The Canes are rolling without rolling….

Good afternoon to you.

I am Adam Gold. Victoria is back. Yeah. How was the baby shower?

Oh, it was great. Yes. One of these days it'll stick. Hey, the panthers are winning though, so it is kind of sticking, yeah. I'm sorry. Not the other way. I'm sorry I had forgotten. My dog Biff would be very mad if I had any, you know, competition.

I'm sure not the only one who would be mad. Look, I'm not getting into the emotions of all of that, but it threw me I had forgotten that we had tied that to panthers wins back in the day. Yes. Which there have been enough of lately to give panthers fans some hope for the immediate future. Still a long shot, still have to beat probably you have to win at least three of the remaining four games unless the Buccaneers only win one, which is very possible that the Buccaneers could only win one.

And as long as that one isn't the game against the panthers in a couple of weeks, three weeks, then Carolina might be able to pull this off even at heck seven and ten. Yeah, it's even it's that crazy, but we'll talk a little bit about some NFL stuff today, but I hope you enjoyed your, I don't know, is this your final Tuesday off? I believe so, yes. You're like a physician. Doctors take Wednesdays off, right?

Isn't that the old joke? The logic was splitting up weeks because I had PTO I had to take, but I don't have anywhere to go, so it's just, you know, sometimes it's good. Yeah.

Sometimes it's good just to just to be. Yeah. You know, my logic was, oh, I can stay up for Monday night football and not be sleepy the next day. How'd that go?

That was good. Yeah. Yeah. Did you stay up? But it's these Monday night football games. You stayed up for that? I know they haven't been awesome.

So it's like, wow, well, that's a waste. We have another dog coming in a couple of days. Is it next Monday? It's like the Packers who aren't, I mean. Well, I'll be here for that Tuesday, so I don't need to really watch that one if it's bad.

Gosh. We've just, this is why, like next year, ESPN will be able to flex out of some of these matchups. Now, I'm not saying they'll flex out because it's all about television ratings. Yes. It's basically what it's about. So I don't know if they'll flex out of a Packers, let's just say it's Packers Steelers, two teams that are not going to the playoffs.

Yeah, it's the Rams and Packers next Monday. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I know. It's like I could see in like July why that sounds like a good idea.

Definitely not July anymore. It's not a good idea. No, not at all. It's a very mid-Monday night football game. I was actually listening to Bomani Jones podcast and we were, he actually made a very good point about the NFL.

And it's probably one that most of us have thought about, but the way he crystallized it was, I think, pretty smart. He basically said the entire NFL is small sample size. Yeah. When you only play 17 games and the schedules are, I mean, they have to be imbalanced. You're not, not everybody plays everybody. You play within your conference for the most part. Your games outside of your conference are different than a team in another division. So invariably there is going to be difference in the schedule strength. And because of that, and you only play 17 games, it's very easy to game the system.

I'm not saying you're intentionally doing it. It's just very easy to be not as good as what your record says and better than what your record says, because who you play does matter. There are only 12 teams in the NFL that are positive in point differential. Theoretically, it should be 16 to the good and 16 underwater.

Theoretically. We've only got 20 of the 32 teams have a negative point differential. And the longer you get into the season, the more that is a significant number to look at. So, and by the way, two of them, I believe are playing this week. And those two teams right now are probably at less than 50% to make the playoffs.

No kidding. The lions and the jets who are both at right now, not even inside the playoff cut line. They are two of the 12 teams with plus point differentials.

Yeah. It's crazy. It is a strange, strange year in the NFL. We're actually going to talk more about the lions later in the week, later in the week. I mean, it's already Wednesday. It's a nine day week. When you split up the week, I've started my week over.

So it's beginning of the week ish. So it doesn't feel like a Monday. It kind of does a little bit, sort of, but not like a Monday. Did Monday feel like a Friday? It's weird because when you do that, Mondays are kind of like, Hey, you just got to come in for one day.

No big deal. It's like a Friday. So what you should do, honestly, take Wednesdays off.

