The Carolina Hurricanes extended forward Jackson Blake earlier this month, signing the winger to an eight-year, $45 million deal that kicks in 2026-27.

The rookie was coming off a promising inaugural season where he had 17 goals and 34 points and found himself transition from a fourth-line role to a top-line staple.

Blake and Carolina general manager Eric Tulsky met with the media via Zoom on Wednesday to talk about the deal. Here's what they had to say:

Jackson Blake

On signing eight-years in Carolina: I was super honored to even receive something like this. A year ago today, I probably would have told you you were crazy. I didn't even know if I was going to make the team out of camp last year. I mean, I kind of knew right away when they offered around that. I was pretty much sold to have nine more years, hopefully, in Carolina. I love it there. Obviously I've only played one year there, but it was an easy decision for me to make a commitment and obviously they showed their commitment too on their part. Super fortunate, super grateful to receive it and I'm pumped up.

On what the last year has been like for him: It's been an absolute whirlwind, I'm not gonna lie. Like I said, I wasn't sure if I was even going to make the team last year and so to then play on the team the full year and now have this long-term deal with Carolina, it's pretty surreal. It's been a huge mix of emotions, for not only me, but my family as well. It's hard to even put it into words to describe how crazy this last year has been.

On if this contract changes anything about his training schedule: No. Obviously it's a relief and it's nice to have that, but nothing's changed on the training side. Still working out five days a week, skating around three. Doing the same stuff as I was doing before. Obviously super pumped up and grateful.

On where he feels he needs to raise his game to show that he's earned the deal: I mean, obviously, the expectations do go up. I mean, I would have expected more from myself regardless of the contract or not for this year. I thought last year was pretty good, but I always strive for better in every single area, whether that's points or dominating in the offensive and defensive zone. I wouldn't say there's one specific area that I'm looking at. I'm trying to check all of the boxes.

On what he learned during his first season in the NHL: I think Rod did a good job with me. He knew that maybe playing less minutes in the first half and kind of seeing the game and developing me that way. It's kind of hard to develop a player in the NHL, I feel like, when you're playing every other day or at least it seems that way. He did a really good job with me playing on the fourth line or whatever it was and then when he thought I was comfortable and ready to take that next step, he gave me an opportunity and I took advantage of it. Playing with Sebastian [Aho] and some of those guys too, that was huge for my confidence to grow into the player I believe I can be. So just continuing to do the little things and work on stuff like that to just expand my game.

On what was the toughest part of his first NHL season: The NHL season is pretty long. I played college the last two years and that was 40 games a year, so about half. So I would say the biggest challenge for me was playing so many games. It seemed like two years in one. I realized how I kind of needed to take care of my body a little more and rest more and do all these things that I wasn't doing fully in college.

On when he realized he could hang in the NHL: I would say I have a good amount of confidence. I always was believing in myself that I could play with these guys. Whether it was last year, this year, I didn't know when it was going to be, but I always had faith in myself that I could play with these guys. I don't know if there was ever a point. When I made the team and started playing more and more, I built more confidence in myself and started believing in myself a little bit more.

On how he celebrated the new deal: [My family] has a place on Lake Minnetonka, so I kind of just spent the weekend out there. It was definitely a special moment for my family and me. We weren't celebrating too much, but it was just kind of... it took a while to kick in. A special weekend, but it's back to the grind now. 

On the moves the organization has made this summer: Obviously I think Eric and the staff do an unbelievable job with what they do. I mean, to bring in guys like [Nikolaj] Ehlers and K'Andre [Miller]. I know they haven't played a game with the Canes yet, but they're two unbelievable players and obviously K'Andre is a Minnesota guy, so I got to watch him when I was growing up a little bit when he played at Minnetonka. And Ehlers, obviously, is one of the best players in the league, I would say. Just two unbelievable guys and then Stankoven, that guy's one of my buddies. So to have him do a similar thing, it's awesome and I'm excited about the future with those guys.

On where he's at on the golf course currently: It's all good. The rounds going good right now. I'm only on Hole 3. I'm just in Minnesota, playing at Bearpath right now. It's good.

On if he's made any congratulatory purchase for himself yet: I bought a boat last weekend for the last month and a half of summer. Our family had one like four years ago, a surfboat, and we haven't had one since. I figured I'd just buy one of those. I haven't bought anything yet, I don't really like to spend money very much so that was a tough purchase for me, but I think I'll have it for a long time.

