Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell’s media availability at PNC Arena on Saturday struck a very different tune from past July 1 press conferences. Those would usually be filled with some variation of “we like our group” and “this is a dangerous day.”
This year, the Hurricanes had one of their busiest, most entertaining opening free agency days in recent memory. In addition to officially bringing back three of their own pending UFAs on team-friendly deals in forward Jesper Fast and goalies Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta, the Hurricanes made the biggest splash of day one and signed one of the biggest fish on this year’s open market in inking defenseman Dmitry Orlov to a two-year deal with a $7.