The Carolina Hurricanes have acquired defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for a third-round draft pick.
Gostisbehere had been a bit of a reclamation project for the Coyotes these past two seasons. They acquired him from the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2021 offseason along with a second- and seventh-round pick in 2022 as part of a cap dump, and then optimized him in a strong role with plenty of power-play time to up his trade value over the past season-and-a-half.
Gostisbehere is in the final year of a six-year contract with a $4.5 million cap hit and is set to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. No salary was retained in the deal, so the Hurricanes get the full $4.5 million AAV.
Gostisbehere has been productive since coming to Arizona, with 14 goals, 37 assists and 51 points in 82 games in 2021-22, and 10 goals, 21 assists and 31 points in 52 games this season. It’s not quite at the level of his career year of 65 points in 2017-18, but it's a significant improvement on his 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons where he had a combined 32 points.
He joins a Hurricanes team that already has a deep blueline, so he’ll likely thrive even more in a depth role for them. They are currently second in the league with a 39-11-8 record, but they don’t have much of a chance of catching the Boston Bruins in first place, as they trail them by 13 points.
Meanwhile, the Coyotes get another free draft pick along with the two they got for initially taking on Gostisbehere’s contract to add to their draft capital in their rebuild. They aren’t quite in the tanking territory like some of the other teams below them, but they still have the fifth-worst record, going 21-30-9 in their pursuit of Connor Bedard.
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