The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Eric Tulsky on the Mikko Rantanen Trade to Dallas

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Eric Tulsky discusses the Mikko Rantanen acquisition, trying to work out an extension, why the player didn't fit, and how the deal with the Dallas Stars came togetherShout out to our sponsors!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼 Tim Hortons: https://www.timhortons.ca/rollupReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And with that we'll bring on our final guest, you know, the headline maker. He's the general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes. A lot to get to here with Eric Tolsky. Eric, I'm not sure if you had a chance to hear Biz, but he's a big fan of Stan Kovan on your team as you are as well, I assume. Yeah, I appreciate his attempt to make nice with Kane's fans there at the end, but I also heard the fart where he listed us as a team that didn't have a number one defenseman. So I liked where you stood up and said, we've got a guy who's going to get all the fame

consideration someday. Yeah, Jacob Slavin is, put it this way, the secret is out. Like if anyone, cause every now and then if you want to sort of once upon a time drop down like your hipster cred, like well the guy you gotta watch is Jacob slave And he doesn't get a lot of headlines, but after four nations like sorry No one no one can claim to not know about Jacob slave And I know we're gonna get to ranting and everything here But just like I haven't had a chance to talk to you publicly since four nations

But secrets out like everyone knows you can't put pucks under a stick I could I would make the argument that he was the best player at the foreign nations period. Um, everybody knows now, Eric, everybody knows. Yep. He was incredible. Okay. Um, the Miko Rantanen situation, uh, there's

been a lot out there. I'm sure you've read it. I'm sure you've heard it, um, digested it, maybe nodded at some and disagreed with plenty as well. But we'll start sort of reverse pyramid here. A general thought on what happened. Before we get into specifics here, what from your chair do you think people need to understand that perhaps they don't?

Yeah. I mean, big picture. We want to be aggressive. you think people need to understand that perhaps they don't? Yeah, I mean, big picture. We want to be aggressive. We want to take swings. We had a chance to acquire the kind of player you can't normally get your hands on. We took our shot. We knew he was not going to sign an extension the day we traded for him. Um, we had, you know, reason to, maybe we were right, maybe we were wrong, but we had reason to believe we had a decent chance of getting it done. He came in, he decided it

wasn't for him. That's been pretty rare for us. And we had time to move on and still end up okay, with a player who we're really happy with. The interesting thing through all of it, like there's always going to be, as you know, there's going to be players that want to move on just because of, listen, I'm blocked here or I don't have opportunity here and they'll want to leave. I don't know that I've heard someone specifically say, I want out of Carolina. Like I don't want to be here That's why this sort of story that that's popped up here Kind of rings a little bit hollow

to me Eric No, it's crazy. Like we've We've had to let a lot of people go because we've had a really good team and the salary cap Makes it hard to keep everyone but I don't know that we've had anybody who wanted to leave unless it was somebody who felt like they were blocked, like you say. That happens occasionally, but even then not very often. For the most part, guys who are here want to be here. We talked about Slaven earlier. He just signed a long-term extension at a number that was designed to help us keep building

around him. We've had people do that because they like it here and they want to be part of it and they want to help us. But look, it's a personal thing. Every individual makes their own choice. And some people like the bustle of Canada, some people like warmer weather climates, some people like small towns where they can raise a family, some people want urban metropolis, like whatever reasons he had for deciding this wasn't the fit for him, like that's okay, but no, it's not something that happens all the time. People keep connecting it to Gensel. So very similar situation in one way, which is we traded for him knowing he wouldn't sign an extension the day we traded for him because he had been with one team his whole career. That was where his mind was. He didn't get that one done because we had salary cap issues.

We had a couple of big name free agents coming up and we were really tight against it and we needed some time to figure out what we actually had available. And obviously in retrospect, you know, it would have been great to just get that one done and figure out the other stuff, but we were trying to fit everything and trying to make the team as good as we could. You know, it happens. Can you walk us through a timeline, not just of the activity of making the trade, but also the conversations around an extension and staying? Because I think that there's been,

obviously, in a situation like this, a lot of things get said and a lot of things get interpreted certain ways. From your chair, Eric, can you walk us through both, you know, the timeline of bringing in Rantanen and the conversations, either Rantanen, agent, yourself, your staff, Rod Rendemore, can you walk us through that?

