Is Jimmy Buffet Beach Music?

He's amused Cam Newton. He's been insulted by Charles Barkley.

He's interviewed Matthew McConaughey. And he's taken on Big Blue Nation. It's time for The Drive with Josh Graham. You are on a Tuesday Drive, WSJS, News Talk Sports for The Triad, where the most painful kind of loss you can have as a sports fan is A, having good reason to hold expectations for your team. B, your team not meeting those expectations and it happening by a narrow margin.

And C, not having a good person or thing to blame for not getting the desired result. That's the worst kind of loss you can have as a sports fan. I believe my team is going to win.

That team does not win and it happens by a narrow margin. And there isn't a good person or thing to blame because of my team losing. It's so much easier to blame somebody or to blame something when things go wrong. Ask Bill Buckner. Ask Steve Bartman.

Ask Caleb Love after this past season in Chapel Hill. It's a lot easier and more comforting to blame rather than deal with the reality that sometimes in sports your team can be deserving of winning but face a team that's slightly more deserving than your team is. That's where the Carolina Hurricanes are after falling behind three games to nothing in the Eastern Conference Finals. They're going to lose this series to the Florida Panthers and there's nobody on the canes to really scapegoat or to blame. You might say, well, they could have added another forward at the deadline. They could have added someone there. If they had Andrei Svechnikov in the lineup, things would be a lot different.

Really? They were fresh off 24 goals in five games against the New Jersey Devils. And then they got Turbo Tevo Taravainen back in the lineup.

And that should have added an extra punch. But whatever hypothetical forward you thought Carolina should have added at the deadline or having Svechnikov in the lineup, those guys still would have to beat Sergei Bobrovsky. And nobody was beating Bob last night. Speaking of goaltending, you might think Carolina's goaltending hasn't been good enough.

The rotation wasn't the problem. Goal tending itself, not the problem either. Freddie Anderson was amazing in Game 1. Flat out amazing in that four overtime loss. Both goalies were.

Amazing was Freddie Anderson. Ante Ranta got the nod in Game 2. He allowed one goal through 60 minutes. That's all you can ask for from a goalie in the playoffs. Freddie Anderson allowed one goal the entire game in a one to nothing loss. Goal tending, not the issue.

Rod Brindobor has pressed the right buttons. And he said last night, it's just another example. These last three games are just examples of sometimes you're going to play a great game and you're going to be deserving of winning and it still doesn't really break your way. It's been three games. We can't do much more. We like how we're playing, clearly.

We've got to find a way to put one in. Defensively, giving up nothing in three games. You would have said to me, you've got one of the highest potent offenses you're playing and you give them 20 shots a night, you'd be pretty happy with. It's just the way things are going for us this series.

It's kind of, you know, we've got to find a way to just break through and give ourselves a chance maybe to get back in this. They hit three posts last night. They didn't get a call at the end of the game. We're not going to blame officials for why things didn't go Carolina's way. It just sometimes doesn't. This is not profound. I don't have anything profound for you today for why the Carolina Hurricanes are down three games to nothing in this series. Sometimes in sports, it's not something big picture.

It's not something that requires a think piece or an investigation or somebody having to lose their job or anything like that. Sometimes you can play really well and the other side just play better. We've seen in the history of postseason events in all sports, this happened all the time. You think about Villanova beating Georgetown in 85. Georgetown was the better team. Villanova played a perfect game.

They shot nearly 80 percent and won by a few points in the national championship game. Sometimes these things happen in sports. It's why we love sports.

They're unscripted. It's amazing to watch teams that are eight seed barely making the playoffs like Florida do what they're doing right now, regardless of how painful it is for myself as a Carolina Hurricanes fan. And I'm sure many of you guys can relate. It does seem like that South Florida is the epicenter of sports right now. American sports. You've got the Miami Heat trying to close out the Boston Celtics tonight, trying to sweep Boston. And 30 minutes down the road, not even, you've got the Florida Panthers up three games to nothing. Potentially could sweep the Canes tomorrow night in Sunrise. On Twitter at WSJS radio, if you want in, Will Bolton is the executive producer of this show and the man that turns around these videos and runs the stream that you might be watching on Twitter or on YouTube or on Twitch.

