For Georgia QB Carson Beck, being boring isn’t a bad thing
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
ATHENS, Ga. — Nobody has ever accused Georgia quarterback Carson Beck of going full “Tin Cup” and playing with go-for-broke style on the football field.
If anything, he prides himself on being boring. Yes, boring.
“If you watch guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and some of the greats, during those moments when you just couldn’t stop them, it’s because they’re always in the right place with the ball at the right time,” Beck said. “Sometimes it’s boring to watch, but it wins football games.
“I mean, obviously, it’s cool to do something spectacular, but I’m out there to win. And when you have the kind of talent I have around me at the University of Georgia, it’s about moving the ball down the field, getting first downs and throwing touchdowns. That’s the name of the game, and if it’s boring, I’ll take it.”
And yet, there is a little gunslinger in Beck, whose competitive fires burn deep but not always outwardly. His lifelong friend, Brendon Quinn, said Beck is hardly afraid to “go for the green” when the time is right.
Case in point: They were playing golf at Quinn’s home course, Queen’s Harbour Yacht and Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida, a few years ago and came to the 17th hole, a 525-yard, par-5 dogleg left with a large water hazard about 260 yards from the tee box.
Beck casually pulled out his driver. He might as well have been standing in the pocket, getting ready to deliver a strike on a crossing route as he addressed his ball.
“It’s gotta be 300 yards to clear the water,” Quinn told Beck.
Beck nodded and replied, “I know, but I’m going to hit driver and don’t really care where it goes.”
The ball shot off Beck’s club and disappeared.
“We’re all thinking it was a bad shot, that there’s no way it got over,” Quinn said. “Then we get on the other side of the water, and there it is sitting in the middle of the fairway, probably 310 yards. I’m like, ‘There’s literally no way he hit that ball,’ and he was like he always is — calm.
“Nothing ever gets to him, good or bad.”
For the record, Beck birdied the hole. He hit a 7-iron into the green and two-putted.
Once again, ho-hum. Fairways and greens. First downs and touchdowns.
“Carson’s been that person since he got here,” Georgia senior linebacker Smael Mondon Jr. said. “He’s always chill, always calm, always in control. The main thing is that he has confidence in himself, and he had that same confidence even before he played [here], before the whole world got to see him do it.”
EVEN FOR BECK, it’s surreal how much his world has changed in less than a year. He was the proverbial mop-up quarterback his first three seasons on the Georgia campus and attempted just 58 passes. He watched from the sideline as Stetson Bennett led the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022.
In August, when preseason camp began, Beck still hadn’t been named the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback, as he was competing for the job with Brock Vandagriff and Gunner Stockton.
“It was assumed that I was going to be the starter, but nothing was set in stone,” Beck said. “My only focus was competing every day. I still have that same mindset, but it’s more a competing-against-myself type of thing now. How can I be better so that everybody else around me is better?
“Respect is always earned, and trust is always earned. And for me, to be able to do that my first season as a starter, to earn the respect and have the trust of my teammates, was everything.”
As Georgia prepares for its spring game Saturday at Sanford Stadium, Beck has gone from fighting to be the guy who replaces Bennett eight months ago to one of the preseason favorites to win the Heisman Trophy and potentially the top quarterback taken in the 2025 NFL draft.
One NFL director of college scouting told ESPN that the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Beck was probably the No. 1 quarterback prospect at this point.
“He has all the tools — size, the athletic ability to operate in or out of the pocket, a big arm, can drive the ball into tight windows or throw with touch,” the scout said. “He also got better throughout the year.”
Beck passed for 3,941 yards last season, the third most of any FBS quarterback. He threw 24 touchdown passes and just six interceptions and also rushed for four touchdowns. His 72.4 completion percentage was a school record. He could have entered the NFL draft this year, but announced in mid-December that he was returning to Georgia.
“There was more I wanted to do here, more that this team can accomplish,” Beck said. “I’d worked hard to get to this point and waited my turn. I didn’t leave earlier when maybe I had chances to transfer, so I sure wasn’t going to leave now.”
His patience is rare in today’s college game, especially at the quarterback position, as more than 50% of last year’s FBS starters had transferred at least once in their careers. As an early enrollee in 2020, Beck was part of a Georgia quarterback room that included USC transfer JT Daniels, Wake Forest transfer Jamie Newman, junior college transfer Bennett and redshirt freshman D’Wan Mathis. Through it all, Beck remained confident his time would come, and when it did, he knew he would be ready.
