Mikko Rantanen Was Only Willing To Extend With One Of These Four Teams

Mikko Rantanen Was Only Willing To Extend With One Of These Four Teams

Before I start, if you haven’t read Andrew’s trade deadline tracker, go do that. He did a great job covering all of the moves during a day of madness. A day that included the Hurricanes actually flipping Mikko Rantanen to the Dallas Stars.

Now that the dust has settled and Rantanen extended with Dallas, it has now been revealed that he had a very short list of teams that he was willing to sign long term with.

Rod Brind’Amour revealed in an interview on ‘Canes Corner’ with Adam Gold on 99.9 The Fan in Raleigh that Carolina wasn’t given a chance to sign Rantanen long term:

“There’s not been one guy that has left here because they didn’t like it here – except for Mikko. He didn’t not like it. When he showed up, he said ‘there’s four teams I’ll go play for, well, you’re not one of them.’ So, there’s 28 other teams he wasn’t going to,” Brind’Amour candidly said. “The better question is should we have known that before we signed him or attempted to sign him.

“Mikko is the only one that I’ve been associated with that said ‘this is not for me’ and I think there are other circumstances on that. It’s not because of the hockey. It was because, I think, his family, it wasn’t for him. . . Good. I appreciate that he let us know that. We probably should have known that before we made the deal. Maybe that changes how we go about things.”

TFP’s David Pagnotta added that the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights were two of those teams along with Dallas. Pagnotta adds in his article that Toronto was believed to be the other team.

Frank Seravalli basically confirmed all of that on his recent DFO rundown podcast. The only other wild detail that he added was The Avs offered $11.5 to Rantanen. His ask was $14 but told the Avs if it’s $12 he will sign. Colorado traded him the next day. That’s so wild to me but long story short; don’t blame the player for not re-upping with Colorado.

In the end, Carolina comes away with Logan Stankoven, two first round picks, and two third round picks. People can say whatever they want but Carolina botched this thing from the moment they acquired him. They should have shut down the rumors right away. Instead, they opened the door for the flipping to happen and Rantanen made his choice. All they have done is present themselves as a small market baseball team that nobody wants to sign with. I’m not sure that part is arguably and their Stanley Cup chances feel like they went out the window.

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