The Canes decided to make big moves while Adam was out of town!

We'll go to ACC football kickoff.

You know what happens? Hurricanes make news. They did it, you know, a couple years ago.

They did it this week twice. Tony D'Angelo, Monday night, Sebastian Ajo on Wednesday. Good thing we know where to find Rod Brind'Amour, the head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes. You waited for me to go out of town to make news. How are you? I'm great.

How are you doing? Doesn't that always happen that way? It does. You're always out of town when good things happen. Wait a second, what are you suggesting? You know what I'm getting at.

You know what I'm getting at. You're suggesting that I should leave town. I don't know. Just saying, maybe you're not around as much as you think. I don't know.

Questioning my work ethic, I am flabbergasted. Let's start with the most recent thing. We knew it was inevitable. Sebastian Ajo is basically the, you know, he is the guy, he's the best forward, best player, whatever. I mean, we can debate that all day long. But he also really epitomizes, I think, everything that you and this organization stand for in a great player.

So your thoughts on Sebastian here for the long haul, nine more years after this, or eight more years after this year? Yeah, he hit it right on the head. I mean, it's, listen, you know him.

You're right on. He's just a quality person, and that's number one. And then we all feel good a player is. So whether you, how you want to rank him, it's kind of irrelevant. He's a guy you want to have on your roster and in your room for a long time if you can do it.

And that's obviously what's just transpired. So he's been around for a long time. He's grown up as a hurricane, and it's something special that he'll be a hurricane for. I mean, it's not his whole career.

It's certainly going to be a long time. I mean, he's 26. He's 26, and this is his third contract. I am blown away by that. In your opinion, what is his best attribute? I don't know. I think it's just total package. It's a compete factor for me. I mean, and then really, I think I heard you talk about it many times, but really the consistency factor. He's just there. Every game, he's there, and he gives you what he has. And there's a lot of players like that on this team, which is why we love these guys because they bring it every night, and that's that accountability factor. Give me a long answer, but kind of covering all the bases with this kid because that's really what he's all about.

It's interesting. You said accountability. That's one of my favorite things about him. He holds himself accountable. He doesn't need you to come in and say, hey, I need more. He knows. He understands all of that.

This is the way I have described him to people. Do you like gumbo, by the way? Gumbo. I mean, I'll eat anything.

Okay. Well, gumbo is spicy, but it's not like spicy right off the bat, right? It's just sort of, it's a slow, and all of a sudden you're like six, seven bites in.

You go, my gosh, my mouth's on fire. And that's what I've described Sebastian Aho as. He doesn't necessarily wow you all the time, but then you look down and he's one of, if not the best player.

So he's just an incredibly consistent guy. I've also referred to the Jordan Stahl contract extension as the Rod Brind'Amour contract extension, because I don't know if I'm right or wrong here. I have a hard time seeing, not seeing Jordan Stahl on a Rod Brind'Amour coach team. Well, I don't know that. Well, first of all, any team would love to have Jordan Stahl.

So of course I would. And you know, the relationship we've had over the years and, you know, the whole nine yards, and obviously really happy with that, that that got figured out. And again, I think you mentioned it with, wow, these are contracts you knew were going to get done.

I think people like to, you know, make up things as it's going on, cause it didn't happen right away, but we all knew that these guys weren't going anywhere. Tony D'Angelo is back. We all loved Tony when he was here. He had a great year. There was just the difference of opinion about what his role should be. And right now we're not even sure what his role is because there are like there are seven or eight NHL defenseman that are going to skate here when we get to training camp. What are your thoughts on the return of Tony and how he fits in?

Yes. Well, listen, he's an elite player and, you know, I think people want to throw shade on other things, but we had him here and loved him. Loved his, you know, commitment to the team and the teammates loved him. And he was, he had his, listen, he has his words like everybody. And I think at times it's just that he's over competitive and he, he, you know, he's got to maybe learn to keep it in check a little more, but it's all in the right place.

