How vital is it for the Carolina Hurricanes to win the Metro Division?

We've already termed Martine Madness as Martine Natures for the Carolina Hurricanes scored with 0.2 or 0.3 seconds, it's been listed as both, to force their game Saturday into overtime in Philadelphia and then Sebastian Aho's third goal of the game won it as he completely undressed Tony DeAngelo for the second time in his career.

Former teammate, how do you do a former teammate like that Sebastian? But the Hurricanes rescued two points from where there was none and at the same time, I mean at the same exact time Florida was rallying from a 2-0 deficit at home to beat the New Jersey Devils and what should have been Carolina behind New Jersey by one, which would have been three based on the Devils result yesterday in Tampa, is actually Carolina now up by one with two games in hand and we are down to the short straws, basically three and a half weeks of the season left. Pete Blackburn from Bally Sports covers the sport of hockey and he was with us right after the stadium game a few weeks ago, actually a few weeks to a month ago now, and he joins us on the Adam Gold Show.

Sir, thank you for your time. Let's get into the, we'll start with the Metro and then we'll fan out to the east. Right now it's obvious, Hurricanes are going to make it, the Devils and the Rangers are going to be, those two teams will be one, two and three in some order. Right now it's Carolina, New Jersey, the Rangers. New Jersey and Carolina could jockey back and forth. The Rangers are not out of it and with two games against the Hurricanes this week, the Rangers could get within two of Carolina. So how do you see those three teams stacking up against each other and then we'll worry about who's fourth? Are you talking about Carolina, New Jersey and the Rangers?

Yes. I mean, I think there's a 1A and 1B there, right? And it's Carolina and New Jersey. I think that those two teams are the class of that division. And then you talk about the Rangers.

Yeah, they're sexy. They obviously had a bunch of big ads at the deadline. They got some big names. I just, I don't trust their defense. I don't trust their defense to carry them on a deep playoff run.

I just, I don't like what they have on the back end. We saw with the Florida Panthers last year, they had like a historically good offense during the regular season. You can't outscore your problems in the playoffs.

It just isn't how it works. So I don't, I'm not looking at the Rangers in the same echelon as the other two teams there now. And they, I think the other issue for the Rangers is that Igor Shostyrkin is not the Igor Shostyrkin of a year ago.

Is that fair? I don't know because he can be when it comes to playoffs. Like it's a fresh slate in the playoffs. And I think that he's an all-world goaltender. And sometimes there is a switch with guys like that. And if the games matter, matter the most, you could see the same Igor Shostyrkin. So I'm certainly not willing to write him off. Are the Devils as good defense defensively as they need to be?

I think so. Yeah, I think the Devils are a very, very good defensive team. They're very good with getting the puck out of the zone quickly. I think they're really, really structured. I love what they have. The only area of concern for me is what they have in net and whether that's going to hold up and be sustainable over the course of a long playoff run. Well, isn't that, I mean, I covered the Hurricanes on a day-in, day-out basis.

With the fourth period on Sirius XM over the weekend. And that's my number one fear right now. I mean, right? They don't have a goaltender that I would trust going into the postseason.

Yeah, so I have a few areas. I think the Carolina is a great team. I wanted to see them add a bit more at the deadline.

And I believe that we talked about that about a month ago. You know, I wanted to see them solidify the center position. I wanted to see them add a little bit of a scoring touch on the wing.

