Is Conor Bedard REALLY at the level he’s portrayed as?

We might have to ask our next guest his opinions on Kill, Switch, Engage. It's been a theme of the week. I seriously thought you would like making that up the first time. No, it's real.

Kill, Switch, Engage. It's real. We'll also ask him if he's ever thought of running for Congress. I think he could do it. But more importantly, we're going to ask him to help us wager a lot of money on who's going to be taken number one tonight in the NHL draft. He can help us with all these things because he knows a lot. He's the play-by-play voice of the Carolina Hurricanes. And oftentimes you'll hear people say in sports, oh, and he's a great guy too.

And most of the times they're lying. But that is not the case when it's Mike Maniscalco, an actual great human being who happens to have a really cool job working at sports. And we get to hear him bring us the Carolina Hurricanes. Joining us to talk NHL draft and other things, it is Mike. What's going on, man?

How are you? Not much after that intro, though. People are going to be terribly disappointed when they meet me in real life.

No, they won't. That's the thing. I have no problem setting the bar high there. Well, would you ever run for office? It doesn't have to be Congress. Would you ever run for school board or county commissioner or anything? I would, but I have no tolerance for nonsense and silly arguments, so I don't know how well I would do in the public forum when people would bring up such things to, you know, hey, we need this or that.

I believe in common sense and logic, and I don't believe that that exists in politics anymore. I don't know, man. I'm going to have to go to the tape.

You did sports radio for a long time for somebody who claims that they don't peddle in nonsense and illogic. I'm not sure if I could buy that one from you. In that case, Hayes, I've had my fill of it. Okay, all right. That's fair. That's fair. Plus, there is not a walk-in closet big enough that could contain some of the skeletons that I have. Nah, nah, nah.

See, skeletons aren't a problem anymore. We're past that. I guess you're right. I do. I think, you know, I think we need more people who are, like, genuinely good people to start with. Whatever. I've got way too an idealistic view.

It would never work out if we had, you know, good-hearted people running the country. All right, let's talk some hockey. Is Conor Bedard a, first of all, I'll make sure I'm saying it right, but is he a Victor Wibanyama-level talent or is it more like an Anthony Davis or somebody who's, like, really good but not generational talent? What are we talking here, the number one pick? No, he's generational. I mean, he is, I don't know if it's in the first name Conor, but Conor McDavid came in with the hype around him of being a generational talent.

I mean, he has surpassed that hype and Conor Bedard is in that kind of stratosphere right now. You know, he's going to a team that has a reputation and used to be great in Chicago, but, you know, like anything, you've got to pay the check and they've fallen on hard times, but he's going to be a player who can bring them right back to where they were a few years ago as a cup contender. He is a special, special hockey player and it might take him a little while to get his footing in the league, but when I say a little while, I'm talking, like, maybe half a season. And when he figures it out, the skill set that he brings, the speed, the vision, the playmaking ability, he is the total package and Chicago is getting a 100% superstar if he stays on this path that he's on right now.

Mike Maniscalco joining us. You started to hit on what was actually going to be my next question and sometimes I do these questions where it's just educating me on hockey and maybe some other listeners out there, but what is the expectations these days of being drafted to showing up in the NHL? I know it matters sometimes in different countries and what league you might already be playing in, but like in other sports, it feels like whereas it used to be accepted to take a while, now people want to see the rookie quarterback play. They want to see baseball players, it felt like, used to be drafted and you didn't even think about him for three years and now it's like, no, we know the big names. We don't mind you playing in April in AA ball, but by June we'd like to see you as a 19-year-old. Is there a standard in hockey or has it changed over the years?

What is that? Yeah, I think the standard has changed a little bit, Hayes, but I think it really comes down to where you're selected, not just the entirety of the first round, but if you are in that first five to first ten, and this year might be one of the deepest drafts that the NHL has seen in quite some time, but if you're in that first five, you are expected to be an impact player from day one that you step into an organization, or at least definitely the number one, number two overall, because there has been such hype, such scouting around these players since, honestly, since they were like 15 years old. Now, we're talking about 15, and there's only three years later for them.

For us, that feels like a blink. For them, that's an eternity, but there's that level of expectation, especially when guys start to get labeled of generational talent, or can't miss, or he's a franchise-changing player. So, you know, not every year do you have a player like this, but not everybody in the first round, like the Canes are picking 30th. Nobody expects the 30th overall pick in the first round of the NHL draft to have an impact on a hockey team until a year or two, or even three down the road. So, it's a little bit like the NBA, where, you know, lottery picks are expected to play and have big minutes in play, and then you move a little bit further down the NBA draft, and you're like, well, it'd be nice if this guy could make the team, or if he could get some minutes his rookie year. For me, once you move past pick number 10, you're really starting to look at guys who, well, maybe if they have a good training camp, they can make the team, depending on the hockey organization they're playing for. You know, if they're playing for teams that aren't very good or miss the playoffs, or they need some kind of young talent in the lineup, you can see those guys in there. But once you move past, like for me, the NHL draft lottery, those guys are either going to stay in junior, or they'll go back to college, or they'll stay overseas and play for a year or two and get a little bit older before you hear their name on an NHL roster.

