About Last Season: Teuvo Teravainen

Teuvo Teravainen: 2022-23 By the Numbers

• Age: 28
• NHL Seasons: 9
• Scoring: 12 goals, 25 assists, 37 points in 68 games
• Playoff Scoring: 1 goal, 0 assists, 1 point in 6 games
• Advanced Stats: 56.6 CF%, 52.5 HDCF%, 54.4 GF%, 55.8 xGF%
• Average TOI: 12:44 ES, 2:21 PP, 1:46 SH
• Contract Status: Signed through 2023-24 at $5.4M AAV

It’s an uncomfortable question, but one that has to be asked: have we seen the best of Teuvo Teravainen in a Hurricanes uniform?

It seems like long ago when he was essentially Velcroed to the hip of Sebastian Aho, the two joining forces to lift the Canes’ offensive firepower to new heights and only separating when Rod Brind’Amour needed to drive home a point. Before long, though, they’d be back together, usually with a rotating door at right wing. It was the baseline assumption that the Teravainen-Aho combination was the straw that stirred the Hurricanes’ offensive drink.

Now, though? After Teravainen suffered through his worst season since being traded to Carolina seven years ago, with an expiring contract that seems to be on no one’s priority list, and coming off a couple of hard-luck injuries? Life comes at you real fast.

In 2022-23, according to Moneypuck, Teravainen and Aho spent 365 minutes together. Compare that to 2021-22, when they were together for 589 minutes. Or, more to the point, compare that to the 667 minutes Aho spent centering Seth Jarvis in 2022-23. The point here isn’t to say that they never played together; it’s that for the first time in a very long time, Aho and Teravainen weren’t viewed as integral to each other’s success.

Look no further than the high point of Teravainen’s season, his hat trick in the Canes’ 6-0 thumping of the Lightning in February. Two of the goals came on the power play. All three were assisted by Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Shayne Gostisbehere had helpers on both extra skater goals, and Martin Necas fed Teravainen for the even-strength marker.

It would have been hard to imagine a game where Teuvo Teravainen scored a hat trick, including two PPGs, and Sebastian Aho registered a grand total of zero points. Yet there it was, in black and white.

Not long ago, Teravainen’s contract was a pretty obvious bargain. A first-line winger for less than $6 million against the cap is something any team would sign up for in a heartbeat. But Teravainen this past year wasn’t producing at anywhere near the level of a top-line winger, and now the Canes face a tough situation: an expiring contract that’s going to be difficult to move for a reasonable return, but an extension they likely can’t fit under the salary cap.

Aho, in all likelihood, is going to get paid. It might just come at the expense of his countryman.