“If you’re scared of competition at Georgia, then you’re at the wrong place,” Beck said.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart has pointed out several times that Beck was actually ahead of Bennett on the depth chart entering the 2021 season, when Daniels opened as the starter against Clemson. But when Daniels suffered an oblique injury, the Bulldogs turned to Bennett and not Beck to start against UAB. Bennett threw five touchdown passes and the rest, as they say, is history.
“Even then, Carson never really flinched,” Quinn said. “Yeah, he wanted to play and felt like he was good enough to play, but I’ve never known him to run from a challenge, and he wasn’t going to then.”
Similarly, Beck never flinched last season in taking over for Bennett and leading the Bulldogs to their third straight unbeaten regular season. Smart acknowledged the staff probably tried to protect him too much at the beginning of the season, but it soon became obvious Beck had everything he needed, mentally and physically, to take on whatever load offensive coordinator Mike Bobo wanted to place on him. At that point, the training wheels came off, which was never more apparent than the 27-20 comeback win over Auburn in Week 5.
In his first road start, Beck passed for 236 yards in the second half and threw the winning touchdown to Brock Bowers, all after the Bulldogs’ first possession of the second half ended in a fumble. Late in the fourth quarter, they had managed just 180 total yards before Beck led them on a tying, 98-yard touchdown drive.
“You’ve got to find calm in the chaos because, I mean, it can get chaotic out there, especially on the road,” Beck said.
Smart admitted it was difficult at times to gauge Beck’s inner fire because he is so cool and collected. Smart refers to Beck as “Mr. Mellow” because of his uncanny ability to never get rattled.
“He’s almost flatlined out there, non-emotional to the point that sometimes it drives me nuts because I’m the exact opposite,” Smart said. “Me and Bobo are strung so tightly as high school coaches’ kids, and then there’s this guy that throws touchdowns, throws an interception, and it’s the same.
“But it’s also his strength because when he does something wrong in a game, he’s not affected by it. He has great composure. You don’t want to blitz this guy because he just steps up and throws. He’s not afraid of anything. So many quarterbacks are not good because they’re worried about everything, like an emotional roller coaster.
“With Carson, sometimes I don’t know if his heart is beating.”
But just because Beck personifies “chill,” that doesn’t mean he’s adverse to mixing it up physically. Of all the winning plays Beck made last season for the Bulldogs, one that remains etched in Smart’s mind is a tackle.
Beck threw an interception in the fourth quarter of Georgia’s 37-20 win over Vanderbilt, and the Commodores’ CJ Taylor was racing down the left sideline for what looked to be an easy touchdown. Out of nowhere, Beck came flying in with a bone-jarring shoulder tackle to knock Taylor out of bounds at the 1-yard line and also knock the Vandy defender out of the game.
“I mean, he knocks the living dogs— out of the guy,” Smart said. “That’s Carson and a big reason the guys in the locker room love him.”
BECK IS THE antithesis of showy on the football field. That holds true off it as well, although he did treat himself this offseason to a new Lamborghini thanks to some lucrative NIL deals.
With his newfound fame, he has a hard time going anywhere in public without being besieged by autograph seekers, fans wanting pictures or simply people wanting to hang out with Georgia’s newest star quarterback. Beck joked that his DoorDash bill has increased exponentially.
“It’s different, but I’m always going to sign or take a picture if someone wants to,” Beck said. “It’s part of being a quarterback in the SEC. I remind myself of that, that a lot of people would love to be in this position.”
Beck, 21, has been able to insulate himself with help from some longtime friends from the Jacksonville area. None of his four roommates, including Quinn, play football. Quinn moved to Athens in February and is an online student at Florida, Georgia’s bitter rival. The two have known each other since they were toddlers, when their parents were neighbors. Two other close friends, Cole Macklin and Zach Postlethwait, are set to move in for Beck’s final season. Postlethwait is finishing up school at Florida State.
Quinn grew up a Florida fan, but wore Georgia gear at last year’s game and will again this year. But after that, he’s joked with Beck that he’s burning his Georgia apparel.
“It’s cool to live with guys you’ve known pretty much your whole life,” Beck said. “They know you in a way that you’re not just a football player, guys you can confide in. There’s a point where it’s too much football and you need time with different people.”
One of their escapes is golf, something Beck really got into around the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Quinn can’t remember a sport (or anything, for that matter) that Beck didn’t excel at when they were growing up.
Beck initially committed to play baseball at Florida as a sophomore in high school. He was a pitcher with a big-time arm, but realized his future was in football.
“I guess baseball sort of got boring,” Beck said, flashing a sheepish smile.
He later committed to Alabama for football before ultimately landing with Georgia despite Florida making another strong push.
