Cleaning house in professional sports is never easy. It involves switching to a completely different philosophy and way of doing things, both behind the bench and in the front office. The Carolina Hurricanes underwent such a change in the offseason of 2014. Mired in a five-year playoff drought (that has now reached eight), the team decided it was time for a change.
Longtime General Manager Jim Rutherford stepped down, replaced by franchise legend Ron Francis. Francis quickly replaced head coach Kirk Muller and his staff with up-and-comer Bill Peters. With Francis having served in the team’s front office for years, a disciple of Rutherford from a managerial standpoint, it was fair to wonder how much the way the franchise ran would actually change. Boy, did it ever.
Francis made a huge philosophical shift, building the team around young, cost-controlled talent. Gone are the days of throwing big-money, long-term deals at aging players to keep them in town. Gone are the days of trading away picks and prospects in a desperate attempt to sneak into the playoffs as a bottom seed. Gone are the days of a top-heavy salary structure skewed towards a group of overpaid, underperforming players, leaving the roster without enough production from the top, and depth spots filled by minor leaguers and veteran castoffs.
In contrast to the shortsightedness that marked the end of his predecessor’s tenure, Francis has turned his focus to building a team around a strong, young core, a group that can compete and be successful for years, not just slip into the playoffs once and awhile.
It took some time, but Francis has managed to find his way out from under the financial headache he inherited. He bought out forward Alex Semin, whom Carolina is paying $2.33 million per year until 2021 to not play in a Hurricanes uniform. He got value for captain Eric Staal at the 2016 trade deadline, and thus moved his $9 million plus salary out of town. He signed goalie Cam Ward to a new contract with an annual salary less than half his old one.
Cleaning up that mess wasn’t easy, but the results have been worth it. The roster Francis has assembled for 2017-18, which has fans and national media alike believing the Canes are primed to return to the postseason for the first time since 2009, bears little resemblance to the final one of Rutherford’s tenure.
Of the players that played at least 30 games for that Hurricanes team, only forwards Jeff Skinner, Elias Lindholm and Jordan Staal, defenseman Justin Faulk and goalie Cam Ward are still with the Canes. Skinner, Staal, Lindholm and Faulk all fit the mold of the young, talented core the Canes are building around, and Ward, the lone holdover from the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions, should be relegated to a backup role with Scott Darling in town.
Looking at where many of the players from the 2013-14 Hurricanes are now offers a commentary on the poor depth that plagued the team in the final years of the Rutherford era. In addition to the aforementioned players still with Carolina, only an additional five, Eric Staal, forward Riley Nash, defensemen Andrej Sekera and Ron Hainsey and goalie Anton Khudobin are still employed by NHL teams.
The overpaid stars on that team led to the rest of the roster being filled out by many players who, simply put, had no business being on an NHL roster.
Now, in contrast, the Canes have a deep, talented roster filled mostly with low-salaried players. Francis’ smart money decisions allowed him to go out this summer and supplement his strong young core in an attempt to return to the postseason.
The Canes were already in good shape built around forwards Jordan Staal, Skinner, Lindholm, Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen and Victor Rask and defensemen Faulk, Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce and Noah Hanifin. They then added forwards Justin Williams, Josh Jooris and Marcus Kruger, along with Darling and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk to help push the young team over the hump.
Now, Carolina trusts its young players too. Had Rutherford still been general manager when Jordan Staal broke his leg prior to the 2014-15 season, he likely would have traded assets for an aging center to fill the hole. Francis, on the other hand, decided to give Rask, who had had an impressive training camp, a shot. Rask gained valuable experience that season, and has since developed into a productive top-six center.
Francis’ work over the past three years has all but erased memories of the previous regime. There’s still one thing he has to do to complete that process: end the NHL’s longest playoff drought. Once the team he has built does that, the troubled era of Hurricanes hockey that preceded the one Francis has created will fade all the more quickly.
