The Athletic Hockey Show - Don Waddell's Carolina Hurricanes a Stanley Cup front runner again, Canucks/Canadiens trade will benefit Pearson & DeSmith and the final word on the Mike Babcock affair

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

As NHL training camps open across North America and in Australia, Don Waddell, the General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes joins the Roundtable to preview his powerhouse team with Rob Pizzo, Jesse Granger and Mike Russo. The Roundtable discusses the benefits of the trade between Montreal and Vancouver for Tanner Pearson and Casey DeSmith, the PWHL draft and the boys offer their opinion on the Mike Babcock affair in Columbus. Plus Pizzo, Granger & Russo sink their teeth into a meaty Rapid Fire segment, ahead of NHL players hitting the ice for the first time on Thursday. Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for just $1 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshowStart building your credit up. Open a Chime Checking account with at least a $200 qualifying direct deposit to get started. Get started at http://chime.com/nhlshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is The Athletic Hockey Show. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. The Wednesday Roundtable Edition. I am Rob Bezo from CBC Sports and the band is all back together. Russo is back. Jesse is back. Everybody's here.

How are we, boys? Doing well. Excited for training camp to be starting this week. Yeah, hockey is back. Hockey is back. Yeah, watching the rookies this week, getting some rookie face-off tournament action. and now the real players hit the ice here in a couple days. It should be fun.

Yeah, training camp officially opening tomorrow, but they got the medicals and everything today. But, yeah, it means the season is really on the horizon now. Yeah, we'll see what Jesse feels and looks like in late June when he's still working. Yeah, you know what? I expected the offseason to feel shorter than it did. I expected to not be as excited when hockey came back, but I actually am pretty excited that it's here.

it felt long enough to go without hockey. You both cover teams. I mean, what's the attitude like when you're covering a team at this point? Like when they're just showing up, they're doing their physicals, they're just getting on the ice for the first time. Is it like, does every team, whether you're good or bad, just have that sense of optimism in the dressing room? Definitely.

Can it be, can it really depend on what the team it is? Well, so personally, which is how I always look at anything, I always equated to going back to school. Like, I don't know what it is. but like it's like in July or August, I'm like I cannot wait for hockey season. Just like even in July or August, I remember not waiting for school.

And then like the week or two before I'm in like the worst mood. Like it's actually here. So that's kind of how I feel it's like conflicted. You're excited, but just like, oh my God, I'm going to be working nonstop for the rest of time. But yeah,

I mean, to me that's the best part of training camp is everybody's got a chance to win the Stanley Cup. So you write all these, you know, glowing stories, even if you're, you know,

in Chicago or or some of the team, that are supposed to be near the bottom of the league, you still find those optimistic stories to write because they haven't lost a game yet. Yeah, I feel like this year it's probably going to be a little different from me because I get to ask all these guys about their day with the cup, right? Like I haven't seen most of these guys since they have their day with the cup. So plenty to talk about. They're not going to have a hard time finding an ice breaking question with every player in the locker room. So it should be good. Speaking of plenty of talk about, we've got a lot to talk about on this point.

podcast. And I shouldn't mention we are going to be joined in segment number two by Carolina Hurricanes GM Don Waddell. So we'll talk to him about coming into the season again as one of the teams that could very well be lifting that Stanley Cup a little later on this year. And we've got a lot to get through a lot in the rapid fire, Russo. So try to start editing now before you make the show go to two hours. I have a lot to say. You always do and we love it. That's why we got you here. I should mention trade that we got to pass your way, which is usually not something we say around September 20th, but the Habs and the Canucks pulled off a deal heading to Montreal forward Tanner Pearson and a 2025 third round pick

going the other way is goaltender Casey to Smith. I mean, I'm not saying it's a blockbuster, but it's certainly worth quickly looking at Russo. Your thoughts when you saw the deal. Well, I mean, you know, I'm glad he's healthy. That's the biggest thing. I was paying attention from a four yesterday to cap-friendly explaining how Vancouver his cap situation will work now that he was off LTIR.

And next to you know, about an hour later, he was traded to Montreal. So glad he's healthy. And we'll see, you know, essentially how he, if he can kind of revitalize his career here and get back to being a really quality hockey player that he's long been. Yeah, I totally agree. And then on the other side of things, I think if Vancouver's going to bounce back and fight for the playoffs the way they want to, they obviously need better goaltending. And the biggest part of that is Thatcher Demko and he's got to be better.

But Spencer Martin last year was awful. Like, I think out of 108 goalies that played a qualified number of minutes, he was like 105th. It wasn't good. And I think getting Casey to Smith in there is solidifies that backup position. You're more comfortable playing him more games. You take some of the weight off Thatcher Demko. I think as the league is going, you don't want to play your starting goalie 60 plus games. I think that's going to help him.

and then in turn help the team. If that goaltending can be just a little better than it was last year, last year, it gives them a chance. And not only gives him a chance to play, Thatcher Demko is probably not going to play because we've seen Thatcher Denko get hurt a lot. Like he's just, and I don't mean that as a knock, but some people are a little more injury prone than others for whatever reason.

He seems to be when he's playing, he's playing well, but when he's not, you need someone who's to be able to get in there and weather the storm. And I think Casey DeSmith is kind of that perfect, like you said, that prototypical guy who can get in there and kind of do that. Russo, you were gone last week. Jesse and I attacked this Mike Babcock story.

It was just kind of, was it breaking, Jesse. It was just kind of coming out. And there was a really good looking Italian guy on this show who kept saying, this can't be true. It just, there's no way someone is crazy enough to be given a second chance. and so early in that second chance, push his luck to a point where he might lose his job. I don't want to say that guy's name.

