Luke DeCock on the main reason why the Carolina Hurricanes lost the series to the Florida Panthers

Graham alerted me to this and then I looked at my uh my Twitters and DeAndre Hopkins has been released by the Arizona Cardinals and all I could think of is uh DeAndre Hopkins must be very happy right now. Because he's gonna get picked up. I mean he's probably not the same player he was a few years ago but he's going to get picked up. He'll get picked up and be in a better situation so I mean he has a chance to be on a playoff team.

Get in the right situation you got a chance to win a Super Bowl. DeAndre Hopkins is still good at the very least. Might not be what he used to be but still very good. Clemson could use him right now we know that. Seriously when was the last time Clemson had a great wide receiver?

It's been a while it's been a minute for the Clemson Tigers probably what has held back their offense as much as anything that and a mediocre will say offensive line. All right so Jordan Stahl came out today and said that he wanted to finish his career with the Carolina Hurricanes. He is an unrestricted free agent as of July 1. My guess is it probably doesn't get that far. He'll sign some sort of a contract with the Hurricanes but there are other names to consider. Jesper Faust what happens? Do they try to get a contract extension for Sebastian Ajo or Seth Jarvis or Jalen Chatfield?

Done now. Luke Tkach of the News and Observer joins us on the Adam Gold Show. We should be going to a hockey game tonight Luke but we're not. What do you think the biggest reason is for that? Well I mean I think some of it is is just you got beat by a team that played better in four games when it mattered and and that's that's hockey right? Sometimes it's all of sports right sometimes the better team doesn't always win and in this case I think the Panthers made the big plays when it mattered. The Hurricanes didn't capitalize on their big third period in game one. They didn't capitalize on their big first period in game two.

You go on the road a couple calls go against you you lose a one nothing game you lose a game with four seconds on the clock and that's that's it you don't normally lose four of those in a row but you can lose them so I don't know that there's a big what I don't know the word is time for you know recriminations or anything it's an ugly way to lose because of the way it happened. If you said in the vacuum that they made it to the conference finals without Svechnikov and Pacioretty you'd probably assume they lost to the Bruins and be okay with that. I think it's the the opportunity that was there the path forward that was open to them that is what really makes this as hard as the way they lost so I mean if there's one thing Adam I'm going to point to I mean obviously they can get incrementally more talented there's not going to be a lot of opportunities to get dramatically more talented with their cap space and how talented the team it is now but I think they need to get meaner I don't necessarily mean tougher like fighting or even physical play I just look at in every scrum a Panthers player was dragging a Hurricanes player out of the scrum by the back of his jersey and the Hurricanes never did that and you know if you want to be the bunch of jerks at some point you need some jerks. To me the two biggest moments of game four were both engineered by Sam Bennett and that's the element that element is what Carolina has not had. Sam Bennett with the hit on Jacob Slavin and we all hate the result but I mean you can't really if you know the game you can't really have a problem with the hit there was helmet to helmet but the initial point of contact was shoulder to chest and and then he gets his stick in between the pads of Frederick Anderson and whether or not there was goaltender interference I did not see any video that supported that so it is what it is but Sam Bennett had his fingerprints on this series in many ways but in the two biggest moments I thought in game number four it was Sam Bennett a mean ornery sometimes dirty player. Yeah and and you know I think the one time in the entire playoffs that you saw that from the Hurricanes was Brent Burns' cup check on Kuchak. It was just too lit you know and he got away with it you know if they'd been doing that this whole time yeah Matt Martin plows Jordan Stahl from behind and cross checks him and sits on him and okay the puck is in play so you're not necessarily going to go after him right away although you certainly could but let's give an allowance for the puck being in play but after the whistle Jordan Martinook skates over and gets in Matt Martin's face somebody should have just pummeled the guy because you can't if you're going to let someone do that to your captain it sends the message and everybody they played got it that you could take liberties with these guys. Radko Gudis could cross check Jack Drury five times against the board and if the officials weren't going to call it nobody was going to stop him and it's fine to turn the other cheek and I get that that's a strategy but at a certain point you have to acknowledge you're only getting slapped. Yeah