Lone Wolves (Part 1): How Did It Come To This?

Editor's Note: Surprised by the severe lack of reporting on the Carolina Hurricanes and Chicago Wolves breakup, which has resulted in the first American Hockey League (AHL) team to go without an NHL partner in almost 30 years as well as leaving the Hurricanes without an AHL home to place their pro prospects in North America, InsideAHLHockey.com went straight to the source for details about what went wrong between Carolina and AHL-Chicago, a behind-the-scenes look at the building of the first independent AHL team and much more.

Introducing the first part in a mini-series on the 2023-24 Chicago Wolves 'Lone Wolves' coming from an exclusive 1-on-1 interview with Wolves GM Wendell Young.

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The decision to go rogue wasn't made overnight, and wasn't one made lightly by Chicago Wolves general manager Wendell Young. If you ask him, he'll tell you it was more about Carolina's actions forcing the Wolves to this move to go fully independent in 2023-24.

In fact, the busiest GM in all of hockey this summer took some time to go 1-on-1 with InsideAHLHockey.com for a peek behind the scenes in what led to the AHL-Chicago/Carolina breakup.

Things didn't start off terribly for the Chicago Wolves/Carolina Hurricanes partnership. They did win the Calder Cup as AHL champions in 2022.

But even though the Wolves won the 2022 Calder Cup with the Carolina affiliation, it was won with plenty of turmoil along the way - including at one point, according to Young, Carolina threatening to fire the team's then-head coach Ryan Warsofsky during the 2022 Calder Cup Finals if he continued to play goaltender Alex Lyon over Hurricanes prospect goalie Pyotr Kochetkov.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Warsofsky left the Carolina organization after winning the 2022 Calder Cup - joining the San Jose Sharks as an NHL assistant coach that off-season.

Things got progressively worse from there.

"The year we won [2022]? We were super competitive and everything fell into place," Young said, adding, "the next year [2023] - totally different philosophy."

That philosophical change from Carolina, which Young referred to as "only prospects, only development", did not fall in line with the Wolves' interests in being competitive in the AHL.

"Our coach was told: 'don't worry about winning this year'.," Young told InsideAHLHockey.com Monday, referring to Carolina brass telling then head-coach Brock Sheehan heading into the 2022-23 season to focus solely on developing the organization's top prospects.

Young's hands, despite being the AHL club's GM, were seemingly tied.

"Our coach was being dictated on who to play in goal," Young explained to InsideAHLHockey.com. "Lineups had to go through Carolina."

Young explained that attempts to improve the roster via trades/loans at the AHL level were repeatedly struck down by Carolina.

"We were trying to correct it all year. We didn't sign up [for this]," Young told InsideAHLHockey.com. "We didn't sign up to not be competitive."

Carolina was well aware of the Wolves intentions to go fully independent for the 2023-24 season well before Young's chain-email to agents in early April became public knowledge. Young told InsideAHLHockey.com that despite their many disagreements, he still communicated his team's intentions that if things didn't change they would be heading in the direction of doing things on their own without an NHL partnership.

The Wolves' GM also said he worked with Bill Daly and the NHL trying to broker some kind of resolution with Carolina, but after six weeks without any progress Daly concluded to Young a resolution couldn't be made between the two sides.

Despite breaking off and going their separate ways without an affiliation agreement, Young said he was still in talks with Carolina and would take on some of their players.

But Carolina pulled the plug on the idea, and, at the time of this story being published, remain without any AHL affiliation agreement or arrangement for any of their players at the AHL level. They have already loaned several players overseas for the 2023-24 season.

The Hurricanes also lost their ECHL affiliate as the Norfolk Admirals entered an affiliation agreement with the Winnipeg Jets/Manitoba Moose for this upcoming season.

Young said about 8-10 NHL teams have reached out so far to inquire about the Wolves taking on players from other NHL teams on loans in the 2023-24 season. The Wolves' GM confirmed to InsideAHLHockey.com that he is willing to work with other NHL teams and take on players on a case-by-case basis.

So while they won't have any affiliation agreement with an NHL club during the 2023-24 season, it's not out of the question that the Wolves will have NHL-contracted players loaned to them by other NHL teams looking for an extra place to develop prospects if they are very deep at a certain position.

"It's not [a] good [look] for anyone. It's not good for the Chicago Wolves. It's not good for Carolina, for the AHL, the NHL," Young said of this situation getting to this point.

While the narrative out there is that this is a bold and silly move on the Chicago Wolves' part, Young is standing firm by his word that this has a lot more to do with Carolina's change in how they approached their plans at the AHL level.

"We didn't make this decision," Young said of the two sides parting ways and the Wolves going it alone in 2023-24. "Carolina did by their actions."

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