He may be one of the hosts of this show, but holy shit was I ever wrong. Since then, a lot has happened. Well, for the record, I'm Italian too, but I knew you weren't talking about me when you said,

good looking guy. So, so, that's how I differentiated the two. Yep. But us people that end our last names with vowels need to stick together, Rob,

to rip into you too much. I'll be in it. You know, so let me give it to you from my standpoint. So we get to the to the first day of the NHL media tour last week, first or second day, I can't you remember. And this immediately breaks. I see Aaron Portsline's tweet and kind of quickly catch up. And I immediately see Ron Hainze and Pierre LeBrunner and I went up to him. And Ron, you know, basically discounted it and said that he did some checking and didn't think it was a big deal. The NHL and the NHLPA essentially right in front of us met Bill Daly and Ron Hainsey. And when we got Bill Daly soon after this broke, Bill said that it was a misconception. But as I continued to hear things swirling, I remember talking to Aaron Portsline a couple

days later and told him some of the stuff I was hearing. And I said to him, I don't think he's going to last the weekend because I knew they had the Monday Media Day and I just could not see how they're going to put Mike Babcock in front here. I had talked to Paul Bizanette as well on Friday as well and kind of compare notes with him. But this was a total invasion of privacy. Now, clearly some of the veterans didn't think it was a big deal, but I don't think what he did to players like Boone Jenner and Johnny Goodrow, who are two of the players that publicly have talked to how it wasn't a big deal to them,

or the same that he did to some of the young guys. And I don't want to mention names, but it's pretty obvious who some of the important young guys are in the Columbus Blue Jackets. And the way that I understand it, he took their phones and essentially rifled through it. And that is beyond inappropriate. And I don't buy for a second that Mike Babcock has learned any lessons from the last four years of being out of the game. I think that he clumsily handled this situation.

I don't want to try to sit there and say that he did this with malice. But he certainly was not acting bright here and put players in uncomfortable spots and uncomfortable positions that they had no reason to be in. And I think this ended the only way it did. And we could talk what it means for John Davidson and Yarmal Kekyllian in a second. But I just think that Mike Babcock should never coach again in this league. It is just painfully obvious that he just hasn't learned anything. And I do now wonder what it means for second chances for guys like Stan Bowman and Joel Quinville.

That's one of the questions I was going to ask me. Yeah, we could talk about that in a second as well. Yeah. Jesse? Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing is we, it feels like there's like almost a wave of second chances coming, which is sad that there have to be that many guys that need second chances. But the fact that this went as poorly as it went as quickly as it went is shocking. Honestly, like, I shouldn't be surprised that this happened, but I am. I am surprised that it could, that he could do this this quickly before even coaching a game, before even getting on the ice with the team. Yeah. He has already proven, like Mike said, that he hasn't learned anything in, in this time without being around hockey.

It's, like I said, I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. It's shocking to me that this would happen this quickly. It's a debate I've been having for a while now since this all came out. Is this arrogance or is this you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Because like I said, the whole, my whole basis on thinking that it was probably blown out of proportion was the fact that no one is dumb enough to do this. I think I used this example last week, Jesse. It's like robbing a bank, going to jail for it.

And the day you get released from jail, you go and rob a bank again. Like it's just, it's, it was so, so quick. Had this happened a year from now or two years from now, I would say, oh, Babcock up to his old tricks. He, he, he, this was the initial meetings with the team. I don't understand how this could happen. Is this a fact that like, do you even genuinely think that maybe Mike Babcock is even surprised saying, I didn't do anything. I was just trying to get to know them, not realizing

just how inappropriate this is. Yeah, I just think that a leopard can change its spots. I mean, that's one of my favorite sayings. If he shows you, that's who he is. And he has shown to be this throughout his career. And it's just started to come out the last couple of years, the stuff that he did to Mitch Morner, Johan, friends. And I'm sure scores of other people. This was just so beyond the pal. And I don't buy for one second. And, you know, to be totally honest, I don't know, bike Babcock very well. And I've covered this league for a long, long time. But I have, I really don't know him very well. I've had really no personal dealings with him other than scrums and things like that. So I don't want to characterize this person, but I don't buy for one second that this was to get to

know their family is better. I mean, that is absolute bullshit. If you want to, if you want to know what you're, what the kid's girlfriend looks like or that person's wife looks like or who their mom and dad is, you ask them. You say, oh, yeah, and you give them the opportunity. Oh, yeah, here they are. But to sit there and to go through their phones and to, you know, make comments like, like, you know, this is how you prepare for a hockey season, which is some of the lines that I heard that he said and things like that. Absolutely putting people on the spot. It's just so ridiculous. And, you know, it's it. I mean, he is not going to coach again.

Nobody is, nobody in their right mind would ever hire. No way. Yeah. Yeah. So you touched on this Russo a second ago, but John Davidson, your normal hecklein, and I mean, Davidson at the press conference, I want to read the quote exactly. I am very disappointed. We went through the process earlier in the summer prior to hiring Mike Babcock as our head coach,

but we got it wrong and that's on us. I can promise you we will learn from this going forward. I also understand the criticism we're getting. It is deserved. Jesse, we'll start with you because I, this isn't we miss something. This isn't like, oh man, we didn't know that 10 years ago so and so did this. This was out the open for everyone to see when Mike Babcock's, was hired, we all kind of went, what? So can you accept Amiakopa here? Can you accept him saying,

we got it wrong, we'll be better? Or is this definitely going to be a black mark on both of their records right now? I mean, I think it's definitely better that he came out and said we got this wrong. I think that's the right thing to say because they clearly did. But it's, it doesn't completely wash away the choice to hire him over. I just, I just can't get over. how we keep doing this in the NHL. Like there are so many brilliant people around hockey that could deserve one of these 32 head coaching jobs. And yet they still choose to give it to someone who they know.

