Former 2002 Cane reminisces on Thursday’s similar game.

Last night at PNC Arena, we had to play basically 140 minutes of hockey.

It beat the record, the previous record for that building of 115 minutes and 13 seconds. Game 3, Stanley Cup Finals, Hurricanes, and the Detroit Red Wings in 2002. This is the first time I've ever played hockey in a game like this. I know you hung in because I texted you after and said you're going to have to keep me awake today. So did it bring back memories of that game for you? Yeah, it did.

And first of all, thanks for having me on Adam. Yeah, watching that game, it did kick back those 2002 memories of Detroit. Game 3, you know, looking at the minutes played here this morning of the team and, you know, Eckblad with 52 and, you know, Montour looks like he led the way with almost 58 minutes. And then you got Burns at 54 and, uh, you know, Slavin with 51 41.

So I remember lives from that night, I think played 51 minutes in triple overtime. And then I played like 50 and then there was a pretty big drop off between everybody else. But, you know, it is, it's a taxing, you know, you've got to really manage, um, your game. You've got to manage your nutrition in between periods.

So you've got to make sure you're getting plenty of, uh, you know, water back in your body or electrolytes that you've been sweating out. You know, what a hockey game was tough one to lose for Carolina. And, uh, but, uh, overall, this is what the playoff hockey is all about. And you just gotta, sometimes you gotta bite that mouth guard a little bit harder and find a way to rebound after tough losses. And this is one that somehow Carolina is going to have to rebound.

Brett Heddigan is joining us here on the Adam Gold show. Let me ask you about the, just the physical, the physical part of this before we get to the hockey. Uh, first of all, in between the second and third overtime, what, what did you guys eat in the locker room? You know, it just depends like every guy's different. You know, some, some guys might want an IV bag. Like I think I probably did in that game. I would imagine I probably went into that, the doctor's office essentially. And they put an IV bag in your arm and, and they squeeze basically that fluid back in your body. And, uh, that for me almost like sometimes turns the lights back on. It's like the lights are on a dimmer switch and then all of a sudden the, the IV bag goes in and all of a sudden somebody just goes over and puts the light switch and flips it back on for you and takes it off the dimmer. Um, but sometimes it's a banana. Sometimes it's, you know, a piece of toast with peanut butter on it, you know, and there's just so many different options that guys do and there's power bars and things like that.

You know, I couldn't remember exactly what I had, but I know I had IV bags for sure. And for me, that was what worked the best. It's like changing the light bulb. Here's the new, Hey, look, the lights are back on. Brett Hennigan is with us.

What did you feel like the next day? Well, I thought Keith Jones did, uh, I think it was before triple overtime on, uh, the broadcast for, for TNT. I think he mentioned that before the game had ended and this was, you know, again, before that fourth overtime where it did actually end. But he said, you know, the team that wins this game, you're going to sleep really well.

You're going to get home and you're going to fall asleep and the team that loses is going to have a, you know, a tough time falling asleep and they're going to, it's going to affect them a lot worse. And while, I mean, you saw what happened to us when we were leading that game three, and first of all, nobody picked us to win that series, right? I mean, they got what, 130 million or whatever their payroll was. We were a bunch of junkyard dogs at a hundred or at 20, between 20 and 30 million for our whole team.

And they were at 120 some million. My point is, uh, is they were picked to win it. We go in there in Detroit, win game one, they win game two and we're up what two or two to one with a minute to go in the game and Lidstrom rips it five feet wide, left of the net and hits Brett whole shaft of the stick and goes dead. Right. And goes in the back of the net to tie it. I mean, if we win that game, if we close that last minute of hockey, we're up two to one coming back for game four in our building.

All of a sudden he ties it triple over time. And here we are, you know, on the losing end of it. And I remember us just being like somebody punched us in the nose and, uh, we just didn't recover. You know, they had a little more depth. Clearly they had more depth. They had more talent than we did, but we, we had guts and I think we win that game, man. It's coming back for game four in that barn in Carolina.

I'm telling you what I like our chances to go up three to one in that series. So, and I, you know what I really remember about that too, Adam is I remember looking at Detroit, the players on that team. And you could Lidstrom, Iserman, uh, Shanahan.

