<\/p>\n
FILE – Newly-acquired Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner, left, poses for a photo with his jersey alongside general manager Kelly McCrimmon, July 1, 2025, in Las Vegas. (Chase Stevens\/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)<\/p>\n
Chase Stevens\/Chase Stevens\/Las Vegas Review-J<\/p>\n
FILE – Carolina Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky speaks during an end-of-year NHL hockey news conference, June 3, 2025, in Raleigh, N.C.<\/p>\n
Aaron Beard\/AP Photo\/Aaron Beard<\/p>\n
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 On the eve of the Stanley Cup Final between the Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes, one of the general managers involved laid out his thinking when making roster moves.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe want to be aggressive off the ice,\u201d the GM said. \u201cWhen you have a chance to add really high-end players, we never want to miss out on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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While the Golden Knights under Kelly McCrimmon have deservedly earned their reputation for going after every high-end player available, that sentiment came from Carolina’s Eric Tulsky, whose team has generally been considered far more selective.<\/p>\n
The Hurricanes have taken bigger leaps since Tulsky took over two years ago, but his challenge has been finding particular players who fit coach Rod Brind’Amour’s demanding style. The Golden Knights have added one big star after another, in the name of trying to win it all for a second time in less than a decade of existence.<\/p>\n
One approach will end with hoisting the Cup.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIt probably should be more fun than we appreciate in the moment,\u201d McCrimmon said. \u201cWe have made a lot of big decisions over our time in the league \u2014 very bold. I always say that to be big or bold is one thing. You\u2019ve got to make good decisions, and I think that we\u2019ve collectively through our hockey ops have done a good job of that. It\u2019s exhilarating to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Building the Hurricanes<\/p>\n Six Carolina players were drafted and developed, including No. 1 defenseman Jaccob Slavin, top-line forwards Seth Jarvis, Sebastien Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, and young building-block winger Jackson Blake.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Starting goaltender Frederik Andersen was a free-agent signing, and second-liners Taylor Hall and Logan Stankoven were acquired in trades. Tulsky, a Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, worked under previous GM Don Waddell and pieced the rest of the puzzle together himself.<\/p>\n McCrimmon pointed to Waddell as a positive influence and complimented his counterpart for smart draft picks and trades.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve consistently been building their team, and they\u2019ve done it different ways,\u201d McCrimmon said. \u201cLooking at it from the outside, they\u2019ve been aggressive in their way of doing that. They have an idea what they want it to look like, the type of players that their organization will make good use of and they go out and get those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes those guys do not fit. One of the big gambles Tulsky made came in January 2025 when he gave up young forwards Martin Necas and Jack Drury in a three-way trade that landed the Hurricanes big winger Mikko Rantanen and veteran Taylor Hall.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Rantanen was not interested in re-signing, so Tulsky explored options and flipped him to Dallas for young Logan Stankoven and picks.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes it doesn\u2019t go the way you hoped, and you\u2019ve got to be ready to figure out how you\u2019re going to move forward from there,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cOne of the strengths of our organization is we\u2019re not afraid to take those swings, but we\u2019re confident that if we just keep staying aggressive, some will work out, some won\u2019t (and) we\u2019ll end up ahead of where we would be if we just stayed passive the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n Stankoven, free-agent signing Nikolaj Ehlers and other additions like Eric Robinson and Mark Jankowski have fit Brind’Amour’s mold like a glove. Tulsky was a hockey blogger before moving into management and he thinks analytically but also credits his staff for talent evaluation to play for this coach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve really focused on finding people who fit the way we want to play,\u201d Tulsky said. \u201cWe ask players to play a very distinctive style, and our scouts have done a great job finding players who can come in and look their best playing the way Rod needs them to play.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Building the Golden Knights<\/p>\n From the start, Vegas was built to win. Original GM George McPhee aced the expansion draft, from picking players from the other 30 teams in the league to making side deals that brought even more talent into the fold.<\/p>\n The initial bunch delivered an unexpected trip to the final during the club’s inaugural season in 2017-18, with goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury the backbone of a group that included forwards William Karlsson and Reilly Smith and defensemen Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb. Karlsson, Theodore and McNabb have been around the entire time, and Smith returned after a brief absence.<\/p>\n Along the way, McPhee and McCrimmon never shied away from making big moves. They made trades for Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl and Noah Hanifin, signed Alex Pietrangelo and made a sign-and-trade for Mitch Marner.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe appreciate how George and Kelly operate,\u201d McNabb said. \u201cThey\u2019re always trying to build a winning team, and they\u2019ve done a great job for the nine years.\u201d<\/p>\n The Golden Knights have made the playoffs in eight of them, won the Cup in 2023 and consistently been championship contenders.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s a privilege,” McCrimmon said. “We don\u2019t take it for granted. We work real hard. You have to get lucky along the way at times, also. That\u2019s kind of been our objective right from the opening season.”<\/p>\n McNabb said McCrimmon is doing his job. There are no complaints from players about Vegas going big-game shopping all the time.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s in on every player, but he\u2019s trying to make the team better and that\u2019s what you want and you appreciate,\u201d McNabb said. \u201cYou want to be on a team that\u2019s trying to get better and have the best team going into playoffs and performing in playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup and <\/a>https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a>\n<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – Newly-acquired Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner, left, poses for a photo with his jersey alongside general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5107],"tags":[2832,1742,1598,194,29,5176,2628,1111,1235,1239,11496,5,195,1238,515,1041,510,1596,520,1043,1649,1040,513,270,533,4,794,2833,3494,3492,48059,10019,1260,1535,1177,9,65565,1110,1261,1599],"class_list":["post-589291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-hurricanes","tag-alex-pietrangelo","tag-andrei-svechnikov","tag-brayden-mcnabb","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-carolinahurricanes","tag-don-waddell","tag-eric-robinson","tag-eric-tulsky","tag-frederik-andersen","tag-george-mcphee","tag-hockey","tag-hurricanes","tag-jaccob-slavin","tag-jack-drury","tag-jack-eichel","tag-jackson-blake","tag-kelly-mccrimmon","tag-logan-stankoven","tag-marc-andre-fleury","tag-mark-jankowski","tag-mark-stone","tag-martin-necas","tag-mikko-rantanen","tag-mitch-marner","tag-nhl","tag-nikolaj-ehlers","tag-noah-hanifin","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40798-ap-nevada-sports-only","tag-product-40804-ap-north-carolina-sports-only","tag-reilly-smith","tag-rod-brindamour","tag-seth-jarvis","tag-shea-theodore","tag-stanley-cup-how-they-were-built","tag-taylor-hall","tag-tomas-hertl","tag-william-karlsson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589291","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=589291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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