Avoiding a long-term buyout of the Finnish center, Carolina shifts focus toward the trade market as teams desperate for reliable depth down the middle eye the 25-year-old.
Are the Carolina Hurricanes and Jesperi Kotkaniemi on the verge of parting ways?
While the Finnish centerman has long been rumored to be on the trading block, the fact that the 25 year old is coming off of a season in which he played just 42 regular season games and zero postseason games may just expedite things.
Kotkaniemi has four years remaining on his deal with a $4.82 million annual cap hit. In the world of an exploding salary cap, that's really not that much money.
There were some rumors floated around that the team may consider buying out the remainder of the contract due to the fact that his age would result in a much reduced cost to the team.
If they had bought him out last month, it would have resulted in just a $851,000 cap hit for the next eight seasons.
However, the first buyout window passed on Tuesday and while another would open up if one of the team's three arbitration-eligible RFAs filed for arbitration, it's just not a path the team is likely to take.
The Hurricanes as a team don't like to have dead money and a Kotkaniemi buyout, even though it would be for less than $1 million per year, would sit on the books for eight more seasons.
It's just not ideal, plus they know that eventually someone is going to offer them something worthwhile for Kotkaniemi because A) he's a center and B) the market for centers is absolutely terrible.
While not an offensively flashy player, Kotkaniemi still has scored 10+ goals in five of his eight seasons and has eclipsed 30 points three times.
He was also above 50% in the faceoff dot every year in Carolina outside of this previous one.
There's still more than enough value in Kotkaniemi as a 3C, especially being that he has proven to be capable enough in his own end too.
It's just not been a fit necessarily in Carolina, but that doesn't mean he's a bad player.
Frank Seravalli reported that the team was offered either a second or third round pick at the trade deadline for Kotkaniemi and if that value holds or increases, it feels likely he'll be moved before long.
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