Have the Carolina Hurricanes won the Mikko Rantanen trade?

Last season, few players were in the news more than Mikko Rantanen.

Obviously, when a player hasn’t signed a contract, there will be plenty of discussion surrounding them. But between his pending free agent status, his surprise trade from the Colorado Avalanche to the Carolina Hurricanes, his struggles in Carolina, the subsequent trade to the Dallas Stars at the Trade Deadline, and his eventual playoff heroics, Rantanen was THE player of the 2024-25 season.

From a public relations perspective, the situation was a defeat for the Hurricanes. For a team that lacked a true superstar talent, Rantanen was supposed to be that player. But after his tenure there went so poorly, it was a tough look on the Canes. Not only did they once again fail to secure an elite finisher, but questions emerged about whether the team was an attractive option for star players.

But as the Hurricanes find themselves up 2-1 in the Eastern Conference Final, has the narrative shifted on how the Rantanen trade turned out for them? With Carolina, Colorado and Dallas all appearing in the Conference Finals since the trade (twice for the Canes), it’s hard to call anyone a loser of the deal. But could we even call Carolina the winner? Let’s break it down.

The initial cost for Carolina

On the surface, the price the Hurricanes had to pay for Rantanen felt like a package you’d put together when trading for a star player in the EA Sports NHL Franchise mode. You start with a relatively important piece of your roster (Martin Necas) to provide most of the value, add in another young depth player (Jack Drury), and then throw in as many draft picks and prospects as you can to cross the finish line (the 2025 second & third and 2026 fourth-round picks).

The riskiest part of the deal was giving up Necas for an expiring Rantanen. At the time of the trade, Necas was showing the first signs of his 12th-overall pedigree, with 16 goals and 55 points in 49 games to start the season. There were still plenty of question marks surrounding whether that was the level Necas could play for the rest of his career, so while the Hurricanes were taking a gamble on keeping Rantanen, the Avalanche were taking a gamble on Necas.

The Avalanche, of course, won the bet. Since the trade, Necas has 49 goals and 128 points in 108 games, as well as 18 points in 20 playoff games. He’s replaced Rantanen alongside Nathan MacKinnon in Colorado, although it didn’t take long for the Avs to have to pay Necas like Rantanen either. There’s also Drury, who’s an excellent defensive center lower in their lineup, giving the Avalanche a bit more depth there when they needed it.

There are also the three picks the Hurricanes traded. Right now, we only know the results of two of those picks as the 2025 second- and third-round picks turned into Liam Pettersson (drafted by the Boston Bruins after the Avalanche traded the pick in a deal which brought them Charlie Coyle last year) and Nathan Behm for Chicago. The other pick, a 2026 fourth also sent to the Avalanche, has yet to be determined, with that draft coming next month. But right now, the Avalanche still own this pick.

As far as Pettersson and Behm go, Hurricanes fans shouldn’t worry about missing out. When consulting Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis on both players, I was told, “They’re both dudes. Won’t be NHLers.” Maybe there’s a chance one of them becomes something, but don’t hold your breath. We’ll see what the Avalanche do with the 2026 fourth in the next month.

The Mikko Rantanen of it all

There’s a binary way to look at the Rantanen trade for the Hurricanes: did they have success with him? From this specific perspective, the Canes did not win the trade. Rantanen came to the team in the middle of the 2024-25 season, played only 13 games, put up just two goals and six points in that span, failed to gel with Rod Brind’Amour’s systems, and had no intention of returning with the team beyond this season.

It was a tough look after the several other instances when the Hurricanes had attempted to secure a player with scoring prowess. In the 2022 offseason, they swung a deal with the Vegas Golden Knights for Max Pacioretty. However, injuries limited him to five games the following season before he left for the Washington Capitals in free agency the next summer. At the 2024 Trade Deadline, they splurged on the big fish and acquired Jake Guentzel from the Pittsburgh Penguins. He put up 25 points in the remaining 17 regular season games and nine points in 11 playoff games but departed the team that summer to join the Tampa Bay Lightning. Neither player was as elite a talent as Rantanen, but they were all still scorers who didn’t see a future in Carolina.

Combined with Rantanen’s tenure, it’s become a tough look for the Canes. It’s well known that it takes a certain player to flourish under Brind’Amour, but if it’s keeping the team from adding elite talent, is it a long-term concern? That didn’t stop Nikolaj Ehlers from signing with them in free agency and having a career year, so perhaps this isn’t as glaring of a concern as we make it out to be.

Where the Hurricanes avoided a true loss in the Rantanen aspect of the trade is how they were quick to move on from him and recoup some assets. Could they have gone on a Stanley Cup run and convinced him to stick around? Sure. Is it just as likely they still struggle against the Florida Panthers in the 2025 East Final, especially given Rantanen’s form in Carolina? Definitely. So getting assets for him while they could was a smart choice.

It’s certainly not a win for the Rantanen situation to have worked out how it did, especially at the cost of a talented player like Necas. But there’s more to the trade than just those two players. The Canes also got a few other roster pieces out of this trade, which has paid dividends for them on their current playoff run.

