Carolina Hurricanes trade for Mikko Rantanen, and the NHL landscape changes overnight

Never in their history, not once, had the Carolina Hurricanes traded for an elite, in-his-prime star like Mikko Rantanen.

Not Brendan Shanahan in 1995. Not Doug Weight, 19 years ago almost to the day. Not Keith Primeau or Rod Brind’Amour. Not even Sergei Fedorov, if that had actually happened.

This is a top-of-the-league winger well on his way to his third straight 100-point season, the clinical finisher Jake Guentzel was supposed to be and wasn’t. A game-changing player who led a Stanley Cup champion in postseason scoring.

Late Friday night, six weeks ahead of the trade deadline, the Hurricanes went all in. And as with the Weight trade in 2006, it sends a message not only to the rest of the NHL but the dressing room: This is for real.

They sold high on Martin Necas, sending him and Jack Drury to the Colorado Avalanche for Rantanen, an impending unrestricted free agent they have five months to convince to stay. And they added Taylor Hall to boot, a veteran winger who might also finish some of the chances the Hurricanes create.

And what did they actually give up? They traded one guy they didn’t fully trust in the playoffs for a guy with a beyond-all-doubt postseason record. They lost a popular but replaceable bottom-six center and got a lotto ticket in Hall. They parted with some draft picks, but none of their prospects.

By the who-gets-the-best-player theory, they won by a landslide. By any measure, they got better by a wide margin, adding the star power they have so obviously needed in postseasons past.

It’s also a vote of confidence in Frederik Andersen since his return from surgery, although the Chicago Blackhawks taking on half of Rantanen’s salary still leaves the door open for an emergency goalie deal if it comes to that.

This was supposed to be a retooling year, not a load-up-in-January year, an interim season before a bunch of cap space becomes available to really reinforce this summer. We know where the cap space is going now: If the Hurricanes are going to re-sign Rantanen, it’s going to take in excess of $13 million a year.

They’ll have it: Between Necas’ $6.5 million, an expected $4 million cap increase and top prospect Alexander Nikishin replacing Brent Burns, the money is already sitting there. And it would be money well spent.

Opportunities to acquire players of Rantanen’s caliber don’t come along often. They can change the fortunes of an entire franchise, the way Matthew Tkachuk put the Florida Panthers over the top, or Jack Eichel did the same for the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Hurricanes went after Tkachuk, but if anything, the Hurricanes have been more aggressive under Eric Tulsky than they were under Don Waddell. This trade is exactly the kind of splash Tom Dundon has been dying to make since he bought the team seven years ago.

It’s hard to say farewell to Necas, who spent his entire time in North America with the Hurricanes and always tantalized with frequent glimpses of his considerable talent, especially to start this season. His speed is an uncommon weapon, and he’s been a winner at every other level, including last summer’s world championships, but his knack for disappearing in the postseason and for weeks at a time was a risk the Hurricanes could no longer take.

It wouldn’t be any surprise if the trade is a wake-up call that jump-starts what could still be a terrific NHL career for Necas, who has all the tools, but you have to give up talent to get talent, and the Hurricanes got one of the NHL’s greatest talents.

Even on a Friday night, the shockwaves from this deal were already reverberating throughout the NHL.

The landscape has changed already. If the Hurricanes can re-sign Rantanen, it will be permanently altered.

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