“I couldn’t say no to Kirby Smart and a chance to play for a Georgia program I knew was on the verge of big things,” Beck said.
Quinn was convinced his friend also was on the verge of big things. They’ve competed against or with each other in everything from youth baseball to video games. Quinn moved to Colorado for six years when he was 10, but the two quickly reconnected when Quinn returned to Florida.
And even as they grew older, Quinn said Beck was still intent on making everything a competition. By the time Beck enrolled at Georgia, Quinn had become proficient at solving a Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute. Within a couple of weeks, he and Beck were having competitions to see who could solve one faster.
“He got me the majority of time, but I held my own,” Quinn said. “That just shows you how smart he is and how quickly he processes things, qualities all the great quarterbacks have.”
Beck flashed that greatness often last season and was at his best against the best teams. He was 5-1 against top-20 opponents with a 73.9 completion percentage, 1,693 passing yards, 13 touchdowns and just two interceptions.
Former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, the SEC’s leader in career passing yards (13,166) and touchdown passes (121), has been high on Beck since he stepped on campus. Murray remembers a conversation he had with Bobo, also a former Georgia quarterback, when Bobo returned to the program as an analyst in 2022.
“This kid is the real deal. He throws the ball so effortlessly,” Bobo told Murray.
Murray didn’t need to be sold.
“Oh, I know. When he gets his chance, he’s going to be a superstar,” Murray, a college football analyst for ESPN, responded.
The best news for Georgia fans, Murray said, is there’s a lot more out there for Beck, who had the No. 4 passing grade among all FBS quarterbacks last season by Pro Football Focus. The top two were Bo Nix and Jayden Daniels.
Murray heard some of the frustration from Georgia fans early last season that Beck didn’t take enough shots downfield and seemed content to work the shorter routes.
“But his understanding of how to play the position of quarterback was so impressive,” Murray said, “especially as a first-year starter, and being savvy enough to take the checkdown, make the shorter throws and not hang on and hang on until all hell breaks loose.
“At the same time, you can’t play the quarterback position if you’re afraid to make mistakes. You have to take chances, smart chances, calculated chances at certain times. That comes from experience, and I think you’ll see Carson continue to take completions, understand he’s got a great team around him, but also be a little riskier at certain points of the game and create more explosive plays.”
Beck has heard the narrative that he will have to do even more this season, especially with the loss of his top target (tight end Bowers), three of the team’s top four pass-catchers and the Bulldogs’ top two rushers from a year ago.
Granted, there’s no replacing an automatic first down like Bowers, but Beck is eager to hit the field Aug. 31 against Clemson with his new supporting cast. He thinks transfer receivers Dominic Lovett and Rara Thomas will be even better in their second seasons in the system, and even though Bowers is headed to the NFL, there won’t be any shortage of talent at the tight end position with Oscar Delp, Lawson Luckie and Stanford transfer Ben Yurosek. Moreover, this could be one of Smart’s best offensive lines at Georgia.
“All I can tell you is what I’ve seen this spring, and I’m super excited about what these guys are going to bring to the table, especially in our second year together with Coach Bobo,” Beck said. “Brock Bowers may not be out there, but how many Brock Bowers are out there, period.”
Beck still winces at the mention of the Bulldogs’ loss to Alabama in the SEC championship game last season, which kept Georgia from pursuing a historic third straight national title. He refused to watch any of the College Football Playoff games. The team flew back to Athens after the 63-3 dismantling of Florida State in the Capital One Orange Bowl on Dec. 30, and Beck was back home in Jacksonville by New Year’s Day.
He was in no mood to watch football. He even left a friend’s house because they were all watching the playoff games. He returned to his house, fell asleep and said he didn’t even look at social media for updates.
“Just couldn’t do it,” Beck said. “Didn’t care. Didn’t want to watch. I was so mad. I felt like we should have been there. We didn’t play our best game and put it in the committee’s hands. I was pissed off. We all were, and that’s the way we’ve gone about our business ever since.”
Amid all the talk following the loss to Alabama about whether Beck would turn pro, plus chatter about his new Lamborghini and the NIL money he was raking in, Beck never lost sight of why he came to Georgia in the first place.
Sure, the perks are nice, but winning is even better.
“I’m pretty miserable when I lose at anything,” Beck said.
Quinn has seen all sides of Beck for the better part of the past two decades. He hears the wide range of adjectives to describe his buddy — mellow, ultracompetitive, boring, low key, unflappable — and adds his own.
Resolute.
“There’s a lot going on around Carson right now, a lot he has to deal with,” Quinn said. “People talk about the Lamborghini, his NIL deals, all that outside stuff. Carson’s here to play football. He’s not here for anything else.
