Brind’Amour: Rantanen told Hurricanes he wouldn’t re-sign after trade
With Mikko Rantanen now in Dallas following two blockbuster deals, revelations about his time in Carolina are starting to come to light.
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Even with the trade deadline come and gone, the Mikko Rantanen saga continues.
With Rantanen now in Dallas following two blockbuster deals, revelations about his time in Carolina are starting to come to light.
Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour told Adam Gold of 99.9 The Fan on Monday that Rantanen was never interested in re-signing in Carolina.
“There’s not been one guy that has left here because they didn’t like it here. That was except for Mikko,” Brind’Amour said. “And he didn’t not like it. When he showed, he said, ‘There’s four teams I’ll go play for, but you’re not one of them.’
“So there’s 28 other teams he wasn’t going to. The better question is should we have known that before we signed him or attempted to sign him.”
Following the trade that brought him to Raleigh, Rantanen couldn’t seem to find a rhythm as his regular scoring pace dipped.
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After tallying 25 goals and 39 assists in 49 games with the Avalanche, Rantanen picked up just two goals and four assists in 13 games with the Hurricanes. Now, in two games since his trade to the Stars, he has two goals and one assist.
Brind’Amour added that the 28-year-old was never truly settled in Carolina — even before joining the team, the forward never seemed keen on sticking around for matters outside of just hockey.
The coach said that perhaps the front office should’ve been aware of that beforehand.
“Mikko was the only one that I’ve been associated with that said, ‘This is not for me.’ I think there’s other circumstances on that,” the Hurricanes coach said. “It’s not because of the hockey, it’s because, I think, his family — it wasn’t for him. Good, I appreciate that, he let us know that. We probably should’ve known that before we made the deal, maybe that changes how we go about things.”
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Instead of keeping the disgruntled star past the deadline, the Hurricanes chose to cash in instead of letting him go for nothing in free agency. Carolina added forward Logan Stankoven, two first rounders and two third rounders in the trade with Dallas.
The decision to move on marked a shift from the sunk cost the Hurricanes suffered last season after trading for star forward Jake Guentzel from the Pittsburgh Penguins. Guentzel wound up leaving to head to the Tampa Bay Lightning in free agency.
That loss is one Brind’Amour is still thinking about.
“Guentzel was the totally opposite thing. If we had offered him the contract we offered him at the end, he’s here,” Brind’Amour said. “But we didn’t for whatever reason. That’s a different conversation. And all the other guys that walked out of here at free agency is because they got paid a lot more money than we were offering. They all wanted to stay.”