I mean, you can go right down that suit that are purge. I mean, it's an incredible list, but that game was the first time I saw a bunch of really great hockey players in Detroit, scared to death that they were going to lose to the Carolina hurricanes and the Stanley cup finals. I really, I'll never forget a lot of their faces in that game, particularly in game three. Uh, but after, you know, they win that game and triple overtime, it seemed like that gave them life. And now they knew that they, you know, they could taste it almost. And we kind of felt a little bit punched in the nose.

So, um, it is, it's a tough thing that the, the, the canes are going to have to really dig deep here to find a way to, to rebound for game two. You mentioned the payrolls. I mean, the names you mentioned, Lidstrom, Hall, Lirianov, who scores the overtime winner in the third overtime. Um, yeah. Dominic. Yeah.

Dominic. Chaleos, Shanahan, Iserman. I mean, there's so many hall of favors in Scotty Bowman behind the bench.

No big deal. Uh, although your coach at that time, Paul Maurice is an outstanding coach. We have two great coaches. Uh, in this, uh, in this playoff series.

All right. Let me, uh, let me ask you, this is the way I frame it because I never thought, except for the third period, I didn't think Carolina played the way they wanted to play. Even, even when they were playing pretty well, it was not a game where they dictated the style. There was only the third period. Did they get behind Florida's defense and make them play, turn their backs to the ice and play out that way. And you saw what happened in the third period, which was basically 20 minutes of it. Other than that, it was really Florida's game that Carolina simply played pretty well. I don't think Carolina was bad in the game.

It just wasn't their style and they made Florida play seven periods of hockey to win it. Can I look at it that way and be optimistic? Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can, you can spin this any way you want. I think, uh, you know, watching that game, I agree with you. I don't think Carolina played their best game.

Um, I think even Roddy Brenda Moore, when he was interviewed during the course of the game had, you know, didn't like, um, you know, his game, his team's game overall at the point. But I think at times you saw that, that Carolina could dominate when they do do the little things of getting the puck deep, getting in behind their defense, as you mentioned, um, and, and getting to a little bit more to their grind game. So, but give, give Florida credit. They came in and they have, you know, they beat Boston, they beat the one last round and did all the things that I think made them successful two years ago. If I think back of what Florida did, when I watched Florida play two years ago in the regular season, they were the best team in the league for me. And then this year they just, you know, with the new Kachuk and some new bodies in there, I think they're still trying to find their balance, even though Kachuk had an incredible season. Um, but I think we're seeing the team that I saw two years ago now with their defense being active, they've got a balance of grit, um, and determination and they're playing with a lot of competence coming off of both rounds. So they kind of remind me of an old Carolina hurricane team. I'll be honest with you. They really do.

They remind me of a little bit of the old 16. Um, and I think one of the things that I see from Carolina that is going to have to improve to win this series is what we had in oh six. And that is a hit for hit mentality. And right now watching that game one, they were doing more of the punishing. They were doing more of the finishing checks.

They didn't take a shift off. You know, even if, you know, you're in on the four check and the guy, defenseman moves the puck, they were running into that D man. And it's, this is what it's all about to win hockey games at this level at this time in the conference final, you cannot turn away from a player.

You go all the way into it to four check. You have to finish that body check and you've got to get a piece. You've got to get skin and you've got to continue to chip bodies throughout this series because last night, I saw Florida do a lot more that of that consistently throughout the course of those, you know, seven periods.

Brett Heddigan is joining us here on the Adam Gold show. I went back thinking about the Islander series and the Islanders knew that they had to punish Carolina physically to have a chance in that series. Florida can actually play it both ways, but physicality is part of their game and it's more part of their game than it is for Carolina. But in that Islander series, Carolina did meet physicality with physicality. They did. They did try to take the body. They didn't do it as much as the Islanders did, but they did it enough.

And I agree. They have to get back. They have to get to that. I think great case in point, Alexander Barkoff, checking Brett Pesci into the boards behind the net.

Pesci took a little cut on his nose, clean hit. And that's what Carolina needs to do more of. I agree.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. Can Carolina take advantage of Florida's defense at the top of their lineup chart is excellent with Montours had a monster year and Ekblad and Forsling who actually Carolina had in their system until losing him because they just didn't need him. They didn't have a spot for him.

He ends up going to Florida. But after that, if I mean, I'll bless Mark Stahl, but if Mark has to play, you know, top four minutes, shouldn't Carolina be able to take advantage of that? Absolutely. And absolutely.