However, and wherever you are watching or listening to this show, we appreciate that. Will Dalton, are you as frustrated as I am? I don't know how emotionally connected you are to the Canes.

I am. And it just felt like a gut punch. And my immediate reaction was to try and find somebody to blame for why Carolina's down three games to nothing. When again, the reality is Sergei Borowski is playing better than any goalie right now. And there's nobody really to point to and say that's the reason why Carolina is in this position. I'm still fairly young as a Canes fan. Like, I didn't really start getting into it until maybe five years or so ago.

But I did see that. And I know how the Canes have been the last handful of years. They've been to an Eastern Conference final. They've been good the last handful of years.

They just can't seem to break that barrier. All the years you've rooted for them, they've been good. You were not there for the nine-year playoff drought. This is why I want to bring Jon Forslund on, who's been calling the series for national radio, longtime Canes' voice. He'll join us at the bottom of the hour to add some perspective to those who are blaming Rod Brind'Amour or blaming Rafs or blaming where things are.

And you need to change things and blow things up and all these types of things that you're seeing today, shifting things. The Carolina Panthers are in the OTAs phase of the offseason. And honestly, it's been refreshing how transparent they've been about the quarterback situation so far. Everybody seems to be on the same page and clear how this is going to go. And everybody seems pretty cool with it, at least on the outside. So far, I haven't detected any drama or any tension between the guys or the coaches or between management and the players and the coaches.

So with that being the case, frankly, it's been kind of boring. Bryce Young says all the right things. He's so polished. He's got the politician thing down. You want your franchise quarterback to be a politician nowadays. Saying a lot of words with not much substance.

The Russell Wilson experience, the Tom Brady experience. Bryce Young's got that piece of it down. Listen to his press conferences he's had over the last couple of weeks. Not a lot of interesting coming out of Bryce Young's mouth. And clearly that is intentional.

He's mastered that. You've got the coaches being pretty straightforward that Bryce Young's going to get more reps than Andy Dalton is. The intent is to try and have him starting games, even though right now Andy Dalton is listed as the starting quarterback. Andy Dalton. He's completely on board with getting Bryce Young ready to start.

Understanding he's not the answer. He is a bridge and that might be a very short bridge. That bridge might be, I'm not starting any games with the Carolina Panthers. Andy Dalton gets this. He signed on for it after the Panthers traded for the number one pick.

That's when Andy Dalton was signed the week after that. And here he was speaking to the role he's going to play. I know the situation that we're in here. I knew coming in that we were going to have the first pick and we were going to take a quarterback. For me that doesn't change my mindset of how I'm going about every single day. I know the reality that this thing is going to be Bryce's at some point.

And right now it's, for me, it's to go just be me out there. I think part of that is helping Bryce learn the NFL game and the mechanics of getting in and out of the huddle and all the little things that you need to learn going into it. This isn't Big Ben picking issue with Mason Rudolph being drafted. This isn't Brett Favre doing a similar thing when Rodgers was drafted in the first round. He's been there before. A couple years ago, the Bears drafted Justin Fields after signing Andy Dalton, and he helped bring Fields along.

He's done this before. He understands his role. Frank Reich, those that Matt Corral isn't long for the Carolina Panthers. Now, you got to be more delicate with that than Dalton can be talking about the issue of the obvious, hey, the number one pick is eventually going to be starting over him. But this is how delicate Frank was in talking about Matt Corral.

I had a great conversation with Matt the other day, and I obviously won't go into those private conversations, but Matt's got a great attitude about it. His perspective is what it needs to be. And my only two cents that I would say would be, you got to play the long game. You got to play the long game. It's a long season. It's a long career.

