Justin Faulk trade rare win for both sides

Justin Faulk was traded along with a 2020 fifth-round pick to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for defenseman Joel Edmundson, forward prospect Dominik Bokk and a 2021 seventh-round pick.

Upon the completion of the trade, Faulk signed a seven-year, $45.5 million, $6.5 AAV contract extension with the Blues that will kick in for next season. The Hurricanes also retained 14% of the salary for Faulk’s contract that ends this season.

While one-for-one, the defenseman swap is a one-sided trade in favor of the Blues, the addition of a high-end talent prospect like Bokk tips the scales considerably.

Let’s first take a look at the former 25th overall pick. Bokk is currently playing in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) for Rögle BK and is considered as a high-end right-handed forward prospect.

Corey Pronman of The Athletic rated Bokk as the second best prospect in the St. Louis Blues system and the 50th best NHL prospect entering the 2019-2020 season.

“Bokk is full of skill,” Pronman wrote in his assessment of the former Blues prospect. “He can make unique plays with the puck because of his soft hands and high creativity. He’s an excellent passer who makes flashy passes routinely. He also has a decent one-timer and can score goals. His skating looked better than I thought this time last year, but his skill is more impressive than his speed.”

Needless to say, the German winger has a lot of potential upside and the Hurricanes front office had a high regard for him. Bokk also fills a notable gap of right wingers in the Hurricanes farm system.

NHL Roster

Carolina is losing a blueliner who averaged a little over 32 points a season throughout his career and set the franchise record for goals and points for a defenseman with 85 goals and 258 points.

While Edmundson has never broken more than 20 points in a season in his four years in the NHL, that isn’t what he was brought in to replace. At $3.1 million on a one-year one-way contract, Edmundson is a cheap defenseman with championship prestige, but more importantly, can kill penalties and eat up minutes as a stay-at-home defenseman.

Edmundson is a large, physical defenseman, and at 6-foot-4, he is the type of blueliner the Canes have been missing for a while. Oddly enough, while Edmundson is not replacing Faulk’s point production, he is a viable replacement for the new role Faulk found himself in last season.

With the addition of a power-play specialist like Dougie Hamilton in the 2018-2019 and with the signing of Jake Gardiner, Faulk would have inevitably seen his power-play time diminish to virtually nothing.

However, what Faulk was trending up in was his usage on the penalty kill and overall defensive play. Faulk was ranked fourth among Carolina blueliners with 1:43 per game of penalty kill ice time and could have seen a more focused aspect on that part of his game if he was removed from the power play. Faulk was also a positive plus/minus for the first time in his career when playing over half a season.

Bringing in Edmundson helps to alleviate the pressure that Faulk’s absence will have on the defensive side of the game. As a projected bottom pairing, Edmundson is a good pickup for the Hurricanes this season.

In the immediate, the addition of Joel Edmundson concretes the NHL roster with six proven NHL defensemen.

Slavin – Hamilton

Gardiner – Pesce

Edmundson – van Riemsdyk

This puts the Hurricanes in a very comfortable position for this one season with a lot of reliable defensemen. But, it does not bode well for the prospects in the defensive logjam.

Haydn Fleury, who was having an exceptional training camp in what might be his make-it-or-break-it season, and Gustav Forsling, newly acquired from Chicago in the Calvin de Haan trade, will both be required to be put on waivers to be assigned to Charlotte. With no roster space clearly evident at the blueline, these players will seemingly be up for grabs for nothing by other NHL teams if they are put on waivers.

The Hurricanes will also not be done quite yet on the movement front either. There are still two major issues facing the Canes before opening night. The first is that they are still projected at about $500k over the salary cap and the second that they are at 25 NHL contracts when the maximum for an opening roster is 23.

The Hurricanes may be wishing that someone will take a player off of their hands, but if it is someone who was selected 7th overall aka Fleury, it will seem like poor resource management.

For today, both teams seem like they came out better off than they were for the immediate future. For the Blues, Justin Faulk adds a veteran blueliner on the right side who can also contribute either on the power play or penalty kill effectively and they locked him up for a long time.

For the Hurricanes, they acquire a highly rated prospect who could look to break the roster in three to four years and a big, physical defenseman who can terrorize the blueline for a team looking to win today.

The trade is a bit of a gamble bet for the Hurricanes who are potentially putting some of their prospects in jeopardy of being claimed off waivers and are putting faith into a prospect’s development, but for Justin Faulk, who wasn’t going to make $6.5 million playing for the Canes next season, it is a worthy gamble.