Yeah. Because then you just have two, two day weeks. You have Monday, Friday, then you come back, you know, Monday, Friday. But then I miss Chip.

So see, I'm the same way. I hate taking Wednesdays off. Yeah, I know it is Wednesday. It is a Chip Patterson Wednesday.

All right. We got a lot of things I want to get to. There's some sound we need to hear.

There's a bunch of different things that we can address today. And Chip Patterson is here. We're also going to talk to Trey Oliver, the head coach at NC Central. And the one and only John Forslund stops by. I am excited because the Hurricanes will play a home game tomorrow for the first time in 19 days.

I kid you not. And John Forslund will be in the building. But let's start. And why not start with the Carolina Hurricanes? Two games in a row now. Canes down to 11 healthy forwards. I'm not sure that that is going to change, although maybe a little bit of a hint as Max Lajoie, defenseman, was sent back to the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League. Carolina has been going with 11 healthy defense, rather 11 forwards and seven defensemen, while Sebastian Aho and Jesper Faust missed the last two games. That's what happened on Long Island. That's what happened in Detroit. No Aho, no Faust, seven defensemen. Although it could also mean that Dylan Coghlan is coming back and Coghlan will be a seventh defenseman.

I haven't seen that. I haven't seen whether or not they were calling him from Chicago. They sent him there on a conditioning stint because it's been like a month since he's played.

And a guy sitting around that long, that's not good. You got to get him on the ice in games. And honestly, I have no idea if Coghlan is going to play here anymore.

Don't know. So they made that transaction. They sent Lajoie back. If Aho and the Hurricanes are practicing right now to find out whether or not Aho or Faust or both are on the practice ice. But it would be nice to have both back.

And then you have other decisions to make. As for what happened last night, here's Rod Brind'Amour on the 1-0 win over the Red Wings. Well, I thought it wasn't our best.

That's for sure. But I thought third period was pretty good. We got going a little bit and at least made a game, looked like a game. But our goalie was great. He stole us the game, which is phenomenal.

You need that. We've seen enough of that go the other way against us over the years. So he's been great. I think that's the biggest takeaway, is just how solid he's been through this whole stretch. And we played OK, played fine, played hard.

So listen, we'll take it. Piotr Kuchetkov was absolutely the first star of the game. I'll disagree a little bit on the quality of Carolina's play. I thought Carolina was excellent in the first period. It wasn't as dominant as you might think, but Carolina had way better scoring chances, could have had two or three goals. Detroit's goalie also played well.

Villi Hueso was excellent. Second period was a disaster for Carolina, except they didn't give up any goals. And that's we're used to seeing that hockey like I mean is crazy. Sometimes you stink and you give up no goals and maybe you even fluke one. But at least Carolina didn't give up a goal. They were bad in the second period. Third period, Carolina was much better defensively. But they also were really not threatening offensively.

So it's there's a lot of give and take in that. But I thought that Carolina was other than the second period, which was terrible. Carolina was really good last night. So Piotr Kuchetkov, we have numbers to back up what he has done for the Hurricanes.

Here's Rod Brind'Amour on Piotr the rookie. Well, I mean, there's a lot to it, but I think at the end of the day, he's real competitive. And, you know, he's got a he wants to win. I mean, that's that's for sure. I think everyone does. But the way he plays, you know, aggressively and the guys love playing, playing for him.

I mean, that's pretty, pretty clear. He's obviously got a great personality. He's, he's an emotional player, but he's also been very calm in the net, which is what we didn't see from him in the first period. What we didn't see from him the first game he played, but we didn't see from him last year was a calmness about him.

He's a really good athlete. He's off to I don't even know if I call it a great start among goaltenders with at least 10 starts in the NHL this year. He is tied for third in save percentage 926. Ten or more starts tied for third in the NHL. He's 14th in a statistic called goals saved above average meaning goals he saves that the average NHL goaltender would not. It's a cumulative stat.

