As hockey fans wait for the kickoff of the NHL’s All-Star Weekend in Toronto, I think it’s time to pivot to the offseason. At the time of writing the Carolina Hurricanes only have 11 of their NHL regulars under contract for the 2024-25 season. I can already feel your eyes rolling as you read that last sentence.
Yes, it could be considered early to talk about offseason plans. However, I’d argue if the front office doesn’t start working on re-signings now they’ll be overloaded when free agency arrives on the horizon. An easy first step in this process is to look at the team’s pending restricted free agents (RFAs).
Entering negotiations with their RFAs now could only help the Hurricanes. If they can come to terms before the end of the season they’ll have less homework. On a negative note, if they find themselves at an impasse before the trade deadline in March, they’ll have the opportunity to trade away the player before they become just another item on the offseason to-do list.
Hurricanes’ Restricted Free Agents in 2024
Martin Necas, Seth Jarvis, and Jake Drury are the three members of Rod Brind’Amour‘s group who have expiring contracts in 2024, but who will still be under team control. Both Necas and Drury are also eligible for arbitration if the process drags late into the offseason. I think it would be helpful to take a look at each of their negotiating positions going into the All-Star Break.
When writing a story about an organization like this, you have to decide where to draw the line. So I’ll only be addressing regular members of the Hurricanes lineup in this article. This means there will be little mention of prospects like Ryan Suzuki or Jamieson Rees who also hold expiring deals. Both players are important in their own right but didn’t make the cut for this article.
Martin Necas
At 25 years old, Necas is playing in the second year of a ‘show me’ contract signed in 2022. “Martin is a dynamic young playmaker,” said Hurricanes GM Don Waddell at the time of signing. “He has an elite combination of speed and skill and we think he’ll only continue to improve.”
While the contract appeared as a show of faith from the organization, in reality, it was a challenge for the young winger who has struggled with inconsistency in the past. The short contract would also keep him under team control at its expiration. If it didn’t pan out the team could trade him and get some value back. However, if he settled into their expectations, the front office could easily re-sign him without real competition from a rival franchise. A year later at the end of the 2022-23 season, the Hurricanes were nothing less than ecstatic about the results.
While playing a full regular season for the first time in his NHL career, Necas almost doubled his single-season goal record with 28. It wasn’t just his scoring touch that flourished either, his overall production ramped up as he led the team with 71 points that season. From the looks of it, he’d finally arrived and the ‘show me’ extension was just what the doctor ordered.
Like the team itself, expectations were high for Necas. He’d shown his ability to be a difference maker and whether it was fair or not that would be the standard going forward. In the eyes of the front office, local media, and fans, Necas had taken the next step. Just in time for a contract year which drives some players to find even more production in the hope of ramping up their overall value.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Through the first half of the 2023-24 season, Necas has struggled to find the same scoring touch that generated so much hope in the previous season. While he wasn’t the only member of the team’s roster to come out of the starting gate with a whimper, his role within the lineup amplified his personal struggle.
Related: Hurricanes’ Necas on a Hot Streak After Return from Injury
Or at least that was true until he was forced to take a mental reset at the beginning of this January. Sidelined due to an upper-body injury, Necas had no choice but to watch his team play without him from the press box. Since rejoining the team’s lineup in a game against the Detroit Red Wings on Jan. 19, the winger has become a point-a-game player.
Questions around a possible extension for Necas aren’t about whether it will be offered or not. Instead, the question is how flexible each side will be during the negotiation. The front office can’t kick the can down the road again. Necas will be looking for a payday while the Hurricanes try to limit future risk. Could the two sides agree to another short-term contract that would carry the player into his late 20s with hopes of getting another raise? Maybe the front office manages to convince him that term is what’s most valuable and signs him to a long-term but affordable deal. Only time will tell.
Seth Jarvis
A teenage Jarvis leveraged his speed and offensive creativity for a role on the Hurricanes’ roster in 2021. There were some questions about the former Portland Winterhawks’ ability to settle into the faster and more physical professional game. However, his rookie season would become one of the best played by any rookie with a Hurricanes crest stitched to their chest.
Related: Hurricanes’ Rookie Seth Jarvis Debuted with an Exceptional Season
An expected sophomore slump clouded his progress during his second season with the team. If you only looked at his point totals, you might have thought it was a wasted season with him only notching 39 points in 2022-23. A point shy of his rookie total of 40 in 2021-22. But in reality, it was a season of growth for the young winger who found himself trusted with more ice time on average and in more important situations.
Most of his way through the final year of his entry-level contract, Jarvis plays a vital 200-foot role for the Hurricanes. Head coach Rod Brind’Amour has shown real trust in placing the 21-year-old on the team’s penalty kill. Since being drafted 13th overall in 2020, he’s grown into the epitome of what it means to be a member of the Hurricanes.
There have been some rumors in the past that Jarvis was mentioned during trade negotiations, but no one with credibility has stepped forward to verify these claims. In my eyes, it’s clear that the Hurricanes will do everything in their power to make sure the Winnipeg native only ever plays for one franchise.
Jack Drury
Unlike Necas and Jarvis, it is clear the Hurricanes haven’t had a plan for what they want to do with Drury. Since being drafted in the second round of 2018, the young centerman spent time at Harvard University, played in the 2019 and 2020 World Juniors, spent a stint in the Swedish Hockey League during the pandemic, and played an important role in the American Hockey League’s Chicago Wolves’ 2021-22 Calder Cup championship. But in Raleigh, he wasn’t seen as more than a bubble player.
Arriving in North Carolina for training camp this year, it was well known that Drury’s name was penciled in for fourth-line center. He split the previous season fairly evenly between the AHL and NHL and when called up in the playoffs for the Hurricanes, he didn’t look out of place. Either on the wing or at center, he played a defensively smart game and skated hard to earn his way into the good graces of the coaching staff.
What you see is what you get from Drury. He’s a smart player who can be plugged in throughout the lineup depending on what the team needs. In my opinion, that’s exactly what you would want from a depth player.
Cory Lavalette reported this offseason that Drury requested a trade out of Carolina in hopes of finding a more permanent role with another NHL franchise (from ‘Carolina Hurricanes offseason: Which players are locks to stay? Who might be gone?’, The Athletic, 7/8/2023). It isn’t known if the Hurricanes reached out to other teams to see if they could work out a deal. In any case, the 23-year-old has the permanent role he was hoping for.
Looking forward to next season, there are a handful of names on the Hurricanes depth chart that could fill Drury’s role. Fellow RFAs Ryan Suzuki and Jamieson Rees come to mind. However, they would also need an extension. There is also Vasili Ponomarev who was challenging for the fourth-line center role before leaving training camp with a knee injury in the offseason.
To put it bluntly, Drury isn’t a required part of making the Hurricanes’ roster work. Fans may enjoy the player, and like the person himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s a safe bet to return in 2025. If the front office decides to extend him, I think that’s great and I hope he continues to develop. On the other hand, if they decide to give another member of their depth chart a look with the big boys, I’ll keep an open mind as well.
Act Now
As I said earlier, the Hurricanes can only be helped by opening negotiations with their RFAs as soon as possible. All three players entered the conversation in unique situations. Necas might have the urge to ask for a higher salary but won’t want to take it to an arbitrator who will probably choose a number more favorable to the team. Jarvis has more leverage against the team than his fellow RFAs, but he doesn’t have the right to bring in a third party if the talks go sour. Drury has shown his willingness to move on from the Hurricanes in the past and probably hasn’t changed his mindset much.
Procrastination does nothing but add to the front office’s workload once the season ends. If the Hurricanes want to have a successful offseason, the work needs to begin right now.