The Carolina Hurricanes continued their strong offseason on Thursday by signing free agent forward Nikolaj Ehlers to a six-year, $51 million contract. Ehlers entered the offseason as the second-best free agent available behind Mitch Marner (who inked an eight-year, $96 million contract with the Las Vegas Golden Knights on June 30) and is a perfect fit for Carolina’s system. As solid an addition as it is, it is still worth wondering if the Hurricanes’ offseason as a whole is enough to get them over the hump in the Eastern Conference. Carolina has been one of the NHL’s top teams over the past seven years, advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals three times since the 2018-19 season. However, it has consistently run into one major problem: a lack of a game-changing superstar. Each Stanley Cup champion has at least one or two of those players, but the Hurricanes don’t seem to have any. It’s not that Carolina doesn’t have good players. In fact, there are few weaknesses on the roster. Ehlers, as well as theRead More
Is Nikolaj Ehlers signing enough to put Hurricanes over the top?
