Carolina Hurricanes Settle Arbitration Case with D Maxime Lajoie
The Carolina Hurricanes have reportedly signed D Maxime Lajoie to a one year, two-way contract worth $750,000 ($125,000 AHL), per Elliotte Friedman:
Lajoie, 24, was a fifth-round pick of the Ottawa Senators and has 15 points in 67 NHL games with both the Senators and the Hurricanes. In 194 AHL games, Lajoie has scored 87 points.
This model has some maturing to do, so take it with a grain of salt. But JFresh and TopDownHockey generally do quality work, so I am willing to use it for my purposes.
According to their model, Lajoie is a 44% bet to make the NHL full-time with a very low chance at being a star. But defenseman almost always take longer to develop, and Lajoie scored 33 points for the Calder Cup winning Chicago Wolves in 2021-22. So there is a decent chance he ends up being a useful player for the Hurricanes.
Lajoie's opportunity in 2022-23 largely depends whether or not D Jake Gardiner can get off of long-term injured reserve. Without Gardiner, there are only two left-shooting defensemen on Carolina's roster. So Lajoie could find himself on the Canes' bottom defensive pair, replacing D Brendan Smith who signed with the New Jersey Devils in free agency.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mikko Rantanen | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
| Jake Debrusk | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Dylan Guenther | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Valeri Nichushkin | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Clayton Keller | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Anthony Cirelli | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Jonathan Drouin | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Matt Duchene | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Samuel Girard | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Oliver Kylington | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Anton Lundell | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jonathan Marchessault | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Patrick Maroon | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Brock Nelson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Lukas Reichel | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Marco Rossi | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Kiefer Sherwood | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tomas Tatar | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 20 | 17 | 3 | - | 34 | |
Wild | 19 | 13 | 3 | 3 | 29 | |
Hurricanes | 19 | 14 | 5 | - | 28 | |
Devils | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Capitals | 19 | 13 | 5 | 1 | 27 | |
Golden Knights | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Maple Leafs | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 26 | |
Rangers | 18 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 25 | |
Panthers | 20 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 25 | |
Flames | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 25 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||