He's 14th in the NHL in a cumulative stat, and he's got anywhere from 8 to 10 fewer starts than all of the other number one goaltenders. 926 save percentage. Again, I mentioned that the league average save percentage this year is 900. That's league average NHL goaltending is 900. Freddie Anderson is at 891. Aunty Ronta is at 894. Both of their goals saved above average numbers are in negative numbers. Again, it's a cumulative stat. There's no decision to be made, right?

No, I wouldn't think so. Not to put pressure on the head coach here, but if Freddie Anderson walks into Rod's office and he says, I'm ready to go, coach. And Aunty Ronta is waiting in the outer office.

There is no outer office. If he's waiting out there to talk to Rod, I'm ready to go, boss. Rod has to be as magnanimous as possible and tell them good. Yeah. Now wait. Stay that way. Because this kid cannot, they cannot take him out of the lineup.

He has been too good. And it is about winning. It's a meritocracy. You are, yes, I understand you don't lose your job because of injury. Sometimes you do. Yeah.

Sometimes you do. It happens. On the podcast last night, Canes Corner podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. Actually, I think I mentioned in the podcast, I definitely mentioned it at the end of the network broadcast.

And I mentioned it during Aftermath last night. Ever hear the name Wally Pipp? Yep. Wally Pipp's the guy before Lou Gehrig. Wally Pipp had a little cold. Came out of the lineup. Guess what? You're done.

Bye. Lou Gehrig better than you. And I'm not trying to say that Piotr Kachetkov is Lou Gehrig.

And I'm not trying to say that Piotr Kachetkov is one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. He is just playing like it right now. And let it run its course. Keep the hot hand in.

Yes. And there's a lot of other things about the Canes. For instance, they dressed three forwards last night who have yet to score a goal. Tevo, Tara Vine and Derek Stephon, Jack Drury.

Still no goals. Jordan Martinuk and Jordan Stahl are tied for fourth on the team in goals. That's right.

Jordan Martinuk and Jordan Stahl are tied for fourth on the team in goals. In a way, that's good. But in a way, it's also, huh? What? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

And yet there's sixteen, six and six. Thirty eight points. That's fourth best in terms of points in the Eastern Conference.

They're actually fifth in the entire NHL in points percentage. Geico asks, how would you love a chance to save some money on insurance? Of course you would. And when it comes to great rates on insurance, Geico can help. Like with insurance for your car, truck, motorcycle, boat and RV. Even help with homeowners or renters coverage. Plus add an easy to use mobile app, available 24 hour roadside assistance and more. And Geico is an easy choice. Switch today and see all the ways you could save.

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That's refunds with an S pro dot com. And this is in spite of being more than almost more than almost a goal per game off of last year's pace. Last year, the hurricanes were about three point seven goals per game at this point in the season. They're at two point nine, actually a little below, I think, two point nine. They're twenty sixth in the NHL in scoring.

They're sixteen, six and six. The kid matters. The defense, the way this team plays matters, and then throw in the fact that they expected to have Max Paci ready at the start of the year. They don't. They expected to have Andre Kasha in the lineup. They don't. There's a lot of places that they expected goals to come from. Seth Jarvis, yes, Barricote, Kaniemi, and they're not really getting goals from that.

And yet, sixteen, six and six. So we can just get them on board. We go. I mean, Brady Shay can't score all the goals. No, no. Or Martin. Brady Shay's got goals in three of his last four and he's got a four game point streak. Here's Brady Shay on the defensive core.

Yeah, it's huge. I mean, I think that, you know, really shows where, you know, cohesive unit where for a unit of five out there where our forwards are, you know, always backing us up and we want to get up in the place. So, you know, you gotta get a lot of credit, you know, to the D, but also to the forwards for allowing us to get up in the play and make those plays because they're usually always behind us, which is huge. So, yeah, hopefully you can keep the defensive points going.