“He wants to win a national championship, have a chance to go to the NFL and maybe win a Heisman Trophy. Those are his goals, and I’d say in that order.”
Joey Logano has found a way to tune out months of negativity.
Critics? Naysayers? Anyone who thinks his third Cup Series championship was a fluke?
“I can’t hear it because my trophies, they kind of, like, echo around me,” Logano quipped during a videoconference call with media Wednesday.
Logano won his third title in November, sparking debate about whether NASCAR’s current playoff format is the best way to determine the series’ worthiest champion. Few could make a strong case for that being Logano in 2024.
He won four races, had 13 top-10 finishes and rarely had the car to beat over 37 events.
He got huge breaks along the way, too. He used what amounted to a Hail Mary to win in Nashville — stretching his empty fuel tank through five overtimes — just to qualify for the postseason. And then he was actually eliminated from playoff contention in the second round only to be reinstated when Alex Bowman’s car failed a postrace inspection.
While competitors have since called for NASCAR to tweak its playoff format, with some wanting to move the finale to a different track every year instead of keeping it at Phoenix Raceway, Logano — not surprisingly — believes the setup is just fine.
“The playoff system is very entertaining,” he said, adding that teams often get hot in other sports and win it all. “It takes a lot to get through the 10 races to win the championship. … When the playoffs start, a lot of times you see teams that fire up.
“And we’ve been one of those teams, thankfully, and it’s worked out for us three times. But I don’t think that means you have to change the playoff system.”
NASCAR said earlier this week that no tweaks would be made to the championship format in 2025. Instead, officials plan to study it for another year before making any decisions. That won’t stop drivers from stumping for a makeover.
“I think it deserves a look for sure and probably a change down the road,” Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron said. “I just don’t know what that change is. I feel like we’ve just gotten into such a routine of going to the same racetrack for the final race, and having similar tracks that lead up to it has gotten a little bit predictable. But you could say probably the same thing in other sports, with the [Kansas City] Chiefs hosting the AFC championship every year.
“It’s just kind of the nature of sports, probably; it gets a little bit repetitive. But it’d be nice to see the final race to move around.”
Team Penske has won the last three Cup Series titles, with Logano sandwiching championships around teammate Ryan Blaney. All of those came in Phoenix, where the finale landed in 2020 after nearly two decades at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
NASCAR has made wholesale changes to its schedule in recent years, including moving the season-opening Clash and the all-atar race.
The Clash bounced from Daytona International Speedway to the Los Angeles Coliseum and is now headed to historic Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Sunday’s exhibition.
The all-star race went from North Carolina to Tennessee to Texas before landing back in North Carolina.
No one would be surprised to see the finale end up with similar movement.
“We have some tracks that could be awesome for the championship, like Vegas and Homestead and even Charlotte,” Byron said. “Just being open to all the different ideas would probably be cool and bring some buzz and also just kind of even the competition out.”
With no changes in sight for now, Logano, 34, can focus on a fourth championship. He’s one of six drivers with three Cup titles and needs another to join Jeff Gordon (4), Dale Earnhardt (7), Jimmie Johnson (7) and Richard Petty (7) as the only guys with at least four.
“Probably not until I’m done racing will I be content with what I have because I’m not done yet,” Logano said. “I got a lot of years ahead of me to win more championships and races.
“As great as it is, the first 20 minutes is amazing because you’re celebrating with your team and your family. And then every day [after] it becomes a little less exciting and more thoughts of, ‘We got to do it again.'”
Another one surely would do a lot to drown out those detractors.
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Greg Wyshynski
Mikko Rantanen has been a member of the Carolina Hurricanes for nearly a week, but it’s going to take a bit longer than that for the shock to subside.
Carolina stunned the NHL last Friday night by acquiring Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche in a three-way deal that also sent Chicago Blackhawks winger Taylor Hall to the Hurricanes. Entering Wednesday night, Rantanen was tied for sixth in the NHL in scoring (65 points). Since the 2021-22 season, the 28-year-old winger was fifth with 365 points in 286 games, including back-to-back 100-point seasons.
The NHL simply does not see this level of offensive superstar traded within the regular season; nor does it see teams with designs on the Stanley Cup move on from foundational core players like Colorado did with Rantanen. But his contract demands, as a pending unrestricted free agent, created a significant impasse with the Avalanche, with whom he had played for 10 seasons.
Rantanen told ESPN on Tuesday that he still hasn’t reached out to all the Avalanche teammates he wants to connect with. Both teams were right back in action in the aftermath of the trade, and Rantanen has been in a personal hurricane of reorienting his new life in Raleigh.
