The Habs didn’t match the Hurricanes’ offer sheet. What it means for Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Jesperi Kotkaniemi will play for the Carolina Hurricanes, it’s now official.

The question: where will he play for the Hurricanes?

The Montreal Canadiens, after taking a full seven days to reach a decision, said Saturday they would not match the Hurricanes’ offer sheet tendered Aug. 28 to the Kotkaniemi, a restricted free agent. The Canadiens, by not matching the offer to the center, received a first-round and third-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft from Carolina.

“Carolina has used a tool available to them in the collective bargaining agreement and we accept that decision,” Montreal general manager Marc Bergevin said in a statement.

Kotkaniemi, 21, accepted a one-year, $6.1 million contract offer by the Canes in signing the offer sheet. He joins a team well-stocked at the center position with Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal, Vincent Trocheck and newly acquired Derek Stepan, who was signed as a free agent.

Kotkaniemi has been used at both center and on the wing by the Canadiens since being made the No. 3 overall pick of the 2018 draft, taken after the Canes selected winger Andrei Svechnikov. He now gives Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour another option to consider heading into preseason training camp this month: a 6-2, 201-pound forward who is young, has had three indifferent NHL seasons and scored five goals in 56 games in 2020-21.

The Canes open the season Oct. 14 against the New York Islanders at PNC Arena.

Kotkaniemi became the first player to changes team via an offer sheet since 2007, when forward Dustin Penner accepted an offer sheet from the Edmonton Oilers and the Anaheim Ducks did not match the five-year, $21.5 million offer.

The hockey decision by Bergevin ended a week-long social-media hailstorm that began when the Canes surprised everyone in the league with the offer sheet and the way the offer sheet was presented.

The offer sheet, which was signed by Kotkaniemi, created a social-media hailstorm. There was much talk of the Hurricanes and owner Tom Dundon getting a measure of revenge — animosity apparently brewing for two years — for the Canadiens’ five-year, $42.28 million offer sheet to center Sebastian Aho in July 2019.

Dundon matched the offer sheet to Aho. He wasn’t happy about it, calling it a “waste of time” by the Canadiens.

Aho wears No. 20 for the Canes. Kotkaniemi wears No. 15 for Montreal. The offer sheet to Kotkaniemi was $6,100,015 plus the $20 bonus.

Dundon and the Canes making a point? It appeared that way.

The Canes, on the team’s Twitter account, made the announcement Aug. 28 in French and continued to tweet and tweak the Habs. Their final tweet of the day that Saturday said: “Night, y’all” with Aho shown winking.

Many found it funny. Odds are, Montreal’s Bergevin was not laughing. The Habs took seven days, the amount of time allowed for offer-sheet decisions, before their decision became public.

The Habs had been in contract discussions with Kotkaniemi. Media reports out of Montreal had Kotkaniemi being offered a short-term bridge contract with an annual payout in the $2.5 million range.

But $6.1 million? The Habs already were pressed against the salary cap. So, for that matter, were the Canes.