Kotkaniemi ready to start fresh with Hurricanes

Photo by Florence Labelle/NHLI via Getty ImagesIn adding a promising young piece to their forward group for the 2021-22 season, the Hurricanes went an unconventional route. A route, that, in fact, had only succeeded once before in the salary cap era, and not since 2007.

The Montreal Canadiens elected not to match the Hurricanes’ one-year, $6.1 million offer sheet for Jesperi Kotkaniemi, so Carolina will send first and third-round picks in the 2022 draft to the Habs for the Finnish forward.

Don Waddell said that an offer sheet was not the Hurricanes’ first choice in acquiring Kotkaniemi, and that they’d been involved in trade talks with Montreal for a couple weeks beforehand. When those talks…