Eric Tulsky exclusive: Hurricanes GM on pulling off the Mikko Rantanen trade — ‘You have to be willing to stretch’

The seed was planted last summer. It just never truly felt real until more recently.

The Carolina Hurricanes could really get Mikko Rantanen in a trade from the Colorado Avalanche?

“It was not very serious until probably six, eight weeks ago,” Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky told The Athletic on Saturday. “We started getting into conversations about what a deal might look like. There was a lot of back and forth about what we could do. What we needed. What they needed. In the end, we really got down to brass tacks in the last week or two. And hammered it out yesterday (Friday).”

It was a trade that broke the internet Friday night. It comes with great risk, of course — if the pending UFA can’t be re-signed before July 1, which happened with trade deadline acquisition Jake Guentzel a year ago — but the rare opportunity to add a player of Rantanen’s caliber was too much to resist for the Canes.

“I mean, it’s a totally different situation from Guentzel,” Tulsky said. “Just because of where our team is right now. If you look at what the (pending UFAs) that we had at the end of last year ended up signing for, if we had tried to keep them all, we would have been about $20 million over the cap. As things stand right now, we have about $35 million or $40 million of space next year, depending on where the cap goes. So that’s a totally different dynamic.

“And I think it creates a different conversation when we’re trying to extend a player. Obviously, that’s our focus.”

Indeed, the Canes have until July 1 to re-sign Rantanen before he can hit the market, where he would be in massive demand.

And while the single objective is just that — extending Rantanen — it should also be said that if the Canes fail to do so, they are the kind of organization that doesn’t view gaining more cap space as a problem but rather an opportunity.

“We believe that if you have cap space, you can always find ways to use it,” Tulsky said. “So it’s not the end of the world to leave yourself with room. But there’s not many opportunities to add a player of Mikko’s caliber. So we’re not going to take that lightly. Of course, we would like to extend him.”

The Canes also are now the only team that can extend the 28-year-old Rantanen on an eight-year deal. He can only get seven years on the open market.

“We would love to get a long-term deal done,” Tulsky said. “We have the ability to go eight years. We have a long time to negotiate and talk about what he wants and what we can do. He can have some time to get to know our team and our city and make sure that’s where he wants to be.

“Hopefully it all works out.”

There’s a potential ace in the hole with Rantanen’s countryman and close friend Sebastian Aho there to welcome him and sell him on signing long-term.

“I can’t pretend to know for sure how Mikko is going to make his decisions about what he wants to do with his career, but I expect he’s going to like it here,” Tulsky said. “A lot of players enjoy playing for Rod (Brind’Amour). I think coming to a place where he already has a good friend (Aho) and a locker room full of good people, I’m sure he will like and should fit in well with (everyone). We’re encouraged he’s likely to find himself happy here.

“And I think we can make financially compelling offers given our cap situation. Ultimately, it is a contract that requires two signatures. So I can’t know for sure what he’s going to do. But I think we can make a compelling pitch.”

For Tulsky, there would have been some valuable lessons learned from how things went down with Guentzel. They didn’t get him signed in the end, but the way the negotiations played out with such a high-profile player was a first for Tulsky, who had just taken over as GM.

Every GM gains knowledge like that along the way.

“That’s definitely true, but I do think the biggest difference from last year is our cap situation,” Tulsky reiterated.

There was a price paid, of course, to get Rantanen (and also Taylor Hall). The Canes gave up two homegrown players in Martin Necas and Jack Drury.

“They were two really big pieces of this team, and it was not easy to give them up,” Tulsky said. “I think the way Marty plays off the rush is going to be an incredible fit there. And he may put up a ton of points there. And Jack is a fantastic player and a fantastic person and was a huge part of our locker room. That’s going to be a real loss. Those things aren’t easy. And we wouldn’t do it lightly. There are not many players in the league we would give up pieces like that for.

“But when you have a chance to acquire a player like Mikko, you have to be willing to stretch.”

On Hall, the hope is the fresh start will fuel a better version of what we saw this year in Chicago, where he ended up on the fourth line.

“He’s a skilled offensive player who brings size and speed and I think can play the way we want players to play,” Tulsky said. “And we’ve been looking to add offensive punch to our lineup and believe he can do that.”

So, still six weeks to go before March 7. What else is up Tulsky’s sleeve?

“There’s always room to keep improving,” he said. “Until we have the 20 best players in the league all on one team, there’s always somewhere we can upgrade. So we try to be one of the most active teams in the league and never miss an opportunity to make the team better.

“I welcomed Mikko and Taylor to the team today and then got back on the phone looking for what else we can do,” he added with a chuckle.

Because why not?

“That being said, this was a significant step forward for us, and every time you take a step forward, it gets a little harder to find the next step,” he said. “Because it’s hard to get the 20 best players in the league on one team (laughed again). So, I don’t know for sure if we’ll find anything more, but we’ll continue to look. We always want to make sure we don’t miss a chance.”

(Photo: David Lipnowski / Getty Images)