And let me preface a little bit too about taking the body. And I'm not saying all of a sudden Carolina has to change their game and all of a sudden start running over players. No, no, that's, that's the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying there's, there's a, if somebody runs a guy like Pesci, like their top player, as you just talked about when Alexander Barkoff, you know, hits Pesci like that. There has to be somebody on that bench that's watching and saying, okay, I'm the next guy up. I'm, I'm the next man that when I have that opportunity to run over one of their players clean without a take going to the box, you've got to take it. And that's the hit for hit mentality that you have to have to win a Stanley cup. And so every player has to take that responsibility within that room to be able to do that. Again, I'm not saying run over people.

I'm saying chip bodies, get skin, wear people down. And then, you know, addressing the, the, the Mark stall thing is a hundred percent chip pucks in his corner. Make him make plays under pressure, you know, uh, put it into radco do this corner, let him go back and run him through the boards.

You know, Josh Muhura, same thing there. Aaron Eckblad, he'll take some bad penalties. I think, I think the canes can do a much better job of getting under the skin of the six defenseman out there for Florida. I don't, I think they let them off the hook a little bit last night. And, um, I think if they want to win the series, that's where they've got to attack. That's I mean, again, that's, that's their game. That's where they are at their best when they get the pucks and make the defense, turn their backs to the ice.

That is the way they do it. And in the third period, they did that very well. Uh, they just didn't get, actually, they didn't score five on five goal last night. So they didn't get anything out of it at five on five, but at least they scored two power play goals.

We don't have to worry if the power plays any good. Uh, before I let Brett Heddigan go, uh, not that you were one of these forwards who had tons of amazing scoring chances, but you were when you are a Seth Jarvis and you had two great opportunities. One of them, you should have scored the overtime goal, uh, on the power play right in front. You hit the crossbar, uh, Marty nature set a breakaway. Jordan stall had two great chances.

There were opportunities to score. Uh, does it make going to bed that much more difficult? I have to imagine it would. Yeah. I mean, those are the ones that make us stare at the ceiling late into the night. And yeah, I mean, for the people that think that we just go home and fall asleep. I mean, in a night like four, you know, quadruple overtime.

Yeah, I'm sure they're dead tired. And, and, but sometimes you get over tired. And then if you're in the losing team, boy, yeah, you're, you're running through those shots in your mind that you could have ended the game. But, um, you know, this is what makes family cup playoffs.

So Hawk is so great. Uh, it's, it's so fun that, you know, you, you have to go to places that you don't ever think you'll have. You'll have to take your body and your mind and the physicality and the grind. I think that's what makes raising the cup so special. So, you know, look, this is some adversity, right?

And I don't care. You look back at our team in oh six down, you know, three to one in the series against, you know, Montreal. I mean, I I'll never forget that conversation we had in our locker room before we got on the plane to go to Montreal. You know, who's got some stories and we all told a few stories, the teams that we were down and we came back to win a series. So, you know, we got on that bus, got on the plane and off, we went to Montreal and we win the next three games and win the series. Right? So you have to find ways of, you know, pulling up your socks and going where you never thought you'd have to go nature is going to have to go there. I thought Tara Biden played pretty good for missing a lot of it.

A lot of time. I think Stasny and Stepan and Drury, all three, all three of those guys are going to have to bring a little bit more particularly Stasny for me. He's got to find a way to pull up his socks and know that this is an opportunity that he may never get again. This is yeah, this is it for him. I mean, he has to find his game and has to really be an impactful player. And if you can't do it offensively, he's going to have to do what I said earlier.

Be it should be a physical presence. Yeah, when I and when a big face off and you and it will next time we talk, we'll have another conversation about Brent Burns, who I don't think last night was necessarily his best. He wasn't bad last night, but you can probably point to a couple of things on the, I guess, the first goal for Florida and saying maybe you should have been here and not there.

But he has been tremendous. I appreciate your time. Brett Heddick and you were gentlemen and we'll talk again. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me on. Good luck, James. Let's go.

You got it. Thanks, Brett. Brett Heddick and here on the Adam Gold show like no joke. What a stroke of luck. Not that it's a stroke of luck to play for overtimes, but to be able to speak with somebody who was in the three overtime. That's awesome. That. Yeah. The hurricanes were never supposed to touch the Detroit Red Wings. Never supposed to touch them. It was. I mean, tough night last night.