Hurricanes Agree With Darling

The Carolina Hurricanes have now made short work of their newly acquired free agent-to-be, signing goaltender Scott Darling to a new 4-year, $16.6 million deal on Friday night.  Darling was acquired after the Blackhawks were eliminated from the playoffs, for a 3rd round pick, and it should be safe to assume at this point, that he'll be the goaltender they choose to protect at the expansion draft, leaving both Cam Ward and Eddie Lack exposed.

Of course, in the days ahead, we'll finally come to the Pool Outlook post for these Hurricanes and we'll likely touch on the expansion draft a little bit more then, but with three NHL-calibre goalies in tow, Carolina has some serious protection, knowing they will at least have one pool worthy goalie on their roster, with the potential of two.

Just in case you forgot, Darling was a pool worthy keeper with the Blackhawks, finishing with 18 wins and 40 points in 32 appearances this season, good enough for 33rd on the list and it sounds like the Hurricanes are expecting more from the 28-year old, moving forward.

At last year's draft, Scott picked up the keeper in the 6th round, 137th overall, but assuming he can take the mantle as the number one guy, his stock will go up significantly, just because of the potential minutes he could play with, which would be more than playing behind Corey Crawford in Chicago, but may not be as many as Cam Talbot in Edmonton.