Over the next week or so, I’ll be looking at six free agents who the Hurricanes could target this offseason. Recently, I’ve looked at the possibility of signing either Corey Crawford, Evgenii Dadonov, Mike Hoffman or Braden Holtby and today’s player profile will focus on Mikael Granlund.
Granlund is coming off a down year, where he scored just 30 points in 63 games, however, he was on pace for 22 goals (per 82 games). More importantly, he’s also just two seasons removed from a 70-point pace, which he accomplished with Minnesota.
Whether or not he can recover to score 65-70 points again is up in the air. On one hand, his underlying numbers were strong this year and the team’s shooting percentage was just 7.7 per cent while Granlund was on the ice. On top of that, his goals weren’t really down this season, just his points. On the other hand, however, he had a shooting percentage of 13.1 per cent, which is likely unsustainable, and his shots per game average was down by quite a bit this season.
I’m not sure that Granlund will bounce back to nearly 70 points again but there’s certainly a good chance that he could provide 20 goals and around 55 points on a consistent basis. If the Hurricanes could lock up Granlund on a five-year deal at around $5.5 million per year, similar to what New York gave Jordan Eberle after his down year in 2018-19, Granlund could end up being an excellent addition. He’s still just 28 years old and could add some scoring on the second line while playing on the wing.
As was the case with Dadonov or Hoffman, Carolina could only make this move if they address their goaltending first. However, this could potentially be a cheap enough addition that the Hurricanes may be able to add a goalie at a reasonable price as well.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Would you be in favour of the Hurricanes signing Mikael Granlund?
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