And, you know, they made some smaller deals, obviously, that I liked in terms of value, but nothing that moved the needle too significantly. And now with the injury to Sveshnikov, I think you're really missing what you didn't do at the deadline. And so that's going to concern me. But when we talk about the playoffs and going on a deep run, arguably the most important thing to have is goaltending. And I'm not fully secure in what the Hurricanes have in net. So, I'll be honest here on the Adam Gold show. Part of me thinks that Rod is really trying to get Piotr Kaczetkov back to the Kaczetkov that we saw for basically the entirety of November into December. There was about six weeks where he was- It Lena's o mark. Piotr could shed like the two best goalies in the sport for almost all of that six-week period from November into just just before the holidays hit, but he hasn't been that guy since and right now Carolina's rotating their goalies back and forth back and forth and piotr's gotten the tougher assignments than Freddie Anderson has I just think that Rod's trying to maybe not force it, but he's trying to he's giving kachek off the chance to win that gig right like the door is open if if there's a if there's an opening to be had he's giving as much as he can for it to stay open and uh it's funny because i just i just did a hit uh for for valley sports and um we're talking about the calder race and i think that maddie beneers is going to win the calder but i feel like that race died when kachek off fell off and was sent down yeah like he was a guy that i was looking at okay he can really uh contest maddie beneers here in what seems like it might be a one-horse race because of the impact that he's having in net for that team and obviously it didn't it hasn't worked out and i think veneer is going to win but like kachek still could be that guy and be a difference maker for this team in the playoffs i think his his best is better than the other two options at their best that's right that's how good i think kachek off has been at his best but his baseline is lower than freddy's and they might just be like well freddy freddy gives us a you know a steadier a steadier goaltender even though he's not really great right now either canes will take on the rangers the next two nights uh all right so i can't i haven't had the time to do this research and i'm not thinking that you did either but have you ever you can you recall a player with four late third period game tying goals in a season forget about the three overtime winners that martin natures had but point two or point three seconds left in philly he ties it 12 seconds left against san jose at home last month he ties it uh then at winnipeg 39 seconds left he ties again they have no business uh getting into overtime and he did it in philadelphia earlier this season with 205 left that's just freakish no it is and you know i'm a i'm an analytics guy right like i look at all the numbers i i you know i like to have as much information as possible but sometimes it's undeniable that there is an element to some guy has it and some guy doesn't when it comes to the clutch gene like i i think that there is a like a non-tangible element to sports and when a guy comes up in the final minute that many times you kind of have to resign yourself to there's something we can't identify but it exists yes uh look he's he's an incredible skater i'll go back to the tournament the uh the playoffs where you were just playing in your division and carolina had to play nashville and as a team carolina wasn't playing very well they were ahead in the series but they weren't playing very well and natures down a goal middle of the third period had this ridiculous wrap around you know a hundred mile an hour goal that got them even and they ultimately won it in overtime uh he has a knack for scoring big goals and uh he's an electric player i think he's one of the most underrated players in the league yeah and uh you know the weird thing is that his overall game the last month hasn't been as good but the scoring has not gone away and a lot of players that it'll all go at the same time natures has had some puck management issues but he scored a bunch of really big goals which makes you forget that well why did he make that pass he was responsible for two goals against who they uh they just lose to the other day i'm just completely in toronto he he was responsible for two of their three goals in uh against the leafs but he comes back and he has a big game all right of the uh panthers penguins and islanders who's winning that battle or which two teams are winning those battles for the wildcard spot so i think that the penguins are going to end up in there just because they they've got talent they've got good coaching like i would i would take their their coaching advantage over the other two uh and i i think that the panthers are better than the islanders but the islanders have better goaltending and goaltending could end up being that be the difference there like ilius arrokin has been awesome all year long with a team that has not done him many favors in front of him so uh if that holds the islanders will probably get in when they don't really deserve to be there uh i would rather see the panthers yeah they're they're a fun team no no question they look to be figuring it out as well and final thing pete blackburn i appreciate your time the boston bruins are five points away from clinching the division and as i look they've got 13 games left and we're five points from clinching the division it is incredible toronto's got 93 points and they can't even see the bruins from where they are in the standings how do you sum up what they are and also understanding that that doesn't matter when the bright start so like it's been a real internal chaotic experience for me as a bruins fan this season where i'm trying my best to uh enjoy it in the moment and not look too far ahead and because like the expectations of shift now now it's if they don't win the san lee cup it's gonna feel like a disappointment but you also kind of have to live in the moment and be like we're watching one of the best teams in the history of the nhl's regular season and if you can't appreciate that then why are you even watching games one through 82 just start watching this team during the playoffs and so uh i'm wrestling with it right and um you know you talk about like president's trophy winners and never win the san lee cup anymore and it seems to be a curse more than it is a blessing so it is a hard reset once game one of the playoffs starts so all of your laurels you can't rest on them uh starting game one of the playoffs that being said there is really not too much of an identifiable weakness with this team and that makes me feel really good heading into the playoffs and especially given the sustainability of it there was a stretch where the bruins lost i want to say uh four games in a row um a couple months ago and like everybody was slamming the panic button and if that's the worst stretch that you have during an 82 game season you're doing pretty good they are 3-0 against the islanders