Hurricanes Ink Lucas Wallmark to ELC

The Carolina Hurricanes announced on Thursday that they have signed forward prospect Lucas Wallmark to a three year entry level contract.

The deal will see Wallmark receive $575,000 in 2015-16, $600,000 in 2016-17 and $650,000 in 2017-18 at the NHL level. He would receive $65,000 in the American Hockey League per season as well as a $225,000 signing bonus.

Benn Kerr from LastWordOnSports.com said this about Wallmark before last year’s NHL draft.

"“A playmaking centre with good vision and  hockey sense.  Wallmark has good stickhandling and controls the play, slowing things down so his teammates can get open.  Is also a strong two-way player with good face-off skills, and can kill penalties.  His skating is his weakness, as he has a short, awkward stride and poor acceleration.  Has top notch skill, if he can fix the skating.”"

Carolina Hurricanes fans should be excited for Lucas Wallmark to eventually make the transition over to North America. As of right now, he is their best center prospect that is not in the NHL.

Right now at the NHL level it appears that there is a log jam down the middle with Jordan Staal, Victor Rask and Elias Lindholm. Adding Lucas Wallmark to that significantly increases their depth.

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It has forever been rumored that Jordan Staal will be traded out of Carolina so it should be interesting to see if Elias Lindholm steps up to the plate and when Lucas Wallmark receives a NHL time.

Lucas Wallmark was a fourth round, 97th overall draft pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. Last season he played for Lulea of the Swedish Hockey League and scored 5 goals and 13 assists in 50 regular season games. He also put up 5 assists in 9 playoff matches.

With Lulea, Wallmark was a member of the Champions Hockey League championship team. He played in 13 champions league matches and scored 5 goals and 6 assists.

Wallmark was also a member of the Swedish under-20 World Junior Championship team, where he scored 4 goals and 2 assists in 7 games.

Here’s a blast from the point from Lucas Wallmark in the 2014 World Junior Championship gold medal game.