The Taylor Hall and Logan Stankoven combination

You see, there was another part to the initial Rantanen trade I hadn’t mentioned yet: the Hurricanes also got ANOTHER roster forward in the deal, adding Taylor Hall from the Blackhawks. The 2010 first-overall pick hadn’t clicked in Chicago as well as the team hoped, so with them joining in on the deal to retain some of Rantanen’s salary for Carolina, Hall became a part of the trade.

While Rantanen struggled to gel with the Hurricanes lineup, Hall had a better time. He’s not the player who won the Hart Trophy in 2018 anymore, but he put up a solid nine goals and 18 points in 31 games after the trade, and contributed two goals and six points in 15 games during the playoff run.

But it’s his performance this season which has made the Hurricanes feel much better about the initial deal. Hall put together his best (and healthiest) season in almost five years with 18 goals and 48 points in 80 games as a middle-six winger for the Canes, acting as the veteran presence on their line with young guns Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven. This line has since worked wonders for Carolina in the playoffs, combining for 15 of the Canes’ 32 goals so far this postseason – almost 50%. Hall in particular has played well, with a team-leading 13 points.

Speaking of Stankoven, he is another key piece of this trade, as he was the roster player/young player joining the Hurricanes in return for Rantanen in the deal with the Stars. There was plenty of talk surrounding the 2021 second-round pick and how bright his future in the NHL was, so much so Dallas always refused to include him in trades – until the Hurricanes came calling with Rantanen.

So far, Stankoven has paid off as well. Five goals and nine points in 19 regular season games and five goals and eight points in 15 playoff games was a solid start to his Canes career in 2024-25, and he improved on it with career highs this season with 21 goals and 44 points.

But like Hall, where Stankoven has paid dividends for the Hurricanes is in the playoffs, where he leads the team with seven goals on their playoff run. It’s a sign of what the future holds for Stankoven and how good of a player he can grow to become down the road for Carolina.

Stankoven is a key part of this entire trade tree, because he is the end result of all the moves for Carolina, and their reward for taking the long-term approach. Expecting him to become Rantanen is expecting too much, but if he can replace what Necas was in Carolina, it’s huge for them in the long run.

And even then, Stankoven doesn’t have to replicate Necas’ value, because both of their upcoming contracts are drastically different. While Necas received a big pay day for his performance and will earn $11.5 million a year for the next eight years, Stankoven will make almost half of that in the same span with a $6 million AAV. If Stankoven is more than half of the player Necas is, and the Canes can spend the other $5.5 million well, then the trade has paid off.

The other assets from the Stars and their current whereabouts

And then you remember Stankoven wasn’t the only part of the return from Dallas for Rantanen. While Stankoven was the only drafted player involved, the Hurricanes also got four draft picks in the deal: a 2026 first-and third-round pick, a 2027 third-round pick, and a 2028 first-round pick, all belonging to the Stars. Both first-round picks were top-10 protected and would shift to the following year in the event they fell that low, but otherwise they came unconditional.

Now, none of these drafts has occurred yet, meaning we don’t know the players involved with the picks, but some of them have already moved.

Less notably, the Canes moved the 2026 third to the Los Angeles Kings along with a 2025 fourth-round pick of their own to acquire the Nashville Predators‘ 2025 third-round pick, which they used to select Kurban Limatov. Steven Ellis had this to say about Limatov:

“He is a big defenseman who is coming off a pretty solid year in the Russian junior league. I think the max we’re talking about here is a potential third pairing defenseman, but I wouldn’t say he’s particularly close to becoming an NHLer.”

But what was more impactful for the Hurricanes was what they did with the 2026 first-round pick, as they sent it to the New York Rangers as part of their package for K’Andre Miller. Miller has since become a pivotal part on their blueline, offensively (37 points in 72 regular season games and seven assists in 11 playoff games) and defensively (-0.106 5v5 regularized adjusted plus-minus expected goals against per 60 minutes), something they’ve needed for their current playoff run.

The Hurricanes paid a heavy price with the 2026 first and second and prospect Scott Morrow to acquire Miller, but it’s paid off. It also showcases why moving on from Rantanen was a smart long-term deal. Not only do those draft picks add to an already loaded Carolina prospect pool, but it also means they can convert those picks into other impactful roster players like Miller.

The verdict

As I’ve said several times already, the Rantanen trade was a tough look from a PR perspective for Carolina. Trying to acquire a superstar talent and then having to pivot so quickly made a team already struggling to acquire superstar talent look worse. But in the long run, the pivot is paying off, and the Canes are already reaping some of the long-term rewards this season.

While Evolving Wild’s goals above replacement model isn’t perfect, to give one equal measurement across the board, let’s use it to compare the returns for the four teams involved in the trade. This will include Rantanen’s impact on both the Canes and Stars, as well as the several players the Avalanche received for trading one of the picks they acquired in return.