Like you said, this isn't something that came out as a surprise. They knew that he was this way. And he was this way immediately right after they hired him. It's I don't give them a complete pass for it just because they said that they were wrong. But it is, it makes me feel a little better about it that they came out and said, this is on us. We made the wrong choice here. Yeah, I'm conflicted because I have personal relationships with both. Um, get along with Yarmor really well. I've known J.D. forever and I'm very tight with them. In fact, some of the best advice I've ever gotten in this business as a sports writer

came from J.D. in the, in the, you know, early 2000s on something I was dealing with in Florida, covering Mike Keenan. And so I know the hearts of these guys and they're good people, but this one, you know, this felt like an unnecessary hire at the very beginning. I know they're both under pressure for right now getting this blue jackets to a point where they are going to be true contenders in a very tough, tough conference and division. And I think that that's probably why they went out and made this move. And they both made the decision to bring them in here. And it just felt like that was a decision.

I watched every minute of the press conference. I thought they were both extremely accountable. You know, somebody, one of the reporters asked J.D. About all the reporters that at the time said that this was going to be a potential problem. And he actually said maybe they were right. So I think that they realize this has got to be a disturbing time for both of them and how to have this explode on them on the eve of training camp, you know, to have to sit there and scramble to hire a coach on the eve of training camp just doesn't happen in the National Hockey League. And so they've got a, you know, now it'll be really interesting to see how the Blue Jackets respond to this. And everybody else, too.

You touched on this earlier with Joel Quinville. I mean, I know it's a completely different situation as to why they were not coaching in the National Hockey League. But you've got to be more reluctant to give anybody a second chance after what we've seen over this last week. I mean, how often do we ever talk about a coach leaving a post before practice number one? Yeah. It's, it's headshaking. That to me, like, that to me is the biggest thing. Nobody wants to be in the position that J.D. and Yarmah were in this week. And are you going to really put your life on the line to, you know, to hire Joel and Stan? Who are different positions, different situations and why they're both not in the business? Like to me, Joel just did the really disgusting thing. He put winning above everything, even to the point that afterwards wrote a basically a recommendation for this dirt bag. So I think it's like a different plateau the two of them.

But Bill Peters, Mike Babcock's disciple, you know, there's a great example. Like, are you as a, as an owner, as a GM, going to put yourself in a position to hire one of these people after what just happened in Columbus, whether it's deserved or not? And as you said, Rob, it's different situations. But as Jesse said, there's tons of great applicants out there. And for any of these jobs, you know, men, women, everybody, in terms of the number of possible people that could eventually coach an NHL team or be part of an NHL team. And are you really going to now put your career and life on the line to essentially, you know, put somebody that is a liability.

And Mike Babcock was always going to be a liability here. And the other thing that I think that they discounted Yarmo and J.D. is just how many people in this league don't like Mike. So they are going to jump almost enthusiastically to the forefront to sit there and out anything he does that seemingly untoward. And the other thing that, Columbus has got to do a better job and everybody's got to do a better job is just vetting candidates. Like I know Yormo says that he did his due diligence to an exhaustive measure, but I guarantee

he didn't talk to Mitch Marner or Johann Franzen or some of these other people that might have been actually played for him and affected by him. And, you know, it's very different to talk to a guy that used to be a colleague on the bench or somebody in the front office than a player that has been affected in a negative way by Mike. I think what Rob brought up is a great point of like when other like GMs and presidents and owners around the league, when they see this happen and blow up as quickly as it did, it makes it real. Like when you're deciding whether you want to give someone a second chance, they all knew that like you know that there's a risk involved with that. But now having watched this blow up that quickly on the day before training camp, I think it makes the consequences of one of those hires a lot more real. And I think it they're going to think. They're going to think. harder about hiring one of those other guys to give them a second chance than they would have prior to this just because when you see something happened right in front of you like that it just it's the real the realness of it it carries a little more weight than I think prior to all this happening yeah I don't want to go through that right right's basically what every GM in the league is saying right now but obviously we'll keep an eye on this this not going away I think the the ramifications of this are going to be really interesting um no easy way to go from Mike Babcock to the PWHL, but let's go from Mike Babcock to the PWHL. They held their inaugural draft this week.

It was at my other place of business, the CBC building. Literally, I'm at my desk. We're watching it, but you can hear the cheers in our main atrium there. And it was really a weird day at work because at one point I'm just sitting there. And then Billy Jean King walks right by my desk. And I was like, oh, there's Billy Jean King. So 90 players chosen, first ever draft. a lot of things still need to be done and decided.

I mean, they went up there and received the stick because, well, there's no jerseys yet. There's no team names yet. There's a lot going on and a lot of things that are in progress. But we still, with every single thing the PWHL does, it's further than we've ever seen anything happen in women's hockey. So I guess you've got to look at it. Look at it that way. Your thoughts on what you saw at the draft, Jesse? Yeah, I mean, it's great that they've taken this next step.

it feels like it's becoming a little more real as you get the players on the on the on the on the teams um you you start to there's actually analysis of it now right like prior to this like what could you really say about this league like everyone was happy that it was happening but i feel like right now is now the the the birth of the we can actually analyze this league in the teams and and talk about which ones we we think are going to be strong um i don't know enough about the women's game to be completely honest to tell you which team I thought had the best draft, but it's going to be fun to see as we go forward. Yeah, I mean, first of all, let's shout out to Hallie Salvin and who's just, Haley Salvin, and he's just done a tremendous job covering this right from the outset,

but her coverage the other day was exceptional. And to me, the biggest thing that I loved about it was how real everything was. Like, it was not just, you know, a Zoom draft. I mean, they had a whole show with background stuff and signage and all this stuff. And that brought, as, as, as, as, yes, he just said, it made it real. It reminded us that this is actually a viable league that is about to start playing games here come new year. You know, from a Minnesota standpoint, you know, same thing. Like I know a lot of the players that they drafted just because being here in the state of hockey, you know, especially the local girls and how incredible University of Minnesota have been over the years and for them to get Taylor Heights. Number one is a huge coup to them.

