Hurricanes Grant Hamilton Permission to Speak to Other Teams

Dougie Hamilton of the Carolina Hurricanes has been in the news a lot recently regarding his comments about the Tampa Bay Lightning and on Monday, all the attention was placed on his future in Carolina. Turns out the Hurricanes have granted the free-agent defenseman permission to speak with other teams regarding a new contract.

A sign the off-season is really revving up as the final four chase the Stanley Cup: Carolina has given Dougie Hamilton permission to talk to other NHL teams. Opens potential for a sign-and-trade.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) June 14, 2021

As Friedman points out, a sign-and-trade appears to be the next step here. Once Hamilton has a contract he likes from another team, his agent will circle back to Carolina and open up the dialogue between the two clubs.

Hamilton is arguably the biggest name set to his the free-agent market and there's certainly going to be a number of teams interested. Allowing him to talk to other clubs actually increases the number of teams interested because the fact if teams didn't have cap space to sign him as a free-agent, at least they can now send the Hurricanes some salaries the other way to free space.

Some teams who are believed to be interested in Hamilton include the Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks. All three teams have a different levels of cap space available and could be open to a deal to acquire Hamilton for next season and beyond. 

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