Just do the next right thing. Get better every day. The reality is Matt Corral is Will Greer 2.0. Drafted in the third round by a coaching staff that was about to become a lame duck coaching staff. Will Greer was taken in the 2019 draft, Ron Rivera's last year in the third round. And then after the new coaching staff came in, they had different plans at quarterback that didn't involve a third round draft pick. And in Carolina's case, they just traded up to take a quarterback number one overall. They're not going to keep three quarterbacks into the regular season. They moved off Jacob Eason over the weekend doing Matt Corral a solid saying, hey, we're going to give you the second half probably of our preseason games, if not more than that. This is going to be your chance to audition for other teams to potentially be a backup and prove your worth. And Frank Reich, he has the bona fides to say, listen, I'm not asking something of you that I haven't already experienced myself. I spent my entire career as a backup of the NFL. You can make the most of it just like I did.

This is the situation that you're in. Think about the long call was how he put it. It's been refreshing hearing how the Panthers have talked about the quarterbacks and how the quarterbacks have talked about their roles. Haze Permar joining the show now.

We'll play skips or plays with Haze beach music theme as we're giving away beach music festival tickets. That is the screw rod rod. The Hurricanes didn't get the high sticking call at the end of the game. Rod felt they should have had.

He went a bit tame after the game, even though you could tell he was pretty upset. What was the song you were covering again, Permar, that you were parroting there? The do run run.

Got it. Well, the great song because it's a song you need to get along. It's a great song. Classic.

Who is it? Is it the Crystals who sang that song? The do run run.

That sounds right. One of those girl groups. The do run run run. The do run run. The do run run.

We'll get to the music in a bit. Where do you stand right now on optimism versus anger? It's a three nothing series drought. Only four teams in NHL history have ever come back from that. Are you the type that believes that the Canes could be the fifth or are you already trying to sharpen a pitchfork and find somebody to blame for the reason why Carolina's in their current position? I see no reason to believe that the Canes can string together four straight wins. But but, you know, I think the next game is a 50-50 toss up. And then let's say the Canes win that, I'll call the next game a 50-50 toss up. And, you know, so it's like there's the odds of them winning the series are the same as you flipping heads four times in a row. It's probably not going to happen very often. But once you've done it once, then you've only got to do it three times. And then once you've done it twice, you're like, well, I could see it happening twice.

So it's one of those deals. As far as anger. Do you remember, I think it was in the middle of last season, maybe a year before, where somebody wrote a very good by the numbers article about calls versus style of play. And I don't speak hockey enough to break it down for you, but it was similar to like in basketball. It would it wouldn't just take into account who was getting called for the most in these fouls. It also took into account style of play and how good bad the team was. So like, you know, the Warriors sometimes don't draw as many fouls, even though they're a good team because they're shooting a lot of threes, right? Whatever the equivalent was that was, you know, they did they did it for hockey just by the numbers.

Who gets calls? Who's creating, you know, generating a lot of offense, but also not getting calls and also a pretty good team. But it was like the canes of the Avalanche stood out for that and the canes even stood out even more from that of like that. I'm not accusing refs of bias. I'm not accusing the NHL of bias. I'm saying these are the numbers, the teams that create the most opportunities and are being aggressive and getting the least number of calls. And like the canes were like a four outlier. I want to say like it was like, whoa, it's by the numbers. It seems like it's pretty bad and everybody read this story and then it was like.

All right, and we're just moving on. Like, you know, like I never saw anybody address it. I saw maybe one article like try to poke a hole in one or two of the numbers arguments, but none of them were deeply done or whatever. So I'd like to see the same in the playoffs. Like give me those analytics of created chances on the one hand.

I'm tired of hearing. Oh, the canes are got more dangerous chances in the Panthers. We should be winning the series three double whatever you got to put the puck in the goal. But when it comes to analyzing whether or not we're getting calls or not, give me a breakdown of who's creating the most offensive chances and getting the least number of calls.

And I'll stand by it. It could be that the canes overall for this playoffs are right in the middle of the pack. And we're just getting that in the moment. But I'd like to see it again. It kind of feels like we get a little idea.

Yeah, you're mentioning the pack there. Let's see that while we're talking proportion of people getting mad. Let's see how many are, you know, are also rooting for the college team that shares a building with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Going to throw that out there just and let it sit. Hayes Permar is with us here. Now let's get to something I've been looking forward to.

