Return of the Max!

It is the return of the Max tonight. Although not the return to the Hurricanes because he hasn't played with the Hurricanes, but it is the return of Max Pacioretti to the National Hockey League. He will play his first game tonight.

Corey Lavallett, among others, will be available to watch it. We're all excited for that from the Athletic and North State Journal. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing Max Pacioretti play. So, just your thoughts on what do you expect to see from Pacioretti? Well, I think the big thing with him is he's the kind of guy who can create, you know, create goals on his own. He doesn't necessarily need a set up guy to be effective.

So he's a little bit of that instant offense that maybe the Hurricanes have lacked in recent years. It's going to take time for him to get back up to speed. I mean, he hasn't played in a long time coming off of an injury that's, you know, pretty serious. He's still walking with a bit of a limp, though. Hockey is probably the one sport where you can get away with that a bit.

Once you get your boot tied on and everything, you can overcome that. But, you know, it's going to take time. I wouldn't take anything that happens in his first ten games back as any kind of idea of what he's going to be once he's back to full speed. Oh, no, I'm going to take whatever I see tonight as that's Max Pacioretti. We're not going to get anything more or less than what we see tonight against the Nashville Predators. Help me put in perspective what we saw over the, we'll throw the Ranger game in there because it's part of it, over the 11 game winning streak and the night it came to an end. I mean, I think it was a team that just showed it's very resilient. They weren't always dominant, but you know, like Rod speaks to so often, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't want his team to ever look at the score, look at what just happened and change anything that's going on with the way they want to play. And that leads to success because a lot of times they are the better team on the ice when they're playing the way they want to play. And, you know, the Rangers game was what it was. They kind of didn't have a whole lot of steam there in the last two periods. And, you know, I think people maybe got a little bent out of shape unnecessarily about the loss, but it was kind of a weird game, a lot of flukey goals, pucks bouncing around and, you know, that's hockey. You know, what are you going to lose sometimes?

And it's going to be weird. And I didn't really think, like, I don't take much away from that loss as if things are going in a different direction now. Well, sometimes, first of all, the Rangers are good. They're now 10, two and one in their last 13 games. So not only are they good, but they're playing well. And yeah, sometimes the other team just plays better than you do.

And I think that's what happened Tuesday. But it was weird. They were flukey goals. And in fact, I actually thought Carolina's penalty kill was pretty good, but they allowed three power play goals. One of them wasn't even supposed to be a shot. The first one, the well, the second one wasn't supposed to be a shot either. That was supposed to be a pass Vincent Shrocheck that just went in. And then the third one was an empty net goal.

So it's really hard to even be bad at that. Yeah. And, you know, I kind of got a couple of tweets at me about, oh, there was the power play again, the hurricanes power play can't convert. And you know, yes, the Rangers scored those kind of three weird power play goals in the game, but coming into the game and the Rangers, I think are one of the better power plays in the league. Usually they only had two more goals at the, on the power play.

Right. So it, you know, all these things, I've said this to you before. I think, I think as long as you're middle of the road on your, on your power play, then you have the potential to get hot. The hurricanes have been good the last month on the power play, you know, have kind of been what people want a power play to be like a top 10 power play. And it's just a matter of getting hot at the right time. And, you know, so I don't worry about that so much, unless there's glaring problems with it.

You know, I don't think it's something to get to that out of shape about. This is why I've talked, I've talked about it. All I need in the playoffs, cause this is what it's all about. It's all about the playoffs. All I need in the playoffs is something in the, in something between 20 and 25%. If you're that in the playoffs, then you're helping yourself enough to win. You don't have to be what the, what Tampa was a few years ago against Carolina or what Boston was three or four years ago against Carolina. You don't have to be that.

You just got to be competent. They just haven't been competent in the playoffs on the power play. Yeah. And I mean, the penalty kill hasn't been as good as, as it was during the regular season. So both those things, I think, you know, will play into your success in the post season. I think we mentioned this before too, when they won the Stanley cup, they were not a great power play team. Now they got a lot of power plays, but percentage wise they were in the bottom half of the league all season, right. Got hot, got hot in the playoffs. And guess what happened? I know what happened.

I was, well, I was mostly, I wasn't there for the last one. But yeah, that, that team also had a little bit of a different offensive set of offensive personnel. This team might be more skilled than that team, but that team was a little bit more, well, certainly older offensively than this team is. If, if you were Rod, and Rod, I think is going to start the game with Pacioretti playing on a fourth line, I think is my guess. But if you were Rod would, what, what, where would you put him? And I think anything you do once he plays is you have to eat him into the lineup. You can't expect him to play 20 minutes or 17 minutes right off the hop. And then, you know, I think at the beginning of the season, the goal would have been probably to play him in Jordan Martin spot on Jordan stall line, because like I said earlier, he's a guy that creates on his own. And when you have a line that dominates possession, as much as Jordan stalls line does, if you have one guy who's roaming around the zone who can score from anywhere with a shot that adds a whole nother element.

And, you know, we saw that with Nino a bit, but that's already on a different level. So that would be the natural spot to me, but I don't see there's any way that you can take Jordan Martin across that line right now. So to me, the fourth line makes sense right now. Injuries are going to happen. So there's going to be some shuffling around. They need to figure out who the second line center is, you know, with with nature's and special office.

Those two stay together. So that's a question mark. Maybe that, you know, it could nature's move to the middle.