I'm actually sitting down with Natalie Dorowitz a week, Darwitz a week from today, the GM of the Minnesota team. And I'm really looking forward to finding out what their name is going to be, who's going to coach the team, and see them roster their players and how good they potentially could be. Because by all accounts from Haley's coverage, they had a tremendous draft after a really good free agent class. Minnesota is officially my favorite team because they were the first team to pick a goalie. They took a goalie in the second round. And I said, there we go. That's my team. Yeah. Hey, by the way, Jesse, on one other second. I always bring it back to those guys, those players with the pads. I was going to say the guys with the pads. No, the players with the pads. We're talking with the

PWHL. Hey, one thing on goalies, Jesse, this reminded me. I wanted to tell you off air, but I was reading the comments on my rule change story today. And some of the comments were ripping me for not getting any goalies in there. And I finally wrote them. I'm like, the only goalie of the 55 players that we had at either tour was Felix Sandstrom. Like, originally, Samsonoff was on our list, but he didn't show up. So for some reason he didn't come. So we had no goalies to ask. So that's one of the. reason why things are so slanted toward skaters. Always goes to the goalies for Jesse.

We're going to be talking to Carolina Hurricanes general manager, Don Waddell, after the break, hit a little bit of everything with Don, so don't go anywhere. All right, guys, it was a busy offseason. We've talked so much about the moves that happened throughout the summer and the Metropolitan Division was absolutely no exception. You got new coaches, you got players moving everywhere, Pittsburgh getting Eric Carlson, a lot to analyze. But one thing didn't change, and that's the Carolina Hurricanes, are once again still serious Stanley Cup contenders.

And we are very pleased to be joined by their general manager, Don Waddell. Thanks so much for doing this. Always a pleasure to be with you guys. So we know camps are officially opening today. There's physicals going on today. And my question to you is a serious one. Is Rod Brindamore down there taking the physicals just so he can show off that he's still in better shape than most of the players? Yeah, he'll lead to fitness testing for sure.

He's twice a day, he's got a workout. So I think last year he finished third. And so he's competing to get that top prize. Try to catch up the special cop this year. Was the offseason quick or short for you? And how is it for GMs? I mean, we were talking about it off the top of the show about sometimes it feels like it's going to be a long one.

It ends up being short. And then vice versa for a general manager, does it ever stop? no but you know short summers in our business means you played long into the last season so it's always good to have short summers but you know just a lot has to happen um you know there is some breaks you know usually by time august comes you have all your arbitrations player sign and you're maybe fine tuning a few of your uh prospects and so forth that you need to sign you know for us it was a little busier because we you know we don't have an h-all affiliate this year uh we're looking to place our place or play there's around the league. So a little busier probably than normal for us, just trying to see what was out there for us. But, you know, it's all good. You know, we're an open camp on the ice tomorrow,

and we're excited about it. Don, I spent the trade deadline around you guys, which was a fun time. And thanks for the access there in both Vegas and Arizona. You know, I remember you. I mean, you made the trade for Gossus Bear, but you didn't really make a lot of moves because you guys were so poised to potentially be

a player in the Eastern Conference, and yet, and yet, you still wind up in the Eastern Conference final, which was exactly what you said at the time. But a couple of weeks later, you lose Fetchnikov. Obviously, I was there in the building when you lost Pachoretti in January. When you look back at that series against Florida, how much do you look back and say, man, if we could have only had these two players? And as well, you mentioned Svetnikov. How is he doing now? Yeah, you know, when it first happens for the next five or six days you look back at it quite a bit. You know, they scored 10 goals, we scored six goals, and we lost four straight. You know, it's hard to imagine that could happen.

So, you know, injuries, unfortunately, not just for us, but for a lot of teams, plays a part. You know, and with Scheshkoff getting injured, you know, we were a cap team right at the cap. And unfortunately, you know, for him getting hurt, but the second part was it happened after the deadline. where you can't go out and replace those type of players. But, you know, it's, again, it's a learning experience. We're still a pretty young team, you know, take Brent Burns. It might be 40, but he acts like he's 21, so I'm going to give him a benefit of the doubt there. We're still a pretty young team.

And so, you know, it puts us in another position to have another get ready for the regular season. We can't look past that and build ourselves for the playoffs. Shavishkoff looks great. He's had a schedule, not that I care about. up the schedule because I care about games later on. I don't care about preseason games as far as watching him play games. But he's doing really well and we expect to be ready for the start of the season. You mentioned the injuries and how that impact it has and how just kind of,

you need to be one of those teams that is lucky that time of season and doesn't have the injuries. You look at the teams that have won recently. Tampa Bay, it took them a while to finally get over the hill. Colorado, the same thing. I cover Vegas out here. they were kind of knocking on the door for a while and finally got it. Do you view it like that?

Give yourself as many chances as you can and hope things go your way. And it seems like you guys are on a similar path to those teams. Yeah. You know, we started building the franchise. We weren't building it for a short-term run. We were building for a long-term run. And I think we're in a pretty good position. It doesn't mean you're going to win every year, but you're going to compete at least for the big ultimate trophy.

