Two Staal graphics went around Canes Twitter this week. One lists his career line — 318 goals, 747 points, 1,403 games, two Cups, the Conn Smythe. The other has him as the oldest Conn Smythe winner ever at 37 years, 277 days, ahead of Tim Thomas. Both are accurate. I
Macklin Celebrini just reset the market. The Hurricanes won a Cup doing the opposite. The Sharks signed Macklin Celebrini to a five-year, $94 million extension on Tuesday. It kicks in for 2027-28 and carries an $18.8 million cap hit, which makes him the highest-paid player in
The Athletic ran a slow-summer piece this week and buried in it is the best fact I've read about our team all year. The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup without a single player receiving one Hart Trophy vote. Not a finalist. Not a top-five finish. One
A graphic went around this week from Data Driven Hockey ranking the NHL's least efficient shooters over the last 10 seasons. Jordan Staal is fourth: 184.0 expected goals, 147 actual goals, 20.1 percent below expected. I'm not going to tell you the math is
Twenty-one years ago this week, the Penguins won a lottery with 30 balls in it and took an 18-year-old from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. Every team in the league wanted that pick. Pittsburgh got it, and the franchise stopped being a candidate for relocation more or less
Why Carolina slid from favorite to third on the 2027 board in six weeks If you've been checking the 2027 Stanley Cup futures and thinking the number looks light for a team that just went 16-3 in the playoffs, you're not imagining it. Carolina has
In May 2018, Carolina sent Marcus Kruger and a fourth-round pick to Arizona for a 25-year-old winger with 26 career goals. I remember reading about it and thinking, sure, fine, we needed forwards. That was the extent of my reaction. Depth guy. Penalty kill. Eight seasons later
Somebody linked an old Canes Country piece the other day and I've been thinking about it since. January 2, 2017. The headline is basically that Cam Ward is keeping the Hurricanes in the playoff chase but he can't do it alone. Go read the details and
Every time one of these contracts lands, and there have been a lot of them this summer, somebody points out that it's still nothing compared to the other leagues. Celebrini just became the highest paid player in hockey at 18.8 million a year. That would make him
Macklin Celebrini signed today. Five years, 94 million, 18.8 a year. Highest cap hit in the league, passing Leo Carlsson's 18 from earlier this summer. And he earned it. I want to say that up front because I'm about to use his contract to make
Saw this going around Twitter and Instagram this week. Most wins in the NHL since 2021, playoffs included. 1. Hurricanes, 345 2. Avalanche, 342 3. Panthers, 327 4. Oilers, 317 5. Golden Knights, 316 First reaction, obviously, is that we're number one and I'll take it.
I keep thinking about how many swings we took at a guy like this before it worked. Guentzel. Rantanen. Years of chasing a real scorer, getting close, and watching it not stick. It turned into a whole thing about this franchise. We could develop, we could defend, we could out-