It’s a rare situation where a team may actually want this
These are interesting times for the Canes.
On top of all of the other free agents they need to worry about they have one condor circling over the club before next weekend’s draft, and that’s Martin Necas.
Fair warning—if you’re familiar with the situation, restricted free agency, and the Canes history of offer sheets, you can skip the next couple of paragraphs.
To try and be brief about it, Martin Necas has hit the end of his current deal and is a Restricted Free Agent this offseason. It’s an open secret that he’s not happy with how he’s used in the Canes’ system, and the Canes are at the point where they recognize his talent but realize it may just not be a fit for them. These things happen. It’s not a slight against either player or coach, and some of it is built into issues Necas had with how the organization brought him into the fold. Before the Canes took their current leap, they brought him along really slowly, and stashed him in lower levels longer than he arguably should have been to try and maintain team control for longer.
The Restricted Free Agent process gives the Hurricanes a ton of control. If you’re new to the team or the process, a restricted free agent is free to sign with any team—however his original team has the right to match the offer. If they choose not to, then they receive draft pick compensation based on the contract the player signs, and those picks have to be in the following draft. The Canes have been involved in two such situations—Sebastian Aho was offer sheeted by Montreal in 2019, and then the Canes offer sheeted Jesperi Kotkaniemi in 2021. The Canes matched Aho’s deal, and then Montreal didn’t match Kotkaniemi, sending a first rounder to Montreal for him.
All the Canes have to do to keep this power is provide a qualifying offer to Necas, and for Necas, his qualifying offer would be $3.5 million/year, a number the canes would be more than happy to take him back at. Thus a team that holds the rights to a RFA has all the power, and that’s why there’s talk of trading Necas before the July 1st start of free agency. The Canes are shopping Necas to a team for a player of a similar skill level back, albeit one they think would work with their system better.
There’s also an arbitration process that Necas is eligible for. It’s exactly what it sounds like, Necas and the Canes disagree over his deal, they file for a third party to settle the dispute and both parties agree to it. Once that process begins there usually isn’t any trading of the player until a deal is signed, and quite often a deal is signed before arbitration because it really creates nothing but animus between the two sides as they have to defend their position. How does it affect Necas? I’ll let a couple of folks on Twitter/X explain.
So there’s a little loophole here where the Canes and Necas could be down the road of arbitration but Necas could still get an offer sheet. Let’s just assume from both parts here that for Necas, it’s more important to get out of Carolina ASAP and he doesn’t want to go through the arbitration process. The worst case scenario he’ll get a $500k raise for one season, and he’s right back at this point next offseason.
OK, everyone back?
With the NHL Draft coming next week, the pressure is seemingly on to get this deal done before free agency starts. Yet, the Canes have a ton of leeway here, in that they control his rights completely before the start of free agency as well as have a pretty big lever of control after it starts. They may understand that Necas isn’t a great fit and that Necas wants a change, but they also understand he’s a special talent and they don’t want to lose him for nothing. They’d also be more than happy to keep him at a reduced price for a season and play this game again next year. Necas would be motivated to prove he’s due for a bigger number .
Due to this, the Canes are seeking a pretty high level player to replace him in trade talks as draft picks would seemingly do them no good. At least at this part of the process. The rumor mills have it that the Canes have received several offers but nothing they quite want to jump on yet, though they expect that to pick up this week.
But what if it doesn’t? Is it the worst thing that Necas becomes a free agent and a team gives him an offer sheet that he signs?
The “problem” with where the Canes are right now is that they want a player of equal statue to Necas, and so you are going to have a tough time getting that from a team that is either in the rebuilding process or the fringe of the playoffs. These teams are looking to add to get better short-term, and thus their preference would be to send draft picks. So you’re really looking only at a few teams that are in the upper echelons of the playoff hunt, and even then they may have a tough time surrendering top talent.
Unlike other situations, though, they don’t have to cut bait. The extra power the Canes have is if this gets to the offer sheet process, they know they’d either get him at a good rate or they know the level of compensation they’d get for him that could open up trading partners to replace him.
To explain, let’s screen shot Cap Friendly while we can and show exactly who can offer him an offer sheet and what the Canes would get if they let him go. All of this is determined by the NHL
A deal that’s up to $6.87 million AAV/year gets the Canes a first and third, whereas over that point gets them a first, second, and third. You can make an argument that the Canes would likely match that first tier as it’s a pretty good number for them still, so to be truly worth it, a team would have to go into that second range.
This is why the Canes wouldn’t mind letting Necas walk. Having an extra first, second, and third round pick all of a sudden opens up possibilities for trades that they don’t have right now. Now you can talk to the likes of Columbus, Montreal, Utah, Minnesota, Calgary, Ottawa and so forth. In short, teams that are at or near the bottom and facing a rebuild. You could even talk to a team like Boston who has shed a ton of draft picks going all out lately and staring a rebuild in the face. Three extra picks allow you a ton of flexibility to get a talent who is looking for a change of scenery.
The other thing about this is that because the Canes would be more open to this process and are clearly fine with it happening, it would break the unwritten rule a lot of teams have about not doing these types of deals. As we’ve seen with the Canes, it creates animosity between clubs when you do this, and it’s usually why it doesn’t happen. In this case, the Canes are clearly fine with moving on from Necas and considering the compensation, they would view it as a team doing some work for them. That gives teams a green light to do this.
It’s a fascinating situation and one worth watching. If Necas isn’t traded by this time next week, it would seem like a pretty high probability that this is the road we are going down. One way or another, Necas may be the key to the Canes looking dramatically different next season.
