Quick Hits: Canes Extend Jankowski, Sign Cerrato

Carolina gets some business done while awaiting their next opponent in the playoffs.

Eric Tulsky has already had a pretty busy week. On Monday, the team signed center Mark Jankowski to a two year contract extension worth $1.85M annually. They followed it up by signing forward prospect Charlie Cerrato to his three year Entry Level Contract on Tuesday. It’s a nice bit of news to break up the monotony of waiting for the Hurricanes to find out who they’re playing against, that’s for sure.

Jankowski, 31, was set to become a free agent on July 1, and this deal keeps him around for the next two seasons. Jankowski’s contract also gives him an eight team no-trade list. It made a lot of sense for both sides to get this deal done, as Jankowski has fit in seamlessly as the team’s fourth line center and has chipped in a bit of offense in addition to his gritty play. If you’re like me, the cap hit may have been a bit surprising to you initially. What I’m reminding myself of is that even though he’s likely a 20-25 point player, that’s just what fourth line players are going to be worth moving forward. The cap has gone up, and so have the salaries for most players around the league. Jankowski has been a valuable piece in the playoffs, and even though his point totals don’t show it, the Hurricanes have really needed him in both series. Sure, it doesn’t help when both of your goals get called back.

Jankowski was one of the Hurricanes’ only free agents this year, with Deslauriers and Reilly being the only other two UFAs on the roster. Alexander Nikishin will sign an extension at some point as well. With Jankowski signed for two more years, it’s likely that if the team looks to improve their roster this offseason, they may need to trade a piece or two from it in order to do so.

Now, this move obviously made a lot of people think about Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s status with the Hurricanes. Not that we needed a ton of confirmation about this, but Kotkaniemi likely has at least one foot out of the door here in Raleigh. I would imagine that he’s moved sometime around the draft, because at this point, I don’t see a way that this relationship can be mended. Kotkaniemi hasn’t played a single minute in these playoffs and the only reason he saw ice time down the stretch was because the Hurricanes needed to rest their top players. So, while extending Jankowkski isn’t necessarily a large move, it’s almost certainly the final nail in the coffin for Kotkaniemi’s time as a Hurricane.

Moving onto Cerrato, it’s nice to see this contract finished now. Sometimes, these negotiations take a while, and for a player like Cerrato that had education opportunities, they probably wanted to make sure his contract would set him up for future success as well. Cerrato is a fascinating prospect to me. He’s likely a third line center at the NHL level, but every so often he’ll pop off with some skill and make passes that are really high end. Of course he has the ability to get to the net and play a strong defensive game, and that’ll work any day in Rod Brind’Amour’s system. Now, he’ll need to round out his game and find the next level in his game in all three zones, but some time with the Chicago Wolves will help him accomplish that. While I may have thought he was close to pushing for a roster spot next season, I believe that timeline might be pushed to 2027. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he has a really good year in the AHL and earns a call-up at some point.

As for Cerrato’s deal, it’s a pretty standard contract. There’s a $225,000 signing bonus and the NHL pay gradually bumps up every year of the deal. Cerrato is the first Hurricanes prospect to sign his ELC in 2026, but I’m sure he won’t be the last. The team still has to wait for the Russian season to end before some of their players’ contracts expire. At that point, we should see a few more names sign with the team. All in all, it’s a productive week for the Hurricanes.