NHL Trade Grades: Mikko Rantanen to Hurricanes in Blockbuster Three-Way Trade – Bleacher Report
The amount of information available to us is both a blessing and a curse. In the NHL, the major information networks made through social media, podcasts, and streaming mean that we know the day-to-day happenings around the league like never before. The downside is that we are rarely surprised. A “big trade” is usually a weeks-long trickle of information. Most of the parts are assembled in public conscience well beforehand.That’s why the three-way deal that sent Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall to Carolina, Martin Necas and Jack Drury to Colorado, and a third-round pick to Chicago is such a shocker.THIS IS A BIG DEAL‼️
Details » https://t.co/CI5CL23V8M pic.twitter.com/9WRKWRt2AwThe surprise of the deal makes this trade extra special. Not only is it one of the biggest in-season hockey trades of the salary cap era, it involves three teams. What’s remarkable is how off-the-radar it was. Nobody knew this was coming at all, let alone so soon. It’s the rare breaking news on the trade front that is, truly, news.Let’s break down this seismic trade and assign grades to each team.Suppose you were a scientist trying to build the ideal winger for the Carolina Hurricanes. Given a style of play that demands a lot of heavy action down low, you’d certainly want someone with the necessary size and toughness.You’d also want someone with the hands to capitalize on the avalanche of scoring chances that the Hurricanes generate at even strength. You’d also want him to address the team’s major weakness of depositing pucks into the net, especially on the power play.Mikko Rantanen would come very close to matching the designed player. He’s 6’5″ and 215 pounds. Few players around the league are better at protecting the puck; particularly on the rush. He’s coming off back-to-back 100-plus point seasons and had 64 in 49 games in Colorado this season. Rantanen is fifth among all NHLers by goals over the last five seasons combined.With both his ability to drive offense and provide a final product in the offensive zone, the Finn is arguably the best winger in the NHL and at worst, in the top five.At this stage of his career, Taylor Hall is a secondary offensive producer. He doesn’t quite have the speed he once did, and he doesn’t get into scoring areas quite as often, but he still has the vision and hands to give a good team 45 points in a sheltered third-line role with second-unit power-play duties.The ‘Canes gave up some talent to make this happen. There was a point this season when Martin Necas led the league in points. However, the 26-year-old was in a holding pattern in Carolina. The two-year contract he signed over the summer demonstrated that Necas did not see a long-term fit with the Hurricanes, where he struggled to find the full ice time he felt entitled to.Jack Drury also had a tough time finding his spot in Carolina. The Hurricanes are arguably the deepest team in the league, Jackson Blake has been the more impressive young forward, and they have more coming through the prospect pool. Through no fault of his own, there wasn’t much room for him in Rod Brind’Amour’s lineup.The Hurricanes also traded second and fourth-round picks to Colorado as well as a third-round pick to Chicago.There is a massive amount of risk baked into this deal. Rantanen is a pending unrestricted free agent and, if his asking price was so steep that Colorado was willing to cut bait now, it’s unlikely to be much better for the Hurricanes. If the Finnish winger does move on in the summer, it becomes a very expensive rental no matter how good he is. This could backfire massively for first-year GM Eric Tulsky.You can’t knock the ambition. The Hurricanes are a bonafide Stanley Cup Contender that has struggled to get over the hump in the second or third round of the playoffs. The lack of scoring has killed them every spring. Rantanen is safely a top-10 forward in the NHL and fits their profile to a ‘T.’ Hall provides secondary scoring. And they still have all of their first-round picks for the next three seasons. This is a team making the biggest swing possible knowing they have the organizational depth to counter loss of two young players and some draft picks.Alex Ovechkin’s Capitals sit first in the conference by points. Yet this trade renders Carolina the team to beat in the East.Grade: A-Even if a team knows it’s headed for an unwanted divorce from a star player who’s been in the organization for a decade, it typically exhausts every possibility before conceding defeat. For the Avalanche to give up on re-signing Rantanen in January must indicate that the two sides were very far apart in negotiations.The optics are brutal. Rantanen is arguably the best winger in the NHL. He was one of the most important players on the 2022 Cup-winning team Had the two sides come to a deal, he would have probably spent another decade as an Av before having his jersey sent to the rafters.Instead, it’s a new era in Colorado.Martin Necas, 26, is not Mikko Rantanen. Avalanche fans should not bother to compare the two and instead appreciate Necas in his own right. The Czech winger is very smooth. He has high-end speed and you won’t find many players who can carry the puck through open ice like he can. He has a good shot and averaged 25 goals the previous two seasons, with 16 in 49 games in 2024-25.He may not have shown his best yet, either. Carolina’s depth meant that Necas found it hard to find more than 17-18 minutes consistently. The Avalanche won’t hesitate to give him his desired promotion. He’s a top-six forward on their depth chart and head coach Jared Bednar may even opt to play him at center, where Necas has experience. The Avs will have him on a $6.5 million cap hit through 2026. If they can figure out a long-term extension, he could be a first-line winger in Colorado for the long haul.Jack Drury, 24, had a tough time finding his fit in a crowded Hurricanes depth chart. In the opportunities he did have, Drury proved he belonged in the NHL. He has 46 points in 153 NHL games. More importantly, as a depth center, he’s held up very well defensively. Colorado’s center depth behind MacKinnon has taken a beating in the last few seasons. Drury should fight for third-line minutes this season and is a very safe bet to have a long NHL career as a bottom-six center.The Avalanche also receive a 2025 second-round pick and a 2026 fourth-round pick from Carolina.Teams trading players like Rantanen never win the deal. Quality for quantity usually falls the way of the team adding the best player involved. And no doubt the team’s PR has a lot of work ahead to deal with the optics of moving on from someone headed towards club legend status.But rentals — even elite player rentals — rarely return this type of NHL-ready talent. Look back at deadline trades involving phenoms such as Marian Hossa, Peter Forsberg, or Rick Nash and it’s mostly depth NHLers, prospects, and draft picks.The Avalanche are a worse hockey team because of this deal but they got younger, deeper, and have more long-term flexibility. Rantanen is a monumental loss but MacKinnon and Makar alone can be the spine of a perennial contender. Now with approximately an extra $6 million in cap space after this season to play with, one has to wonder if Colorado is preparing to make another big addition.Grade: B+To the extent that any part of this trade was easily predictable, it’s that Taylor Hall’s stint in Chicago was destined to end before the March 7 trade deadline. The Blackhawks are in the bowels of a rebuild. Hall is a 33-year-old unrestricted free agent. Hall himself admitted that a trade was “in the cards.”Nobody in the Windy City should have expected a high return on a declining player, but this is pathetic.Consider first that the Blackhawks agreed to eat half of Mikko Rantanen’s cap hit, or $4.625 million this season. That alone should have netted Chicago a third-round pick. Consider, for instance, that it cost the Rangers a third-round pick for Arizona to retain a little over $2.5 million of Patrick Kane’s cap hit. Last season, the Flyers earned a fifth-round pick just for taking on about $1.24M in the Noah Hanifin deal.What, in essence then, are they getting for Taylor Hall? A middle-six winger who’s still good for 40-50 points and has an impressive resumé surely could have himself garnered a middle-round pick.Let’s say that Hall’s value was negligible and this truly reflects his current market value. In that case, why trade him now? With almost six weeks until the deadline, why not wait to see if he could get hot and build a better market?Cap space means nothing to Chicago this season and Hall was never going to be around by the time Connor Bedard’s team could start playing hockey worth watching, but this is a strange deal to make right now when there was no clear need for an immediate resolution in Chicago.Grade: D+
