In Part 1 of his interview with North State Journal, Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky discussed his team seasons, and the integration of new and young players into Carolina’s lineup. In the latter half of the discussion, Tulsky talked about contract negotiations with key players, the team’s goaltending, Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s status and what moves he might look to do before the trade deadline.
Have there been any contract extension talks with Alexander Nikishin and his representation?
We talked about it before the season, but given that he had just gotten here, it made sense to wait a little bit.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi has been a frequent healthy scratch this season and has been mentioned in trade rumors. What’s his status?
Just as a point of order: A lot of the missed games were because we were being cautious with the timeline as he came back from an injury. But he has had some scratches, which has led to teams calling to see what our plan was with him. We have a really deep team, which makes ice time hard to come by — almost everyone on our team could play a bigger role somewhere else. If there’s something that makes sense, then of course we’ll look at it, but the first priority is trying to win a Cup, and having this kind of depth is part of our path.
Do you view a possible trade as an opportunity to give him a fresh start, and if you are able to trade him, do you think his contract allows for you to get something of value in return?
I don’t really want to get into hypotheticals. As you know, we never stop looking for ways to improve our team, but of course everyone understands that we aren’t going to make a move just to make a move.
You certainly must consider yourself lucky to have ended up with Brandon Bussi given the season he’s having. That said, there was work put in to identify him as a target for the team. Can you give a peek into how long the team has had an eye on him? Did you approach him when he was a free agent in the summer?
Our goalie group watched him a lot in college and liked him then. We followed his time in Providence closely. We didn’t really talk to him this summer because the timing didn’t work — we had already signed (Amir) Miftakhov and traded for (Cayden) Primeau before free agency opened. But while I can’t claim that we knew he would do this, we did see him as someone who had talent and should get a chance somewhere.
How would you characterize current contract negotiations with Bussi and his team? Are you confident the two sides will be able to agree to an extension?
We’ve been talking to his agent about what an extension might look like since very early in the season. It’s obviously an unusual situation, but we’ve had some really good conversations about how to approach it.
Are you prepared to make a long-term commitment to him given his relatively small sample size?
You’re right to ask about the sample size. We’ve shown over the years that we’re willing to gamble on early signings when the deal is right, but sometimes the sweet spot for both sides is a shorter deal. We’ve talked about a lot of options here.
Are you confident with your overall goaltending and the depth at that position?
Yes, absolutely. Obviously, it hurt to lose (Pyotr) Kochetkov. But Bussi has helped us cover for that and put us back in roughly the situation we had entering the year. I know there is a lot of discussion out there about (Frederik) Andersen, but he’s been playing a lot better than what his basic NHL.com stats would say.
If you go through the video, there are a lot of goals where a passing sequence left him hung out to dry or where he was well positioned but the shot was perfectly tucked under the bar or inside the post, and you just have to tip your cap to the shooter. It’s natural for people to say, “Sometimes you just have to make a save,” but he’s given us some saves and not gotten rewarded for it.
In the second Florida game, he made a huge save on a 2-on-0, but then a shot that was going 6 feet wide of the net hit a defender’s skate and went in. Which reminds me: In Freddie’s games in the month of December, our skaters put more goals into our own net than into the other team’s net. It’s tough for him to collect wins when that’s happening, so I don’t think his record tells the whole story here.
You often say the team can always get better until you have the 20 best players in the world on the ice for you. What would you say is your team’s biggest need ahead of the trade deadline?
Truthfully, I don’t think there is a clear need. We have one of the deepest teams in the league; I don’t think there’s a single spot in our lineup that’s a must-fix crisis. But as you say, there are always opportunities out there to get better, so we’re spending a lot of time right now exploring options and making sure we don’t miss an opportunity to improve.
You have a lot of players with some type of no-trade clause. Does that make any potential trades more difficult?
Not really. I mean, I don’t think we’re really trying to move players out right now; we’re trying to win a Cup. But even if we did, a lot of those clauses still give us plenty of flexibility — letting a player rule out a handful of places he really doesn’t like usually wouldn’t prevent you from getting a deal done.
The 9-1 win over the Panthers early this month seemed like a catharsis for the players and coaching staff. How important do you think it was to make a statement against a team that has beaten you twice in the conference final and rallied for two wins earlier in the year?
You’re going to hate my answer because it’s not good media content. The business team will hate it too, for that matter, so maybe I’m supposed to be a good soldier and just talk about it like a big regular season game is a mini Cup. But truthfully, I think a big regular season game is still just a game. You get a little more hyped up for it and maybe the play is a hair more intense, but in the end, when it’s over, we move on and the next game is the new most important game of the season.
Do you think this year’s team offers the best chance to win a Stanley Cup since Tom Dundon bought the franchise?///
It’s hard to say because with all the injuries, I feel like I still haven’t really seen this year’s team play. But it certainly has that potential if things come together.