just in case you were wondering if the islanders get into wild card too uh so boston hasn't even had any trouble with them pete blackburn valley sports covers the uh sport of hockey i appreciate your time man we'll talk again soon yeah of course thanks for having me you got it mike corsey of the sporty news hall of fame college basketball writer joins us on the adam gold show so we lose purdue in round one we lose kansas in round two more understandable and actually i want to talk about that because i think it goes back to a theory uh that you have had before about uh the type of talent that you don't want to see if you are a number one seed in in a one eight match up or one nine match up uh but what has jumped out to you about this tournament so far honestly i know this is not something that people love to talk about but what's jumped out at me is that the games have been far too physical and that and i suppose that that's kind of playing to your audience to to an extent but the games have been far too physical and unevenly officiated and it's been a colossal disappointment from that respect right this is the first this is the first year for a new coordinator of officials and i don't think the officials have done uh done well in this and i don't know what the what they're i always expect the first round to be fairly physical because you've got four games in one day in one building and you have to get through them all and you don't want everybody to be there until two o'clock in the morning so i i get that uh you expect that and traditionally it has changed back to basketball so to speak when you get to the second round because you only have to get two games in one day right in the building so that's not so hard but the first what that was the first or second game we saw on saturday when duke played tennessee game second game on saturday and we were when we were doing it again and what's interesting about that the fact that it came up in that game is and i and i i i pointed out that tennessee was called for i believe 11 fouls in the entire game um you know that's just not realistic i mean that's not realistic for most teams right but it's certainly not realistic for them that's not how they play i mean they're they're their opponents shot more free throws than than the vast majority of teams that played in college basketball this year and when i was accused of hating on the sec by people who when i just all i did was point out the numbers there and i did sort of add snarky little uh comment that's a take you know um but one i was accused of hating on the sec and i'm like who do you think calling all the files in the regular season do they hate the sec too the sec reps who are taking the big checks from the sec hate the sec no they're seeing how tennessee plays and they're calling the files and tennessee has for the most part persevered through that and won a lot of games right because because it still works for them to make it uncomfortable for you to play against them and it may have worked just as well on saturday if the game had been called like a basketball game and so when i when i tweeted that i subsequently saw terence oglesby talked about it doug gotley talked about it and even the coach from florida atlantic made a comment that they're going to go he did say this too after last night's game he said they're going to go learn the rules of australian rugby so they'll be ready for their sweet 16 game yeah it was it was a it was a like i termed it a fist fight it just seemed like it was overly physical did it give tennessee i think it gives older players an edge and tennessee were grown-ups and duke was playing look kyle philipowski is a great player and uh he plays a physical style too and i'm not saying even the kyle was at necessarily a disadvantage but across the board duke doesn't have that kind of girth well you know honestly those guys could all been seniors and it still would have been advantage for tennessee because that's how tennessee plays they're the number one defense in the country even giving up the free throws that i talked about before that that their their opposition in terms of their percentage of points is 35th in the country in they get they get 22 free throw points a game that's the 35th of the the 35th um i'm sorry not 22 22 22 percent of their points come from free throws that's the 35th highest total in the country and so they're used to it they they are accustomed to teams going to the line against them but it's how it works for them and the the only problem that they have recently is that they lost games because after zakai ziegler went down they it became even more problematic for a team for a team that has problems scoring to score enough points but if they can hold you to 40 something they can win 55 to 48 or whatever that's that they're perfectly comfortable doing that mike decorsy of the sporty news is joining us here on the adam gold show so here and nationally with some columnists not named mike decorsy uh there was a narrative that uh tony bennett is not built for march so uh do you want to take a swing at that there's one thing i will say is that i think that there are there is room for flexibility in the way tony coaches in march i i i thought and and i'll give you an example when i watched the unbc game live i wasn't in person but when i was watching it live in a sports bar in pittsburgh i'm like you gotta press these guys they're they are willing to turn it over to you they if you if you press them they will hand you the ball and say do whatever with it that's how that's how un that's how that's how grand the difference was physically between unbc and and and virginia even without the andre hunter they when when they when they were bringing up the ball against uh any pressure they struggle and at a certain point in that game you have to say this is not working we are not working we are we are this we are good but we are not working today and it's the same thing that i saw on uh in the in the purdue game that uh i was watching uh braeden smith who had a phenomenal freshman year guy was 198th in his class last year right and the like the 36 point guard or something and he's borderline all big 10 as a freshman but he was just not he was not able to help on friday night and and coaches get caught up in this they get caught up in the loyalty to what's worked and they and they always and they get to the point where they think it's going to work eventually because it always works and i get that because their coaches and it's their job that's on the line or their performance or whatever you want to call it it's their you know it's not me sitting on press row or you sitting in not you personally but the fans sitting in row 25 who who has as much at stake as the coach and the coach believes that eventually it'll work and i will give you an example of where it can i mean i was watching the i was watching the northwestern purdue game with my partner ray fell davis on on big 10 and beyond and we're both like chase adhesives god he can't play in this game i mean he was he was he wasn't making a shot like he kept taking shots wasn't