The steal of the trade deadline only cost a 5th round pick.

The Carolina Hurricanes were the focus of just about everyone's attention around the National Hockey League's trade deadline due to the Mikko Rantanen fiasco, but little did anyone know that at the time the Hurricanes were also pulling off what may go down as this year's sneaky steal of the deadline.

On March 7th, the Hurricanes struck a deal with the Nashville Predators to bring in depth forward Mark Jankowski, giving up only a 5th round draft pick in the process. Jankowski, a former first round pick (21st overall) of the Calgary Flames at the 2012 National Hockey League Entry Draft had spent the majority of his time with the Predators bouncing between the NHL team and their American Hockey League affiliate the Milwaukee Admirals. Jankowski had however played his way into a full time role with the Predators prior to the trade and had managed to record 4 goals and 5 assists for a total of 9 points on the season, 9 points he accumulated over 41 games with the Predators.

All this to say, no one could have foreseen what would come next for Jankowski or the Hurricanes following a trade that quite honestly not many had bothered to pay much attention to.

Since that trade Jankowski has averaged a goal a game for the Hurricanes, scoring 4 goals over his first 4 games with the franchise, and he has done so while averaging less than 10 minutes of ice time per game. This unlikely story gets even stranger though because Jankowski has accomplished this incredible feat while only shooting the puck a total of 4 times for a 100% conversion rate on his shots as a Carolina Hurricane so far.

According to an announcement from the Hurricanes department of public relations, Jankowski is the first player on record to have scored on each of his first four shots with any team across the entire NHL.

It seems extremely unlikely that Jankowski will be able to maintain this level of production for very long but, at least for now, he is making the Hurricanes feel like they pulled off one of the steals of the trade deadline.