For the second straight season, the Carolina Hurricanes have lost two top-four defensemen in free agency.

After losing Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei two years ago, the Canes have lost both Brent Burns, who signed a one-year deal with the Colorado Avalanche, and Dmitry Orlov, who signed a two-year deal with the San Jose Sharks.

While Burns talked glowingly about Carolina and his time with the team, Orlov was a bit more bristled in his first media availability with the media in San Jose.

"The last two years, it wasn't easy for me mentally," Orlov said. "So I kind of just tried to move far away with a new team, basically a new life for me."

Orlov, 33, spent the last two seasons in Carolina after signing a two-year, $15 million deal in free agency.

In his first year, he was a third-pairing blueliner playing alongside Jalen Chatfield, but he got bumped back up to a top-four role last season after the departures of Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei.

However, the truth of the matter was that Orlov was indeed playing in a much more reduced role with the Hurricanes than he was used to (and probably promised), with a decrease in minutes, power play time and deployment.

"When I signed in Raleigh, you kind of expect one thing, but when you're not  showing up you can play or coaches not believing you...," Orlov said when asked to expand on his prior answer. "It's kind of always the battle. Everybody has their own story and their own careers. I learned on my way and I just need to be more focused as an older guy. I expect one thing, but you need to just focus day-by-day basically. You cannot look too far. I did that and I think it was a mistake."

It's not like Orlov was terrible with the Hurricanes either.

In 158 games with Carolina, Orlov had 12 goals and 54 points, playing an average of 18:36 per game. His analytics were some of the best in the league too, with the third best Corsi For (59.69%).

However, his on-ice results weren't always as glowing with his lack of foot speed and at times questionable decision making burning the Canes on numerous occasions.

It also was apparent in the playoffs, where Orlov was outscored 16-21 at 5v5 in the last two years (despite the lopsided tilt in chance generation in his minutes), with especially big struggles in both the 2024 series against the New York Rangers and the 2025 series against the Florida Panthers.

So perhaps he was disappointed by the lack of playing time or deployment opportunities, or perhaps the lack of commitment from the team.

Orlov didn't want to get into the conversations that he might have had with Carolina as free agency approached, or apparently the lack thereof. 

"Honestly, it's past already," Orlov said. "I don't like to talk about what happened in that time. Yeah, we kind of never actually talked about re-signing, so let's not come back to that. Right now, I have a future in San Jose and that's my only focus."

So whatever the ultimate reasons were, it's clear that Orlov's time in Carolina, despite the team having been one of the top in the league both years, was not what he had hoped.

At least in San Jose, Orlov will definitely have the opportunity to once again be a top-pairing blueliner.

"I've been long enough in this league and tried to figure out what's best for me, best for my family and obviously in free agency, you don't always know exactly what's going to happen," Orlov said. "I talked to my family because it's far away. I always played in the Eastern Conference and a move to the Western is different, but we're pretty excited. I know it's kind of a rebuild, but there's a lot of good, young players and obviously for me, I just wanted change a little bit. It's going to be interesting and I'm pretty excited for it."

The veteran defenseman stated that his old teammate helped sell him on the Sharks too.

"I talked to Brent Burns and he gave me a lot of good advice about the organization, so that helped me out to understand what's going on," Orlov said. "He just said that he loves it. The area, the organization and his kids did too. He's a family guy and I have a wife and kid too who's growing fast every year.

"Every year in your life, you have to learn something. It doesn't matter if it's on-ice or off-ice or different things in the world. Just need to figure out now how to move everything from Raleigh to San Jose."

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