Hurricanes not expecting Justin Williams back, but still waiting to hear for sure
Two weeks away from the (belated) opening of NHL free agency, the Carolina Hurricanes are once again waiting on a decision from Justin Williams, and it doesn’t appear to be forthcoming anytime soon.
The Hurricanes are leaving the door open for Williams but moving forward as if their former captain will retire, a year after he took the first few months of the season off before joining the team in January.
Williams turns 39 next week but was still effective both on the ice, where he had 12 points in 27 regular-season and playoff games this spring, and in the dressing room, where his presence played a stabilizing role after his return.
Waddell said the Hurricanes aren’t expecting Williams back and are planning accordingly, but they aren’t ruling it out, either.
“It’s almost the same as last year,” Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell said. “You tell us what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it.”
But Williams’ agent, Thane Campbell, said this week there is no timetable for a decision.
“I haven’t gone through that with Justin,” Campbell said. “I’m leaving him alone right now.”
Either way, Campbell said not to expect a decision by the start of free agency.
“He’ll take as long as he can,” Campbell said. “I’ll talk to him at some point.”
Efforts to reach Williams for comment were unsuccessful.
The NHL free-agent market opens October 9, just after the October 6-7 draft. The Hurricanes pick 13th and may have to decide whether to take the top-ranked goalie in the draft, Russian prospect Iaroslov Askarov.
Using a first-round pick on a goalie is a high-risk-high-reward move, but it’s also a position of need for the Hurricanes, who have 24-year-old Alex Nedeljkovic in the AHL and 21-year-old Pyotr Kochetkov, a second-round pick last year, in the pipeline. The Hurricanes are high on Kochetkov but he’s playing sparingly in Russia.
Askarov, meanwhile, is considered by some to be the best goalie prospect in more than a decade.
“We’ve talked about it and talked about it,” Waddell said. “We talked about it this morning with our scouts. We’ve got three or four guys in that range. Everybody says there’s nine or 10 guys in this draft and they’re going to go in the top 10 and they’ll probably all be gone. If any of our top 10 guys fell to us then I would say that’s the direction we’d probably go. If not, this is where we have another meeting scheduled next week.
“We would not be opposed to taking the goalie at 13. It depends who else is available. If you’re picking in that top nine or 10, it’s probably a bigger risk because there are so many good players there. As you start to slide further in the first round, it’s probably a pretty good gamble.”
With the trade of impending free agent Joel Edmundson’s rights to the Montreal Canadiens for a fifth-round pick, good business for a player the Hurricanes had decided not to re-sign, the Hurricanes have four unrestricted free agents who will hit the open market — Williams, defensemen Sami Vatanen and Trevor van Riemsdyk and goalie Anton Forsberg — and two restricted free agents, Warren Foegele and Hadyn Fleury.
The Hurricanes will make qualifying offers to both Foegele and Fleury to retain their rights. Foegele’s qualifying offer is $735,000 and Fleury’s is $892,500, but both players have arbitration rights and the Hurricanes will discuss longer-term deals with them to avoid that process. Last year, the team agreed to a $2.1 million annual salary with Brock McGinn to avoid arbitration — a 233 percent raise — and Forsberg was given an NHL-only contract by an arbitrator but spent all but three games of the season in the AHL.
If the Hurricanes can get Fleury and Foegele signed and assuming Jake Bean fills a roster spot, the Hurricanes would potentially have about $3 million in cap space to upgrade through a cheap free agent or, more likely, a trade that adds salary.
“This is going to be an interesting year to see how this plays out,” Waddell said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of shorter-term deals. It’s not a great crop of free agents. I think there will be a lot of shorter deals. I don’t know how much money’s going to be in the market for a lot of these guys.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Hurricanes not expecting Justin Williams back, but still waiting to hear for sure."
