Hurricanes GM sounds confident team will retain star forward

Before NHL free agency started, many expected it was all but certain Martin Necas wouldn’t be a Carolina Hurricane by the time training camp started in mid-September.

But fast forward a few weeks, and it appears things may have changed on the Necas front according to Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky.

“[A new contract] will get done eventually,” Tulsky said , via Tom Gulitti of NHL.com. “He wants to be here forever. We want him here forever. We just have to agree on what the right number is. It's possible it will be short-term deal and then a longer-term later. It's possible we'll do a long-term deal now. There's a lot of ways of getting it done, but nobody is concerned about whether he's going to be here for the long haul. It's just a question of how the contract makes that work.”

If that is indeed how Necas feels, the two sides have come a long way from where they were once Carolina’s season ended in mid-May when they were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs by the New York Rangers in six games.

Multiple reports around that time state that Necas was unhappy with his role on the team and that he wanted to go to a place where he could be featured as more of an offensive star.

However, no traction was ever made on the trade front with Tulsky telling The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun before the draft that he’d match any offer sheet given to Necas by another team and that his asking price in any trade for the 25-year-old forward was bigger than the first-, second- and third-round picks he was due if Necas signed an offer sheet of $9M per year with another club.

Now, it seems like Necas will get his wish of a bigger role, only it’ll come in Carolina and not anywhere else.

“We have put everything on the table from one year to eight years,” Tulsky added. “So, it's a question of figuring out whether there's something that makes sense for both sides.”