RALEIGH, N.C. _ It wasn't quite a completely different team, but it was certainly a different look for the Carolina Hurricanes. The group that took the ice Tuesday morning to prepare for that night's game was altered from the group that took the ice Saturday night in what turned out to be an epic win by nine different players _ 12 months of changes packed into 72 hours.
Thanks to injuries and a flurry of trade-deadline moves Monday that rebuilt the roster on the fly, and not with the usual deadline rentals, either (although there was one of those), the Hurricanes moved two players in and two out at goalie, two out and one in at forward, one in (and another still pending) and one out on defense since Saturday's epic and improbable win at the Toronto Maple Leafs.
It's not something you see often. It's not something you ever see in a matter of days.
"Probably not," Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said, "but when do you ever get two goalies hurt in the same game?"
In what was the busiest NHL trade deadline on record in terms of the number of trades and tied for the record in players moved, the Hurricanes were as busy as anyone. They managed to add two players to their core, both under contract beyond this season, without really losing anything of consequence other than a first-round pick in a year in which they're likely to have two.
And did they need it, with goalies Petr Mrazek and James Reimer and defenseman Brett Pesce all injured in Saturday's game. But this wasn't panic shopping, either. While they'll roll the dice on AHLers Alex Nedeljkovic and Anton Forsberg in net for as long as Mrazek and Reimer are out, they managed to address a chronic weakness at center and further stabilize their defense for the long term on a day when most teams overpay for short-term help.
In Victor Trocheck, they added a top-six center for what were essentially spare parts: an impending free agent in Erik Haula, a useful but bottom-six center in Lucas Wallmark and a couple of appealing but mid-level prospects in Eetu Luostarinen and Chase Priskie. Trocheck's production has dipped and he clearly needed a change of scenery, so the deal makes sense for the Florida Panthers, but it was a no-brainer for the Hurricanes, who now have Trocheck for another two seasons at a reasonable salary.
They had to give up a first-round pick to get Brady Skjei from the New York Rangers and prospect Janne Kuokkanen to get injured-at-the-moment rental defenseman Sami Vatanen from the New Jersey Devils, but these are more than acceptable costs given the state of the Hurricanes' defense with Pesce and Dougie Hamilton out. Once Vatanen is healthy _ and the Hurricanes still have the option of bringing Jake Bean up from Charlotte _ that ought to take some of the workload off Jaccob Slavin.
Still, it was a massive amount of salary to add in one day, and with Trocheck under contract for the next two seasons and Skjei the next four. They can squeeze them aboard this year with Hamilton and Pesce on long-term injured reserve and off the books, but next year's cap space was already restricted because of the performance bonuses the Hurricanes will inevitably end up paying Andrei Svechnikov and Martin Necas and Justin Williams _ those count against the next season's cap for teams that use all their space in the current season, as the Hurricanes now will _ so the Hurricanes will have some fancy financial footwork to do over the summer.
The indispensable CapFriendly has the Hurricanes with about $8 million in space and 17 players under contract for 2020-21, not counting two restricted free agents (Haydn Fleury and Warren Foegele) who will be expecting raises or this year's bonus overages. That's a tight squeeze.
But it's workable, and worth both the expense and deferred hassle to give a team that played as well as it possibly could Saturday _ with a 42-year-old civilian in net _ a chance to make the postseason without two of its top three defensemen.
"It sent a bolt of lightning down there," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "We've been giving everything we have. We're banged up. To send that message that, hey, we've got a little help, it's certainly not guaranteeing anything, but it gives a message that we're all in here."
It may or may not be enough, given the uncertainty in net and the value of Hamilton and Pesce to the team, but it was as much of a hack at it as anyone could take in one day.
