Hurricanes’ Deslauriers signs contract extension on stage at Stanley Cup parade

The Carolina Hurricanes are celebrating their Stanley Cup championship with a parade through downtown Raleigh on Saturday, and in the middle of the festivities, they gave fans even more reason to celebrate.

While on stage, general manager Eric Tulsky prompted winger Nic Deslauriers to come to the podium, where he put pen to paper on a new two-year contract extension that will carry a salary cap hit of $875,000 at the NHL level.

Deslauriers, a veteran enforcer who provides a physical presence to the fourth line when dressed, came over to the Hurricanes in a trade just ahead of March’s deadline from the Philadelphia Flyers.

Deslauriers, a third-round pick in the 2009 NHL Draft, broke into the league with the Buffalo Sabres in 2013-14, and has had stints with the Montreal Canadiens, Anaheim Ducks and Minnesota Wild before settling in with the Flyers for nearly four full seasons.

In 708 career regular season games, the Quebec native has 53 goals and 53 assists for 106 points in 708 career games while skating to a career plus/minus of minus-108 and racking up 799 penalty minutes.

Deslauriers was used sparingly by head coach Rod Brind’Amour after being acquired by Carolina, drawing into seven regular season games and just one Stanley Cup Playoff game, Game 4 of the first round against Ottawa, but the physicality and intimidation factor he provided to a team that had been pushed around physically in prior postseasons was a valuable addition.

In terms of retaining the team that just captured the Stanley Cup, Tulsky would only need to sign two other pending unrestricted free agents in defenseman Mike Reilly and goaltender Frederik Andersen.

Every other player on the team is either under contract for 2026-27, or in the case of defenseman Alexander Nikishin, a restricted free agent who is not eligible to receive an offer sheet from other teams.