Carolina is reportedly acquiring Mikko Rantanen from Colorado for a package that reportedly includes Martin Necas and Jesperi Kotkaniemi Jack Drury.
Carolina is also acquiring Taylor Hall from Chicago as part of this trade.
The Hurricanes were reportedly one of the teams interested in JT Miller.
Adam Rotter: It’s a blockbuster trade that Colorado is making because Rantanen is a pending UFA and they don’t want to pay him more than Nathan MacKinnon’s $12.6 million. It’s a trade that has an impact on the Rangers in two ways. The obvious one is that Carolina is in the Rangers division and while Rantanen hasn’t signed an extension in Carolina yet, he’s likely someone that the Rangers will be dealing with for probably the next 8 and a half years.
The second is that the Rangers may now be the only team for JT Miller. There are conflicting reports about the Devils and Miller or possibly Dallas, but Carolina always seemed like the Rangers biggest threat, as long as Miller was willing to waive his no-move clause. Miller would reportedly waive to come to the Rangers and obviously the two sides went far enough down the road last week that Miller was told he may not play that night for the Canucks before the deal fell apart. Now that Carolina is out we’ll see if they revisit the talks soon and try to fix the issues that caused the deal to fall apart.