Carolina Hurricanes Sign Stephane Yelle for only $500 G’s

Larry Gasik is a web developer and hockey fanatic located in the suburbs of Chicago. Nearly any free time he has is spent playing and watching hockey. Just like any true hockey player, Larry spends a good portion of his summertime golfing.

Wednesday morning, it was announced that the Carolina Hurricanes picked up Stephane Yelle for only $550k. It’ll be his fourth NHL team.

Yelle isn’t a game breaking player, and won’t see more than the fourth line and killing some penalties. He doesn’t put up a lot of points, but he is a solid shut down guy who wins in the faceoff circle. Carolina GM Jim Rutherford brought Yelle on board to make the team deeper at center and add a veteran presence. I also expect their penalty kill to improve a little bit this year.

Last year Yelle spent the season in Boston, having 18 points in 77 games. Before that he spent some time in Calgary, and won two cups with Colorado.

I see this as a smart move by Carolina, especially with this contract. He’s getting up there in age so his numbers eventually start declining at some point and he may lose a step but the guy typically has had solid seasons wherever he goes. I haven’t expected Carolina to make much noise the past few off seasons, and with making the Eastern Conference Finals last year, I didn’t expect it this year.

There will be some departures, but they locked up some key players for them in Erik Cole, Chad LaRose, Jussi Jokinen and Tuomo Ruutu. Anton Babchuk will be on his way out, and Patrick Eaves signed in Detroit. Frantisek Kaberle was in his final year of his contract, scheduled to earn $2.2 million, but was bought out – a wise but costly move.

I do expect some more minor moves out of Carolina based on their cap situation. They’re going to have a few free agents next year, notably Cam Ward who is going to get big raise. All reports suggest to me that their farm system probably isn’t strong enough to fill the necessary spots, so look for them to make a minor tweak here and there similar to this signing.

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