Jarvis Out, Andersen Gone — Carolina's Title Defense Starts With a Hole in the Middle

The Hurricanes won the Cup on June 20. By June 27, Seth Jarvis was on injured reserve with a 4–6 month timeline, and Frederik Andersen had signed with Edmonton. That is a fast turnaround from celebration to roster problem, even by defending-champion standards.

Jarvis is the part that stings most on the forward side. He scored 22 goals in just 40 games last season — the kind of rate that makes him irreplaceable in the short term, not just inconvenient. Eric Robinson is out as well, which means the top six is thinner than it looks on paper heading into camp. The burden falls back on Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and Nikolaj Ehlers to carry more than they should have to early in the year. Aho handled that weight last season — 46 points in 49 games is a legitimate No. 1 center's output — but the margin for an off stretch is narrower now.

In goal, Brandon Bussi is the name to watch. The depth chart shows Andersen gone and Bussi as the next man up, which is a significant ask for a team that just won a championship. The succession question was already flagged before Andersen left; now it is the actual situation rather than a planning exercise.

The front office has done the small things — Ronan Seeley's one-year deal avoids an arbitration distraction, and the blue line still has Shayne Gostisbehere, who was quietly one of the more productive defensemen in the league last season. My read is that the first two months of 2026–27 will tell us a lot about whether this group can tread water until Jarvis returns, or whether the depth crisis compounds into something harder to fix.