PTO season is finally upon us as the Carolina Hurricanes ink veteran defenseman Nathan Beaulieu to a professional tryout contract. PTOs exist for overlooked players to get a second chance to play on an NHL team this year. Right now, there are a lot of players who were on NHL teams last year that still don’t have a contract going into the 2023-24 season. Leading up to training camp a lot of teams will be giving these players a chance to make the team out of camp. It also provides competition for some of the younger players to have to work their way into the lineup.
Beaulieu is a left-handed defenseman who played the 2022-23 season with the Anaheim Ducks. He scored four points in 52 games along with a less-than-satisfactory -23 rating. He was originally a first-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens in the 2011 NHL Draft but was never able to fully reach his potential at the NHL level. Between 2016-17 and 2017-18, Beaulieu played the best hockey of his career, scoring 19 and 28 points, respectively.
Since then, he has played for the Buffalo Sabres, Winnipeg Jets, and the Ducks and not putting up great results in any of those cities. Even if he does earn a contract with the Hurricanes in training camp it will be very difficult to get any playing time on a team that has a stacked defense, including Brent Burns, Brady Skjei, Dmitry Orlov, Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Tony DeAngelo, Dylan Coghlan, and Caleb Jones.
Prior to the start of the 2022-23 season, the Hurricanes signed Derek Stepan and Calvin De Haan after trying out with them on a PTO.
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