And you know what? We got a couple of tickets, two pairs of tickets to the beach music festival in Stuart, Virginia. If you would like to go first couple of callers, it's the forty first annual they're having it. You know, it's a good music festival of chairman of the board showing up. They seem to be at every good music festival and concert.

They're going to be there in addition to a lot of other groups. First two callers at three three six seven seven seven one six hundred will be winners to go see the music festival or the beach music festival at Stuart, Virginia. Now it's time to play skips or plays with Hayes beach music theme. Hayes Permar is somewhat of a Renaissance man, an expert in the finer things.

But he hangs his hat on music, loves his God, and he's the friend of Satan. He was like, oh, six, getting busy with his sticks, been watching big Mike, a little trick trip. I just need a Zion and someone he can dunk on. Today, Hayes will decide if this music is smash or trash, blows or blows.

It's time for skips or plays with Hayes. And this is the place I want to begin before we have W.D. play a song by Jimmy Buffett. He told me he has a Jimmy Buffett song lined up just so we could have this conversation. I asked the question earlier in the show, is Jimmy Buffett beach music?

And 75 percent of our Twitter poll and there's a couple hundred that have voted on this said yes. In fact, Jimmy Buffett is beach music. Then we inquired the expertise of David Glenn, who's a super fan of Jimmy Buffett. And he wrote in, while Jimmy Buffett's music is perfect for the beach and many other settings, it does not qualify as air quotes beach music. If you mean the genre that started in the Carolinas slash 1950s and is associated with shag dancing, et cetera.

But Jimmy Buffett does say that beach music influenced his music, though. Do what you will with that. Now let's hear what Jimmy Buffett song do you have lined up, W.D.? Well, I think actually we're going to get to that one last. Can we just open this right out of the gate? Perhaps start this out.

Sorry, I'm producing on the fly here. What is the song that you ended up pulling for this? We're going to go. We're going to go with Finn's Jimmy Buffett. It's a Robert Walsh favorite, by the way, Permar. Yeah, that is a great song. This is a play. It's also a Hayes Permar parody song because of all the Finns that we still have on the Carolina hurricanes. You should go listen to it. We got Finns in the net, Finns on the ice. And they're all hurricanes now.

I even geographically name check the cities in Finland for the parody. It's a good one. You should play it on here.

But regardless, this is actually a play. I'm not as big a Jimmy Buffett fan as David Bloom, but there's several songs I do like. This is a good song. Like a lot of music, Jimmy Buffett music is, I think Jimmy describes his own style as Keys and Western. Instead of country and Western, he calls it Keys and Western. And that's why I say his is more like Keys Island music. And I want to give it a genre, again, perfect for listening on the beach, even more so in Florida or the Gulf Coast, Florida or Alabama or wherever. But beach music.

Do I get the answer? Yes. Beach music.

And you should really you honestly should have David Minconi on the show. Read his book. Step it up and go about the history of North Carolina music. Beach music is actually a code word in for like like David said in the 50s and 60s for white people describing black music. They would go to the beach from their sheltered homes. And then the jukeboxes at the beaches would be these records about the stack record label and the early precursors to Motown and stuff like that. And they loved it.

But they radio disc jockeys and kids talking to their parents couldn't say we love being black on this. Beach music. The music that we hear down at the beach. And then what they brought it back to their colleges and the fraternities, whatever band parties.

And that style was popular. They could dance to it. Not only did R&B groups start touring the colleges of the South, but other groups formed just to imitate that style. And then they beginning writing songs about music being played at the beach where they like literally refer to Myrtle Beach or shagging on the beach or all that stuff. It was really just trying to come up with other songs that sounded like soul music for the 50s and 60s that they had become so accustomed to. So that's the history of beach music. That's why I feel like beach music has to have a little bit of a more soulful feel. Even if it's white bands that were singing it, they sort of discovered, hey, this is the style that plays well in the college town.

I could make a good living just roaming around the big, you know, universities. And here is North Carolina, University of Virginia, Wake Forest, Stephen would have a big frat party and they'd be playing beach music. And that is the type of beach music that we refer to in the Carolinas. Not the Beach Boys, not Jimmy Buffett. I love the Beach Boys. I like Jimmy Buffett.