making anything and then he made like the three biggest plays of the game down the stretch and so sometimes it works to stick with that yeah but a lot of times it doesn't and so and right now with the with the roles that those two coaches are are not on i guess you'd say they need to be more flexibility great braden smith needed to not play down the stretch on friday night uh it they needed to play faster from the from the word go in in the game on on thursday virginia did yeah they needed to play you know not not pressing and running but just use your physical advantages you've got guys they can't get and so yeah you play this way and keep you know if you can grind them for 30 seconds on their possessions fine but then when you get the inevitable stop get it out and go and and and try to show them that you're physically superior and then when you go back to play in another high major team that can't play the way you play then go back to that but they can't play at your level because they're not as talented as you if you play a faster game that with more possessions that that allows you to have the advantage mike coursey of the sporting news is joining us here on the adam gold show how much of your final four is still intact i'm down to miami wow yeah no i still have i still have three or four the only ones i love i i lost cover years blue devils uh was duke the only team that i lost i i had texas i i have less faith in texas now than i did when i made the pick not because they played poorly but because houston played so well on saturday night i i part of the reason i picked texas was that that i was worried about marcus sasser and i and it looked like i was right to be worried when they played the nku game but uh then he was fabulous in the auburn game and so they look really dangerous right now it'll be interesting if you see if they do play i think it'll be an interesting game alabama certainly is still alive i i'm puzzled as to how you passed over picking the the team that was given a layup line uh to make the final four how did you pass on them um i don't know because i because i what do i know actually because the last thing i saw was arizona beat ucla in the pac-12 championship championship game and i really liked arizona even though that game because i think ucla is a dynamite defensive team and i thought arizona kind of overcame that without playing great um but i mean i don't know how i didn't i don't know how i didn't pick alabama alabama's great alabama's great i did i had i had him losing to uh uh who do i have losing to in the elite eight i had him losing to arizona in the elite eight so right what do i know no i just was curious what led you to that uh because you know because eric because ucla played my my philosophy on that was ucla played without two starters and both their big guys fouled out and it still took a but like a late shot for them to to prevail and i thought well that team's not going anywhere that was my so it's look we both looked at the same data and came up with different response i should have called you first i was my biggest mistake was not just saying what are you just saying what do you have in the final four and i actually also picked against houston because i wasn't sure that sasser would come back and i felt really good about my pick not about that because sass was a fabulous player and houston is you know likely going to be in the final four as long as he stays healthy i don't know how you could leave the game injured two days before and then come back and look like you're a hundred percent i don't know how that happens especially with that injury a groin injury yeah i i'm it was a mystery to me i would never have expected and he played 31 minutes he didn't just come in bomb five threes in 16 minutes and and put up a great number he played 31 minutes yeah uh so it was an it was a amazing recovery no doubt all right so you're staying well you don't have duke so who's there who's now coming out of the east well gosh i mean i have no idea that's the that is the most wide open region now that we have and so many people are home kicking themselves looking at that thinking that could have been us memphis sitting there thinking we could have been there uh i i i don't know who who it is i think it'll it it'll be interesting to see how tennessee is officiated uh on you know on on thursday i guess i can't remember right in there i don't know um and i i think it'll be interesting to see how they're officiated it if if they play if they if it becomes you know um if it becomes that kind of game then certainly they they are at an advantage against anybody in the country because they've got multiple big guys uh who can they can lay 15 fouls on you and everyone counts i mean they make everyone count their files are not like oh i brushed by you uh you know last night i watched i watched um i watched drew timmy score a basket in which somehow his defender wound up completely out of the play as drew timmy laid the ball in and yet fouled him i'd never seen that before he was three feet away by the time the ball and like it seemed like he had no impact on timmy at all and yet it was called for five and i'm not saying there wasn't a foul i'm just saying how do you foul that badly that the guy doesn't even like make a move i mean it was like it was like me alone in a layup line and and all of a sudden he's laying the ball in the basket it's just i i'd never seen that before uh that doesn't happen with tennessee if you're fouled you're fouled yeah everybody knows it all right real quick uh arkansas who's got i don't know how many future nba players as an what eight seed right they were an eight i mean they got kansas because i think arkansas has just got a bunch of really good players they're very well coached obviously and eric musselman is that a seeding mistake or how do you look at that you know i i i look at that as arkansas like did everything they could to be a nine seed or an eight seed or whatever i mean they they worked their tails off to be an eight seed they part of it was nick smith being injured that part was was up and they but they just couldn't get it together in the final weeks and even as nick started to play more comfortably himself individually he never really quite got it with the guys and and so they were not good enough to be out of that game they certainly couldn't have put him on a seven line i you could have put him on a 10 but it would have been like hey they weren't that bad you know so i i just that's where they had to be and it was a rough draw for kansas no doubt because they like you said i mean there are there are at least four guys on that team that are going to play in the nba at least and probably at least three that are going to be first round picks and maybe two that are going to be lottery picks and look they lost the lottery pick the injury back in november or december and they still are are what they are there's that much talent there and musselman is great i really think he's a great coach uh mike decorci of the sporting news at tsn mike on twitter thanks man i appreciate it i'll see you soon thanks adam