especially when the strategy of turning the other cheek is that you want the power play if you're not going to get the power play it's really a poor strategy even though referees have a tendency to only get the player who retaliates we've seen that all too many times you know it was an interesting series I thought in terms of the inconsistency of officiating Brett Pesci gets cross-checked from behind by Anthony Duclare in the corner to the I guess if you're looking at the goal to the left of so you're not going to get the power play it's really a poor strategy even though referees have a tendency to only get the player who retaliates we've seen that all too many times you know it was an interesting series I thought in terms of the inconsistency of officiating Brett Pesci gets cross-checked from behind by Anthony Duclare in the corner to the Sergei Bobrovsky and the puck was gone it was a little bit late but not dramatically late but they allow the cross-check to go but Jordan Stahl in the tamest of ways has his stick low and Gustav Forsling trips over it and they call that with one minute to play it was callable so it's hard to complain about it but it just seemed pretty odd that one was let go and the other wasn't I'm not trying to say that Carolina got screwed I just think that there was a lot of inconsistency with officiating yeah no it was a hanky-panky it was a patty-cake call after a period in which there'd been gross bodily harm and you let the gross bodily harm go flying because it's the third period of an elimination game but if you're going to make a ticky tack call like that you you know it's not the wrong call it just it doesn't go with you know Dan O'Rourke called that the first 59 minutes of that period entirely differently than he called the last minute that just shouldn't happen in a potential elimination game for a team and honestly I would have less problem with the stall call if it was behind the Carolina net and took away a panther scoring chance that was 200 feet from the right there's net I mean it's just it had no impact on the game or the play and if you're going to manage the game you have to acknowledge that too I you know I actually thought the officiating in games one and two was pretty good I didn't I thought it's terrible in game three I think Trevor Hanson and Kelly Sutherland are both going home I hope and I thought Wes McCauley and O'Rourke were actually okay in game four until that call because they had called it relatively consistently you know the miss the biggest missed call of the whole series if we're going to get into officiating which I don't think in the end had a huge impact the hurricane's got some bad calls on the road which is why you need to win your home game right but the worst call the series was the uncalled Gudis Elba and Sebastian Ajo right in front of the official they let that go Ajo goes out goes down to the other end gets called for a stick instruction it's just it's ridiculous it's just ridiculous but that's what happens when you're on the road and you know that's why you fight so hard over 82 games to have home life's advantage and the hurricanes had that in this round they would have had it in the next round but they didn't they frankly again the first the third period of game one the first period of game two that's where they lost the series I talked to Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN yesterday and he he insists that it's again once again for the fifth straight year it's about can't get the goal can't get they need more goal scoring this team healthy enough do you think they had it or do you think there's still something more and I agree meaner I think I think bigger would also help as well as meaner I think there's a lot of same there's a lot of small on this team even though it's skilled do you think ultimately though they had enough if they were healthy yeah I think so I mean I think I don't know that you can look at this Florida series and say they lost because they had some gross deficit in some area they lost four incredibly close hockey games that all just happened to come one right after another to an extent that's a function of just the small sample size of a best of seven series to me the question is sort of bigger philosophically does the quantity over quality shot volume approach that works so well over an 82 game season work as well in the best of seven series because in some ways the way the hurricanes lost these games to the panthers resemble the way they lost the four games to the new york rangers albeit spread out really the three games game seven was obviously a gong show but the three games at the garden were very similar to games three and four a really hot goaltender a more physical opposing team the short end of the officiating in some ways you know those are all things that played into this as well and I think you know that's a sort of a self-scouting thing that you may want to do at some point over the off season say hey you know this has been our philosophy this has been our tactic this has been our strategy is it working as well as we would hope and I think you know you have to look at the regular season the