Eric Tulsky

On the decision to make this deal now: There was never a question that we would be happy to do something like this with Jackson. We've gotten a couple of questions about development on this call and I don't think people appreciate how he has gone from high school to the USHL to college to an NHL fourth line to an NHL top line and not missed a beat. Like, every step, he's made it look easy and it's because he's such a professional and works so hard. You asked about training and last summer, he was one of the players setting the pace for our group in Raleigh. It's easy to make bets on someone like that. The way he plays, he brings a tenaciousness, a tenacity to his play on the puck, along with the skill level we look for. So it's an easy question to do this. In terms of timing, doing it early, it's a little bit of transfer of risk from the player to the team. All the risk that he gets hurt, that something goes wrong, whatever, it's all our risk instead of his and that's something that is helpful to a player who only has one career and only one contract. But for the team, we have a bunch of these now and we're sort of the opinion that if we can kind of aggregate that risk and have a lot of players who we're comfortable making bets on... yeah, maybe for one or two of them, something's going to go wrong, but on the whole, we're going to come out ahead by staying aggressive and putting ourselves in a position to get things done and keep our core locked up and leave ourselves room to keep adding around them.

On if he's satisfied with where the roster is at for the summer: I think we have a great team the way it's currently constructed. I think we're always trying to get better and we have the cap space to keep adding. We have future assets we can put into deals. Whether there's something that becomes available before the season, during the season, I don't know. But we will be on the hunt to see if we can find ways to make the team better. It's just a question of if that comes together or not.

On having so many core pieces locked up long-term: I think there's 12 players who are signed for at least four years and those players represent 65% of our scoring from last year, plus Ehlers and Miller added on to that. So we've got a core here that is really solid. And the other thing about it, is that that core of 12 players have an average age of only 26 years old. So part of what we've done here, is put ourselves in a position where we know we're not going to have our core eroded by the salary cap because we have the player signed and in place. We know it's not going to be eroded by age, because they're not at a place where we worry about that yet. And we've put ourselves in a position to keep adding and we have room to keep finding ways to bring more players in and keep building on this. That's a rare opportunity for a team that's as good as we are and has been for as long as we have. To keep having room to take steps forward is an opportunity that I'm really excited about.

On if advanced analytics played a role in the contract decisions: This is more about what we've seen from Jackson as a player and Jackson as a person than anything in the data. We've watched him take steps at every level, we've watched him come in and force his way onto a top line and honestly, there were stretches last year where he was one of the players who was driving the results for that top line. So our coaching staff knows him inside and out, they know the kind of player he is and we know the kind of person he is. This is the kind of person we want to bet on and we want to have as part of our family for as long as possible. We now talk about him being locked in for nine years and my hope is that there's another deal after that too. Our hope is that Jackson retires as a Hurricane.

On if the team is working on an extension for Alexander Nikishin: Like with Logan and Jackson, if there's a deal that makes sense in both the long and short term for both the player and team, we're happy to do it. It's a little trickier when it's a player who hasn't played a season yet, so it's harder to figure out where that should be, but we're going to be talking to them and figuring out if there's something we can get done. Of course we would like to if there's an opportunity that makes sense.

On when the organization knew they'd want to get Blake signed to a long-term deal: I would say very early in the year. I was asking a question to the management staff about what it would take for us to want to extend him at the end of the year and what we thought that would look like and how likely we thought it was something we could get done. We knew by mid-October that he was on trajectory that we were happy with. Obviously we got a year more of information, we got to see him continue on that trajectory. Wouldn't have done the deal without that, but given where we are now, I think we knew all along that he was someone who had the potential to be a long-term fit for us and someone who we'd try to get something done with if there was a way to do it.

On if he has a sense on if there are any players currently available that the team may be interested in: I mean, I'm still making the rounds. I think things are obviously slower at this time of the year then they were a month ago. I think a lot of teams feel like they're kind of set with where they are so there's not nearly as many players available, but we're still making calls, still trying to see what's out there. I would say that it's probably more likely than not that we're set for at least opening night now, but it could go either way. It depends on what happens and certainly as the year begins, we'll be seeing how things evolve and who gets more interested in making moves as they see their team on the ice and realize that they have holes or needs or things not working out the way they hoped. That's when a second wave of movement may happen. 

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