“It Was Weird”: Jordan Staal on Rantanen’s Run with the Hurricanes

Some trades just don’t work out. The Carolina Hurricanes found that out when they acquired Mikko Rantanen from the Colorado Avalanche, but the fit was never quite right. Ultimately, Rantanen was flipped again at the deadline, going to the Dallas Stars and signing a long-term extension.

Hurricanes’ captain Jordan Staal talked about the quick run Rantanen had with the team in 2024-25. Repeatedly calling it “weird,” he noted that it was one of the strangest things he ever witnessed in his NHL career.

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Stall made a recent appearance on Spittin’ Chiclets and said:

“Yeah, that was a wild time. It was so weird, and I get it. I felt bad for Rants, too. He wasn’t really expecting to get traded. He was hoping to sign in Colorado, whatever it was. So we have like a star player sitting beside me on my right, and he’s not sure what’s going on. He’s trying to play his best, he’s struggling out there, he’s frustrated, and like Roddy’s kind of tiptoeing around because we want to sign him. But like, he’s not really doing kind of what we’d like him to do, but also, like, he’s so talented and you’re like, I get it, and he can make plays, and you’re like, okay, we’ll figure it out, but you also need to know if he was gonna be here. It was the weirdest time. Even for me, it was like, I don’t know what to say to him for the most part. It’s tough. It was weird.”

It could have been that Rantanen was just not over being traded. He was trying to leverage a better deal from the Avalanche when they suddenly pulled the rug out from under him and traded him to Carolina. He even noted later that he never wanted to leave and that he would have come back with a different offer, but he didn’t get a chance. He was just done there. That might have made it nearly impossible to embrace the move to Carolina.

He also didn’t fit into the system well. He wasn’t producing, he wasn’t playing Hurricanes-style hockey. He just didn’t fit. Staal said they just wanted the deadline to be over and done with so they could put the awkwardness behind them. Whether Rantanen stayed or left, the Hurricanes needed to remove the distraction of another possible trade. Rantanen was dealt and the Hurricanes won 10 games in a row.

They didn’t win the Stanley Cup that season, but they won it the next year. Clearly, things happen for a reason. The Hurricanes got  Logan Stankoven, two first-round picks, and two third-round pick in the trade. Stankhoven was instrumental in this past season’s win.

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