Hurricanes will match Canadiens' offer sheet to Sebastian Aho

The Carolina Hurricanes intend to match an offer sheet tendered to star centre Sebastian Aho by the Montreal Canadiens on Monday.

The Habs submitted a five-year, $42.27 million offer to the restricted free agent on July 1, which includes front-loaded bonus money of more than $21 million due to Aho within the first 12 months of the deal.

Aho signed the offer sheet, giving the Hurricanes a week to match before losing the player and receiving compensatory draft picks from Montreal in return. The team wasted no time agreeing to the terms, meaning the Hurricanes will secure the rights to their coveted 21-year-old asset right up until he’s eligible to be an unrestricted free agent in five years time.

Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon seemed thrilled the Canadiens made his and GM Don Waddell’s summer workload a little bit lighter.

“We’re surprised. We love the player and we’re happy to have this done. And surprised someone would have thought this would work.

“We were never going to let him go. He didn’t want to go. This is just part of the business of getting the deal done. I said the day I bought the team and nothing has changed, he’s one of if not the most important part of our future and we’re lucky to have him,” Dundon said, according to ‘Canes beat reporter Chip Alexander.

Dan Rosen of NHL.com added that Dundon and Waddell aren’t saying when they will official match the offer sheet. With six more days to mull it over, in the meantime they can tie up nearly $8.5 million on Montreal’s salary cap.

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