And, you know, we've gone five years, first time ever. the franchise making a playoffs. It's not about making the playoffs from here anymore. You know, it's about winning the ultimate prize. So, you know, that's why at sometimes at the trade deadline and some of those things, we don't get off what our plan is, get off course and, you know, do something that's going to cost us something the following year or two or three years from now. We try to continue to keep that mind that, yes, we always want to improve our hockey club like we did. We feel this summer, but we also want to make sure that we don't the old phrase of Morgan, the future to win today because we feel like we're in a position

that we can continue this run for a number of years coming up. Well, let's go along those lines, Don, because your blue line was already pretty damn good, and then you go out and get Demetri Orloff. I couldn't imagine being an NHL team facing your team and saying, well, either Slavin, Burns, or Orloff are pretty much going to be on the ice at all times on the blue line. That is just a scary thought. Walk us through your thought process there, and that,

and how that signing came through and just how important that is to your team, especially given the style of play of the Carolina Hurricanes. Yeah, and we wanted to get a little harder both on the back end and the front end. And, you know, Dimitri obviously was a player that we thought he was one of the coveted free agents out there in the fence. And, you know, the first conversation on July 1st or whatever date was this year that we could have with the agent, you know, he was looking for a longer term deal. and we told them that, you know, we'd be looking at it more shorter.

We have Pesci and Shea there, both unrestricted at the end of the year. And, you know, certainly we want to protect ourselves not getting caught bare hand. If they both leave, not saying that, we like to sign both of them. So that's why we, when they came back to us and said they'd look at a shorter-turn deal, we felt that this is a great fit for us. At least gets us through the next two years, as you said, because Slavin's got next year to this year and next year. and Burns is going to play for another 10 years.

So having Dimitri there, regardless of what happens, it gives us a nice safety net. And, you know, again, saying I'd like to bring all the guys back. But we just felt that he was a player that would be not just a player for us. He could be an impact player. And that's why we went out there. Talk about depth on the blue line. I think you have like 25 NHL defensemen in camp right now.

What you mentioned, you know, Svetch and, enslave in the situation and Peschi's got one year left and I know there were a lot of trade rumors with him this offseason. Looking at at cap friendly right now, I mean, you have a lot of decisions to make. Starting with Nietzsche's and obviously Seth Jarvis's RFAs, but then just a slew of unrestricted free agents. Is this, you know, from your perspective, is this year huge from that standpoint to really sort of analyze exactly how you're going to deal with this landscape going forward? Yeah. You know, up front, like you said, Jarvis and that chess are both restricted, so, you know, we'll get them signed. You know, the unrestricted guys play their whole career to take that shot, so I understand how it works.

But, you know, that's why, again, with the Orlock move that was done with this in mind, you know, we're going to continue to talk these guys. We took a break in August. There's not much happening. But we'll continue to talk with our players and their representation to see if there's a fit. you know, you don't want to have too much turnover. Roddy's kind of coach that doesn't want any turnover. You know, he's pretty adamant about the guys he's got. You know, he thinks we got a good chance to win.

So I added just one or two, three guys like we did this year, maybe four. He felt very comfortable with the types of players we added. And so, you know, we've got to keep the future in mind as we move forward. And again, we've got to keep, you know, there's this thing called the cap. I have an owner that would spend 20 million over the cap if he was a lot, but we've got to make sure that we put ourselves in position every summer, including two summers ago with Patch Ready, obviously and getting burns,

where we had a lot of cap space to play with in the summertime. This summer we had Orlov and Bunning. We had the cap space assigned these players. So we want to keep that in mind because, again, going out and deadline, trading assets away or in the summertime have to trade assets. These players are free players. It only costs you money.

If you don't have the cap space, you can't take advantage of that. So that's always been our goal to make sure as we approach a summer that we keep that in mind. And we've done projections out five years where we pretty much have a pretty good idea of how much money we're going to have to spend each summer depending on how much the cap goes up. Don, you mentioned off the top. What kind of kept you busy this offseason was trying to find an HL affiliate and everything that goes with that. What's that process been like? I remember Vegas, their first year, they had to share the Chicago Wolves with the Blues. Just what are your options? What kind of

challenges are you facing with that? Yeah. What we did is, you know, we had five players that played North American last year. They're from Sweden, Finland. We assigned them back to their teams there. Those leagues are great leagues. You know, you don't have the daily touches as they do with your own farm team, but from a development standpoint, but I think planning that high-level competition is going to be okay for them. There's been some NHL teams that we've worked deals with. We have three, four different teams right now. They're going to take at least one, some two players. Again, it's not ideal, but it's what we were forced to do and we'll make the best of it. And then obviously we get some young players that are just on entry-level contracts that, you know, these closely to me has made some big strides.

the last few years to change that league dramatically. And I think having a few players play down in their particular goalie and a couple other guys will be okay for their development. And actually our development guys can be there on a regular basis. Don, I got to ask you about the guy we started this interview talking about, that's your head coach, Rod Brindamore. You know, you talked about a cap. Coaches don't count against the cap.

But I saw an interview he did recently where he said going into this last year of his deal, it's not going to be an easy negotiation. I think was the exact line he said. Obviously, you're not going to give us too much on that negotiation, but can you update us a little bit on Rod the Bod and whether that's been on your to-do list as of late? Yeah. We've obviously had some conversations.

You know, there's no, the last year of a contract, I think it's overblown sometimes. We know two things. We know Rod wants to stay here. We want Rod to stay here. So whether it happens this month. or three months from now or end of the season. I'm very confident. There's not too many things I can be pretty sure of,

but I know if we're fair with Rod, Rod wants to be here, and we definitely want to keep Rod here. So there's nothing really new to report other than that. It's a different dynamic than maybe somebody that is coached or they've gone in that place for that role. Rod is maintained his house here, he's raised his family here, all that.

