Hurricanes 2024-25 Post Mortem and Off Season Stuff

A Bouchard offer sheet would have been a big one. Offer sheet fireworks at that level haven't been seen in a very long time.

As always I'm happy that the Canes are willing (and able) to take big swings. The Dundon ownership has been significantly more fun....just need to get a Cup here at some point (even so, this is WAY more fun than the Karmanos years or most of the Whalers ownership years). Winning is fun, go figure!

cmaleski2 said:

A Bouchard offer sheet would have been a big one. Offer sheet fireworks at that level haven't been seen in a very long time.

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The Hurricanes haven't tried anything that bonkers since the failed Federov offer sheet. And good on them. Again, when you've got that much open Cap and draft/prospect resources AND pretty much a set roster, you can take huge chances with that kind of move. They missed, but even if they had landed Bouchard at a $10.5 million AAV (or whatever), they still would have had the money to extend Stankoven and shop the market for forward help.

A little more perspective on Carolina's effort to flip Rantanen for Marner at the deadline has emerged from the Toronto media's deep dive into all things Marner. Looks like that "I'm not waiving my no-trade at the deadline because I want to be a Leaf and my wife is about to give birth" stuff was largely spin from Marner's camp. Based on reporting out of Toronto, he WOULD have been willing to waive his no-trade, but either only for Vegas or at least only for a very small number of teams that didn't include Carolina. The implication being that he had his sights set on Vegas all along and everybody else was just wasting their time. Which is fine, but is not what was presented.

And that last sentence is the Mitch Marner experience in a nutshell. It's fine, but it's never quite what it looks like from the outside.

An interview with Orlov now that he's landed in San Jose for a fresh start
On his time with the Canes, he basically says he took for granted that his experience and reputation would get him a key role in Raleigh, but he found out that with Brind'Amour it's always about what your play deserves. He got stuck in the 3rd pair because of it, and he says he finally caught on late in his first season that he needed to earn anything more. Honestly, that jives with what we saw. Orlov just never really earned the trust of the staff and if he showed up thinking his experience was all he needed and then didn't have a great attitude when it wasn't ... yeah, that's what we watched unfolding. I always thought it was telling that Roddy never once put him on the power play, even when he absolutely could have made a difference. He just never really fit in with the Canes.

jeffbear said:

An interview with Orlov now that he's landed in San Jose for a fresh start
On his time with the Canes, he basically says he took for granted that his experience and reputation would get him a key role in Raleigh, but he found out that with Brind'Amour it's always about what your play deserves. He got stuck in the 3rd pair because of it, and he says he finally caught on late in his first season that he needed to earn anything more. Honestly, that jives with what we saw. Orlov just never really earned the trust of the staff and if he showed up thinking his experience was all he needed and then didn't have a great attitude when it wasn't ... yeah, that's what we watched unfolding. I always thought it was telling that Roddy never once put him on the power play, even when he absolutely could have made a difference. He just never really fit in with the Canes.

Orlov says 2-year deal with Sharks gives him a 'fresh start' | NHL.com

Defenseman looking for a change after not meeting expectations with Hurricanes

www.nhl.com

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His big ticket almost $8 million x 2 free agent deal as the highest paid UFA D-Man at the time probably had him assuming a guaranteed top 4 D pairing. There were too many times to count this past season when Orlov was shown on the bench after a brain fart shaking his head at his own poor decision making and choices. At that price point you cannot afford to have a veteran guy like that become that much of a liability defensively.

Honestly, I thought he gave it his best shot in 2024-25. It was Year 1 when he was really bad. He had come in off two pretty decent seasons in Washington (kind of bouncing back from a couple of up and down years) and then had a really good showing in Boston after the trade deadline. He jumped right in with Boston and played strong right through the playoffs. Then he signed with Carolina, showed up and had to earn his icetime on a really settled, really solid D group. Yeah, it probably was a bit of a shock. He never really did seem to get the hang of switching on the man to man D in the defensive zone, which was his biggest issue. People harp on his open ice mistakes, but he's a risk/reward guy who's always going to lean toward gambling and so he's always going to have a bit of that stuff in his game. The bigger issue was the mental errors and those never really went away. Just a bad fit who compounded that by taking forever to figure out that he needed to change his approach.

Depending how it was said, I respect the guy for saying what he did.

It was clearly translated, so tone is out of the window ... but I believe he was sincere