It's just a different genre of music. He took up the entire song. Hayes-Permar. Long-winded Hayes-Permar. There you go. That's a play. Skips or plays with Hayes-Permar, not skips or plays and let's read a book by Hayes-Permar.

What's the next one? I actually really do appreciate that, by the way. I've been trying to elevate the discourse of sports radio. I know that's what you're trying to do day in and day out. I'm just trying to do it a little bit. Thank you. Appreciate that. Can't find this song, by the way. I searched your entire almanac three times.

I can't find the Fins cover that you're talking about. Albeit, I do remember it. So, Permar, you'll have to go to his Twitter page.

Maybe he'll repost it for us at dhpiv or maybe not. What's the next song? Next on the list, I Love Beach Music by Embers. This played at my wedding.

I think Permar got on the dance floor when this song played. You know what? I'm going to skip this.

Yeah, that's right. I played Jimmy Buffett and I'm skipping this one. Because it is kind of funny if you read Minn Kody's book again, which I get no royalties from. It just is an amazing book and if you like music and live in North Carolina, it should be like a textbook. But it is kind of funny that out of the whole genre, instead of just continuing to write new soul songs on whatever topics, it was like, well, let's just keep writing songs about beach music. Country music does this a little bit where it will refer to its own song. But it's just kind of a funny thing to be like, a beach music song is a song literally about beach music. But it's a little bit too on the nose for me and this just isn't in my top 25 favorite beach music songs. So, I'm giving it a skip. The Embers, top notch though.

I've seen them a few times. What's the last song you have? You have one play, one skip.

Let's try and finish it out strong. Surfin' in the USA, The Beach Boys. If everybody had an ocean across the USA Then everybody be surfin' like Alabama City There you go, it's a play. I'm trying to speak dog.

I think that means play. No, no, no. This is not beach music. I love The Beach Boys. But hey, this is like cheesy Beach Boys stuff.

This is not head sound. This is not top notch Beach Boys music. So this gets a skip as well. It's oddly, I played Jimmy Buffett's skip on The Beach Boys. Played on, I mean skipped on Embers.

To prove my point, I should have played the Embers and skipped the others too. But, if you ask me what's beach music, only the middle one. But if you ask me my skip, it's the last to play on Jimmy Buffett. There we go.

We got this, we got the Permar song now. But, I don't have to worry about curse words on this one, Permar. Do I? Do I gotta worry about it? No, we're all good. We're all good.

That's the only concern I had is worrying about curse words. So, I'll fire that off over to you really quickly. Here, WD. And we'll enjoy it together. Haze Permar covering a song that WD threw at him by Jimmy Buffett. See, your almanacs become so deep, I don't know why I keep saying almanac. Your catalog has become so deep that you don't even know what songs have been covered anymore. Let's hear it and hope there aren't any curse words in here.

Poopy. Voila. That's excellent work, Permar.

That's great. I really thought that song would do better with the finished translations in there, the geography. I was a little underwhelmed by the response. I think I tried to launch it on TikTok and I got all tripped up. That's what I get for trying to be Jim Z.

But, that song should have done better. Haze, we'll talk to you next week, buddy. Thank you, guys.

We'll get back to the canes when Jon Forslund joins us in about 15 minutes. But let's get to college sports. Social media is still a fairly new invention. It's only 10, 15 years old and we're still learning of all the effects that have come along with these apps and being addicted to our phones and all the consequences that come along with it. And in the last year or two, we've seen studies connecting social media use among teens to teenage depression, to teenage anxiety. And anecdotally, the story that's so commonly used is some version of this. When I go on Instagram and I see how beautiful somebody, one of my classmates is. When I see the life they're living and I see the types of trips people go on and the fun things they're doing. And I compare their filtered life to my own, it doesn't measure up. And teenagers specifically struggle to realize that social media is the highlights for people. It's not real life, it's the highlights for so many. And when we read some stories that come out of the traditional media, we should probably take some of that with a grain of salt too and understand that maybe not everything that's reported at first, breaking news that's reported out there is always the 100% clear picture. Odds are there are some problems that persist beneath the surface when everything seems well, everything seems awesome at the surface. There are things bubbling on beneath that aren't exactly awesome.

