Gold: Canes deal DeAngelo on Draft Day

By Adam Golf radio host 99.9 the Fan

Four Russians, one Swede, one American named Cruz and a goaltender from Czechia. On the surface, that’s what the Hurricanes took away from this weekend’s NHL draft in Montreal. In a weekend where the Hurricanes did not have a first round pick – and didn’t select until the second round was almost over – they still managed to make significant news.

The Tony DeAngelo era came to an end after just one season.

The Hurricanes traded DeAngelo’s rights to the Philadelphia Flyers for three draft picks after they had reached a stalemate in contract negotiations. The Hurricanes received a 4th round pick this year, a third rounder next year and a choice in the 2nd round in the 2024 draft.

DeAngelo has reportedly agreed to a 2-year contract with the Flyers for a total of $10 million, though nothing has been signed as of this writing. For what it’s worth a $5 million average annual value (AAV) doesn’t sound too off base for a player who posted a 51-point season in 68 games. DeAngelo had 20 points on the power play (2g, 18a) that he directed, mostly to great success.

Carolina’s power play spent much of the season ranked in the top ten in the NHL before falling on hard times the last two months of the regular season and into the playoffs. Over their last 40 games, which included the two 7-game series in the postseason, Carolina’s power play scored on just 15 of 120 opportunities (12.5%). While that’s not entirely on Tony – in fact, it might not be on him at all – it had stopped working.

Still, DeAngelo finished tied (with Vincent Trocheck) for 4th on the team in scoring, was 4th among defensemen in ice time (19:49) and was second overall in point shares, an advanced metric used by Hockey-Reference.com to measure a player’s worth to the team. Only Sebastian Aho’s 9.5 PS was higher on the 2021-2022 Hurricanes than Tony’s 9.3.

Lest you think that was entirely compiled due to the power play, think again. DeAngelo’s 5.1 defensive point shares, was bettered only by Jaccob Slavin (6.8) and Brady Skjei (5.5). How much of that is real and how much is just numbers – and the impact of playing alongside Slavin for most of those 68 games – is anyone’s guess. But, it would be fair to say that Tony had a very good year for the Hurricanes, and $5 million per for two seasons doesn’t feel like it was too big of a reach.

The disconnect, it appears, is how the Hurricanes viewed DeAngelo’s best role. Even though DeAngelo and Slavin played together for 684:43 – second most on the team behind Skjei and Brett Pesce (1069:13) – and outscored the opposition 42-21 at 5-on-5, the team looked at DeAngelo as more of a 3rd pairing defenseman. And, if that’s the case, $5 million AAV is untenable.

But, according to commonly used possession metrics, Slavin and DeAngelo were Carolina’s best pairing. From expected goals (xG) to actual goals to scoring chances (SCF) and high danger chances (HDCF), the partnership of Slavin and DeAngelo was the best Rod Brind’Amour could put on the ice. How much of that was Slavin and how much was DeAngelo, again, is the hard-to-pin-down answer.

Slavin’s 2021-22 season, from an analytical standpoint, (according to NaturalStatTrick.com) was his best in the NHL. And, to be honest, it wasn’t really close. So, this is a tough decision to justify based on the data. In addition, there is no doubt that DeAngelo was a popular teammate.

What likely hurt Tony’s case here were three things. The aforementioned power play woes, and an overall feeling among the organization that the point man isn’t that critical to its success. DeAngelo also had a rough April which saw him register just 6 points in Carolina’s final 14 games. Then, a dreadful series against the Rangers in which Tony did not have a point at 5-on-5 while posting a -6 plus/minus rating.

Now what?

Carolina has just three bona fide NHL defensemen on the roster. Yes, Jake Gardiner is still here and Jalen Chatfield is expected to challenge for a spot this year, but neither can be considered a given. Gardiner missed the entire season after surgery on his back and hips and his game had deteriorated over the last several years in the first place. Chatfield is a nice story and might be able to play on a bottom pair, but he’s far from a sure thing.

Let’s say the Hurricanes can shed Gardiner’s contract – via trade or buyout. That would give them about $23 million in salary cap room to spread out over a minimum of 8 players to get to a 20-skater roster.

So, let’s build out the bottom of the roster first. Let’s put Chatfield on the team as a 7th defenseman. Let’s add Jack Drury and restricted free agent (RFA) Steven Lorentz to the forward group. Rounding up, that leaves a little more than $20 million for six more players.

Martin Necas is far more likely than not to be in the opening night line up. Let’s just say that the cap hit is in the $3.0 to $3.5 million range. Now, we’re down to roughly $17 million to get two more forwards and three NHL-caliber defensemen, one of which needs to be able to play with Slavin.

With an average of less than $3..5 million per buy the Canes are going to have to find some bargains – not unlike DeAngelo a year ago – to be able to replace the production of Tony, Vincent Trocheck and Nino Niederreiter. Goals cost money. A lack of goals cost the Hurricanes the second round playoff series against the Rangers. Making up that difference is not going to be easy.

Nor will it be easy to find a better player than a $5 million dollar Tony DeAngelo.

The draft haul…

What do you want me to say? “The Hurricanes absolutely crushed the draft again”, in spite of not having a first round pick? I could say that, but I have no idea. Scott Wheeler of The Athletic does have an idea and he put the Hurricanes into his “Winners” category even though Carolina didn’t have a pick until number 60 overall.

According to Wheeler, the Canes snagged the two most offensively talented Russian forwards in Gleb Trikozov and Alexander Perevolov in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, respectively. Then they selected Simon Forsmark, a big left-shot defenseman from Sweden with a lot of offensive upside.

Then came Cruz Lucius, a forward from the US National Development program followed by another Russian, this one a skilled defensman who, in spite of being a bit undersized, played during the playoffs for the eventual KHL champs. Carolina rounded out the draft by selecting Jakub Vondras, a goalie from Czechia, and Alexander Pelevin, another blueliner from Russia.

Every single one of these picks is a lottery ticket. Some may turn out to be Jaccob Slavin, a 4th rounder in 2012. Some may turn out to be defenseman Igor Knyzev, the 15th overall pick in 2001 who scored 3 goals in 2 full seasons in the minor leagues and never made it to the NHL.

Stay tuned.