Like he's trying to win and wants to do everything possible to make that happen. And he has a, certainly has a skill set that we need, right? Like he, he's the lead as they come with the puck. So that's, that's something that we can definitely use and, you know, it's going to be up to me now to try to manage all of it because you just said, we've got, we've got, you know, a lot of good players back on the back end. So finding the ice time for everybody is probably going to be the toughest thing. And that's a good problem to have.

Yeah. I mean, legitimately, no disrespect to Dylan Coghlin here, seven NHL defensemen, and every one of them feels like they can play in the top four, not just be on the roster. They can all, they all think they can be in the top four. How often do you think if you go into the, into the season and everybody is healthy and this is your roster, will you, would you consider going as a steady diet with 11 and seven? Well, we've talked about that.

It's, you know, there's, there's options, obviously. You kind of want to, because they all, like you just said, those are all the guys that are legitimate that you said they can all play. And you know, most teams that go 11 and seven, that's not the case.

They're actually hiding somebody. That, that, that's, and the hard part with that is with guys that are used to playing a lot of minutes and you know, playing seven, you might not get the best out of everybody. And you definitely don't want that. Right.

So you got to figure it out and we'll, I'm sure we'll experiment, try different things. But again, that's assuming everybody's healthy. And I think we've seen, you know, really our, in my opinion, the reason we haven't maybe moved on and is because we've had injuries and we just haven't had the, maybe the depth of those positions.

So, you know, now we do. We have, certainly if someone goes down, we're not going to be too worried about it because we have that depth in the D position. You have depth everywhere. I mean, it is really hard to come up with, if again, with this roster, if everybody's healthy, it's hard to come up with who the, we know some of the players, I mean, most of the players, but once you get past the first, you know, nine forwards and you know, the first five defensemen it's, and the first goalie, I guess, I don't know, man, it's hard. You got, you guys are going to have a lot of decisions to make when we get everything cranked up in September. I know I've always threatened to talk about other things with you, Rod, Brenda Moore. So let's throw some other things outside of hockey with you. And I know you're a college sports fan.

When you see all of the, the conference realignment and expansion and all the talk about money, what are your thoughts about that? Well, I'll be honest with you. You've been talking, I think it's been like eight days. You've been talking, you went to some, where'd you go? Charlotte? Charlotte. Yes. Right. Right. I mean, why can't we just do that in one day?

I'm with you on that. I turn your show on and I'm like, what are we talking about here? The same stuff we talked about before. I just want to talk about football and stuff that matters. This alignment, all that stuff really means nothing to me. You know, just play, figure it out.

I know tell me something about the players and coaches and you know, I don't really care about all this other stuff, the money and all that. I know it's so important. Trust me.

But where I sit, it's not important. You know? Right. Totally, totally understand. It is, it's, there are too many things going on before we even get to playing a game in college. We've, we've completely lost the, we've lost the plot when it comes to college sports. I talked about that earlier. There's discussion about, you know, possibly having an arrangement between the ACC and like schools in the Pac-12, which I don't even understand.

At this point, we might as well just scrap all of it and start over. Is there a Shohei Ohtani in the NHL? Great question. A guy that can do it all. No, because you'd have to play goalie too, probably, right?

On his own, you know, get a goalie start and then decide to throw him out the next game, play in that center. But the real question, the real question, when you, I mean, I don't know, did you play baseball? Yes, I was a baseball player. Okay.

Okay. The pitchers always the best hitters. They were always the best players. So I never understood that when I was a kid, I'd watch the major leagues and I'd watch, like, I used to watch the expos.

That was my team growing up. And in a national league, they throw, you know, the ninth hitter is the pitcher. And he looks like he'd never swung a bat before. And I'm like, I don't understand that because they were the best ones going, why couldn't they just continue that? Like, I don't get why you're sitting out five days when you pitch, why wouldn't you just even go hit?

I don't get, I don't get it. So now this guy's saying, watch me, we can do this, right? Is that going to change moving forward now? Do you think we're going to get more of this? I hope so.

