Where will Nikolaj Ehlers end up?<\/p>\n
While most of the NHL\u2019s top free agents signed yesterday, Ehlers remains an unrestricted free agent and is one of the most attractive names still on the market.<\/p>\n
NHL Insider Frank Seravalli<\/a> is \u201cfocusing\u201d on the Washington Capitals or the Carolina Hurricanes for Ehlers\u2019 services.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Wherever Ehlers goes, he will command a significant contract. The 29-year-old has been a steady point producer since entering the league with the Winnipeg Jets back in 2015-16. Over that stretch, the Denmark native has 225 goals and 520 points over 674 games.<\/p>\n That includes consecutive 24+ goal, 36+ assist campaigns, despite playing in only 69 games last season.<\/p>\n Carolina has over $18 million in cap space<\/a>, while Washington is right around $6.95 million<\/a>. Ehlers should slot into either team\u2019s top six, but the Hurricanes, particularly with their money situation, feel like a better fit.<\/p>\n Carolina has long struggled to attract top free agents and marquee scorers. Ehlers would check both of those boxes.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Hurricanes have fielded a competitive team lately, but are still head-and-shoulders behind the Florida Panthers for the top dog in the Eastern Conference, and adding someone of Ehlers\u2019 caliber would help narrow that gap.<\/p>\n The Capitals, meanwhile, enjoyed a remarkable season that saw them earn the No. 1 seed in the East playoffs. However, Alex Ovechkin is not getting any younger, and while they do have a good, young nucleus, they are not quite on Carolina\u2019s level.<\/p>\n Ehlers has advanced past the second round just once in his career, and the Hurricanes likely provide him with the best opportunity to leap that mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where will Nikolaj Ehlers end up? While most of the NHL\u2019s top free agents signed yesterday, Ehlers remains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[426,191,29,57,2197,5,4,794,18404,6615,190,109,5222,19895,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-110563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-alex-ovechkin","9":"tag-capitals","10":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","11":"tag-florida-panthers","12":"tag-frank-seravalli","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-nikolaj-ehlers","16":"tag-top-free-agents","17":"tag-unrestricted-free-agent","18":"tag-washington","19":"tag-washington-capitals","20":"tag-washingtoncapitals","21":"tag-wherever-ehlers","22":"tag-winnipeg-jets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114795388865338925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}