Saying that, you know, we have to also be fair with them as he moves forward. And similarly, you know, Don, I don't think a lot of people realize that, you know, this is just one half of your job with the Carolina Hurricanes. You run the show there. I know that you guys are going through property development right now. You're going through arena renovations right now. How knee-deep are you in all of that? Well, pretty knee-deep.

You know, hockey kind of, like I said, a little quiet August, which was good for me to, focus on, you know, we signed a 20-year extension on our lease here and a lot of speculation people had us always moving out of the city. We're happy with that. We're doing over $300 million renovations. We're working on the plans right now. We only have a vision, but we're starting to work on the plans, which will start next summer. And then we also gain the development rights, which Tom Dunden is a developer and he wants to do on the property. So yeah, we have, From the business side, we have a lot going on. We're dealing with,

Emily just got passed here. We're going to have a sports book at some point here when it gets regulated. We've got TV issues we're dealing with. We've got, the business side is keeping me busy. I'll be happy when we start playing some hockey games and get a little release of watching. I've never looked forward to preseason it as much as I do this year.

Hey, Don, last question for you. So I'm doing this player poll. And one of the questions is, who has the best road dressing room in the NHL and who has the worst. Yeah, exactly. You guys landslide winners are the worst. Now, I asked Martin Nietzsche's this, and he was super happy about it. He's like, why should we give them a big, nice, spacious room, like all these new buildings?

But I do hear that next year that you are going to renovate that visiting room. But one, what do you think of winning that prestigious honor in our player poll? And can you talk about those renovations that are coming? Well, I wouldn't say it's an honor to win that contest. I will say that the Centennial Authority who owns the building allocated millions of dollars to do it. We just couldn't get it done in the summer with everything going on. And once renovation, money was approved. So it'll change drastically.

You know, as you said, you don't want it too nice. But you want, to be fair, you want to have spaces for, you know, enough spaces for all the equipment, coaches, offices, all those things. So it's something that I know has been on our radar, it's been on the NHL's radar. So it'll get done for the start of the bombing season. Rod Brindamore and visiting coaching dressing rooms, both on the to-do list to get done this season. Don, thanks so much. Hockey's right there.

It's right there. Trust us. We feel the exact same way as you do. There's only so much talking you can do before you're saying, drop the puck. We want to talk about some actual hockey. So thanks so much for taking some time to talk to us today. Always appreciate it, guys.

Anytime. And have a great day. Thanks, Donne. Don Wendell, general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes. Rapid Fire coming up after the break. All right, boys, my favorite time of the show and yours, rapid fire. And we got a laundry list of stuff to get through. So let's get right to it.

We'll start in your neck of the woods. Russo, Kailan Addison. signed a one-year deal with the wild. He was an RFA, 23-year-old scored three goals, 26 assists at 29 points last season, 18 points on the power play, which led all rookies. Your thoughts on this one? Yeah, I mean, it had to get done because they need him to quarterback the number one unit. What's interesting is he was scratched in 19 of the final 29 regular season games

and all of the playoffs. So he's got to get better defensively. He was their worst defensive defenseman, but their best offensive defenseman. And they have no cap space, like zero. And so we knew all along that this was going to be the number. And finally he just knew he wasn't doing a bad. He wasn't doing a great job of pretending like he was going to hold out because he's been around skating with them every day, working out in their facilities. So it wasn't exactly like the game of chicken that most contract disputes on the eve of deadline like Trevor Zegris, you know, stuff like that.

We knew this one was getting done. All right. Rapid Fire topic number two. This was what we had planned. Braden Chen, 24th captain in St. Louis Blues history. But right before we started doing the podcast, another team announced a captain in the Boston Bruins and won Brad Marchand. If we went back in time to when Brad Marchand was like licking guys in the face and I said, hey guys, guess what? That's the future captain of an original 16. Would you have believed me? Jesse's laughing, so we'll start with you. Yeah. Is he the first captain in in in in in

history to have licked another player's face. Probably. We've got to look into the record books. Yeah, it's crazy, but also, like, I feel like he's calmed down a little bit the last few years. Like, he's definitely, as with age, he has gotten a little more relaxed and more captain-like. I like it. What do you think, Michael? Yeah, licks players, bites ears. He's a rat, and he's proud of being that rat. You ask anybody in Boston, though, what he's like off the ice, and they absolutely love him. You know, I think it is his on-ice persona the second he puts on the helmet, he's a different guy.

Off the ice, they love him in that locker room, and he is the leader of that team now that Perjuron's not there. So I think it's probably the obvious choice, even though I'm sure fans are having a field day on the comment section of all these articles. The other thing, too, is kind of crazy. I quickly did a look at the laundry list of Captain Vacancy still. Anaheim, Arizona, Calgary, Chicago, Philly, and Seattle. Yeah. That is huge. I mean, Boston was on the list, but now they check that out off.

But that's a lot of teams without a scene. I think Calgary's next. I'd be shocked if it's not Rasmus Anderson, especially now that Michael Backlund's pending UFA, unless they get something done here in the next little bit. I mean, Rasmus Anderson is, and I can tell you, I talked to him at the NHL Media Tour in Sweden. He wants it. Yeah, Chicago said they're going to kind of calm the jets on naming someone to fill the skates

of one, Jonathan Taves, especially when, you know, you've got a, a superstar coming in that if everything goes according to plan probably will be captain in you know the next a little while but uh really interesting there and bramarsh on the captain of awesome brook. Uh, Jesse we're going to start with you on this one because it's a goal tending topic. The avalanche, uh, you know, a little bit of issues right now with Pavel Francoza is his health not going to be ready for camp. He's going to be Alex Georgiev's backup, but your thoughts on a little bit of the question mark when it comes to Colorado. Yeah, I think if they're calling around to some veterans, I can't imagine a better situation if you're a goalie to try to raise your stock than playing for the Colorado Avalanche.