I don't think so. But I mean, I guess that's a possibility which would open up a spot on the wing in the top six. So I don't think Rod wants to do that. I'm fairly certain that Rod doesn't want to move nature's to the middle for me. And maybe it's out of the fear of losing what you're getting from nature's right now, because what you're getting from Marty right now is, you know, an outstanding offensive for somebody who scores tons of big goals for them. I think Rod is afraid if he moves him to the middle, he'll he may lose that because there are a whole bunch of other responsibilities that go along with playing center. Do you like the way Stasny has played in the middle? Because I thought he's I think he's been pretty good. He hasn't necessarily scored, he hasn't scored any goals there. But I think he's played pretty well. I mean, I think he's been fine. I mean, I think you know, we just talked about Jordan playing next to Jordan stall and yes, per fast and how guys can succeed in that role because of the way those two guys drive a line Jordan in particular.

I think the same is true for for nature's and session across if you get have the luxury of playing in the middle of those two, good things are going to happen. I think we've probably butted heads on this a little bit, but I wouldn't even mind seeing cocaine. Yeah, me back in that spot, especially now that he's shooting a little bit more gained a little bit of confidence. I think staff needs been fine there.

Can he keep up as things get faster in the playoffs? You know, we are talking an older guy here and you know, I like the way cocaine, yummy place though, but there's options there. So that's what's nice. And I do agree with you. I'm the nature's point in the middle, by the way.

It's just an option and things that people bring up all the time. Right? No, Mark, Marty wants to be in the middle, but I love his speed on the wings and you know, obviously he's going to handle the puck no matter where you know what, where he is as far as position. No, no question about it. And I do, I would love to see nature's if, if Marty nature's was capable of playing center and being dynamic offensively at the same time, then I think rod, Brenda Moore would absolutely do it. He also points to the fact that he's under 50% on face-offs and he's only taking face-offs on the right-handed on the right side of the, of the rink. And that is a big deal to the head coach.

I agree also about cocaine. Amy, I think he has played well enough to go back in between Svechnikov and nature's. But again, this is where, uh, as much as I talked to the head coach, he is, I think he believes that cocaine, the Emmy is playing this well because he is just comfortable where he is and he doesn't necessarily want to mess with it.

Yeah. And you know, I'll be curious to see what happens tonight. If, if Steph Mason can't go and patch already is in the lineup, because to me, the reason the fourth line has gone well is it's when Stefan Mason is there. He's really, I mean, he's really pushed a lot of lines to be better. Now, most of the scoring has been done on the power play, but his, his even strength play, it seems like he has been a catalyst for other lines. So, uh, if it's not Mason on that fourth line tonight, then I wonder, uh, is it possible that maybe that line takes a little bit of a step back, especially if there's undue guy there trying to get up to speed.

All right. Well, I can tell you this, according to my conversation with rod, it, uh, Mason will not play, uh, but we don't know what the line is going to look like. Again, I, my guess is that it'll be patchy already, um, play there with Coke and EME and, uh, and Derek Stepan and, uh, two, two quick things before we let Corey lava, let North state journal and the athletic go at Corey love on Twitter. So when they're a hundred percent healthy, nascent isn't coming out of the lineup, which means it'll most likely be Stepan who comes out patchy ready to me as a top six forward to everybody's top six forward.

So somebody's got to drop down. Could a fourth line of Coke and EME Jarvis and nascent do a lot of damage in the post-season? I think the thing that works best about this is that lines are fluid.

Now you can, you have to choose who's going to play in each game, but you can try things. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if Tara vine is not going, if Jarvis isn't going, uh, you know, those are guys that if you have to move them down, you know, Rod's proven that he doesn't care what line you're on. Right. If, if your lines going, if you're the fourth line and you're going, then you're going to play early in the year, the Jordan stall line wasn't all that good to be honest with you. Right.

And, and the cocaine Emmy line with, with nature and, and section of cough played more than them. Now Jordan stalls line is now on monster again. So they're playing more minutes now. And I think that's kind of, uh, you know, it's, it's a good problem to have.

I mean, this team is back. It's a, uh, a problem that most coaches wouldn't mind having no question. Uh, do, do you think a lot of NHL coaches would like three goaltender options? I don't think any coach wants to carry three goaltenders, um, because it's just kind of a cluster, uh, especially for practice purposes. But, um, when you have the situation you have where you've got two guys who won the Jennings trophy together, let's not forget that, you know, I know there's a fervor around the rookie right now.

Um, but these other two guys are pretty good as well. Uh, particularly Anderson last year, uh, if Anderson is healthy, if Ranta is healthy, uh, and then could check off there too. Like it's a, that makes for a tough decision also, but, uh, if they have to carry three, they've shown before they'll do that. If they have to, you know, they did it, uh, in the past when, when it was needed with, um, you know, when guys were banged up or you had a young guy like Nadal Kovich playing well. So, um, I, you know, I don't see him going anywhere.

I don't see how you can, unless, uh, he stumbles, you know, that game is what it is, you know, a little knock, knock the rust off and you go from there. Yeah. They, they're not sending their best goaltender to the minor leagues at this point. Uh, I'll see you over at a PNC arena for the return of the Nino Niederreiter.

Yes. I talked to Nino today. It's good to see him. Great guy. Um, you know, I was just writing something up, waiting to talk to you and have a little bit, but, um, obviously still a little sad.

He didn't, it didn't get done here. Um, so I'll have something on that before the game tonight. All right. You can follow Corey Lavelette on Twitter at Corey love and read his thoughts on Nino Niederreiter. Thank you, sir. I'll see you later. Yeah, I do.

You got it. Corey Lavelette. Love talking to him about the hurricane and the sport. We haven't even, we, he knows more about the inner workings of salary cap and what you're allowed to do than anybody I know. It's just, it's silly to be honest.