Among the Hurricanes’ top defensive prospects, Scott Morrow has a plan for next season

Scott Morrow says he’s not ready for pro hockey, even as the defenseman’s size and play, some believe, is ever closer to making him NHL-ready.

The Carolina Hurricanes made Morrow a second-round pick and the 40th overall selection in the 2021 NHL draft. Morrow, 20, has spent the past two seasons at the University of Massachusetts, adding weight and strength, maturing, working on his footspeed, looking to improve.

At 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 195 pounds, Morrow is a good skater and a strong player in his own zone. A right-hand shot, he’s also looking to become more of an offensive threat.

“I think having another year at school really developed my 200-foot game overall,” Morrow said Monday. “Becoming even more dynamic offensively is something I need to do, because I feel like that’s my entrance to the league. Being a power-play guy, being an offensive player, being confident I can produce points when I do arrive.”

Morrow, in Raleigh this week for the Canes’ prospect development camp, said that he plans on returning to UMass for his junior season in 2023-24 — a decision he said that “most likely” will not change.

That might be a prudent decision. The Hurricanes, for now, do not have an American Hockey League affiliation. Were Morrow to sign his entry-level contract with the Canes and turn pro, it’s hard to say where he might be playing if he did not crack Carolina’s NHL roster in preseason.

Morrow keeps shortening the learning curve

The Hurricanes roster, at last glance, is loaded on the back end — Jaccob Slavin, Brent Burns, Brady Skjei, Brett Pesce, Jalen Chatfield and the “newbie,” free-agent signee Dmitry Orlov.

There’s also the scuttlebutt about the Canes possibly showing interest in defenseman Erik Karlsson of the San Jose Sharks, the 2023 Norris Trophy winner as the league’s best D-man. Karlsson, if he came to Carolina, would be joining Burns, his former San Jose teammate.

“I keep my eye on things, especially when they bring in guys like Brent and hypothetically Erik Karlsson who are right shots,” Morrow said. “If I do step in here, it would be great to be able to learn from them. If I can even be close to being as good as them one day, that would be really exciting.”

All that will be sorted out soon. For now, Morrow is back to work and train with the Hurricanes coaches and support staff. In the first day of development camp, he went through fitness testing, took a cooking lesson focusing on proper nutrition and did his first on-ice work with development coaches Peter Harrold and Alyssa Gagliardi at Invisalign Arena.

Attending the camp again with Morrow is one of his UMass teammates, Lucas Mercuri. The big forward was a sixth-round pick by Carolina in 2020 and has an imposing look at 6-3 and 220 pounds, saying he has added eight pounds of “all muscle” since May.

UMass is coming off a trying, losing season. The Minutemen knocked off Denver, then ranked No. 1, in back-to-back games early in the season, showing promise, but finished 13-17-5 — after going 22-13-2 in Morrow’s freshman season.

“We were an extremely young team,” Morrow said. “I’m really looking forward to taking the next step as a group and getting back to being one of the top teams in hockey. I think we can really improve on last year and I can leave with a better taste in my mouth.”

A player with dueling nicknames

Morrow, a first-team All-American as a freshman, had 31 points in 35 games as a sophomore. He became the second defenseman in program history to have 30 or more points in consecutive seasons.

The Darien, Connecticut, native, after playing three years of prep hockey at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Minnesota, was the second-highest NHL draft selection ever for UMass. The other: defenseman Cale Makar, a first-round pick by the Colorado Avalanche in 2017 who now has a Stanley Cup ring and was the Norris Trophy winner in 2022.

“He’s just really good with the puck,” Mercuri said of Morrow. “He’s super smart. He knows how to make the play and sees the ice extremely well. And he’s got great edges.

“He just sees the game at a really high level. I think that’s something he’s just gifted in. And he’s a natural hard worker, always on the ice doing all the extra little things to get better.”

Morrow apparently goes by the nickname “Bugatti” at UMass when he’s not being called “Scottie Too Hottie.” Mercuri offered no details about the origins other than, “Bugatti, like the car.” But every hockey player seemingly has a nickname — or two — and all by accounts Morrow is a popular teammate.

And one headed to the NHL?

Morrow and Alexander Nikishin, a third-round draft pick in 2020 who’s now under contract in Russia’s KHL, are considered the Canes’ top two defensive prospects. Both could be in the NHL soon, Carolina draftees like Slavin and Pesce who developed into fixtures in the lineup.

“That’s not what I’m focused on, not from a day-to-day standpoint,” Morrow said. “There are a lot of things I need to improve before I get to that point. I have a short-term focus.”

That said, Morrow was off. Another workout awaited.