They make every goalie that has a beating heart that stands in the crease look awesome. They turn bad goleys into good goleys. They turn good goleys into Vezna finalists that have no business being a Vesna finalist. This team plays so well in front of the goalie. I would be, if you're a veteran out there trying to get a contract, trying to raise your stock, this is the situation you want. I don't think they're going to have a hard time finding someone to, someone with, with experience to fill that spot.

Rapid fire topic. Number four, unsigned RFAs. You got the Sands still continuing to negotiate with Shane Pinto. Russo touched on the duck situation, nowhere close to a deal with Trevor Zegras or Jamie Drysdale. Your thoughts on these RFAs, I mean, it's a different, NHL than it used to be. We talk more about RFAs than we do UFAs at times. Especially at this position when teams are so strapped for caps base like Ottawa.

I mean, you know, Pinto deserves much more than his qualifying offer, which is in the 800s, 20, what, two or three years old at 20 goals last year. I mean, this is a really quality center that is going to be very important that team. You know, all the reports is that they're not looking to trade him, but he certainly warrants more money than they could probably afford him right now, so they're going to have to figure that out. Zegrois is interesting to me because I just don't sense, even though that he's their best player, in terms of, well, that's probably a little wrong to say. I mean, Troy Terry is right up there, but in terms of like dazzle and pizzazz and all that stuff, I mean, that's Trevor Zegris,

but I don't feel sense that there's a lot of love there inside the organization from Pat Verbeek willing to commit to him long term, longer than even three or four years. So I've got to think that we're going to see a midterm deal here in the three-year range. And then it's just a matter of getting his AAV signed up. Jamie Driesdale won's bizarre to me because he based in play last year. And right now it looks like that he's not done as well. Yeah, I agree with all that. And just big picture, I think these are a phase.

It seems like it's becoming more of a big deal now because it just feels like with the way the league is going faster, younger, more skilled. It feels like these players at 21, 22 have accomplished more than maybe some in the past. Not that there weren't guys playing young in the past, but it seems more common. And then they want to be paid. Like, you don't get paid until you hit UFA status. And these guys are like, no, I'm scoring 20 goals a year. I want money now.

So I feel like just the way the game is gone is going to lead to more and more of this. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it's because of the UFA change, right? I mean, seven years or 27 years old. When I first started covering the league guys, you didn't become a UFA until age 31. And that's when you got your money. Yeah. And so now... Even 27 is insane.

It needs to move up even more. Yeah. And it's a situation where for a lot of you, years, it was kind of like, you don't have the audacity to ask for money before then. You can't hold out as an RFA. Like the thought of it was just not even, it was non-existent. So now that's certainly not the case. Rapid Fire topic number five.

This one just blew my mind as well. Cindy Crosby talked about if there was a situation in an international tournament, be it the Olympics World Cup, whatever, he would gladly move over to the wing to play with one Connor McDavid. I know we're not supposed to get sexually aroused by a line in hockey, but if I got to see Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid play together in a like a non-all-star type situation where they actually want to win, that might be the first time for me. Your thoughts on this one, Jesse?

Yeah, I mean, if there's anyone out there that doesn't want a best on best international tournament, just run this answer by them and see if they, see if they change their mind. sign me up. Yeah, for Jesse, this would be the equivalent of putting like Hellebuck and Vasselvesky in the same net. Right, yeah. Yeah, it'd just be bananas. And then maybe this guy will be part of that as well.

Rapid Fire topic number six. Connor Bedard, first prospect game. What's he do? Patrick versus St. Louis. I get it. It's a prospect game. The intensity is nowhere near normal NHL intensity, but still his first two goals were just top corner snipes.

If this is any indication of what we're going to see, we're going to be talking about him a lot this year. Yeah, that happened here in Minnesota. I didn't go to it, though. I was at a trampled by Turtles concert, which is the opening song of the award winning straight from the source podcast, I might add. They sing that song.

Hashtag priorities. Exactly. But I read Scott Powers' incredible coverage, and I looked at obviously all the video. And, you know, yes, it's a prospect game, but this guy, his dangles, his edge work, his shot. This guy is going to be, you know, people that are like, oh, well, let's see him function in the NHL.

He's going to be fine. He's going to be absolutely fine. And he's already overshadowing Adam Fantilli, who also had a hat trip that night in Traverse City. I was talking to Connor and McDavid. I asked him right at the NHL Media Tour last week in Vegas. I said, what do you think Bader is going through right now? And, you know, because if anybody could relate, it would be the guy that was hyped most before

kind of bedaard and a fellow number one overall pick. And he said all he does is just want to play hockey. It's like enough of all the hype. This kid just wants to get on the ice and show that he belongs in the NHL. He seems to be an extremely humble kid that wants to just fit in, which is the only reason why he was here in Minnesota because he wanted to take part in it. Yeah. And like you said, Fantilli, not only did he have an hatcher. He had two assists five-point game. These two superstars coming into the league are not wasting any time. I was talking, Corey Pranman was out here. in Vegas for the rookie tournament out here and he was just like drooling over all the all the highlights of those two in their first two games it's going to be exciting to see what they can do.

Did think it was funny though that there was, you know, talk that maybe Bedard wouldn't play in this game. The Blackhawks said they wanted to kind of treat him like any other prospect. He's not any other prospect. I think it's exactly what Russo said. That's the one point for 60 minutes where he could just be himself and do what he knows he's really, really good at. and boy, did he ever show it.

