Go back four years and you may be surprised how favorably Mikko Rantanen stacks up against his peers.
He’s got the fifth-most points among all NHL players in that span — more than Artemi Panarin, David Pastrnak, Mitch Marner, Matthew Tkachuk, Auston Matthews and a whole slew of other perennial All-Stars.
That’s also a group of players who all individually earn more than the $9.25 million Rantanen is pulling down this season, which underscores both why it was such a massive surprise to see the Finn dealt to the Carolina Hurricanes in a Friday night ground-shaker while also offering us a window into why this blockbuster went down.
One way or another, Rantanen is about to get paid as a free-agent-to-be on July 1.
It was no secret in league circles that talks weren’t going well with the Colorado Avalanche on an extension, but it wasn’t nearly so widely known that the perennial contender might be willing to part with a piece of their foundation.
As news of the three-team trade involving Rantanen began to leak out, the reaction from other team executives ranged from “shocked” to “stunned” to “I’m not completely surprised, but we didn’t hear a thing.”
NHL trade grades: Hurricanes acquire Mikko Rantanen in stunning blockbuster with Avalanche
The truth of the matter is there was only ever going to be an extremely limited field of suitors that could put together a package Colorado was willing to accept for a superstar-level player that it has no guarantee of keeping beyond the next five months.
In recent days, the field may actually have been one: Carolina.
Led by first-year general manager Eric Tulsky, the Hurricanes have been feverishly working to acquire more elite talent. The organization has been good enough to win at least one playoff round each of the past six seasons and yet it hasn’t gotten any closer than being eight wins from the Stanley Cup during any of those runs. Prior to Friday night, there wasn’t any reason to look at the Hurricanes roster and conclude anything other than they were once again “very good” but likely somewhere short of “great.”
That explains why Tulsky was engaged with the Vancouver Canucks earlier this month on trade talks involving Elias Pettersson, according to league sources. And he was still in discussions with Vancouver on a possible J.T. Miller deal as recently as earlier this week.
Ultimately, Tulsky pivoted and took a higher-risk, higher-reward swing by parting with many of the same pieces that were part of those Canucks discussions to bring in Rantanen and Taylor Hall, both pending UFAs, rather than a player already under contract for multiple years.
Out went leading scorer Martin Necas, depth center Jack Drury, a 2025 second-rounder and a 2026 fourth-rounder to Colorado, plus a 2025 third-rounder flipped back to Chicago in exchange for Hall and half of Rantanen’s salary being retained.
There were no advanced discussions with Rantanen’s camp about the parameters of a potential extension before the trade was completed, according to league sources. The 28-year-old winger was said to have been completely blindsided by a move away from the only NHL team he’s ever played for.
It should be viewed as an all-in play aimed at turbo-charging Carolina’s Cup chances this season, and it comes with some serious risk exposure: The Hurricanes may wind up losing a high-quality player in Necas, who’s signed through 2026 at a $6.5 million cap hit, for a minimal return if the Rantanen gamble doesn’t pay immediate dividends and he decides to walk away as a free agent.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
The Avalanche also bear considerable risk by boldly deciding to move on from the horse of a winger who was a major part of their 2022 Stanley Cup championship. Remember those 365 points in 286 games for Rantanen dating back to the 2021-22 season — not to mention an additional 49 points in 38 playoff games.
However, all of that production gave the Rantanen camp plenty of ammunition to ask for a contract in the neighborhood of the $112 million, eight-year extension Leon Draisaitl signed in Edmonton in September. That would have eclipsed the $12.6 million average annual value being paid to Avs teammate Nathan MacKinnon by a wide margin and left the club in an impossible spot with all-world defenseman Cale Makar in need of his own extension by 2027.
And so with Rantanen in possession of just a nine-team no-trade list, the decision was made to get something back for him rather than letting him walk away for nothing.
The origin of the trade discussions with Carolina actually goes back to before June’s draft when the Hurricanes were at a contract impasse with Necas and shopping him around the league, according to league sources.
It was the Avalanche who raised it as a possibility at that stage, but a deal never got close.
Those talks picked back up roughly two months ago and eventually grew more serious. They ultimately got to a point where Carolina had to choose between making a trade for Rantanen or acquiring one of the Canucks stars. Pettersson is signed through 2032, Miller 2030. The Hurricanes didn’t opt for the safest option.
That’s how the match was struck on arguably the biggest in-season NHL trade since the San Jose Sharks acquired Joe Thornton from Boston on Nov. 30, 2005.
As the dust was settling on Friday’s monster deal, one league source left with a parting thought: “What else is Colorado up to? They’ve opened up more cap space and there’s no way they are stopping here.”
The March 7 trade deadline is now under six weeks away.
Stay tuned.
How does the Mikko Rantanen trade affect Carolina’s Stanley Cup chances?
(Photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
