It’s a totally different atmosphere at this time of day…

Canes play the Flyers tonight.

We'll keep you up to date on what's going on at the Greensboro Coliseum as March will be mad, but we're going to have March Madness here too at PNC Arena, and Don Waddell, President and General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, has been kind enough to come up here on the fifth floor. I like being here when there's nobody here. It's so quiet and peaceful. It's very interesting to be in the building when it's completely empty. It's still cold, by the way. It's freezing.

So you've got to still dress for it, but yeah, it's a different environment, that's for sure. I watched the Flyers go through a legit practice today. Yeah, I think Torrance hasn't been happy lately with their team, so I'm sure they're going to come out flying tonight. Yeah, we thought Tampa was going to do that. Tampa was angry. The performance of the Hurricanes Sunday was as good as I have seen. I know, I'm sure you guys watched it and went, what are we seeing here? Because you guys allowed nothing. Tampa, there was no life.

Yeah, no, they came out. I thought their first couple shifts, I said, okay, they've woken up, and then we just took it over. To play that type of game against that good of a team was very encouraging. We gave them, I think, four shots in the first, and I'm not sure they got any in the second. Zero. And they're a pretty offensive ability team, but give our guys credit because we played from start to finish and did a good job in front of Ranto.

Don Waddell is here with us, president. I don't remember who played, honestly. I think it was Freddie, but it didn't matter.

It was easy to forget who played because the goaltender was not necessary in the first two periods. I spoke to you, I don't think it was that, it might've been that game, just in the hallway, and you had a nice smile on your face. It was post-trade deadline.

And my read on that was, you just like the makeup of this team. So how much, even if it was, and I know it's public knowledge that you guys were in on Timo Meyer, but how much did you guys even consider, man, do we want to mess with anything that we have going on down there? We talked about it a lot leading up to the deadline. And obviously, you acquire players like you mentioned, I won't mention his name.

Right, yeah, it would be a violation. You can find a spot for them. But we also knew, going into the deadline, that we wanted to upgrade our power play. I think at the time we were 23rd in the league and 16th of the 16 teams in the playoffs.

And so we had certain missions that we were looking at once we were out of the big fish. We certainly were focused on the needs of our hockey club, which I think we filled. We weren't going to give up any young players off our roster. I always say that you go into it with a plan and don't jeopardize, don't get caught up in the emotion of what's happening with the trade or what's happening around you. You got to stick to your plan, which I feel good that we were organized, prepared for it, and we stayed on course. I want to ask you about two players that might have, maybe three players, that the way they have played this year probably changed the thinking about what you needed. It became a difference of what you need and what you may want.

And I want to start with you, Asperi Kotkaniemi at center. Maybe the first month and a half, two months, the thought was, all right, we need to upgrade. But the last two months, I'm sure he's changed that.

100%. I think beginning of the year, you know, he was playing up and things weren't going his way, particularly on the scoreboard. So, you know, Roddy moved him back to the fourth line. I think he really got a lot of confidence playing on that line and started to pick up even some points there.

So when we moved him back up to the line that he's on now, he never missed a beat. And, you know, again, we got to remember how young these players are. He's only 22.

Yeah, how young they are. And, you know, maybe he was in the league too early. You know, all those things come into the fact, you know, he was the number three overall pick.

They get judged by where they were picked. You know, the expectations always carry forward with that. So I think us being patient with them this year and providing the opportunity for him now, he's fully taken advantage of it. Don Waddell, president general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes is here with us.

Jalen Chatfield, who obviously has an injury and hopefully that's not going to keep him out of the lineup too long. But I can't believe that anybody anticipated what we have seen this year from Jalen, but he also has to have changed the idea of what we need because he can, he's like a baby slaven. He just covers for so many mistakes that are made. Yeah, I don't think anybody would expect him to be at the point he is, but I can also say I was in the playoffs last year down in Chicago. I was there advancing to win the Calder Cup and watching him play game in and game out, you know, he skates so well that he can play our system that way. He was very impressive down there. Like I had no doubt that he wouldn't make our hockey team this year, no doubt at all. But to say he'd be at this point of how far he's advanced from even a year ago, he's done a tremendous job and he deserves the credit.

He came to camp in great shape, fighting for a position that he easily won. And now we will miss him, but I was downstairs earlier and I think it's just going to be a short term and he'll be back. When Jacob Slavin missed those six games and Chatfield played that spot and it looked almost the same, I think a lot of people went, okay, this is different. And the goaltender who's going to play tonight, Pyotr Kuchetkov, do you have the confidence that if needed, he could be your playoff goalie?

Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I mean, he got some action with it last year, played some games this year. I think, unfortunately, Ranta's out for a short time, but we always had a plan of getting Peter some more starts here this year because he just don't know what's going to happen come playoff time. So given this opportunity tonight and probably get another one on the weekend, I think it's great for him, but it's also good for us to see where he's at. We've watched him this year in the American League play games, score goals, fight, do all those things, but most importantly, stop the puck. So that's what we really need to focus on.

That's what we need to worry about. He almost had a Gordy, wait, did he have a Gordy Howe hat trick? No, he didn't have an assist. He tried, but has a goalie ever had a Gordy Howe hat trick before? Not to my knowledge.

I don't think so. He might be the first one ever. I actually talked to Rod about this. He said, yeah, we said you don't want to be a sideshow, but for the run he was here earlier, he was a calm Piotr Kachetkov. I mean, it was exciting after games and the interview he did with Hannah when Jacob Slavin was sitting there was just awesome. But in terms of being, during the games, he looked a little bit different than he did a year ago. Yeah, I think that's maturity and confidence that he's playing with right now.

We actually had a little chat with him after his little episode down there the other night. He got a little excited and he admits it, but the passion he shows, it's hard to take that away from somebody when they care as much about playing, but I've seen him grow up even in the last year. He's speaking better English, which is a big part of the learning curve coming to North America, but it's all confidence.

He's proven that he can play against some of the best players and have success with it. I think that for a goaltender is vitally important. Final thing for Don Waddell, are you a scoreboard watcher? I'm a scoreboard watcher because I love hockey. I watch every game every night that I possibly can. Yes, I watch scoreboards. I like looking at the box scores more than probably just the scores. I like to see who's doing what, who's on the ice for goals and that. The next morning, games you don't see, I like to watch all the highlights, of course. This has been my life for a lot of years. I'm getting up there in age, so I enjoy watching every game.

Apparently, you can still play. I got a scouting report from Rod Brindamore that you broke up a two-on-one going to the ice. That was my famous move as a player, as a defenseman. Just the right timing, sliding on the ice and breaking it up. The skating is still there, Adam. The mind doesn't keep up with the hands as far as the skating.

You've got to be careful. We had a lot of fun at the alumni game and I think everybody enjoyed it. It was the first time I had the equipment on since the last alumni game I played some 20 years ago. It was a lot of fun. Well, good for you. Thank you very much for coming up. Always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you. Don Waddell, president and general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes. Flyers in town tonight.