Yeah, so... your staff, Rod Rendemore, can you walk us through that? Yeah. So, um, yeah. So just dating back to when we first started talking about it, like we talked to the staff, we talked to the coaches, everybody was like, you know, if you can get this guy, you have to. Like, honestly, the, the biggest concern was they'll never trade him. Why would they?

Nobody ever trades a player like this. And that was sort of our going in was, it felt like we have to be in the game just in case, but it probably won't end up happening. And then we started to get the feeling that he might actually be on the table. We got permission from Colorado to field them out about an extension. They told us their focus right then was on getting a deal done with Colorado.

That was the players' focus at that time. Our read based on a variety of conversations with people was that we would have been a team he was interested in if it didn't work out in Colorado. Maybe we got that right, maybe we got that wrong, I don't know. At the time that's what we believed and we figured look I don't know if it's 50% or 70% or 85% that he signs with us but if he doesn't we'll have time to go make another trade and recoup our assets and if if he does, it's a home run. And so we took the swing. So for those that may want sort of clarification on one thing, did you speak to Rantinen's camp? Like did Rantinen's camp, this would be Octagon,

ever say that they were willing to talk extension with the Carolina Hurricanes? So we did talk to them. They said at that time they were not interested in an extension with anyone but Colorado. They were focused on that. But never with the Carolina Hurricanes. There was still that period of adjustment and we're not... Yeah, so before the trade, he was hoping to be there. That was where he wanted to be at the time. The question was what would happen after he got traded and they didn't want to think about that. They wanted to focus on getting a deal done there. Right. So at no point during his tenure with the hurricanes, did they say that they'd be amenable to talking about a contract? So they came in and you know,

on day one, he goes, you know, it was a big trade. It was a big light change and he wasn't ready to sign that day, but it was, you know, give me a minute here to get used to the change in my life and we'll talk and we give them a week or two. We, um, had a pitch that we went through where we talked about, you know, team salary cap, uh, prospect pool coach city, like everything that goes into making a life decision like this And about how the team is gonna look going forwards He you know was appreciative and engaged and you know said he'd keep thinking about it

Time went by and you know, he he realized that for whatever reason it wasn't the right place for him and it you know, I I never got the sense that he had any issue with our team or our coaches or anything like that. Um, I think this just didn't feel like home to him is the sense I got. I hate putting words in someone else's mouth, but that's how, that's how it felt to me. Uh, and so yeah, about a week before the deadline, he gave us a list of four

teams that he thought did feel like a better fit and we moved him and brought in a player who were really excited to have. Um, the coach comments, Rod Brendamore, um, saying, yeah, he came in and said there's only four teams that he'll, uh, that, that he'll, he'll play for. Paraphrasing your, your, your coach here. here. When you heard that, what did you think? Yeah. So Rod needs a little bit of a decoder ring. He speaks in hyperbole a lot. People in this market know very well that if you ask him about an injury and he says, oh yeah, it's horrible, he's going to be out months it's horrible he's gonna be out

months like that means he's out until at least Thursday and maybe the weekend so it's you know that's part of what's going on here he did of course he didn't walk in and on day one say I'm not staying here here are the four teams I'll go to he walked in saying wow I can't believe I got traded give me a minute here, guys. Right. Um, and it was, yeah, it was a week before the deadline that he told us he didn't think he didn't see an extension here and he had thought about where he thought it could be. Um, when you acquired him, was this the, was, was this always in the back of your

mind that if we don't have him signed by a certain date, that this is what we are going to do? Like there was there, was there any chance at all that the Carolina hurricanes were going to keep them till the end of the playoff run? Oh yeah, absolutely. So that was for sure. There were three possibilities. We could extend him, we could keep him and

Opie wanted to sign at the end of the year, or we could move him. And he didn't give us the choice to extend him because that takes both sides agreeing. The choosing between the other two was up to us and really depended on what we were getting offered. And we wanted to get back a piece that we thought could help the team right now.