He knows players like Nathan MacKinnon have expressed their disappointment in seeing him traded. The feeling is mutual.
“I thought it was going to be an extension for sure. I can’t lie about that,” Rantanen said. “It was surprising because there was still some time to the deadline. I totally understand they didn’t want to lose me for free. But it surprised me for sure. I didn’t expect it at all.”
Nor did the rest of the NHL, which is still processing one of the biggest blockbusters of the last decade. We spoke with several NHL executives, agents and players to get a sense of the trade’s magnitude and the fallout that could impact more than just the teams involved.
Is this the right gamble for Carolina?
The Hurricanes were in New York when the Rantanen trade went down, with a game against the Islanders on the following evening. The players were at dinner when the news broke about Hall and then Rantanen. The tone and tenor of the meal quickly changed.
“We didn’t know who was going the other way. We all tried to figure out who it was,” center Jesperi Kotkaniemi said.
Kotkaniemi started getting texts from Finnish friends. “They’re really pumped in Finland. They’re able to watch the two best players now on the same team. So what could be better for them?” he said of Rantanen and center Sebastian Aho.
But then something else happened on social media: It was erroneously reported that Kotkaniemi himself would be sent to the Avalanche in the Rantanen trade.
On the surface, it made sense: He’s a 24-year-old forward signed through 2029-30 at a reasonable cap hit ($4.82 million annually), but he was never part of the package for Rantanen. Still, his name was out there long enough for another wave of text messages to roll in about his own future, which made the situation a bit more intense for him.
“It was a very hectic 15 minutes there,” he said.
It’s been a hectic few weeks for Eric Tulsky, in his first season as Hurricanes general manager. The league was buzzing about Carolina being active in the trade market. Sources told ESPN that the Hurricanes and Vancouver Canucks had engaged in negotiations about forwards Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller. The players’ longstanding feud had finally reached a boiling point, and Vancouver was seeking to ship one or both of them out before the March 7 trade deadline.
Kotkaniemi and forward Jack Roslovic were discussed in the framework of a Miller trade. Martin Necas wasn’t on the table for Miller, but might have been part of a deal for Pettersson.
Meanwhile, Carolina was also engaged in talks with the Avalanche for Rantanen, ones that tracked back to last summer.
Tulsky said last week that there was a desire for all parties to “get their best offers on the table” so the Hurricanes could decide which player to pursue. “Everybody had multiple offers. It was sort of time for everyone to figure out what they wanted to do, and this deal got done,” he said. “It was a complicated dance.”
When the music stopped, Rantanen and Hall were members of the Hurricanes.
The Avalanche picked up Carolina forwards Necas and Jack Drury, as well as a second-round pick in this year’s draft and a fourth-rounder in 2026. Chicago acquired its 2025 third-rounder from Carolina for Hall, the rights to Swedish forward Nils Juntorp and 50% retention of Rantanen’s $9.25 million salary cap hit. The Hurricanes ended up with Hall, a former Hart Trophy winner as league MVP, and Rantanen.
“Obviously, Carolina has been coveting a superstar and this is the way to get one,” one agent said.
NHL executives were impressed with the boldness of the swing from Carolina.
“Good for them. Risk and reward,” a general manager said. “They’re giving up controllable assets for someone that you’re not sure you can control. But they have the cap space to sign him. He’s a great player who makes them a better team.”
The executives we spoke with downplayed the notion that the Hurricanes might have started an “arms race” in the Eastern Conference among contenders. One general manager said that most teams have their own plans in mind for the NHL trade deadline for specific needs that won’t be torn up because a rival made a blockbuster trade.
There were virtues to all three players the Hurricanes were considering. Miller and Pettersson were both signed with lengthy term. Miller seemed cut from a Rod Brind’Amour mold as a great, two-way player who’s difficult to play against. (Depending on who you believe, he’s also a bit difficult to play with as a teammate.) Pettersson has been underwhelming this season, but has incredible upside as a star offensive. In 2022-23, he had 103 points in 80 games for Vancouver.
But Rantanen’s combination of size, skill and offensive consistency was too much for the Hurricanes to pass up. Especially when one considers his Stanley Cup Playoff success: Since 2019-20, Rantanen is fifth in postseason scoring, with 83 points in 63 games, including 28 goals.
Carolina has made the playoffs for six straight seasons, each time not producing enough offense to advance out of the conference. In that span, the Hurricanes have a .486 winning percentage in one-goal games.
The downside to acquiring Rantanen, potentially: They currently don’t know if he’ll be one-and-done in Raleigh, a superstar rental for a team that’s yet to play for the Stanley Cup with Brind’Amour as their coach.
