Flames and Hurricanes Swap Five

			2018 Season			July 1st, 2018
To Carolina	POS	Age	GP	Goals	Points	Years	Cap Hit
Dougie Hamilton	D	25	82	17	44	3	$5.75 mil
Micheal Ferland	F	26	77	21	41	1	$1.75 mil
Adam Fox	D	20	0	0	0	0	USD
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To Calgary	POS	Age	GP	Goals	Points	Years	Cap Hit
Elias Lindholm	F	23	81	16	44	0	RFA
Noah Hanifin	D	21	79	10	32	0	RFA

Huge movement on day two of the entry draft and it was a 5-player deal that went down between the Calgary Flames and the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes were reportedly having troubles getting pen to paper with a couple of their young stars, re-signing them before restricted free agency, so they made the move to send both Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin to Calgary for some more established and older talent in Dougie Hamilton and Micheal Ferland, throwing in young, unsigned defensive prospect Adam Fox as well.

As you can see by the table above, the numbers are not too far away from each other, Hamilton was the 21st ranked defenseman in hockey pool scoring last season and Ferland was not only gritty, but productive, while Lindholm will bring some more speed to the Flames and Hanifin has some untapped potential to be had yet and he already had 32 points last season.

It does sound like headaches on either side were taken care of, as the contract negotiations in Carolina were not going very well and there are rumours swirling that Hamilton wasn't fitting in with his teammates in Calgary, so things were looked after here.

The Hurricanes already had a pretty good blueline before this deal and getting an established number one guy in Hamilton will be a huge swing in their favour, especially since we don't quite know what the Flames are going to be paying for their two new acquisitions.  Getting faster is paramount for the Flames and they did just that, so there are definitely some gains in there and their top blueliners remaining will have more minutes to divvy up between them, which is a big plus for a team like this.

Both teams have lots of room under the new cap ceiling number of $79.5 million, but the Flames will be looking to use up a good portion of their $17.7 million that's free on both Lindholm and Hanifin. The Hurricanes, on the other hand, don't have a lot of work that needs their immediate attention and they still have $16.9 million to work with, if needed.