You know, we didn't want to make a trade that was just for futures. And we've our NHLers wondering how they were going to compete this year. But we got back a player who fits us really well and we're excited to have. And, you know, frankly, we're comfortable with where we are.

How quickly did the Dallas deal come together? I don't know. I mean, I guess it was a matter of a few days of discussion with them. And so focused on the teams where he would extend, but talked to pretty much everyone just to make sure I knew what the offers were. So that process of gathering

everybody's offers and then, you know, sort of nailing down best offers at the end and closing one took four or five days maybe. And then actually executing the deal was a step at the end too, because he needed to work out his extension with them for them to want to do the deal. Right. I'm not going to try to get you in trouble with tampering charges here, so I'm just going to ask something sort of wide-wide brush so you don't run afoul. What was it about the Dallas deal? Was there one element of the deal where like, okay, we can't do this unless X is involved.

What was X for you? Yeah, I mean, we're really big on Logan and he was one of our first asks. I think when we looked at their roster, he was a player who several people on our staff pointed to and said, like, I don't know how else to say it except that guy's a hurricane. So he was a focus for us from the outset. I'm always curious as well how the draft pick

compensation gets gets settled on. I mean players you can you can understand. How did you settle on the the draft pick piece in the deal? Yeah, I mean, at some point there are other offers we could do and so we were sort of going back and forth on what it would take to get it done. And near the end I sort of gave a, if it's this, it's done. Otherwise I'm going to go back to the other team and they said they would do it. How'd your players feel about all of this?

Yeah. I mean, obviously the last few days of it were a little tumultuous. It was tough having this hanging over things. I think I sat down with the leadership group and heard very clearly from them that they were glad we took the swing. They do not wanna see the team just sit on its laurels and hope the players get better.

They wanna see us keep trying to add better and better players and build around them. So they were glad about that. At the end, they were glad about the outcome too. You know, they could see that Logan's a player who will fit and, you know, they were glad to have the closure. Two things before I release you. One, and I want to get to the marketplace here, but I look at the

Carolina Hurricanes right now and you're on a four-game winning streak. It felt like when the Rantanen deal, if you looked at the storylines around it, that this is the end of the Carolina Hurricanes. Last time we were together, you talked was, this is the end of the Carolina hurricanes. You know, last time we were together, you talked about, I'm going to paraphrase you here, something about like an entrepreneurial spirit, about taking chances. And if you're, if you take seven swings and you're successful with five, like with those

percentages, you tend to do, to do very well. Should we expect, provided you have the opportunity, more moves like this from you and the hurricanes? Yeah. I mean, we want to be aggressive. That's just in our DNA. You know, it's how we play on the ice. We for check hard, we press aggressively in the D

zone and it's how we want to play off the ice too. Um, you know, we, um, I don't think we want to miss out on chances to take real steps forward. Um, players like this don't come around very often and you have to be willing to take some risk when you get that shot. Is there, and we'll close on this, is there one thing that you've seen out there about the

Rantanen situation that you look at and say, that's dead wrong. That's completely wrong. Is there anything out there that you just want to put an end to? The floor is yours. I don't know. I mean people are all over the place. There's a lot that's wrong. You know, we'd need another hour for me to sort of list all the things people are saying that isn't quite right. But you can play whack-a-mole if you want. I mean, it's the floor is yours. I think the one that's toughest is people connecting this to Gunzel.

You know, those are really two very different situations. Gunzel walked in and from day one, you know, again, I hate speaking for players, but it looked to me like he felt like it was home. And at the end of the year, you know, he was ready to sign with us. We just didn't have the money that he wanted available at the time. And by the time we worked through some things on some other contracts and knew that we had it available. It had gotten close enough to July 1st that he was looking elsewhere.

This one was different, right? This one just never felt like home, but that's one player. It's not a pattern. Got it. And are you super busy? Thanks so much for your time and attention today. Four-game winning streak. Looks good on you and your team. Continued success. Yeah, thanks for having me. My Ambitions day-to-day cuz you can call it alright. I went to the Medicine I'm like no, man, that's fine I'm not against those methods It's me myself and how this fixin' my mind I do wanna break it

I turned on the music I do wanna break it I turned on the music It's turned up, down, out, up Sometimes you lose it Helping on the days that went wrong