“Carolina will look stupid if they lose in the first round and he walks away to another team,” an agent said. “But I think they’re going to sign him. I think he’ll like it there.”
Did Colorado make the right call?
Nathan MacKinnon was already in a mood after the Avalanche lost to the Boston Bruins last Saturday.
“I wish I could have talked about this not right now,” he said.
But this was the first opportunity for the media to ask Colorado’s star center about losing his linemate and close friend Mikko Rantanen.
“Just sad, obviously. Losing Mikko … really great friend for 10 years. Won a Cup together. I don’t really know what happened,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate losing a great friend and a great teammate.”
Rantanen was seeking a contract in the neighborhood of the eight-year extension Leon Draisaitl signed with the Edmonton Oilers in September. That deal carries an average annual value of $14 million. Both Rantanen and Draisaitl are represented by agent Andy Scott.
The winger has said he was willing to take less than market value to remain in Colorado, but it’s unclear what that number actually looked like with regard to market value.
MacKinnon tried to stay out of Rantanen’s business on a new contract. The ticking clock didn’t bother him. He assumed it would play out much like Gabriel Landeskog‘s negotiations with the team did back in 2021, when the latter signed an eight-year, $56 million extension hours before free agency. But MacKinnon was wrong.
“I never thought in a million years he’d leave. It just sucks,” he said.
But Rantanen’s departure was something the Avalanche and GM Chris MacFarland believed was a possibility. The Avalanche and Hurricanes had been discussing Rantanen since last summer. Tulsky said the teams tabled “serious offers” for the winger during the past six to eight weeks. The Hurricanes were pushing hard to complete the trade in the past two weeks.
Others around the league knew it was a possibility too.
“I wasn’t surprised. For me, it wasn’t a secret,” a GM said. “The potential was there because of their situation — that he can’t go over MacKinnon [in AAV] or whatever. And I know that Carolina wasn’t the only team they were speaking with about Rantanen.”
MacKinnon makes $12.6 million against the salary cap on a deal that runs through 2030-31. Before signing that deal in Sept. 2022, he talked about taking less than market value — on a contract that made him the highest paid player in the league at the time — in order to “win with the group.” It’s the same mindset exhibited by his friend and mentor Sidney Crosby with the Pittsburgh Penguins over Crosby’s career.
But the contract that really influenced the Rantanen deal was one that hasn’t been signed yet: Cale Makar‘s next deal, which will begin in 2027-28. Considered by some to be the best offensive defenseman since Bobby Orr, Makar could earn the largest NHL contract for a defenseman ever.
“I think they made a decision that you can have two players but not three players making more than $12 million per season,” an agent said. “They knew, ballpark, the number for Cale Makar. So their decision was, ‘We can have two, but not three. Who do we keep?'”
So MacFarland had a choice to make: Top-load his roster with three star players gobbling up a large percentage of the salary cap or break up their holy hockey trinity. MacFarland made it clear that in doing the latter, he was acknowledging the team didn’t have championship depth and needed the flexibility to get it back.
“It’s clear we are not deep enough. I think that you’ve got to be deep to go four rounds, and hopefully this is going to help that,” MacFarland said. “Obviously Mikko is a superstar. You can’t replace that. But he’s a superstar that earned the right to be a free agent.”
One agent was skeptical of the negotiation: “I don’t feel they ever really were interested in signing him.”
Another agent felt the Avalanche did what they had to do. “It was the right trade for Colorado, because they couldn’t afford to pay Rantanen what he wanted within the context of their salary structure. He didn’t have full trade protection, so good move by them to trade him,” they said.
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Mikko Rantanen nets goal for Avalanche
Mikko Rantanen nets goal for Avalanche
MacFarland called it “a tough business decision” for the team. “It hurts, right. He’s a homegrown talent. He’s a superstar person. He’s a superstar human being,” he said.
Of course, there are other “business decisions” to think about in Denver or any NHL market.
“There’s an argument to be made that keeping Rantanen makes sense because you’re selling tickets. It doesn’t really matter ultimately if you win the Cup, but you have to be good every year. That guy is going to allow you to make the playoffs every year,” another general manager said. “But I could also make the argument that winning the Cup trumps everything else, and that winning it buys you a few seasons of a steady revenue stream no matter what your success is in those seasons.”
MacFarland has made it clear that teams usually have to draft and develop players like Rantanen. “We’re going to have to try and replace him in the aggregate; 50-goal scorers don’t grow on trees,” he said.
But what if he could be replaced?
