The smoke continues to clear from the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline and it’s becoming more obvious that the Carolina Hurricanes mustn’t have traded for Mikko Rantanen in the primary place.
Dierks Bentley’s first single, “What Was I Thinkin’? ” sums it up best. That’s what everyone seems to be asking about regarding the initial trade on January twenty fourth. Even Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour continued the trend of honesty amongst managers and coaches throughout the NHL by stating that Mikko Rantanen didn’t need to be there in the primary place.
“There’s not been one guy that has left here because they didn’t prefer it here. That was, apart from Mikko, and he didn’t prefer it. When he showed up, he said, ‘There’s 4 teams I’ll go play for, but you’re not certainly one of them,’” Brind’Amour said. “So there’s 28 other teams he wasn’t going to, and the higher query is, should now we have known that before we signed him, Or attempted to sign him?”
Trade Deadline Fallout: Mikko Rantanen – Why Dallas and Not Carolina?
This can be a superb query. In line with Hurricanes General Manager Eric Tulsky, who spoke to Pierre LeBrun of the Athletic back in January after the trade, Tulsky stated the seed was planted in the summertime. Still, things didn’t really pick up again until six to eight weeks before the trade.
“It was not very serious until probably six, eight weeks ago,” Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky said to LeBrun. “We began entering into conversations about what a deal might appear like. There was numerous forwards and backwards about what we could do. What we wanted. In the long run, we actually got all the way down to brass tacks within the last week or two. And hammered it out yesterday (Friday, January twenty fourth).”
It was a shocking trade: Rantanen was traded from the Colorado Avalanche to the Carolina Hurricanes via the Chicago Blackhawks for retention purposes. Carolina sent Martin Necas and Jack Drury to Carolina. But somewhere along the best way, the message got lost. It was clear he didn’t need to go to Carolina and play in Carolina long-term.
NHL Trade: Mikko Rantanen Traded to Dallas Stars from Carolina
The Hurricanes were the one team that might sign him to an eight-year term before trading him to the Dallas Stars on March seventh, the Trade Deadline. But you would tell Rantanen never got comfortable in Brind’Amour’s system. Tulsky was banking on Rantanen loving town and playing for the coach, especially together with his Team Finland buddy Sebastian Aho there. However it never took, and he never desired to be traded from Colorado.
And while the Canes reportedly made competitive offers, reports are between $12-$14 million, Rantanen knew that this style was not for him. It was an enormous risk that didn’t repay for Tulsky. While Tulsky is comfortable with the best way things worked out in the long run,
“He’s a superb player, and having him with the team (for the remainder of the season) would have been a superbly positive end result,” Tulsky explained after Friday’s trade deadline. “Having him for a Cup run would have been good. Possibly we win the Cup with him. We needed to weigh that against what we could get in a trade. If the trade offers hadn’t been there, then we wouldn’t have done it. … While you move him out, that’s a loss for the present yr. … (But) we felt like we were getting enough on this deal that it was the appropriate thing for the organization long run. We’re comfortable with the best way it ended up.”
Nevertheless, for those who give it some thought for a minute, the trade never made sense. Even the top coach knows it. While hindsight is all the time 20/20, perhaps they need to have gotten the contract extension in place first, before making the trade. Not to say, he had an idea Carolina was not the place for him.
“So Mikko was the one one which I’ve been related to that said, I don’t need to, this is just not for me, and I believe there’s other circumstances on that,” Brind’Amour added. “It’s not due to hockey, it’s because I believe his family, it wasn’t for him. So good, and I appreciate that he tell us that. We probably shouldn’t have known that before we made the deal.”
Again, it is straightforward to play Monday Morning Quarterback or, on this case, Monday Morning General Manager, but people on the time thought Rantanen’s move to the Canes didn’t make sense. Heck, even former Hurricanes and now Avalanche Martin Necas knew signing him can be an issue.
“It’s a troublesome position for them, they probably should’ve known that he would check in Carolina if he gets there,” Necas said.
Possibly, just perhaps, because the Vince Gill song “You Higher Think Twice ” goes, the Hurricanes must have thought twice before making the trade for Mikko Rantanen in the primary place.
