Rod Brind’ Amour, the head coach for the Carolina Hurricanes, is happy to be back in the Carolinas!

Well, welcome back to the East Coast.

I can start there. Good to be home. Yeah, that was a long, long trip for five games.

But, you know, it's behind us now, and I always got to get ready for the game tonight. Well, let's talk real quick about those five games. Three, one, and one trip. So what stands out to you about three, one, and one? Well, I don't really look at the, you know, the actual three, one, and one. And I really felt like we played just all the games and really to the one, all of them.

So I feel like that's what you want to do. I mean, it's not always going to go your way, obviously, but just the fact that there wasn't any lulls in the games and felt like we were pushing it the whole time. So I was pretty happy with definitely the effort, you know, that the whole group gave. It's one of the things that when you watch enough, especially the elite teams and the elite players, they always seem to always seem to carry their teams and give their teams a chance. And I'm not saying this is the first time this has happened, but Ajo, Svechnikov, Natchez, were offensive horses for you for all five games. What, what pleases you about that? And is there a, I don't know, is there a pattern developing?

I hope so. I mean, obviously you said, I mean, it's every team like that, every sport. I mean, your top guys have to, you know, outperform the other guy's top guys.

I mean, that's essentially how it works. You know, you can get, you can get by here or there in a long season when the top guys aren't maybe at their best because that's where you have depth. But those guys play the most minutes.

They're playing against, you know, the other teams best players. So they, they got a rise to the occasion and that's, you know, that's what we've seen. I think we're, you know, small sample size, but definitely seen that throughout the start of the season. Yeah. It's probably just perception, but is there something about the third period and Sebastian Ajo that just clicks?

It just seems like maybe almost half of his career goals have come in the third. Yeah. Well, I think, I think it's that competitiveness, right?

Now it's definitely on the line. And you know, you see these guys rise up and go get it. Right. And that's, that's his nature. We know how, how, you know, fierce competitor he is. And he's, you know, he's been that for sure the start of the year.

There's no question about it. Let me ask you about another player who's just sort of figuring it out. I think a lot is expected of Brent Burns, but was the game in Vancouver his best overall game for you, you think? I think he was solid. I mean, he, he's been solid every game. I mean, I think he is still trying to, you know, understand exactly how we want to do things, but his natural ability is so good that he's getting by on that right now for the most part. And as he gets more comfortable in what we're doing, I think he's gonna, you know, just kill it. Oh, I agree.

I actually thought defensively he made tons of plays late in the third period that really kept Vancouver out of, you know, tie in the game because they had some opportunities late. Did you know 77% of women who wear bladder weakness products experience intimate skin irritation? As if having incontinence wasn't stressful enough. But Tena Intimate Pads have been gynecologist tested and do not cause skin irritation. Gentle on my intimate skin. I need to try Tena Intimate Pads.

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Yeah. I mean, he's got that long reach too that I think really helps him in D-zone because he breaks up so many plays and, you know, he just gets in the way and that's part of it. And now, like I said, once he gets real more comfortable, just exactly how we want to do things.

I think his natural ability will just take him to another level. When you have three days off in between games and it is coming off a long road trip, are there specific things you work on or are you just, we just need to kind of get loose, stretch out, get a good skate in a good, uh, good hard practice fundamentals and, and just go back to that? Well, now I mean, I don't want to waste time. I mean, we're, we're always trying to get better. So we're always working on something and, you know, might not be, you know, depending on how tired we are, this and that, you know, obviously you're not having battle practices, but there are always things that you got to get, get worked on.

And, so I felt like we touched on a few things in the couple of practices we had. And again, now we're, we're back at it here and I got to, you know, got to bring it again, as we always say, emphasis on the power play, especially against the team that has yet to allow a power play goal. Well, you're always, listen, we're always working on the power play. So I think, you know, whether it's scoring or not scoring, I think that's just something you're always going to do because it's now become, I mean, I don't want to say the game, but it's pretty much you got all the power play you get and or have to kill that special teams is just so, so important. Yeah.

One more thing about that. You go from Dougie Hamilton to Tony D'Angelo and now to Brent Burns. How are their skillsets, how did they make you change what you need or want to do on the power play or does it change at all?

Well, you know what? I don't know that we change things. I mean, every power play, if you watch really is trying to do the same thing. Your personnel dictates maybe how successful you're going to be at it. But I think the philosophies are just basically the same and everybody's trying to get the puck low and through seams and to, you know, one time a little shots and your entries, everyone's trying to do basically the same things. But some guys have a little more different talent levels and skill sets. So everything's kind of, I think there's a lot of similarities in what teams are doing.

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Oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly Auto Parts. If I, if my memory serves, you had Andre on the right side and Neches on the left side in the last, on the, I think the power play in the first period in Vancouver. Was that a conscious flip? Because it almost looks like they were on the opposite sides in previous power plays.

Well, it's, it's actually not. It's what you want them on one time ball, but off entries, it's hard to do because you want to have your hands match coming in on, on the entries and that ends up there on the off side. So it's, you know, like I say, when you really get into the power play stuff, it's, it becomes quite technical and, but you know, end of the day off the face off, you can get them where you want them, but off entries you can't.

So that, that takes another whole skill set to figure out how to get them over and, you know, it get, without getting too technical, we, that's what we want them on most power plays, but sometimes it doesn't get, you know, it doesn't quite work out that way. Yeah. My brain hurts just thinking about it. Real quick before I say goodbye. Uh, did you, did you catch any of the, the costumes from the Halloween party?

That's not my department, you know? Jordan, you know, we didn't, I didn't hear anything. So that, that means everything's good. Jordan as a Jim Carrey's character in mask is one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

And Marty natures as Peter Pan. Okay. Just enough. I guess whatever, whatever. That's their, their time.

And I'm glad they, they had a little fun. All right. Thank you very much. I'll see you later. All right. Okay. Take care.

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