RALEIGH — All the Carolina Hurricanes can do is move on.
The franchise went through one of its most bizarre sagas after making the shocking trade for star winger Mikko Rantanen, who they acquired from the Colorado Avalanche for Martin Necas, Jack Drury and draft picks in a three-team deal that also sent Taylor Hall from Chicago to Raleigh in late January.
On Friday, Rantanen — along with his underwhelming two goals and six points in 13 games with Carolina — was gone, shipped to Dallas, where he signed an eight-year, $96 million extension that came in lower than the Hurricanes’ offer but was accepted nonetheless.
Logan Stankoven, a 22-year-old who had 15 goals and 43 points in 83 career games before the trade, was the lone player to come back to Carolina, which also got four draft picks — including a pair of first-rounders — in the trade.
Never mind that Rantanen has two goals and three points in his first two games with the Stars or that Stankoven scored and journeyman Mark Jankowski, the Hurricanes’ only other deadline day acquisition, tallied twice in their red-and-black debuts Sunday.
It’s impossible to call losing Rantanen addition by subtraction — the 28-year-old Finn is a unique talent, a 6-foot-4 “Moose” with hands as good as just about anyone in hockey.
His departure, however, sure feels like an addition by no distraction.
“I think it was just kind of a cloud around the team for a little bit there,” said defenseman Sean Walker, who called the drama “the elephant in the room.”
Carolina entered its first game after the trade deadline, a visit from the Western Conference-leading Jets, winners of three in a row, but it certainly didn’t feel like it.
One-goal wins over the Flames, Bruins and Jets achieved the desired result but lacked the “Hurricanes hockey” that observers have come to expect in the Rod Brind’Amour era.
Then the weight of the Rantanen ordeal was lifted, and the team’s mentality returned.
“Moving forward, it doesn’t change our mindset — the expectation’s the same,” center Sebastian Aho said.
Carolina got out to a three-goal lead — all by the two newcomers, including a pair for Jankowski — and smothered Winnipeg, with goalie Frederik Andersen outplaying nearly crowned 2025 Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck despite a pair of late-game gaffes that would have been more concerning in a closer game.
And the power play — which scored just five times since the calendar flipped to 2025 and slid to the bottom quarter of the league after a red-shot start to the season — looked revitalized and scored on a redirection of a Shayne Gostisbehere shot by Stankoven.
“Not a pretty goal at all, but I think we need more of that, right?” Brind’Amour said. “The pretty ones will come, but you gotta get to get the gritty ones too.”
It seemed like light years from two days earlier when everyone — players, coaches, fans and media — seemed unsure how the Hurricanes’ roster would look for the rest of the season, though Brind’Amour seemed to know where everything was headed.
“I think the player came and had it in his head where he needed to be,” Brind’Amour said after the trade of Rantanen. “I think he only had a couple cities, and that’s what happened. … It’s been kind of a weird couple months, you know? What’s going to transpire? But I think once the dust settles here, we’ve got a real good team, and I feel good about it.”
For all the criticism, the uneven performances and the dismal-after-dismal power plays, the Hurricanes have a pretty good idea of what will happen the rest of the regular season.
The Capitals have built a huge cushion and are well on their way to winning the Metropolitan Division, but Carolina has done some pulling away of its own.
Entering Tuesday’s home game against the Lightning, the Hurricanes were six points ahead of the injury-ravaged New Jersey for second in the Metro with a game in hand remaining. Upstart Columbus was 10 back, though with 19 games remaining to Carolina’s 18.
If it holds, the Hurricanes would host an opening round series — probably against either the Devils or Blue Jackets — with a likely conference semifinal date with Washington going to the winner.
That’s a long way — more than a month — away, but it will come quickly. And the Carolina locker room now knows who will be running with them the rest of the way.
“This is the group,” Walker said. “This is the family that we’re going to be going forward with. So, yeah, just get down to it, and everyone dig in.”
