The Carolina Hurricanes have traded prospect Philippe Paradis to the Toronto Maple Leafs for prospect Jiri Tlusty, general manager Jim Rutherford said Thursday.

"We've accelerated the timeline of a prospect," Rutherford said.

Rutherford is hopeful Tlusty, a left winger, will be in the team's top six next year.
He's much further along in his development than the younger Paradis, also a left winger.

First impressions often are important and usually pretty interesting.

For Philippe Paradis, his first impression of Raleigh this week was a good one after his flight down from Montreal.

"There was the big sun and it was pretty warm," he said Tuesday night. "In Montreal, it was pretty cold. So it was nice."

Paradis' first trip to Raleigh and North Carolina is for the Canes' prospect conditioning camp this week. The team's first-round pick in the recent NHL Entry Draft in Montreal, and the No. 27 overall selection, the forward from Normandin, Quebec, hopes to make an impression of his own.

The Hurricanes don't often look to Quebec for their draft picks — they had taken only eight in the past 12 years going into Friday — but they took Philippe Paradis with the 27th overall pick.

He wasn't the biggest player available, or the highest-ranked — 6-foot-3 Carter Ashton was available when the Hurricanes picked — but he had 12 points in 21 playoff games for Shawinigan of the Quebec junior league, a postseason resume too good to pass up.

And at 6-foot-1, 196 pounds, he's by no means small, with size being the Hurricanes' No. 1 priority with their first-round pick going into the draft.