According to Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman, the Carolina Hurricanes were reportedly considering offer sheeting Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard.
The Oilers top blueliner signed a four-year, $10.5 million AAV deal earlier in the week, thereby taking any potential offer sheet out of consideration, but if a team was considering one, it could have potentially been just under $11.7 million dollars, the threshold for the top end of offer sheet compensation.
That package would have cost the Canes two first-round picks, a second-round pick and a third-round pick, but they would have needed to get their 2026 third-round pick back from the Utah Mammoth if they wanted to do that (it was traded away in the initial Shayne Gostisbehere trade).
However, the Oilers probably would have matched that amount, so perhaps the Canes considered going even higher than that into the $12+ million range, which would have cost them four first-round picks.
With two extra first-round picks from the Dallas Stars already in hand though, that cost probably didn't seem so bad.
Bouchard, 25, is a right-handed, offensive defenseman and one of the top scoring blueliners in the league.
The 2018 first-round pick had 14 goals and 67 points this past regular season along with seven goals and 23 points in 22 playoff games.
Bouchard has routinely been a dominant player on one of the league's top power plays and there's no question that he would have brought a ton of value to Carolina on the top pair alongside Jaccob Slavin.
But the Oilers got it done and so now the Hurricanes have to look for blueline help somewhere else.
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