves one step short of the breakthrough they were chasing. [Read more 🡒]
Hurricanes Face A Tough Alexander Nikishin Decision As Talks Drag On
Contract talks around young defenseman Alexander Nikishin have become one of the more intriguing loose ends of the Hurricanes offseason, and the uncertainty has only grown as the calendar has moved along. As Carolina weighs its next move, Nikishin remains a restricted free agent whose long-term fit is suddenly harder to read, especially with the team still trying to sort out what kind of commitment makes sense for a player with his upside.
The wrinkle is that the situation is no longer just about a simple bridge deal or a routine bit of summer housekeeping. Nikishins camp is pushing for a big-ticket contract, while Carolina has to balance that ask against the rest of its roster planning and the reality that his name has already surfaced in trade conversations. For a club built on structure and patience, it is the kind of decision that can shape more than one season. [Read more 🡒]