I think we will. We've been flirting with it for a number of years. There have been guys who could, who were good hitting pitchers like Madison Bumgarner for the Giants. It was a really good hitting pitcher that they actually used as a DH during some inner league games, but they weren't good enough where, oh, this guy's just got to be in your lineup every day.

And when Otani started, most people, myself included, didn't think he would be able to be elite at both. And by gosh, he is. He leads the major leagues in home runs. I mean, he's worth everything. It's just, what's your take? Why do you say he needs to go to the Orioles?

Why not anybody? I was just saying, the Orioles have been notoriously cheap as an organization. But Otani pays for himself. You could pay Otani $60 million, and that is money that you're going to get back, and you'll probably make a profit just off of him based on all of the attention and the sales and the merchandise that you're going to sell.

He'll pay for itself. But he's just an amazing, amazing player. He's Babe Ruth. I'm a fan. I'm a fan, but I can't think of a hockey player that, and I can't think any player in any sport other than what he's doing. It's pretty impressive.

Jacob Slavin shows some pretty good goalie skills every once in a while. Really? No. I saw that video.

I saw that video. I'm glad he was no good because I don't want any ideas. I do not need, we don't need that. All right, final thing, and I am not trying to set you up for anything. I am just, I just want your thoughts on this.

I promise you I'm not trying to set you up for anything. Sean Payton, the coach of the Broncos, just absolutely obliterated his predecessor in Denver. He said it was the worst NHL coach, worst coaching job he'd ever seen in NFL history. And he's talking about Nathaniel Hackett, who's now the offensive coordinator for the Jets.

And I'm just in a big picture. Why don't we have more coaches calling out other coaches for either, you know, their personalities or being, being bad at their, why don't we have more that, we used to have a lot of, we used to have a lot of animosity in coaching. Well, that's a good question. Why don't we have any coaches being able to say what they want to say? You know, that's a very good point. Major censorship goes on in, in, in what we do, and it's just not worth it. But maybe the real answer is it's karma.

I mean, it's only coming, you're only, you know how this goes. Best coach is one year. Take a look at that. Any coach, the best, what do you call these things? You know, the coaches of the year awards. Yeah.

They all get fired within a year or two next. Like, I mean, so, you know, maybe when you're on top, you want to toot your horn, but it's not too long before you're going to be on the bottom. So keep your mouth shut.

Probably the best way. Sean Payton does not subscribe to that theory. Seth Greenberg, friend of mine, but let's, I'm going to cut you off. Yep. I bet you look at his first five years. Did he say anything bad about anybody? I don't, he's the head dog, right?

I'm just guessing. Now he knows he can say what he wants because he's, he's proven he's one of the best. So it's a little different, right? It is. But if they don't win the, if the Broncos aren't good this year, he's going to hear it. He's going to hear it, but he's, he's fine.

He's set in life. That's my point. That is when you're starting out, you know, that's your job. And then that guy you made fun of, he might be the head coach somewhere else and he might need you to, you know, you don't need to be cutting ties all over the place. There's no question about it. Do you have a favorite NFL team? Well, I'm a Panthers fan. I gotta be.

You are, that, that is a political answer. I know how to play the game. I'll play the game. All right. I do like them. I do like them.

Okay. I think they're, they're due to, they're due to take off here. I mean, everything seems to be brewing in the right direction.

Yeah. Well, they have their quarterback now. I think the kid's going to be good. He's small, but I think the kid's going to be really good.

He's an athlete, right? So let's see. Let's see. All right, sir. I will talk to you soon.

It's only about another month and a half before everything starts. Okay. I look forward to it.

I'll talk to you later. Rod Brenda Moore, head coach of Carolina Hurricanes. I was not trying to set him up for anything.

No, it was not. I love rod conversations. Rod interviews are fun. Rod is just fun. And he's a Panther fan. Yes.

I love rod even more. Even if he's just trying to smooth us all. Maybe he is. Maybe. Maybe. I'm, I'm hanging on to that one little snippet. But that's what we have now. It will be a promo. It's proof. It should be a promo. And me saying that was a political answer. That is exactly what we got.