Elliotte Friedman reports on the most recent episode of 31 Thoughts: The Podcast that he believes the Hurricanes and Jesperi Kotkaniemi have had discussions of what a framework of a long-term deal might look like, and have done so prior to signing yesterday’s one-year offer sheet.
Presumably the long-term deal would fall below the AAV of the one-year offer sheet, which would allow the Hurricanes to avoid giving Kotkaniemi a $6.1 million qualifying offer, or taking him to team-elected arbitration in lieu of a qualifying offer, where the floor of the arbitration award would be 85% of his $6.1 million AAV.
Friedman also said that the Hurricanes had been in the market for a center and had talked with Montreal about trading for Kotkaniemi. He says the Canadiens weren’t close on a contract with the young center, suggesting they were offering a 2-year deal in the range of $2.5 million per season.
Further, he suggests that Montreal is seriously considering letting Kotkaniemi go to Carolina and receiving Carolina’s 2022 1st and 3rd round picks in compensation. He says they are shopping the value of those picks around the league to see what they could bring back in a trade. He could envision them offering the picks to Arizona for center Christian Dvorak.
