Just watched the Canes beat the Ducks and it reminded me to check in on $6 million man Jesperi Kotkaniemi, despite him spending most of the game being basically invisible, and see how the offer sheet steal is working out for Carolina.
He's playing 4C, has 2G 1A, and is -1. With the pretty dominant season the Canes are having so far they only have 3 players who are in the negative on plus/minus, and he's one of them. The advanced stats actually aren't too bad, and I don't want to make too much of a judgment on a guy I've probably only watched 3 or so times this year. But to me he looks like the same player who was struggling in Montreal - got skills and shows flashes of excellence but often finds the grind and physicality of the NHL difficult to handle - and clearly he's not delivering anywhere near what he's being paid.
Now I know that's NOT the point, and Carolina would never have expected that he would, and they can offload him at the end of the season easy enough. But here's the thing. This is a legit contending team this year. Talent and speed to burn, improved goalie situation, and a defense that's doing far better than it's paper strength might suggest. The biggest questions marks for me though are do they have enough grit and physical presence to survive and thrive through a long playoff run, and does that D need a boost to really hold up against the best teams? Perhaps they'll be fine anyway, or perhaps they'll trade in what (if anything) they need. But having $6 mil tied to a so-so 4th liner still can't be ideal, and must make things that little bit more difficult for them. Even if they bury Kotkaniemi in the AHL there'll still be a hefty cap hit. So it's going to be really interesting to see if this whole offer sheet business hurts them come the end of the season.
