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Carolina misses out with failed Whitney trade

It seems like the Carolina Hurricanes traded everyone but Ray Whitney.

The Canes, facing salary cap issues and poor team on the ice, entered the deadline with a need to rebuild and offload salary and Ray Whitney was the one player everyone knew was on his way out. Except there was a snag.

No one wanted to pay what Carolina was asking for.

Here’s what is interesting about that fact*. Yesterday, as the trade deadline was approaching, nearly every rumor mill on the internet reported that the issue with a potential Whitney trade was that he would only approve a trade if he received a contract extension and that was what was holding back a deal. Except according to GM Jim Rutherford, they never got far enough yesterday for Whitney to even have a chance to say no.

“There were offers for him,” Rutherford said. “The only offer I took to Ray was back a month ago when we had a deal with a Western Conference team. That didn’t go anywhere. But I didn’t take any deals to him [Wednesday]. This was the organization’s decision.”

Whitney is the best player for the Hurricanes and would have given the team one hell of a return had they been able to trade him. There’s no doubt that Rutherford was asking top dollar for Whitney and with the market absurdly dry yesterday the teams just weren’t offering what he’d want to give him up.

The Hurricanes have a wealth of picks in this year’s draft and are poised for a prime rebuilding opportunity. Imagine what they could have done with a Ray Whitney trade.