Dark horse enters Dougie Hamilton sweepstakes!

At the start of the offseason, the Carolina Hurricanes recently gave star defenseman Dougie Hamilton permission to speak with other teams ahead of the opening of free agency. If Carolina isn’t willing to pay Hamilton enough to entice hime to stay then it opens the door for a rare sign-and-trade. That would also ensure the pending unrestricted free agent could ink an eight-year deal as opposed to a maximum seven-year deal if he were to hit the open market.

There is no doubt that Hamilton will be popular on the market and is expected to get a significant raise from his current $5.75-million annual salary cap hit after garnering Norris Trophy votes in each of the past five seasons.

We know he gets a lot of interest and now Frank Seravalli of Daily Face-off believes that a dark horse could have entered the sweepstakes for Hamilton. Seravalli wonders if the Edmonton Oilers could chase the star blue liner as the insider is not sold on Ethan Bear staying put in Edmonton for the long haul. 

On top of that, Seravalli believes the Oilers are expected to clear cap space by buying out forward James Neal, and adds that there is talk of moving Zack Kassian, which would free up even more money for a guy like Hamilton. 

This is not the first chatter of a potential deal that could bring Hamilton back in Canada. There were talks that Hamilton could pull a John Tavares as he grew up a Maple Leafs fan, just like Toronto, and it has people wondering what general manager Kyle Dubas could do to land a top blue liner like Hamilton. It’s been known around that league that Dubas has reportedly coveted Hamilton through the years. According to one report revealed by ESPN, Dubas asked Hamilton from the Hurricanes during trade talks involving Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen before this season — which was shut down. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman once admitted he could see it happening. 

And so, could we see Dougie back in Canada?