OK ... 2022-23 is in the books, for better or worse. Metro Division Champs, Eastern Conference Finalists, with another banner to hang on opening night in October.
As of today, the Canes are one of only 6 NHL franchises with current contract obligations that put them below the salary cap. Six! Everybody else is over the limit before we even get into silly season. That's amazing, honestly. Of that six, only New Jersey is a fellow playoff team. In addition, there's a lot of front office turnover going on, with Pittsburgh and Toronto currently interviewing GMs, there's new leadership in Philly, and more changes are sure to come. Several other teams either have or will have coaching vacancies. With a flat cap and the vast majority of the league already in cap jail, this has the potential to be one whale of an off season.
Here's where the Canes stand ...
Forwards
Puljujarvi is an RFI with arbitration rights. Staal, Fast, Stastny, Stepan and MacEachern are UFAs. The only reporting we have on any of those is that the club was negotiating an extension with Staal back before the Holidays but it got back burnered at some point. Pacioretty and Kase are also UFAs
Defensemen
Ghostisbehere and DeHaan are UFAs while Coghlan and Lajoie both are RFAs with arbitration rights. No news about any of those guys. Gardiner will no longer be LTIR ballast as he's a UFA
Goalies
Andersen and Raanta are both UFAs. No news on them either
Minors
Most of Chicago's AHL vet crew are out of contract. Bokk and Mattheos are RFAs. Sawchenko is a Group 6 UFA.
Prognosis
I think everyone involved agrees that a scoring winger is a priority, along with extending Staal and filling in depth gaps on both the forward lines and on D. A revamp of the goalie group is also forthcoming with only Kuchetkov under contract. With key players like Aho, Teravainen, Pesce and Skjei entering their last contract seasons in 23-24 and about a million guys heading to RFA status next summer, this is either prime time for a big push with the current group or a massive overhaul. I suspect the former is more likely than the latter, but we'll see. The UFA pool skews old this summer without a lot of big fish, so this might be a trader's market and could set up for a lot of weirdness ... potentially amped up by pressure to make big changes in Toronto and Pittsburgh. The success of that Tkachuk move in Florida combined with a soft UFA market is potentially going to embolden some otherwise cautious GMs. There are also almost certain to be a number of buyouts and RFA non-qualifications with so many clubs strapped for cap space. In addition while the top of the draft board is very good indeed, it's also one of the deeper draft classes in years so there could be a lot of movement at or ahead of the draft as teams have plenty of quality players to target. Silly season could get very silly indeed.