Carolina Hurricanes sign Mike Reilly to one-year contract
The Carolina Hurricanes added some veteran insurance to their blue line on Monday by inking free agent puckmover Mike Reilly to a one-year deal.
Mike Reilly has reportedly signed with the @Canes!#NHLFreeAgency pic.twitter.com/8fRNnLZTrS
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) July 1, 2025Reilly spent most of the past two seasons patrolling the blue line for the New York Islanders, joining from waivers in 2023-24 to have a surprisingly strong season (24 P, 17:16 ATOI) opposite partners including Scott Mayfield and Sebastian Aho.
Last year, the 31-year-old did little to bolster his value, though, managing just 18 games for the injury-stricken Isles. Team doctors discovered a heart condition in November and a subsequent procedure crocked Reilly for four months.
That sort of bad luck has been a theme throughout Reilly’s career, which has featured just one season of 62 games or more in 10 tries. He’s still been an effective, known quantity at every stop in his NHL career.
While not particularly physical or quick, Reilly distributes the puck well and can be an option on the second power-play. He generates clean exits and doesn’t get caught flat-footed by forecheckers, both attributes that are particularly valuable for the possession-obsessed Hurricanes.
Reilly won’t likely crack the opening-night lineup for a Carolina team that already featured fellow lefties Jaccob Slavin, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Alexander Nikishin even before a reported trade for K’Andre Miller, but he’s a slick player who can do a job for the Canes should they catch the injury bug.
Nabbing an experienced seventh defenseman like Reilly would have been a priority for Hurricanes’ GM Eric Tulsky after he allowed veteran Dmitry Orlov and Brent Burns to walk as free agents.
Both players struggled mightily down the stretch, so new blood like Miller, Nikishin, and now Reilly will be important to revamping a blue line that showed holes even as Carolina went on a deep playoff run.