Carolina Hurricanes had a banger of a season last year finishing first in the Eastern Conference’s Metropolitan Division and reaching round two of the playoff. The team has been showing continuous improvement since the franchise acquisition by Thomas Dungan whose hiring decisions were quite good and allowed the team to achieve excellent results, especially in the last two seasons.
The roster has been looking strong every season. In 2018-19, it was rounded up by Calvin de Haan who showed good performances throughout the season but was ultimately traded Gustav Forsling and sent to Chicago Blackhawks.
The troubled 2019-20 season
De Haan appeared only in 29 games during his first season with Chicago and had to miss the following games due to an injury. He was recovering for a long time. In the 2020-21 season and played in just 44 games. However, the latest season was quite impressive. He played 69 games and had good stats considering his actual playtime.
He received an invite to arrive at the training camp in Raleigh to be evaluated by the management. It seems that his performance was more than satisfactory and he was offered to come back to Carolina Hurricanes on a one-year contract with a solid $850,000 salary for starters. The team may want to keep him for longer since they need the presence of a reliable veteran with many years of NHL experience behind his back.
While the numbers shown by de Haan look weak compared to the average in the league, we have to remember that he is already 31-year old and faced intense competition while playing with a subpar roster fielded by the Blackhawks in the previous season. It will be quite interesting to see how he will do on a much stronger roster like the Hurricanes.
A sound decision by North Carolina
The team desperately needs someone stable with authority to ensure that the team performs steadily and can get through rocky games without losing tempo. De Haan is a very solid choice considering how little he costs the team. It is also a good chance for the veteran to show what he is made of.
