We are told that general managers in the National Hockey League have difficult jobs, the hardest part is making big trades to bring in star players, with all the contracts and draft picks involved. But when you look at the trade that Carolina Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky made on Friday to bring in all-world forward Mikko Rantanen (and former MVP Taylor Hall, mind you), it reminds us that the job is not impossible.
Yes, it requires a lot of forward-thinking and boldness, and there is always a risk with all of that. It makes you a bit envious that Carolina has such a bright and creative executive in charge. For the Philadelphia Flyers and their fans, that envy takes on a deeper shade of green when you consider that Tulsky, a hockey outsider, was living in Philadelphia and blogging about the Flyers just a little over ten years ago.
Imagine what the Philadelphia Flyers could have had with Eric Tulsky
His journey since then is well-documented — he took on an analyst job with the Hurricanes organization and moved up their ranks before being promoted to the big chair last year. Full credit to them for recognizing his insight and taking advantage. But at any point during his tenure, the Flyers could have placed a call and offered him an equivalent or higher spot in Philadelphia, and you could be sure that he would have come home. Too late now.
The Carolina Hurricanes are in the midst of their seventh straight playoff season, the last four of which could be properly qualified as 'excellent', so it's easy to forget how bad they were for a long time. The Canes missed the playoffs nine straight years, and it was right in the middle of that stretch that Tulsky came aboard as an analyst, and the tide slowly started to turn.
In the years after Tulsky's arrival, Carolina drafted NHL mainstays such as Sebastian Aho, Martin Necas (who was just traded for Rantanen), Noah Hanifin, Andrei Svechnikov, and Seth Jarvis, among others. Surely, Tulsky can't be given full credit for assembling a team that has been near the top of the league for several years running, but it's not a coincidence that the pieces started falling into place right after he arrived and started moving up the organizational ladder.
Carolina swapping Necas for Rantanen + Hall is the most out-of-character Hurricanes move I could think of, minus the Finland thing. This is the Tulsky era now baby
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) January 25, 2025
Now, imagine if the Flyers had been so analytically inclined 5-10 years ago and shifted away from the 'old guard' mentality that they have long embraced and which has led to years of Flyers lifers leading the club. You're even seeing that to a lesser degree now with Keith Jones and Danny Briere, although they are early enough in their terms that nobody should want to move on from them already. Still, if you're being objective, would you rather have Jones/Briere right now or Tulsky? Be honest, Flyers fans.
Much of the current Flyers "core" (Travis Konecny, Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Cam York) was drafted during the same time frame as Carolina's current best players, and look where the clubs are now. Carolina did a frankly superior job of identifying, selecting, and developing talent over the second half of the last decade, and they continue to reap the rewards today. In addition, they've successfully navigated the waters of the post-COVID "flat cap" and the presence of an owner, Tom Dundon, who has frequently limited his team's payroll since buying the club in 2018. If Tulsky were given a little more wiggle room by an ownership group with deep pockets, such as Comcast Spectacor, imagine how much that franchise could accomplish.
There are others in the Carolina Hurricanes leadership structure who have played a role in the high level of success that they have achieved these past few years. But it doesn't take too deep of a dive to figure out that Eric Tulsky has been the central figure in turning around a franchise that was dead in the water a decade ago. Meanwhile, the Flyers are looking at their fifth straight non-playoff season and a continuing rebuild/retool that doesn't have a definitive timetable. The organization has had to endure the Ron Hextall and Chuck Fletcher regimes while Tulsky had a pivotal role in building a contender in Carolina.
Maybe there's hope for the Flyers yet, but wins and results are better than hope. The Hurricanes can happily attest to that as they position themselves for a deep playoff run thanks to a blockbuster move authored by their GM, Eric Tulsky. No, the Flyers aren't currently in the kind of position where a move like this would have made sense for them. But maybe they could have been if only they had taken notice of Eric Tulsky's writing a few years ago.