Canes are back home after a long west coast visit

In a strange way, maybe not even a strange way. I thought Tuesday was progress. It looked a lot closer to what I know you want to see.

Am I right? And where was the progress from your point of view? It was better because we didn't give up with a ton of chances against a team that's a pretty powerful team offensively. So that was good. I think after the first period, they had 10 shots.

So that's a good sign. We've got to keep limiting those opportunities. And then, obviously, we didn't get any goals. We generated enough chances. But at the end of the day, we've still got some areas we need to sharpen up on. And the special teams have got to be better.

Although it wasn't terrible, they got a little flipper and a little tip. If you look at the chances we gave up on the shorthanded, you would take that pretty much all day. Right now, when it's summer, it can go wrong on a pk. So we just need to change that mojo a little bit. And I think we'll be in good shape.

All right. You talk about scoring chances. I mean, there were three, probably in about a five-minute span, that any other day are goals. And only one of them was a shot. Seth Jarvis missed. I don't know if the pass handcuffed him at all.

From Aho to Jarvis, I think that was at four on four. And he whiffed. Tony DiAngelo back door on a rebound try. I think he missed the puck, too. And then it looked like Neches to Bunting back door on the power play.

Michael just redirected it wide. Otherwise, those could have all been goals. So you guys did get scoring chances. I guess it wasn't meant to be. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that happens. You know, it's probably the game that it was really not much going either way.

What's for a road game, you're okay playing it that way. Not like they were bad or we were bad or they were that good. It was just, you know, like you said, I think they capitalized at the end of the day. They made a nice play on the one goal. They're the third one. But at that point, we're a little more probably pushing than we would normally like to see.

But anyway, as that game is going over now, we got to figure out how to find a way to get a win here. All right. So let me ask you the burning question for a lot of people.

Andrei Svechnikov, yea or nay? Nope. No, we're all good. We know it's around the corner here. Obviously, hopefully you can. I don't know. I can't say tomorrow because I just, we're kind of, I think we're at a point now where it's going to happen any day. There's some sort of setback in the practice, which obviously we hope doesn't happen this morning. But, you know, I guess we're almost at a point where I think it's, when he feels like it's time to go, he's going to draw in. I think we're, I guess, any day now.

Okay. Goalie tonight, who is it? Well, Hope and Freddy. He's practiced, I think, pretty well yesterday and he hasn't given us any indication, but certainly can't go. So we're going to throw him in there. I thought you got, you should have gotten a lot of confidence in what Piotr could do. I thought Piotr was pretty good in Tampa. He held us in there. You know, I mean, he certainly did his job in that game. You know, so that was a good, positive sign for us because obviously we had a couple games in there where probably goal planning would like to be a little sharper. Right. But, I mean, that's kind of obvious. But, you know, he certainly was good in that game.

All right. Sebastian Aja played the wing. I'm not going to ask you to critique what he did on the wing, but I'm curious how long you think that will be the case. Again, it's kind of on him. You know, he wasn't feeling exactly the way he wants to feel to take face offs and things. So that's what precipitated that move.

I think you see a lot of that again tonight. And when he gets to be, you know, I don't want to say 100% healthy, but when he starts feeling normal, then hopefully we can get him back at center. From Tevo Taravainen, in what you have seen from him in the middle, are you inclined to keep him at center or move him back to the wing when Sebastian can get to the middle?

No, I think he's going to move back. I mean, he can do it. I mean, you could probably play him on defense.

He'd probably be able to do it. It's just where we want to make sure where he feels the most comfortable and where, you know, he can do his best. And so I think that's probably going to be on the wing. All right.

Final thing. And this has nothing to do with tonight's opponent, who we know is powerful, even though they've only had two games where they have scored more than one goal. Seattle is high powered, I think. But it was announced that Justin Williams is going into the Hurricanes Hall of Fame.

So I present you the forum. Tell me why or tell us why Justin is worthy of this honor. Oh, man, we could talk about that all day. I think two things stand out. But number one is that he's a hurricane. Like when you think of our team and the kind of way we pride ourselves and the way we do things like that, not, you know, just excuse Justin Williams, you know, come to the rink, play hard. Team player, you know, get the job done. Right.

Like that's Justin Williams. So that's probably the number one reason. And the other one, just he was a great player, you know, in his own right. Just he was a really solid, great two way player that rose to the occasion. You know, like that's that's why he was.

All right. Just as a follow up to that, you said it was the easiest decision you ever made when you became the head coach to make him the captain. What made him a great captain?

Well, it's kind of what I just said. I mean, the consistency, right? Like whether I always said about him, whether it was a preseason game or a Stanley Cup game, like you never notice the difference in his demeanor and the way he played. It was just, you know, the way he prepared, everything just felt like the exact same. And I guess that's the ultimate professional.

And being a leader, being done what he had done at that point, you know, obviously been on other teams and won the leadership part of not just talking the clock and walking the walk. He had done it. And so that was pretty easy. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. I'll see you later. OK, buddy. Thanks, Rob.