Hurricanes Sign Jalen Chatfield To Three-Year Extension

The Hurricanes are expected to extend defenseman Jalen Chatfield, CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal reports Thursday. He was slated to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. It’s a three-year, $9MM contract with a $3MM cap hit, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. PuckPedia has the full breakdown of the deal:

2024-25: $1MM base salary, $2.75MM signing bonus, no-move clause
2025-26: $1MM base salary, $2MM signing bonus, no-move clause
2026-27: $775K base salary, $1.475MM signing bonus, 15-team no-trade list

Chatfield joined Carolina on a two-way deal as a Group VI unrestricted free agent in 2021 after getting a brief NHL shot with the Canucks the season prior. In the three years since, he’s developed into one of the better depth options in the league on a bargain-bin contract that actually carried a $762.5K cap hit below the league minimum salary this season.

The 28-year-old split his first season between the Canes and AHL Chicago but became a fixture in the lineup beginning with the 2022-23 season. He’s played 70-plus games the past two years, developing his offensive game while crushing his bottom-pairing minutes with high-end shot attempt and possession quality percentages.

With sizeable turnover expected on the Hurricanes blue line next season, Chatfield could be in line for an increase on the 14-15 minutes per game he’s averaged so far over his tenure in Raleigh. He was one of four notable pending UFAs Carolina had on defense – Tony DeAngelo, Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei remain without deals next season.

A speedy two-way defender, Chatfield has 14 goals, 26 assists and 40 points with a +28 rating in 184 career regular-season games while averaging 14:32 per contest. This past year with Carolina, he had a career-high eight goals and 22 points with a +15 rating in 72 games while controlling 61% of shot attempts at even strength.

If the $3MM cap hit report is accurate, the Hurricanes now have $23.87MM in projected space this offseason, per CapFriendly.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.