Yeah. I mean, hurricanes, part of their scoring, their depth scoring is getting points from the blue line. And Brady Shay, and actually his defensive partner, Brett Pesce, you remember about two weeks ago, I guess it is now, scored back to back game winning goals. So Shay now has three goals in his last four games and again, a four game point streak. Speaking of points and speaking of goals, Alexander Ovechkin, hat trick last night, now has 800 goals for his career. He is one short of Gordie Howe. He is 94 away from Wayne Gretzky.

So we're a third of the way through this season. He's not going to catch Gretzky this year, obviously, but he can probably score another 30. Yeah, he can get to 50 goals this year. And going into next year, 64 is probably asking too much, but it is Ovechkin, so I wouldn't put anything past him. But we are probably talking about middle of the season, middle of the 24-25 season before this guy, given good health, he is 37 years old. I was gonna ask, how much longer do you think Ovechkin's got? Oh, he's in phenomenal shape. He is, but the guy is a tank. Regardless, hopefully no injuries, but. Right, given good health, middle of 24-25, he becomes the all-time goal scorer.

You know, it's funny. Years ago, you almost had to choose between where you were Crosby guy or an Ovechkin guy. They basically came in together. And I was always partial to Ovechkin, always partial to Ovechkin. I really like both players. I think both players are just, I mean, duh, they're awesome.

But they're very different players to watch. I get more enjoyment out of watching Ovechkin. Crosby is the better overall player. But Ovechkin is just a blast to watch. I understand that people hate him here because the Capitals are the most hated rival. I get it.

It's fine. He's definitely one of those guys though, that if he were on our team, we'd love him. I'd say the same thing about Tom Wilson of the Capitals. But Ovechkin is just fun to watch. And he loves to play.

And that kind of stuff is all very infectious. All right, moving on to college basketball. Last night, North Carolina abused the Citadel. History for Armando Bacot, most double-digit rebounding games, 62 in UNC history. It was his 55th double-double. Caleb Love had a good game. I think 17 points, 4 of 6, and 3-point range. There were 4 players in double figures. Carolina, who had really struggled from long range, was 15 of 31 from 3.

That's, yes, very good. But they played, I don't know, like 10 guys, played at least 8 minutes or something like that. Hubert Davis on his reserves. I have a plan to play 10 players in the first half. I just, you know, we needed a spark in the first half. We needed energy and enthusiasm. And we needed it to come from the bench.

And we were just, I was just going down the line to be able to find that. And we did, you know, Jalen came in and played really big minutes for us in the first half. I thought Dontres is minutes terrific on both ends of the floor, not only offensively, but rebounding, defending, using his athleticism.

I thought that was great. And Seth and Tyler Nichol, I thought they played extremely well. And, you know, one of the things that I have said is that, you know, we have depth on our team. And the great thing about it is when we need it, we have that ability to put guys in and to make impact plays on both ends of the floor. And I was really happy to be able to get extended minutes for those guys and that they stepped up and played extremely well. Six players off the bench played at least six and a half minutes.

So I'm like, you blew out the Citadel. You should play your bench. But Hubert Davis did play his bench early. So it's a little bit different than just giving everybody garbage time. They got to play when the minutes were meaningful.

And that's how you learn about people. But I will just first of all, let's hear from Armando Bacott, who had a big, big game, and he needs to have those for this team going forward. Yeah, I mean, I think just still in some spots we kind of messed up on the Scott report, but I mean, I guess that happens at the game. You can't be perfect all 40 minutes.

But I thought today just us as a group, we all did great. Back to the batteries, man. I've leaned into the second half. It's pretty much working chicken and chicken. Any time you got anything, everything you wanted on the interior, inside and outside, what was just the difference?

Yeah, I mean, just getting as low as I can. And I mean, once I'm right around the basket, it's really hard for me not to be able to grab those rebounds or finish right about right after them. How did it feel getting a contribution from the bench at 40 plus base points just on both sides of the basketball? It was great getting contributions for them because I mean, it took the work load off all of us, but also in the area to showcase their skills and what they can do too. You all got Ohio State and Michigan coming up, man. What's next for UNC?

What is it going to take for you all to take it to the next level? Got to get back to playing big time in those big time games, and that's what we come here for, those big time games. We look at it, we're playing the best. It's a great opportunity for us.