fact that they were among the final four team standing and say yeah on the whole it's working what do we really need to tweak and I think when you look at tweaking I look at what Mackenzie McEachern brought to this team in the games he played this is a guy who didn't appear in a single game comes in and has an impact in the playoffs he was physical he was hitting people on the forecheck and I think really the obituary for this team that that we haven't talked about as much and you and I talked about a little last Friday the inability of the hurricane's forwards to work the panthers fourth fifth and sixth d who are not good Radko Goudes Mahara and Mark Stahl are not great defensemen they are very very vulnerable and beatable hurricanes never really got to their forecheck against those guys I think the other self-scouting thing that Rob Brind'Amour is going to have to ask himself is he does not like bending over backwards to get matchups is that something he needs to look at the sending out the fourth line and third pairing for offensive zone face ups because they're up over the course of a playoff series can cost you a playoff series because you're not sending out Aho or even Kokiyemi and someone you know you need to take advantage of the situations where you have an advantage especially after an icing I think the hurricanes too often just sort of say well it's all going to even out in the end we're going to send the fourth line over the boards but I think there's little tweaks like that this team does not need big tweaks they've got to figure out the goal tending situation and who's in net with Piotr Kachekov next year that's going to be a big change obviously but I think the little tweaks are the things we've talked about you know does our strategy need tweaking in terms of the shots we take and the shots we try to create and do we need to get a little bigger and meaner even if those players don't present the same sort of possession and or analytic advantage that our skilled players do this has always been a skill-focused roster and it's close to getting over the top I think when you look at what teams that have been close have done to get over the top is they've looked very closely at what their weaknesses are and tried to address them and to me getting a little bigger a little more physical and a little quite frankly meaner it can be a 5-10 guy if he's mean I mean Sam Bennett isn't success right um but they need they need that so their skill can go to work and that's not fighting it's not old school hockey it's not bringing in the Hanson brothers it's just bringing in guys who can do to other teams what the Panthers did to the Hurricanes. Luke Tkach is joining us here we agreed that Jordan Stahl will be back he will probably finish his career with the Carolina Hurricanes unless somebody comes at him with some I mean just bonkers bananas contract um would you I just want to say like that's fine but I mean he's gonna have to take a pay cut oh sure I just yeah I I so I don't I don't want to present this as the given that everyone seems to think it is there is a chance when you start talking about money that things can fall apart but I think generally speaking you are correct in that Jordan Stahl wants to be here the Hurricanes want Jordan Stahl here can they do this in a way that's going to acknowledge the way his role is going to reduce over the next few years and can they find a way to manage the captaincy as his role does reduce because Hurricanes did not do a good job of that with Rod Brindemore and he's going to remember that they're going to have to find a way to get that done I mean honestly we didn't talk about that enough I mean Paul Maurice is basically the guy who ended Rod Brindemore's career there was a little more heat behind that series yes people probably realize or want to talk about I agree I agree the more the more I was I talked about it the more I realized that there was under the surface there was there were other things um Jesper Faust you bringing him back 100 I mean now at a reasonable price yeah absolutely but that's a guy you know when you talk about things that this team needs he may not be the most skilled player in the world but he plays well with skilled players he gets in on the forecheck he works hard his teammates love him you know I mean I think you know Jesper Faust you can win with Jesper Faust you've just got to make sure you're not you know overpaying for him I think the numbers that one of the predictions was two and a half I think and maybe you go a little higher than that but if that number works yes Jesper Faust is a no-brainer yeah Frank Ceravelli put out a chart of the value for uh Jordan Stahl was basically at 3.2 uh you could do that you could do a two years you know two years six and a half million for Jordan Stahl you could do two years you know five million for Jesper Faust um Max Pacioretty he had it one year 1.5 um I mean obviously you would do that if you were the hurricane you probably can't do much you you can't do more than one year uh but I don't know how much there is a I owe you one uh type of a mentality for Max Pacioretty but there's a reason they went