Number seven, retirement. I feel like we've been doing a lot of retirements in our rapid fires. Derek Stepan called it a career, joins the Minnesota Wild Russo in their scouting department after 13 years in the NHL. Yeah, I showed up at the rink the other day, and it's hard to miss that head. You know, the shiny, you know, bowling ball head with the big beard.

I'm like, I think that's Derek Stepon. And the last time I ran into him was at a Vegas casino when I was embedded with the Carolina Hurricanes. during the trade deadline. So I'm excited because he is such a great guy. It's a shame. 33 years old. He's already retired from the league.

But, you know, quite frankly, the Wilde could probably sign him right now and he'd be their best face-off guy. That's what they should do, actually. Just sign him, have him take a draw, then go to the bench. He'd clearly lead them in face-off percentages because I don't know if I've ever seen a team worse

at face-offs than this team. So that's what they should have a dual role. part-time scout front office guy and player and face-off guy uh finally guys rapid fire topic number eight this deals with something you worked on rousse so you did uh a player poll as far as rule changes go um 55 players not everybody wanted to give their opinions but talked about rules they would like to maybe see changed altered uh whatever it's a great piece on the athletic go read it um i want to ask all three of you if you could change one rule in the n hl what would it be and i'm going to start I let you guys start all the other rapid topics.

I don't think a team that gets penalized should have any advantages whatsoever, and that includes icing the puck. If you are in the, if you break the rules so much so that you have to sit in a little box and feel shame for two minutes, you can't ice the puck, all right? It's just you just get the puck out of zone, and if you ice it, it's icing.

You got an offensive zone face off for the power play team. Jesse, what's yours? Yeah, I could not agree. agree more with that one. And I'll just go another step further. And it was in Russo's piece. And I agree with the players that said it. You give up power play goal. Still killing the penalty. It's two minutes. If they score five, they score five. I think we're always looking for ways to score more in the NHL. They're constantly trying to tweak things to score more. Don't make the goalies pad smaller. I saw one of the players posting that. These goalies get hurt enough as it is. The way to do it is to

penalize them more on the penalties. I totally agree. Take the icing out. They've got to kill the full two minutes. You don't get off if you give up a quick one. That'll give us more goals. Yeah, Rasmus Anderson was one of the ones that was all for that. And this is a penalty killer. But he's also a power play guy that he also pointed out. So he's like, I'd love it. Yeah, this was a fun thing to do. You know, continuous three on three, for those that didn't read the piece was the one, the leading vote getter. But then there were, I think, three or four votes for 10 minutes. at three on three. So clearly NHL players are talking about that. The one I'd like to see are refs talking after games. I think that they should be accountable. I was talking to Eric DeHatchik

and Jim and Jim Mathis and yesterday two hockey Hall of Fame sports writers. And I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going crazy because I remember back in the 90s interviewing guys like Mick McGoo and Bill McCreary after games. And they said yes, it used to be, wasn't so much a rule. It was more of an informal thing. if you went up to a supervisor after a disputed call and the ref was willing to talk that they would talk and like magoo mccreary and paul stewart and and um carrie fraser was some of the ones that they remember also interviewing so at some point that changed i'd like to see him go back to that but as bill dally told me with a smirk on his face that he just renegotiated the collective

bargaining agreement with the officials and somehow that topic didn't come up yeah i don't think they're ever going to fight fight for that one you got another poll coming out too don't you herself yeah i'm working on that right now. Actually, we just, as you just heard, I asked Don Waddell about that, so you know one of the answers. But some of the questions that you'll see in the athletic on Thursday is what's the next NHL city the league should expand to. And it is coming, by the way. This is not just fantasy land. There will be expansion again. If they're going to top a billion, billion and a half for an expansion fee, you know the NHL owners will want to split that by. Best and Worst Road dressing rooms, best and worst road nightlifes. You could, that one, Jesse, no. knows well in one city and Jesse knows well in another city, actually. He got to go to a lot in the playoffs last year. Is there one coach? I like this one in the NHL that you'd love to play for that guy.

Non-favorite, non-hockey athlete, favorite hockey athlete, one player that you need to keep your head on a swivel and best chirper in the league. Those are going to be some of the answers, and they are very entertaining answers that you'll see in the athletic on Thursday. Did anybody say Mike Babcock for coach they want to? to play. One person did, and I will say it was before all this happened. And it was an anonymous one, so obviously

I can't say who said it, but one did say Mike Babcock, yeah. There's about 12, there's about 13 or 14 guys that got essentially one vote, and they're all interesting names. Quenville got a vote too, believe it or not. Well, well, we all right, well, be sure to look on the athletic

on Thursday for that. I'll be looking forward to it. What are you working on, Jesse? Obviously, a lot of preview stuff with camp coming for the Golden Knights and also some goalie stuff. A story that I've been working on for a few weeks and that I'm pretty excited about. Breakout candidates, some goalies that maybe aren't household names that people aren't used to hearing that I think are going to take a big step this year and you're going to know their names by the end of the season. All right, be sure to go to the athletic and check that out and be sure, guys, thanks for the good show. To go to YouTube to check out our

channel, YouTube.com slash the athletic hockey show. You get a new subscription to the athletic for just two bucks a month for 12 months now when you visit the athletic. com slash hockey show. The athletic hockey show returns Thursday with Ian Mendez and down goes brown. And we are going to be back next week for our final show together, guys. The round table will not be around this season. So we are going to have a series finale, we'll call it, next week.

with myself and these two guys, Russo and Jesse. So be sure to tune in for Jesse, for Russo. I'm Piso. See you in seven days.