All right, what brings us to that? Ohio State on Saturday at the Garden. Beating up the Citadel is one thing. I would even say that beating up Georgia Tech is, and that happened late, that's one thing. But how you perform against a good team, an NCAA tournament caliber team in Ohio State, will tell us a lot about North Carolina. We know North Carolina is good. We just need to figure out how good they are.

Where do they fit? And I believe their next two games are Ohio State and then Michigan, and then it's all conference games basically the rest of the way. And if you don't win these two games, you have to win at least one of them.

No choice. You must win one. If you don't win either, your NCAA tournament hopes basically come down to you got to dominate the league.

That's what it comes down to. By the way, NC State, I guess there was an ACC SOCON challenge I was unaware of, but NC State played Furman. I mean, these are games.

You got to play them. They played Furman last night, dominated 92-73. I guess they didn't, it wasn't a, as it was a dominant, they led by 20 basically at the half. Terquavian Smith had 24 points. Casey Morsell, 17.

Those two combined for, I believe, eight of 17 from three-point range. Kevin Keats on a win. Good basketball team that we beat tonight. And it's one of those teams that when we schedule a game, it's nerve-wracking to schedule a team like Furman because fans are not familiar with Furman.

So they all of a sudden think that she's supposed to beat them. And this is a team that certainly on any given night can beat any team in the country. They got a lot of returners. I thought we did a really good job on their two leading scores. We did a great job getting back in transition the last couple of days. We really honed in defensively. I didn't like the fact that I thought we gave up 21 points against Miami in transition, and I didn't think down the stretch we played great defense.

And so we talked about taking away their team's leading score and second leading scorer. And proud of our guys bounce back. It's a really good win. It's one of those wins that you'll look back at in March when we talk about quads. And you'll see that it'll be probably a quad two, maybe quad three, but it won't be a quad four. It won't be a quad four. I don't know that it's going to be a quad two. So quad three wins.

It doesn't matter. NC State needs to play well and it'll all take care of itself. Again, I watched the tournament in the Bahamas. I liked them.

I liked them in the Bahamas. I loved the way they played against Kansas. That was a game they could have won. Like no joke. Kansas is awesome.

Awesome. But I mean, and state went right to them. It was a really, that might be the best game they played this year, to be honest. And it's been a little disappointing to see a home loss to Pitt.

I'll be honest. I think state fans expected to play better in that game. The game at Miami, they played really well. Just kind of fell apart late, but Miami's the better team. Miami might be the, they could end up being the best team in the ACC when it's all said and done. I think Virginia probably is at this point, but Miami's going to be there. Virginia Tech's also very good. So, but if you're a state, I mean, you just have to play well.

And that's what we hope they're doing. Real quick, two very quick things. And then Trey Oliver. Carlos Correa signed a 13 year, $350 million contract yesterday with the San Francisco Giants. 13 years. It's really good.

Elliot Johnson told us yesterday that, forget about the years, all they're doing is buying down the average annual value for luxury tax purposes, but that's just awesome. And we got World Cup semifinal number two, France v. Morocco today, two o'clock on Fox. So the last hour is going to be a little iffy. It was yesterday.

Oh boy. It was yesterday. Although I did win two of my Place Your Bets picks hit.

Yeah, you did. During the first half. It was very good.

It was very exciting. Anyway, France, Morocco yesterday was about Messi. Today is probably about Morocco more than it is even about Kylian Mbappe. He was the best player in the World Cup four years ago.

He doesn't have to prove anything. Morocco is going to be tough, but France is so, so good. Geico asks, how would you love a chance to save some money on insurance? Of course you would. And when it comes to great rates on insurance, Geico can help. Like with insurance for your car, truck, motorcycle, boat, and RV. Even help with homeowners or renters coverage. Plus add an easy to use mobile app, available 24 hour roadside assistance and more. And Geico is an easy choice. Switch today and see all the ways you could save. It's easy. Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today.