“You could make the argument that Rantanen is a unicorn, and that you’re not finding another player like that,” a general manager said. “That said, what’s your opportunity cost? Could you find another 100-point winger like that? What could you trade to find that?”
One agent believes the Avalanche could find that player because of MacKinnon.
“Something no one seems to be discussing: I think the Avalanche believe that MacKinnon was a big part of Rantanen’s success, and that they would be able to put another guy with MacKinnon, pay him less and have comparable success,” they said.
Right now that player is Necas, who was immediately placed with MacKinnon after the trade. The speedy winger led the Hurricanes in scoring this season and has another year on his contract at $6.5 million AAV.
MacFarland said it was important to have Necas and Drury, an “emerging player” down the lineup, under contract and “cost-controlled” beyond this season. He said the trade would allow the Avalanche to potentially make more moves before the March 7 deadline. Many sources are wondering if the Avalanche would target a center to play behind MacKinnon, with players like the Islanders’ Brock Nelson in the conversation.
“I think we’re always sort of looking to get better. Certainly, over the next few weeks that won’t change. I think obviously there are a little more bullets in the draft-pick cupboard and some cap space,” MacFarland said.
But no Mikko Rantanen any longer.
‘What is Chicago doing?’
The Blackhawks’ role in the Rantanen trade had observers around the NHL baffled.
“What the f— is Chicago doing?” one NHL executive asked.
The Blackhawks retained half of Rantanen’s salary and cap hit, while also trading Hall to the Hurricanes. For that, they received their own 2025 third-round draft pick that Carolina had acquired from Chicago at the 2024 draft.
In recent trades, a third-party team retaining 25% of a player’s salary to facilitate a transaction has typically received a fourth-round pick. Chicago retaining that much cap space ($4.625 million) for 50% of a player’s salary and including a veteran forward with Hall’s abilities in a deal for only one third-round pick in return left many criticizing the return for the Blackhawks. But NHL insiders acknowledge there may have been some method to Chicago’s perceived madness.
One aspect of the trade that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is the actual salaries for Rantanen and Hall this season. Rantanen’s contract has a declining real-dollar value to where he was making only $6 million this season after having a base salary of $12 million in the first two years of the deal. Hall made $5.25 million this season. As one general manager noted, from a base salary perspective, the Blackhawks are paying slightly more for the rest of Rantanen’s contract than they would have if Hall finished the season with them.
“Essentially, Chicago was asked to sell a little cap space with the money being the same. They get a third for Hall — which to me is a little low — but effectively that’s what they’re doing,” one general manager said.
Davidson said that trading Hall was the logical move now because things frankly weren’t going to get better for him in Chicago leading up to the trade deadline. “You run the risk of things like injury, the role was diminishing almost by the game, and it just wasn’t heading towards a way that was going to maximize or enhance value,” he said.
As one NHL agent put it: “I know Kyle Davidson’s taking a lot of heat, but I don’t think he probably was going to get much better for Taylor Hall than what he got.”
There’s no question it hasn’t been the happiest season for Hall in Chicago. Former head coach Luke Richardson surprised him by making him a healthy scratch earlier this season. He had nine goals in 46 games. One NHL executive suggested that moving Hall out now could benefit the vibes inside Chicago’s dressing room.
But moving him out now also means not having to use Chicago’s last salary retention spot to move him later, which Davidson would undoubtedly have to do to make a trade work at the deadline. Now that slot is available for another deadline trade involving a player like forward Ryan Donato ($2 million AAV) or defenseman Alec Martinez ($4 million AAV), both of whom are unrestricted free agents after the season; or a more coveted player in forward Jason Dickinson, who has two years left at $4.25 million AAV.
Will Carolina sign Rantanen?
The Hurricanes now have the chance to do something no other team can do for Rantanen this offseason: Give him an eight-year contract. Per the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement, everyone else can only go as high as seven years.
“Where is he going to go for seven years instead of the eight that Carolina can give him? If they’re willing to go eight years and $13 million annually, where else would he want to go that’s good that can afford him?” one agent pondered.
Rantanen told me that the Hurricanes’ ability to give him an eighth year will be a factor in his eventual free-agent decision. But those negotiations are a ways off. He’s got other things to think about now.
“To be honest, I haven’t had any chance to think about an extension, just trying to get into the group and try to play well,” he said. “So I think we’ll have to think about those situations in a couple weeks or so.”
What’s been interesting in chatting with sources about Rantanen and the Hurricanes is that the money doesn’t seem to be a concern. Owner Tom Dundon is infamous for his tough negotiations on contracts for everyone from players to his own coaches. But the assumption is that the Hurricanes had a ballpark idea of what Rantanen is looking for on his next contract and were comfortable going there in negotiations.
