Ethan Bear is signed on for a one-year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes. The contract is $2.2 million for the upcoming season. This deal also helps him avoid arbitration.
Ethan Bear Re-Signs with Hurricanes
Bear has only been with the Carolina Hurricanes for a single season, but he clearly left an impression – for better or worse. Negotiations obviously hit a snag when the team gave their unrestricted free agent permission to talk money with other teams.
Report: Hurricanes grant Ethan Bear permission to speak with teams. https://t.co/uEn0fa3lXF pic.twitter.com/nRaw2uF5Ui
— theScore (@theScore) June 21, 2022
Carolina’s owner Tom Dundon is famous for playing hardball with his free agents. Obviously, he wanted Bear to sign for less than his $2.4 million qualifying offer, which just as obviously Bear didn’t like. It was a calculated risk, as right-handed defencemen are in high demand. Add the fact that Bear is just 25 years old and you’d best believe there was demand. But by letting Bear look around, general manager Don Waddell had some of his work done for him. A value might not have been established for him in cash, exactly, but at least interest could be evaluated.
Ethan Bear had a very strange 2021-22 season. He came over from the Edmonton Oilers in return for the rights to winger Warren Foegele. It was the rights because Foegele was having issues with the Hurricanes himself a the time. And that one year after taking an arbitration deal. Player negotiations in Carolina are a recurring theme, it seems. And it was no different with Bear by season’s end. Of course, also by the end of the season Bear was a healthy scratch. After a 58-game season with five goals and 14 points – all but one at even strength – he had played anything from 10 to 23 minutes in any given game.
What’s the Value
The previous deal for Bear was two years at a cap hit of $2 million. Not a wildly out of line for the kind of mobile, positional defenceman he is, but not what the Hurricanes wanted to build from. Considering that defencemen tend to take longer to reach their potential, where he goes from here depends partly on him, partly on what kind of opportunities his coach will give him. He isn’t a crease-clearing giant, but he is solid on his feet. His positioning is good, as is his stick and his speed to carry pucks out of danger.
In 2021-22 he got a bit of time on the power-play and a bit more short handed. If those trends continue, he will end up a better version of what he is now: not a star, but a versatile, slick puck carrier with good secondary scoring. And again, he’s a 25-year-old, right-handed defenceman. That’s worth investing in.
