The NHL 15: Nikolaj Ehlers is the NHL's most fascinating X-factor

Can he be one of the players that helps put the Carolina Hurricanes over the top in the Eastern Conference?

Before each NHL season I look at 15 players that I think are the most intriguing players in the NHL. Not necessarily the best players (though, sometimes they are), but players that offer some sort of intrigue, a big storyline or figure to be a major X-factor for the season. This is The NHL 15. We continue today with Nikolaj Ehlers, one of the NHL’s biggest free agent signings and a potentially massive X-factor in the Eastern Conference.

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I said at the top this series is not necessarily about the best players in the NHL. It’s about the players that intrigue me the most. And Carolina’s big free agent addition — forward Nikolaj Ehlers — is a player that intrigues me a lot this season. A LOT. Not only because of the player that he has been throughout his career, but also because of what he might be able to do for a Carolina Hurricanes team that just always seems to be missing one thing come playoff time.

The Hurricanes seem like a frustrating team for a lot of people outside of Carolina … and maybe even some people IN Carolina.

Their style of play is not always the most exciting. But it’s incredibly effective. That type of team is usually only fun for the people that cheer for them, and that’s fine! Eric Tulsky and Rod Brind’Amour’s job isn’t to entertain you or me. It’s to win hockey games. And they are very good at it.

They are, objectively speaking, an outstanding team, and one that has been regarded as a top-tier Stanley Cup contender for several years.

But they have yet to break through with this core and reach the Stanley Cup Final. They keep getting close. They keep advancing. They have made the Conference Final several times. But they always seem to run out of steam or just not have enough big-time difference-makers to get through the only three or four truly elite teams in the NHL that are on their level or above them. That also tends to annoy people. Nobody wants to hear preseason hype about the team that keeps falling short every year.

Still, they’re good. They’re really good. And they have a lot of really good players with very few weaknesses. The one weakness you might be able to keep going back to is that for all of the quality players they have, they don’t really have a lot of high-end finishers or superstar-level talents. Goal-scoring tends to be a problem for them when they get deeper into the playoffs and face better teams.

They tried to fix that mid-way through the 2024-25 season by trading for Mikko Rantanen. It was a bold move, and seemed to be the exact type of player they needed to get over the hump. But when it became clear he was not going to re-sign there they flipped him to Dallas for Logan Stankoven and a couple of first-round draft picks.

Stankoven seems like he was made to be a Hurricane given the way he plays, and they quickly got him signed to a long-term deal that joins the many team-friendly contracts that make up Carolina’s core.

Having all of those team-friendly and cap-friendly contracts, especially in a rising cap league, creates a ton of flexibility to bring in outside help. The Hurricanes did that this offseason with two major moves by signing Ehlers and trading for defenseman K’Andre Miller. They also still have more than $10 million in salary cap space at their disposal to potentially add somebody else. Combined with the draft pick resources they still have, and some of the young talent in their system, it’s about as good of a situation as a contender can have.

All they need to do now is … win.

And that is where the addition of Ehlers comes in, because there’s a big part of me that wonders if he can be the sort of difference-maker they have been lacking.

Or at least add another prominent talent.

Let’s talk about one of the NHL’s most efficient scorers and producers, that hasn’t always had the ice-time to do more.