out and got him yeah I you know I think they're probably going to go given the history of Pacioretty and the injuries he's had I think you know there's some guys that you could see move you know we talked about Tara Vine and having one year left on this contract if you know now that you're not going to resign him now is the time you move him this summer um you know I still think there's questions after his playoff performance the goals he scored aside about Martin Aches and do you want to sell high on him after the regular season he had Jack Drury you know obviously came up and played well in spots um but looked completely overwhelmed in the playoffs um our you know he his his failure to keep the puck in led to the coke key me turnover which led to the third goal um he lost a ton of board battles during the playoffs and is that a guy that you know you want to sell high on him if you think maybe you know it's not going to work for him in the NHL I don't know but they have some assets they can move if they want um and do they try to pull those together and you know there may not be a Matthew Kachuk available but there may be a guy available via trade instead of free agency who can give you that finishing skill and that's really what they need it they don't need to add a ton of skill but they need to add some finishing it's a it's a it's a it's an attribute it's a trait Max Pacioretty has it Andrei Svechnikov has it although he's obviously prone to slumps they need a couple more guys like that who have a demonstrated history of finishing chances um basically the anti Yesipuli RV who has a demonstrated history of generating a ton of chances right finishing almost none of them which is why I would be shocked if they qualify him oh no they won't qualify him because it would have to be at three million dollars uh so there's no there's no chance of them qualifying him I guess theoretically they could offer him a contract to come back and maybe they will but um there was a reason why he was healthy extra'd for Mackenzie McEachern uh in the last two games of the Eastern Conference Finals so if you're getting uh healthy extra'd for uh essentially guy played in your minor leagues all year yeah that's uh that I think that tells us everything we need to hear uh real quick about Martin Neches before I let you go Luke um I think the chances of them not having Neches on the roster are like one percent he's he's three million dollars next year and in the regular season he's going to sneeze 60 points and I just think that knowing how we as an organization how the Hurricanes as an organization value value I just don't see a way that unless he is part of a contra trade that brings them something vital I just don't see a way that Neches is not on the team next year the following year maybe but I think this is the most most important off season is in his entire career well I think the point the second point you made for this team to get better with the players they have it's hard to find better players you're going to have to give up good players to get those guys I think you know when I look at who they could potentially trade they're not going to give up Steph Jarvis who you know his scoring numbers were down but got so much better as a two-way player there's other guys you're not going to give up I Neches is the one guy because he's a wing he doesn't play center that didn't work out you know if you're going to have to move strength for a bigger strength I think you have to look at Neches and Drury as the guys that are going to be your most likely bargaining tips it doesn't mean you're trying to move them it doesn't mean that you're trying to dump them but I think you have the opportunity maybe given his contract situation to get the most value for him right now that you're ever going to get and if that's what it takes to get the guy who puts you over the top then you have to do it if he's back here next year then fine he's shown he can be a productive player in the regular season and he'll get another chance to show it he can do it in the postseason because he did show flashes this year he just disappeared for for two periods two longer periods of time in the playoffs so you know it's not a guy you're trying to get rid of um but it's it's to me that's the one guy you can move to get better oh you you can certainly move him and who knows maybe they can bring back a player that used to play here but I'll leave his name out of it Luke DeCock of the News and Observer and maybe we could also send Neches to Calgary again I'm not necessarily advocating for that but I would advocate for that uh not about Neches but about the player you know who else would yes any old check because it would put Ron Francis's fingerprints back on this roster that was the move they made to get over the top and it had Ron Francis's fingertips fingerprints all over it uh we don't need any incentive to mention the great see how you can't even you didn't even say it right the great Ronnie Francis you don't even need an incentive for that for Eddie Olchik Luke DeCock I'll talk to you later my man all right take care Luke DeCock of the NNO here on the Adam Gold Show