Mike Maniscalco, play-by-play voice of the Carolina Hurricanes, joining us. You got my hopes up when you said it's a very deep draft, but then you popped the balloon when you said that there are not 30 generational talents in this draft, unfortunately. I won't make you guess who the Canes will pick at 30. I'm sure there might be some mock draft consensus, but by the time you get to 30, it's all about what happens in front of you, right? So I won't make you guess that type of thing, but I will ask you this. The Canes have nine picks going into the seven rounds.

This is, again, an educate me on how things work question and a Canes-specific question. Do you expect them to use all of those nine picks where they are currently lying? And the more broader question is, is trading a big thing in the NHL draft these days, moving picks, getting better picks next year? Absolutely.

Sweet. If you think the NBA trades picks, wait till tonight. And the Canes are not bashful about moving down or moving up. Really, Carolina has, especially since Don Waddell has taken over as the general manager of the team and with assistant general managers Eric Kulski and Darren York, they're not afraid to move out of a pick to move down because of the way that they scout and have belief in their draft board to move down a couple of spaces to pick up another pick, but also draft capital this year because this is a deep draft haze. This is the thing where maybe, let me inflate the balloon for you again and put a badge on it, that there are some teams that need to make some moves because they're in salary cap problems. Carolina is not one, so maybe they're moving a pick to bring somebody in. Now that's no, that's no inside baseball.

I have not gotten a phone call today. Be consulted on my thoughts on a trade, but that's what you see. That's what you see in the NHL. Really deals get made at the, at the NHL draft where you're going to see players move because some team has a salary cap constraint.

Good news is the cap went up a million dollars, but the bad news is it's only a million dollars. So it's better for the canes. It gives them a little bit more leverage, but it's not going to help out some of these teams where that becomes good for Carolina. But yeah, you're going to see picks move left and right. Teams will move up. Teams will move out of a round in order to pick up a player or get maybe the rights to a player that a team can't sign. So I'm going to be very interested to see what happens once we get to about six, six 30 tonight, if there's a lot of movement, because there are in this might be the year, maybe not a pick 30 Hayes, but you know, pick 10, 11, 12. You might see a ton of kids actually playing for their NHL team this year who are drafted in this first round, because you've got a lot of guys coming at college has become a big thing now in the NHL college players who get that experience, who are ready to play, who played for the United States national team, or, you know, players who played overseas.

And it's, it's a big phrase, get ready to use this. You can have a drinking game with it. Well, he's played against men if you're in Europe.

So he played against men. So that's a good thing that you like. So it's, it's to me going to be very interesting what Caroline wants to do, but the way that they, they draft and the way that they have their, their, their sites in their boards set up for what they like to do. They're very active when it comes to moving either up or down to get a player that they like, as far as trading. Mike meniscalco joining us. Okay.

A couple of personal questions that are also canes related for you. One, it feels like the season ended last week and now it feels like the preseason starts like next week. We just got the schedule release. So first of all, do you have a role in the, in the draft stuff tonight or did they actually like give you, you know, two weeks off in between the season starting and ending and starting? I have no role tonight. I can, I can be a spectator and, and watch the draft.

All right, good. And then my second question, I think in general, this is not hockey specific. I think this is all sports, although I get why people do it because fans love it. But I think schedule release, people make too much of it.

It's too big of a deal. Obviously, if you have, if you're a season ticket holder, you want to look at dates and you want to, you know, line things up. So I understand the importance of it, but for you, I will actually allow you to say, yes, I care about the schedule release because this is how, you know, my wife and I will plan our life for the next year. With that in mind on the personal side or just the cane side, were there any notes that came from the schedule release or, and I'm honestly curious, like how does it work in your house? Do you guys sit down that night and say, all right, here's our calendar?

Yeah, pretty much. We go over it. We were, we were actually in Austin, Texas when the schedule got released. So we got to, we got to look over dates and start to plan some things that the good thing is for, for Kristen and I, it's the holidays. We can plan what we're going to do. You know, are we going to actually have Thanksgiving dinner here in, in Raleigh? What, what is new year's going to look like? And then of course the biggest holiday during the hockey season, which is the bi-week and the all star weekend where we can plan a trip on the town if we want to do that.

So yeah, my, my next, once we hit September, my next six, seven months get planned until of course the playoffs are over. Excellent. Mike Maniscalco joining us. He's a great dude. He and his wife are both great. I love you in that role. I love the job for you.

I love that you guys get to play on cool trips cause I know traveling is something that you guys love to do and always love catching up with you. Enjoy the draft tonight. Do not do the playing against men drinking game. Mike Maniscalco does not condone it.

He's just, what he meant was you're going to hear it a lot. Okay. That's what's going to happen. Do not, do not play that game. Do not.

Unless you, unless you're not working tomorrow or just don't do that. Although I did not see kill switch engaged, but I did see the smile, which is three fifths of Radiohead at the Moody theater in Austin, which is the Austin city limits theater. And it was a pretty darn good show. Very cool. He's the best. If I do some more guest hosting, there's a decent chance. I'll give you a call later this summer. Enjoy the draft and we'll talk to you soon my man. You too. Always a pleasure. Hey, take care.