Obviously, the Hurricanes faced a similar situation when they traded for Pittsburgh Penguins winger Jake Guentzel at the deadline last season and attempted to sign him to an extension, only to see the Tampa Bay Lightning ink him instead.
But Tulsky said the conditions are more favorable to keep Rantanen than they were for retaining Guentzel. Last season, the Hurricanes didn’t have the cap flexibility to sign Guentzel and the other players they wanted. This offseason, Tulsky estimates the team could have between $35 million to $40 million in cap space.
“Our team situation is totally different right now,” he said. “We don’t feel nearly as constrained.”
So if it’s not the money and it’s not the percentage of the salary cap, what is the make-or-break thing for Rantanen staying with the Hurricanes?
“I think they will ultimately sign him, unless he absolutely hates it there,” one agent concluded.
Tulsky admitted that the Hurricanes’ current approach to Rantanen is “more of a recruiting pitch than a negotiation in my mind.” They have to sell him on the franchise, the system, the players on the roster and on the way and, most of all, spending the next eight years of his life in Raleigh.
Sebastian Aho has not affixed “Ambassador” to his name, but it might as well be there. He’s been a friend and Finnish national team teammate for Rantanen throughout their lives. Aho has starred with Carolina since 2016-17. No one on the Hurricanes is better equipped to sell Rantanen on Raleigh and the franchise.
“I guess it’s just about making him feel comfortable, making him feel welcome. I think that goes a long way,” Aho said. “But obviously if he wants to go play a round of golf, I’m not saying no to that.”
What if Rantanen goes to market?
There isn’t yet certainty on the NHL’s salary cap in the near term. Some projections have it jumping from $88 million to upwards of $97 million next season. From there, the sky’s the limit.
One agent said that as the salary cap rises, some teams will claim they have an internal cap that only allows them to offer so much money to players. But after one or two huge contracts are handed out that elevate teams to the new ceiling, that dogma will go out the window.
“Competitiveness is going to kick in. GMs and owners are going to decide that they need to spend more to stay competitive,” the agent said.
The opportunity has never been greater for a player like Rantanen to maximize his earning potential on the open market. Leon Draisaitl’s contract with the Oilers was $112 million over eight years, or $14 million AAV.
“I think he’ll get Draisaitl-like money as a UFA,” one agent predicted.
“There are probably some good teams that might be willing to go seven years at $14 million annually to get him,” another said.
Draisaitl’s contract is one factor, but there’s another winger potentially going to market this summer seeking a big contract: Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who is in the last year of a six-year contract with a $10.903 million AAV.
As far as possible suitors, two of the NHL’s richest franchises come to mind:
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The New York Rangers continue to aggressively try to reshape their roster. They nearly completed a trade for Miller with the Canucks in recent weeks, with center Filip Chytil as the centerpiece. But salary retention and draft pick conditions were reported sticking points. If they’re able to create the necessary space — moving out a veteran like Chris Kreider or Mika Zibanejad — Rantanen is the kind of shiny new toy the franchise finds hard to resist. Consider also that winger Artemi Panarin will be in the last year of his contract in 2025-26 at an $11,642,857 AAV.
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The other team is already paying part of Rantanen’s salary: The Chicago Blackhawks. They’re expected to be in on every player they can this offseason in an attempt to quickly build a contender around young star Connor Bedard. The 19-year-old phenom has shown some discontent at dwelling in the Central Division cellar in the first two seasons of his NHL career. Putting a top five scorer like Rantanen on his wing would certainly put a smile on his face. Needless to say, Chicago has the money and the cap space to attempt it — if not the competitive team that Rantanen might be compelled to join.
Then there’s a wild card played recently by insider Andy Strickland, who is the rinkside reporter for the St. Louis Blues on FanDuel Sports Network. On his “Cam & Stick” podcast, Strickland said Rantanen will sign with the Edmonton Oilers this summer.
“They’re going to be able to pay him and I think there would be some interest from him,” he said, noting that Draisaitl and Rantanen share an agent. Strickland said the acquisition of Rantanen would also be an enticement for star Connor McDavid to re-sign, as he becomes an unrestricted free agent in summer 2026.
The magnitude of this trade, and the star quality of the player, lend themselves to this kind of speculation. The Hurricanes have some advantages in seeking to keep Rantanen. But they won’t be alone if he tests the market.
“Assuming he doesn’t hate the system and the environment there, I think he signs with Carolina,” one agent said. “If he doesn’t care where he plays, all bets are off.”
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