The Hurricanes have taken care of their last arbitration-bound restricted free agent. They announced the re-signing of winger Warren Foegele to a one-year contract, avoiding a hearing that was scheduled for Wednesday. The deal is worth $2.15M, which will also represent his qualifying offer next offseason, when he’ll once again be an RFA with arbitration rights.
The 24-year-old had career highs across the board last season, notching 13 goals and 17 assists in 68 regular-season games while logging 13:43 per contest. While he wasn’t the most productive in the playoffs, his lone point (a goal) was the series-clincher in the qualifying round against the Rangers.
This contract represents quite the raise from his entry-level deal, which carried an AAV of just $800K, but it also highlights how he went from a little-known energy player to a key part of their bottom six up front. He’s likely to remain in that role for next season as Carolina has had limited turnover among its forwards; Justin Williams retired earlier this offseason, and Jesper Fast inked a three-year deal to take his place on the roster.
With the signing, the Hurricanes now have a little under $1M in cap space, per CapFriendly, so their spending for next season is likely done. However, general manager Don Waddell has a pair of key players in defenseman Dougie Hamilton and winger Andrei Svechnikov entering the final year of their respective deals, so now with all of their NHL restricted free agents taken care of (Roland McKeown and Oliwer Kaski are also RFAs with Kaski already playing in the KHL), expect Carolina to shift its focus toward trying to get those two players locked up.
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