Battler on, and off, of the ice!

Last night in Florida, the Panthers beat the Hurricanes 1-0. The Hurricanes had, oh I don't know, 26,000 scoring opportunities. Florida had like two and it didn't matter. The Panthers got the goal, the Hurricanes didn't. They don't ask you how, they ask you how many and that's why Carolina is 3-0 down in a series that they could have maybe not had, you know, the same chance of being up 3-0. But man, it could have gone the other way.

At least could have gotten one of these and we're probably not talking about being on the edge of a cliff today. Brian Boyle, a gosh, a 20-year plus NHL veteran. Eight different teams played in two Stanley Cup Finals now with NHL Network. You can see him on NHL Now today at 3-30 and on NHL Tonight throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs.

He joins us on the Adam Gold Show. First of all, before we get to the hockey, just want to say that I'm sure you are an inspiration to so many having conquered, I guess, leukemia during your career and still playing about four years after it. So, just for that, thanks for being an inspiration to so many.

Thanks, Adam. I'm very fortunate to have a great team in place and technology now has made it so I could fairly easily get my treatment done and play and I was lucky that I had a team that was willing to do everything they could to help me when I was with New Jersey. But I appreciate that.

I know for a lot of people, I've had really difficult and trying times fighting cancer and it was cool to hear all of the support that I've gotten then and since and even now. Well, I appreciate you coming on. Frankly, I didn't know you'd stop playing to be perfectly honest. I assumed that you were going to play forever. Is that a fair way to start the hockey portion of this?

Yeah, you know what? I would have if they let me. I wasn't stopping if I was getting another job or until I won that big silver jug. But what a great privilege and blessing it was to be able to play in the NHL and make so many friendships and do what I love to do so much.

Now transitioning, just getting to talk about the game. It's the only thing I know how to do, right? So I have to be able to. I can't do, I really can't do anything else. So thanks.

My kids are happy that there's opportunities like this so they can have dinner, go to school and whatnot because dad has to work. Brian Boyle is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. All right, so somebody, by the way, I remember you playing with Florida as well at the end of your career. As somebody who has played, who did his work defensively in the middle of the ice, how much more difficult is it to score in the postseason, especially in those dirty areas in front of the net as it is during the regular season? I just think because the games are, you're playing the same team with the same travel and the same, you know what I mean?

You have so much time to scout. You're not going to get away with trying a different power play or doing different things. For me, most of my goals came there anyway.

So I think my goal scoring in the playoffs is pretty similar to my regular season. I wasn't going to take the puck end to end to score. I kind of, it was deflections. It was rebounds. It was being close and around the net. It was after a 40 second shift where you kind of hem the other team in and get your offense that way. And a lot of what Carolina does to generate a lot of their offense, that was, but that was me.

And that was my kind of role. And if I didn't score, at least while you could get a change, maybe, and you can get a top line out to play against that, that line that you just kind of grinded down, um, you know, scoring, scoring is hard. The goaltending, I think for both teams has been really, really good, but, uh, Bob has been historic.

So you try to make it more difficult for them, but you need, you know, I said it when the playoffs started, I think this patch ready and especially kind of situation and then, and then when Tara finally went down for a bit, that's going to hurt Carolina hurricanes because Patrick can get a puck at the top of the circle and score. Like he, he can, he's that good. He shoots it that well.

And, you know, especially if I was so strong and long and he can get to those areas too. I think it was going to hurt him. I think he got one five on five goal from Chatfield right now, you know, who is a nice player. I like, I like what he's done, but you know, he can't be the only goal scorer five on five in the series so far.

Yeah. Uh, you know, I've, I've done, I've done the math. It's been 120 minutes and 18 seconds since Carolina's last five on five goal, 120 minutes and eight seconds since the hurricanes last five on five goal, they only had three, three goals total in 13 periods of hockey.

I don't think that's a good recipe. Florida's only got six, uh, but six is more than three, right? It really, so when, when fans and I do a podcast after every game, uh, and when fans are understandably angry and frustrated and think that they're getting crushed and can't understand why I'm saying it's close, they just need a break and maybe a bounce and maybe it's different. How do you explain to fans how close the margins are or is Florida just the better team and have played the better moments, bigger moments better? The overtime winners are what they are.

Right. The kachucks in game one, I thought was excellent. There's a bad bounce in game two where they made, they made that bounce.

