Canes win Game 1/Round 1!

Okie dokie. The first of four. You cannot advance until you win four times. The Carolina Hurricanes are 25% there. And this is how it's most likely going to look every game against the Islanders. 2-1 final. I keep saying it's a race to three points.

Just the first of three. We'll leave those high scores to the Western Conference. There really weren't that many high scores. It was a pretty low impact game night for the first night of the NHL playoffs. Boston only had four total goals. But I've been saying it for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Here's the formula. Especially as Carolina has become what they are. Which is going to be, for the most part, a low scoring team.

Doesn't mean they can't still win. They just have to go about it a little bit more diligently. They cannot be super fancy. They're going to be, you're going to have your share of fancy goals. You know, the high skating speed goals.

You're going to get some of those. But for the most part, what we saw yesterday really has to be the way that Carolina does it. Don't lose special teams.

Keep saying that. There's a difference between winning special teams and not losing it. The strength of Carolina's game is five on five.

As much as you can play five on five, do it. Rely on that. Of course, both of their goals last night were on the power play. So, they didn't lose special teams, obviously.

They won special teams and they won it decisively. And get good goaltending. And that's what Auntie Ronta did last night. And actually, it was well beyond that. The more I watched, went back and viewed the game, the more the Hurricanes were, I mean, kind of bailed out at times by Ronta. The other guy was playing great, too. The other guy faced more shots. But Ronta's, the quality of the Islanders chances, it's pretty doggone elite.

And Ronta was up to it. I think they credited him with 11 grade A saves. Eleven. That's a lot.

That is a lot. The Rangers, rather the Islanders expected goals was about three. They got one. And that goal was a fluke. That goal wasn't even one of the expected goals.

Not even close. It really was a fluke goal. But again, last night, they won the special teams.

Ronta was great. Here's Auntie on the win and the start. Yeah, obviously you always want to start with the win. I think we came ready to play. It's going to be like that the whole series. It's two hardworking teams.

We saw the power play game through and they won the game for us. Tomorrow is a recovery day and then we go again. I think everybody's feeling good. But everything starts with the 0-0 again on Wednesday.

Were you expecting to be named a student? I think it could go either way. That was the reason we went back and forth at the end there. You just try to make sure you're ready to go if it's your turn. Obviously it was nice to get the start and obviously get the win.

Alright, that's Auntie Ronta being very modest and humble. Because it should not have been a surprise to anyone that had watched this team over the last few weeks. That Auntie Ronta was going to be the guy to start Game 1 of the series. And Rod Brindamore was asked after the game, even after that performance, if he felt good about his choice. He played great.

So did the other guy. It's crazy. They made some saves there that could have put the game away for us. The rants held us in too at times.

Especially when there's two in the third right away. That game pretty much went how we thought it would. They made great saves. We had good saves. I think both teams were blowing pretty hard.

Get used to it, man. This is the way all the games are going to be. I don't think the Islanders are going to run away from Carolina in any game. I don't think the Canes are going to run away from the Islanders in any game. We just saw a 2-1 game two weeks ago.

April 2nd at PNC Arena. 2-1. Hurricanes gave up the first goal, got the next two.

That was that. I think if the total is five and a half, which I think it is, I like the under. Every game. Don't worry about it.

Don't try to guess. Just play the percentages, man. I think we're going to see a lot of 2-1.

We talked about it yesterday with Mike LeBoff. There might be an outlier game in this series. I actually thought if there was an outlier game it would have been yesterday. Frankly, I'm not sure it shouldn't have been. I think Carolina probably should have had more than two. I think the Islanders should have had more than one. Again, expected goals both ways. Expected goals was 4-3 Carolina. That's the way that game was supposed to look. But the goaltending was outstanding.

There was a lot of people that hit me up after the game, whether it's in the chat on the podcast or either on Twitter. That game should have been 7-1 Carolina. The Islanders should have scored goals too.

I understand it's Ronta. We can't bring our minds to say he stole a game. I'm not saying he stole it because the other goalie was also good. I'm not sure that Ronta's best saves weren't better than Sorokin's best saves. Right after giving up the bad goal. Again, not a bad goal for Ronta to allow. It's a bad goal just to have go in because it wasn't even attempted to be a shot. It was just kind of pushed forward at the net. Ronta tried to stick it out of the way and it went off his paddle and kind of fluttered up and in. It wasn't even on goal. It was wide of the goal. If Ronta just lets it go, it just slides into the corner.

It doesn't even go on net. But right after that, the best chance for the Islanders, maybe all game, wasn't maybe all game, but it was a great one at that point, was Horvat, the guy they acquired from Vancouver in the middle of the season, passing it across to Matt Barzil, their best player. And he's alone on Ronta. And Ronta made the stop right off the bat in the third period. He got Anders Lee after a Brady Shea turnover. A great opportunity for the Islanders to draw even when it was 2-1. And Ronta made a glove save on Lee to stop it. And a minute later, maybe, might have been less than a minute, Pierre Engvall, right down the slot, takes a pass.

He's alone on Ronta. Another big save. Ante was great last night. He was.

