So this is how all the new pieces fit together. Jesperi Kotkaniemi will start on the left wing, filling the Carolina Hurricanes' last open spot at forward. Jake Gardiner faces multiple surgeries and will go on long-term injured reserve, opening up the cap space Hurricanes need to fit Kotkaniemi's new contract.
The Hurricanes' gambit to poach Kotkaniemi worked, sacrificing $3 million or so and a pair of draft picks for a 21-year-old player who never quite flourished with the Montreal Canadiens, although it's easy to forget how young he really is. Only three players from the 2018 draft have played as many NHL games at this point. Andrei Svechnikov is one of them.
Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell called all of it the "acquisition cost of getting a young player" on Sunday, one sleep after the Canadiens officially decided not to match the Hurricanes' $6.1 million offer sheet for Kotkaniemi, and now the real gamble begins.
This doesn't work unless the Hurricanes get Kotkaniemi signed to a long-term deal at a more realistic and appropriate cap number. And it isn't a masterstroke if Kotkaniemi is never more than a third-line player. One of those variables should be a constant by January. The other may take years.
The contract is probably the easy part. The Hurricanes would have discussed longer deals than this one-year bonanza as part of the offer sheet process, a perfectly legal part of any negotiations with a restricted free agent. And they're free as of 5:31 p.m. Saturday to negotiate as much or as little as they like with a player they now have under contract, even if they can't sign Kotkaniemi to an extension until January 1.
Waddell said Sunday there were only discussions on a one-year deal, but managed not to throw in a giant wink while saying it. While some of what Kotkaniemi's next contract will look like depends on how he plays between now and New Year's Eve, surely the two sides know the rough parameters of what a long-term extension will look like. Neither the Hurricanes nor Kotkaniemi would have entered into the terms of the offer sheet if they thought they'd be back in this position next summer.
None of that can be taken for granted, but there's every reason to expect Kotkaniemi's outsized cap hit to be a one-year hassle.
And it's now official per Waddell that Gardiner is how the Hurricanes will handle that hassle.
Waddell said Gardiner needs surgery on his back and his hip, which certainly goes a long way to explaining how Gardiner lost a step last season and why the Hurricanes were so hesitant to use him in the playoffs. If that's indeed the case, there's no chance of any hiccups with Gardiner insisting he wants to try to play, as would be his right otherwise.
Still, the Hurricanes' accounting isn't done yet. The Hurricanes can only take full cap advantage of Gardiner's $4 million contract if they're actually $4 million over the cap. LTIR is funny that way. It's not just a blank check to overspend. Kotkaniemi pushes them about $1.5 million over, so they have to add $2.5 million between now and opening night, even if that's someone who gets sent to the minors 24 hours later and collects a one-day NHL paycheck. It shouldn't be an issue, but it still has to get done, and in a way where the Hurricanes can't be accused of circumventing the cap.
This is all small potatoes compared to the high stakes riding on Kotkaniemi himself.
If he's never more than a third-line center, or even a fourth-line center who can play a bigger role when needed, this has been a lot of effort for a very replaceable part, even at a more affordable cap number starting next season. That seems unlikely, since there were good reasons Kotkaniemi was the third overall pick in the draft, but not impossible.
At best, Kotkaniemi has the potential to be a second-line center with two-way skills and a key addition to the Hurricanes' core group of young players for a decade to come. If that's how this pans out, the first-round pick and $3 million the Hurricanes lit on fire to get him will look as impossibly affordable as his $20 signing bonus.