They, you know, kachuck exacerbates that by a little stick on stick interference with stall for the Tic Tac toe play. Like that's a big play at a big moment. And Carolina needs that. But honestly, three shots, one shot per game, this series could be three nothing for the hurricanes.

Do you understand like that's how close this is right now? Who's the better team? Well, I don't think Florida cares if you call them a better team or not. They just want to advance. And the same thing for Carolina. Nobody cares at this point.

You want to win this thing. And that's how far down the road we are here. It's you know, it's almost we're getting close to June. Guys are still playing hockey. And it's it's literally one shot per game is the difference in this series from being two one one two three nothing for Carolina. Ryan Boyle is joining us here from the NHL network. You played on so many good teams. You are on a Rangers team that I think played for the cup. You're on a lightning team.

I think that played for the Cubs. You have been in the room with elite players. Everybody goes through scoring droughts.

How do you how do you get how do they get they get through whatever, you know, droughts to do? Even the great players suffer at times from a confidence issue. Yeah, I mean, there's different moments when you're feeling better about your game and there's less thought that goes into how am I going to get a goal? You just go out and play and create and that's You know, everybody can have four or five six games without really contributing offensively, but they just can't have it at the same time.

And you know, no disrespect to Florida. There's a big reason why and the biggest reason right Brodsky, but you have to you have to put them under siege and if you get a goal, you got to get the next one. That's in the way they play.

They put themselves in great spots. We give up almost nothing like almost nothing and even the goal last night was it. I think it if it didn't change directions, the release point came weird because there was a stick on stick. Yeah, on the on the power play for the shot and that that took the release to a different spot and went far side. You could see Freddie kind of get set and try and get compact because it looked like it was going to hit him in his chest and it just kind of slingshot it over to his blocker side. That's, that's a lucky bounce. Now they earned a power play to get the lucky bounce. They executed on the lucky bounce and it was a matter of a Brent burn stick that was taken away a goal line pass.

It wasn't even there instead of trying to, you know, if he puts a stick in the lane, so to Chuck can't get it to Reinhardt flat, maybe he puts some air under it and you have more time to go stick on puck than that front D. So it's, it's, it's literally those tiny details at this point. There's four teams left. This is a good hockey league, the best in the world.

Those are the things that are going to separate you. All right. Now some belief that in like, if you could put yourself in the hurricane's locker room and I know it's hard, the belief that if you win one, you can still do this thing.

A hundred percent. We had it. We lost to the LA Kings in five. And I know that's probably not what Kings fans want to hear, but we lost it over time.

In game one, we lost an overtime to gate two. We came back home thinking, you know, we haven't trailed yet. And we weren't ever trailing. We were down to nothing in the cup finals. So we came home, we got all excited.

We thought it was just going to be a little bit easy. And we kind of got ran out of the building. We're down three, nothing. And then we beat them up pretty good in game four. And we went back for game five. We had a lead again. We lost double overtime, but like we went in game six or sorry, we went to game five. We come back home for game six.

Who knows? Like that's, that's all you got to do. Try and go out and get a goal. Get a lead.

If you don't whatever, try and go out and get tied up. Like you can't, you can't look big picture. You can't, that's a big mountain.

They have to climb, right? You can't win four. You can't win four games tomorrow. You can win one game and they played well enough to win three.

So that's why I think the belief should be there. Like they've, they've played really well. It's been a great series to watch. I hope they win a bunch of games because I wanted to go seven games, but they are in a hole. Obviously they just need to win one game.

But I mean, we were just talking about it. I'm in the, I'm in the studio today and we're all talking about like, they can win four straight. Wouldn't surprise me just because based on what we've seen so far in the series and how they're playing and a lot of times and a lot of stretches in the game, they're dictating play and they're giving up very, very little. Right.

They are. They give up almost nothing. Last night at five on five, there was one really good scoring chance for Florida.

Florida did almost all of their damage on their power plays. Brian Boyle, NHL network, NHL now today at three 30. And again, NHL tonight throughout the Stanley cup playoffs, a world-class person. I appreciate your time, Brian. Thank you so much. Enjoy the studio. And look, if a team calls, I'd answer the phone just in case.

I think you could still add something. I'm still working out. Don't tell anyone. Hey, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Keep the faith. All right. Thank you very much. Brian Boyle, NHL network. See, everybody should be encouraged. Brian Boyle says it's still possible.