Where do the Canes stand with Andrei Svechnikov’s contract? How about Rod Brind’Amour?

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The Carolina Hurricanes took Friday off, a chance to take a breath after a difficult four-game series with the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the business of hockey never rests. With the abbreviated season already a third of the way completed, the Hurricanes have a handful of contract issues on the verge of becoming pressing.

Andrei Svechnikov has cooled off after a hot start -- after six goals in the team’s first eight games, he has one empty-net goal in the past 11 -- and so have negotiations on a new contract for the young star, whose entry-level contract expires after the season.

Svechnikov’s agent, Todd Diamond, said that wasn’t a sign of an impasse, but that the fast pace of the shortened season hasn’t left much time for negotiating.

“Things are kind of status quo,” Diamond told The News & Observer. “There’s a time and place to have deeper talks. There’s just so many games right now, it’s not the right environment for it. It may take into the offseason.”

Svechnikov, who turns 21 next month, is still four years away from unrestricted free agency and a year away from arbitration rights, so the team has considerable leverage, but young players of his caliber have been making quick jumps into the salary stratosphere.

While there were initial discussions about an eight-year deal that would have taken him through four years of unrestricted free agency, the current framework under discussion is a shorter-term bridge deal.

“It’s easy, because he’s ours, we’re going to pay him fair and get it done,” Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon told the N&O. “That’s just when not if. We want to get it done. These are fairly easy deals to get done. The market, if you look at the bridge deals that have been done, it’s not that hard.”

Among potential comparables, the New York Islanders’ Mathew Barzal signed a three-year contract worth an average of $7 million per season, while Patrik Laine signed a two-year contract worth an average of $6.75 per season. Svechnikov’s standard rookie contract currently pays him $925,000 plus performance bonuses. Last year, that was worth an additional $850,000, which counts against this year’s salary cap.

“The team situation dictates those things moreso than we desire,” Diamond said. “More guys are going with the so-called bridge route because the team doesn’t have the cap space to satisfy a long-term number. The Islanders would have loved to sign Barzal for six or seven or eight years but their cap situation did not allow for it. When a team is good and has players around coming off entry-level deals, you kind of have to go that direction.”

The Hurricanes also have to make a decision on defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who can become an unrestricted free agent in July, but that really doesn’t have to happen until the April 12 trade deadline. The 27-year-old is the Hurricanes’ highest-paid defenseman at $5.75 million per season.

And then there’s the sticky case of coach Rod Brind’Amour, who at $600,000 per season is one of the lowest-paid coaches in the league. In the big picture, this is an easy one: Brind’Amour has never expressed any desire to leave and Dundon is on the record saying Brind’Amour has earned a raise.

The details get a little trickier. Brind’Amour is under pressure from his peers in the NHL coaching community to get his salary closer to the league average. The 13 coaches with salaries listed on capfriendly.com average more than $3.2 million; the actual average is believed to be less than that. Calgary’s Geoff Ward is the lowest-paid on that list at $900,000. On top of that, the Hurricanes’ assistant coaches and support staff are all out of contract this summer, and it’s up to Brind’Amour to advocate for them.

Meanwhile, Dundon loves Brind’Amour as a coach but has made it clear since he bought the team that he thinks NHL coaches and general managers are overpaid in general and he won’t hew to NHL salary standards by default.

Brind’Amour did not immediately return a message seeking comment Friday.

“We’re going to get it worked out,” Dundon said. “He’s going to be here. We don’t want him to go and he doesn’t want to go. This is the easiest thing of all time. I’ve got to pay him more. That’s life. He earned it.”