So, it's okay to give that guy, he's not just solid. That's all they wanted to be. Just get in the way.

Just get in the way of enough punks, don't allow a bad one, and we'll be okay. But, man, that was good. And then, of course, you get the two power play goals, which Carolina, I mean, that's not what they're great at.

No. I was excited for it. They won the faceoff on the first one. Sebastian Ajo had the one-timer goal. And Brent Burns had a shot through traffic that Steph Nason deflected past Sorokin for the second goal. Martin Neches had the secondary assist on both, and he talked about what went right.

Yeah. I mean, first of all, we won the faceoffs and started with the puck, which is huge. And then just, you know, the puck didn't stay on our sticks too long.

We made a good place. You know, it's all about confidence. You get a couple touches on a power play, and you're like guys that are supposed to play with the puck more, you know, get the feeling. And then, you know, you're feeling them five-five better. So, yeah, it was a good moment on the power play.

You know, obviously huge. We had two goals on the keeper today, and we just got to dial it in and keep going that way. Yeah, they scored on the first two. They got two more. They were not as good. Again, their struggles are getting the puck into the zone and setting up. I don't know how you fix that, but they're trying. But they scored two.

They did. They scored two, and the other part of special teams is the penalty kill. The Islanders' first power play, Aunty Ronta had them stop. That was, Aunty made three big saves on the Islanders' first power play. But on the other three, the penalty kill was just suffocating. The Islanders got one total shot on goal in their other three power plays. That's how good Carolina's kill was last night.

And that's really what it's been like for the most part in the calendar year. They finished strong even with that last minute, having the extra man on the ice. I mean, it was just one right after the other.

And Ronta was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. All the icings. All of the icings.

All of it. I mean, it just seemed like the last three minutes, every five seconds, there was a faceoff in front of Ronta. So Carolina survived it. He made a good save on Bo Horvat right at the end from a sharp angle.

But Aunty was great. He will start Game 2 unless Ronta comes down with some sort of an injury. And I would say he is made of paper mache. He is. So understand that it's possible. As long as Ronta is healthy, he'll start Game 2 because how do you not start the guy that just did that?

In Game 1. Alright, we'll get to more about the Hurricanes in a little bit. Jalen Hurts is now the holder of the best quarterback contract in the entire NFL non-DeSean Watson division. Yep.

That's a separate entity. And I do that on purpose because it is the outlier. Whether or not it should be the outlier or not, this is the National Football League and the power that they hold over the players is such that we're just not going to see mega year, mega million fully guaranteed contracts. Unless your franchise is so desperate to convince you to play for them that they are willing to compromise and risk being like the ogre of the league, which is what Jimmy Haslam opted to do.

Jimmy Haslam, the owner of the Browns, just said, screw it. DeSean Watson isn't going to play for us unless we give him everything. And, I mean, you can give him credit for doing that, but the rest of the league isn't on board with it. And Jalen Hurts, with his contract, five years, $255 million, $179 in change guaranteed, ESPN's Marcus Spears on the deal. One thing you know about Jalen Hurts is complacency won't set in with this new contract.

He'll still strive to be the best quarterback and adversity is something that he invites. And I believe if you have a chance to win a championship in this league, if you're going to have a guy that can continue to get better and he's going to put the right type of energy forward and continuing to be better, then this is the exact guy you pay. We've had all these conversations before about Jalen Hurts, but the contract is really how a team tells you how they feel about you. And Philly just confirmed that they feel the same way that a lot of people felt about Jalen Hurts and his ascension. Jalen Hurts had a wonderful, wonderful year. That is a massive, massive contract.

Like he balled out at the right time, right? I will tell you, give you, first of all, it's a team friendly contract. If it's possible to have $180 million guaranteed, basically, and $255 million over five years in the entire deal, and it be a team friendly deal. You know what the cap it is next year?

What's that? $4 million. Wow. Or this year, the cap hit is $4 million. The contract doesn't really kick in until the 2024 season, and it goes through the next five years after that. He'll become an unrestricted free agent in 2029.

Yeah, it's amazing. He gets a lot of, there's a citing bonus for this, but here's Kimberly Martin from ESPN on what it means for Lamar Jackson, because there's always a meaning for Lamar Jackson. Unfortunately for the Ravens, nothing has really changed. And when you think about the guys who have signed deals, there was a thought that, oh, Kyler Murray's deal happening. That would spur some movement. I don't know if Jalen Hurts in this contract is going to move the needle one way or the other for Lamar Jackson.

I don't know. I think all of us are hoping that gets resolved because we want to see him get paid. But, you know, Lamar, he's a different guy. He has said he does not care what other people are doing. I think the way he's gone about his negotiations has told us that Lamar is one of one.

Like, he's going to do things based on his timeline. So I don't know if the Jalen Hurts deal, as much as it makes logical sense that, oh, maybe this actually spurs some more dialogue. The Ravens have been in communication with Lamar this whole time, and it's now almost May, and there still hasn't been movement.

