Jesperi Kotkaniemi has matured since his Montreal days. While the price for the Carolina Hurricanes to sign him was steep, they're starting to see him grow into his potential.

Seth Jarvis has leaned a lot on Jesperi Kotkaniemi during his sophomore season — and not just as a playing partner for Call of Duty and golf.

The two close friends are just one year apart, but Kotkaniemi, 22, has been in the NHL since he was 18. Kotkaniemi has been through a lot over his five years in the league since the Montreal Canadiens drafted him third overall in 2018.

“There have been countless things he’s taught me, but the biggest one is that when you come home after a tough game, you can’t let it affect the rest of your night, the rest of your day, the rest of your week,” Jarvis said.

Kotkaniemi learned that lesson the hard way.

After recording 34 points in 79 games as a rookie, the Finnish center struggled mightily in his second and third NHL seasons. Kotkaniemi says during that second year in particular — which featured a 13-game stint in AHL Laval — he often read what was being written about him. It was sometimes unwillingly, as friends from back home would text him articles of him being “roasted’ in the media, and it was hard to ignore as a teenager.

“The media is really big in Montreal, and it can get in your head really fast if you read all that stuff,” Kotkaniemi said.

There’s a widespread belief among NHL personnel that Montreal botched Kotkaneimi’s development by placing him in the NHL too quickly. Even Kotkaniemi said that, in hindsight, he probably would have been better off returning to Finland instead of playing in the NHL just a few months after being drafted third overall. Perhaps things would have turned out differently.

“I probably would have had a better answer for you a couple of years ago,” Kotkaniemi said. “I probably would have said something dumb.”

Kotkaniemi has matured on and off the ice in the last two years, something the Hurricanes banked on when they signed him to an offer sheet in the summer of 2021 before subsequently signing him to an eight-year deal worth $38.5 million dollars ($4.82 million AAV) the following spring.

Lately, Kotkaniemi has been playing some of the best hockey of his career.

“I’m kind of starting to find my way in this league,” Kotkaniemi said.

After recording seven points in his first 31 games of the season, Kotkaniemi has recorded 29 points in his last 44 games. Through the latter span, which dates back to Dec. 20., Kotkaniemi has recorded 2.72 points per 60 minutes, ranking him in the 89th percentile among NHL skaters that have played at least 200 minutes, according to naturalstattrick.com.

But Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour is most impressed with Kotkaniemi’s two-way game, which is a big reason why he’s become a fixture in Carolina’s top nine.

“I’ve been able to play him against other team’s top players, and he’s still continued to put up pretty good numbers, too,” said Brind'Amour. “He still has a little room to grow, but we’re just scratching the surface with him.”

The Hurricanes believe the best is yet to come for the 22-year-old, who, barring a trade, will be Carolina’s asset until he’s 30. 

As his trajectory treads upward, it’s worth revisiting how Carolina landed him in the first place. But first, some backstory. 

Many in the hockey world are adamant the Kotkaniemi offer sheet was driven more so by revenge than a desire for the player. During the 2019 off-season, Montreal signed Sebastian Aho to an offer sheet — going against the unspoken rule among GMs of not signing other teams’ players to offer sheets — which Carolina matched.

Aho was the first player to sign an offer sheet since Ryan O’Reilly signed one with the Calgary Flames in 2013 (which the Colorado Avalanche ultimately matched). You’ll never hear anyone from Carolina say revenge played a role in the transaction, though.

“It had nothing to do with the offer sheet on Aho,” Carolina GM Don Waddell said. “Every summer, we look at players that we could potentially (offer sheet).”

Waddell points out that he and his staff were very familiar with Kotkaniemi, dating back to his draft year when Carolina drafted Andrei Svechnikov one pick before him. To them, they saw a player with a high-end hockey IQ who oozed potential but was being miscast in Montreal. And the acquisition price was just too good to pass up. A first and third-round selection for a one-year, $6.1-million offer sheet may have seemed like a lot at the time, but keep in mind not all first-round picks are created equal. A draft selection in the high 20s — which is where a perennial playoff contender like Carolina expects to pick — has a significantly lower chance of hitting than, say, a top-10 pick.

“We were very confident that if we kept our (2022) first-round pick, we weren’t going to have a chance to get a player with the ability (Kotkaniemi) has with that pick,” said Waddell.

Initially, many shrugged when Carolina proceeded to up the ante of their gamble on Kotkaniemi and sign him to that eight-year deal.

“As the cap continues to grow and this player matures, we think he could certainly outgrow this contract in the very near future,” Waddell said.

Kotkaniemi is well on his way to doing just that.

As the first year of the deal winds down, Kotkaniemi’s market value isn’t that far away from his salary. A model created by The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn pegs Kotkaniemi’s current market value at $4.7 million, a hair under his current AAV.

If Kotkaniemi continues to evolve and his deal becomes a steal, teams ought to wonder why they are letting some little unspoken rule stop them from pursuing medium-priced RFA’s on cap-strapped teams. The reason for that is twofold. For starters, it’s become clear in recent years that the UFA market isn't as strong. Part of that is because more players are signing long-term deals while they’re still under team control, while another part of it is that most big-time UFA signings bring more risk than reward.

“The players that became free agents at 27 and you sign to seven or eight years, you might get their prime for a couple of years, but you’re also going to be overpaying the player in the last three or four years of the deal,” Waddell said.

Secondly, RFAs are younger.

“If we’re going to lock up a player long term, we want to do it at a younger age because we feel there’s a lot less risk in doing that,” Waddell said.

And when signing an RFA long-term, there's a better chance you get the best bang for your buck at the latter part of the deal when the cap has risen.

Carolina feels like Kotkaniemi’s best days are still ahead of him. But what’s his ceiling?

“He could become a combination of a Jordan Staal type player — a guy you play against the other team’s best players — and someone who can score goals and make plays,” Brind'Amour.

Jarvis believes Kotkaniemi, a pass-first forward, has the ability to evolve into a more lethal scorer, too.

“He’s actually got a really, really good shot,” Jarvis said. “But he doesn’t use it as much as everyone wants him to.”

Waddell says he wouldn’t be surprised to see Kotkaniemi start to flirt with the 50-point mark in the next year or two, though he believes Kotkaniemi’s ceiling is much higher.

“We see him as a potential 60, 70-point guy,” Don Waddell.

That’s some high praise, though it’s nothing Kotkaneimi can’t handle. And in Carolina, expectations don’t burden him like a humungous weight on his shoulders.

“Here in Carolina, the life is so much easier,” Kotkaniemi said. “You don’t really stress about anything. Great teammates. Great staff. The media is not bad. It’s really a stress-free life here.”