All right. So sometimes I think we fall victim to thinking about these things logically. It doesn't really matter whether or not this sways Lamar. If he's locked into his position that Deshaun Watson is the contract that he wants, and that's the only thing he's going to play on, then I'm not sure we are ever going to move off of that. But first of all, there's a big difference between Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray. I mean, no offense to Kyler Murray. He isn't even close to being the quarterback or the leader or anything that Jalen Hurts is. You could drive an aircraft carrier in between Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts. The Jalen Hurts contract is the biggest normal contract in NFL history. Deshaun Watson, again, is the outlier. I don't think you're going to see a team do that unless Baltimore decides that they want to or unless somebody else decides that. You know what? If we want Lamar Jackson, this is what it's going to cost.

And I'm not even telling you that it's a bad idea to do that. That's Lamar Jackson is worth the money. He's that good.

Yeah. But then again, Patrick Mahomes is worth that is worth that money. And Joe Burrow will be worth that money. And Josh Allen will be worth or is worth that money.

These guys are all worth it. Deshaun Watson isn't, by the way, but that's a completely different conversation. But if Lamar ain't moving off of it, it doesn't matter what Jalen Hurts gets.

It's not going to change anything. But I will say what the Jalen Hurts contract does indicate is that the Deshaun Watson contract is the outlier. Hurts is the contract. That should be the target. But until Lamar Jackson realizes that, it doesn't matter.

This is in many ways another example of why the agent, an agent, would help. I don't know if it would help Lamar. Maybe Lamar would tell the agent, I am not signing anything that isn't Deshaun Watson's contract.

I will sign nothing. I mean, like I said, we go back however many weeks we did the poll and we're going to talk to Will Brinson here in about eight or nine minutes. I said, better chance. Best chance of being true. Lamar Jackson plays for Baltimore. Lamar Jackson plays for another team. Lamar Jackson doesn't play. And I firmly believe the best chance is that Lamar Jackson does not play. I don't think he will play. He's not going to play on that franchise tag. He's not going to play on a smaller deal for less money or even if it's fully guaranteed, he's not going to play on a shorter deal.

It is a game of chicken. And the Baltimore Ravens, I don't know that you shouldn't just draft a quarterback. Yeah, they might. Just draft a quarterback, guys. The longer this goes, it might. Otherwise, like they're talking about going out and signing new copies.

All right, go get you. You could have OBJ and Nuke and nobody to throw to that isn't named Tyler Huntley. That's what we're looking at, because I just can't. I don't see Lamar Jackson playing on anything less than the contract he wants. But Jalen Hurts proves what the actual contract is for quarterbacks in the league. There's some other things about it that we'll get to in a little bit.

Real quick, day three of the NBA playoffs, and we have already reached 11. Draymond Green got ejected for stomping on DeMonte Simonis. He went full Christian Laettner to Simonis' Aminu Timberlake.

Look it up, kids, if you weren't aware. Simonis clearly grabbed his foot, but I love Draymond Green. That was just flat stupid. Do I believe that Simonis needed to go to the hospital? No. Do I believe that it was an egregious physical altercation?

No. But you don't stomp on a guy. What the hell is wrong with you, Draymond?

Here's Green on what happened. My leg got grabbed second time in two nights. Referees just watch it. I got to land my foot somewhere, and I'm not the most flexible person, so that's not stretching that far. So you didn't really see where you were stepping. I can only step so far in pulling my leg away, so it is what it is.

It is what it is, and that was just a big steaming pile of nothing. Here's Simonis on the foul. I love the competition. I love the playoffs.

The challenge I'm taking on the Warriors. I got hit earlier in the game in the draw there, so when I fell, I was kind of protecting myself. Obviously, they said it happened, and I feel like there's no room for that in our game today. You probably don't need to hold Draymond Green's leg either. Both guys were at fault here, but Simonis didn't stomp on another guy. I just don't even understand.

It's just the dumbest thing ever. Again, I don't think there was tons of contact there, but you just can't do that. Here's Steph Curry, who wasn't great last night. Steph's getting a pass here because Steph wasn't great last night, and they lost the game in part because he wasn't awesome. Here's Curry on the green foul. I didn't see it happen live. I got a rebound.

I was headed down the other way. I know he grabbed his foot, and I don't know what she's supposed to do in that situation. He obviously finished the rest of the game, so I know he's a tough guy, but I'm sure he's going to be all right, but it's just a matter of, you know. After that, we tied the game with five minutes left, four minutes left, so we still responded. You'd love to have Draymond out there, obviously, to finish the game just because of what he does for us. But I didn't think it was anything other than what they said it was and hopefully move on to game three.

Look, Green might get suspended. I mean, not only did you stomp on him, but you kind of used him as a springboard. Insult to injury.

What are you doing? Come on. This is the problem, unfortunately, with Draymond. And he justified it. And by the way, Curry was standing right next to it. Did did Curry see all of it? I think he saw enough of it. And he don't want to talk about it because if he was honest about it, he'd have to go. Yeah, Draymond lost his mind again. It's too much. And these are the kind of things that get in Draymond's way. I'm not saying that he wasn't provoked, but you can't take the bait. Not when you're already down one and you're facing going down two. You can't do that.