And everybody else, like yourself, is dealing with problems too. That's what I was thinking of when I read that the Big Ten is having issues with its television deal. That the $7 billion TV deal that they agreed to last year that everyone said is going to be the bane of the ACC's existence and is going to make them irrelevant and trying to fight an uphill battle and all of that.

Apparently it's not all it's cracked up to be. Don't expect the Big Ten to ruin the ACC anytime soon. The way that it was presented all last summer when USC and UCLA joined and then this TV deal was announced sometime last October, last November.

For one, the deal wasn't finished, we learned. There are still things that need to be done between the Big Ten and NBC. And apparently the former Big Ten commissioner, Kevin Warren, promised some things that he wasn't completely privy to promising, including the 2026 Big Ten championship game to a network that wasn't Fox. It's a part of the reason why the university presidents wanted Kevin Warren gone and Kevin Warren jumped ship from the Big Ten back to the Chicago Bears. That in addition to botching COVID.

One of the worst commissioners there were in the Power Five dealing with COVID, we now have learned in retrospect. They still, apparently schools are going to have to pay back ESPN and pay back Fox some of the TV money they were set to make. So there's some panic about budgets and meeting bills and doing things in the Big Ten that frankly the ACC isn't really dealing with right now.

Their budget seems to be pretty consistent, pretty set, pretty stable. It's not as much as the Big Ten's making, we know that, but there's some mismanagement here. And money does not overcome mismanagement, we've learned in sports. And there's some turmoil that exists right now for the Big Ten Conference. Money does not guarantee success.

We've learned that across all sports. W.D., do you know what NBA team spent the most money over the last 25 years in salary? You want to take a guess?

Hmm, I don't have a clue. Well, you can guess. I mean, in salary, like, who spent the most money? I would steep us into the luxury tax, spending the most on free agents and trying to build rosters, the Lakers. The answer is the New York Knicks.

That was going to be my second guess. And the Knicks haven't done anything the last 25 years. Gonzaga, they don't have as much money from their conference payout in the West Coast Conference, competitive every year.

UConn turned away money to leave the American after not getting into the ACC to rejoin their friends in the Big East. And they just won a national title in basketball and baseball that doesn't have a salary cap. The Yankees spend more money than anybody else, have not won a title in 15 years. The Dodgers won title in the last 35, the best team in baseball right now, the most dominant team in baseball is the Tampa Bay Rays.

And it's not a one-off. They've been good for the last handful of years. Money doesn't always guarantee success. It doesn't always guarantee, you know, that you're going to be dominant. And the ACC has enough to be competitive. The other thing we need to talk about is why is the Big Ten talked about much differently competitively than the ACC is? The way the ACC is framed nationally, or at least it was the way it was during Clemson's run was, there's Clemson and then there's the other 10 dwarves, 10 or 11 dwarves running around that are nowhere close to Clemson. Do not hold a candle to Clemson. That's the way the ACC is framed because Clemson's been the only school to win a national title for the ACC since 2015, since 2014. But how's that much different than the Big Ten? Other than Ohio State, nobody's been close to winning a football title.

Nobody. When Michigan State made it to the playoff, they got routed. When Michigan made the playoff routed by Georgia a year ago, oh, they played a close game with TCU this year. Cool.

Want a cookie? How would you have done against Georgia in the national title game? Probably not too great. You're going to give TCU all these points for getting to the championship game and the Big 12 all these points? For you playing a close game against TCU in the semifinal?

Nobody's been close. Ohio State won the Big Ten's last national title in 2014. The ACC's won two titles with Clemson since then and been to a couple more with Clemson. But other than Ohio State, the last time a Big Ten teams won a national championship in football, you have to go back to the 90s. At least the ACC could say that, hey, we had Florida State that won in 2013. Even though Miami wasn't in the ACC, at least Miami is in the conference and they've won a title in the 21st century. What other Big Ten team could say that?

And then don't get us started with basketball. You have all these bids and you haven't even been to a Final Four since 2019. Haven't won a national title since the year 2000. Meanwhile, the ACC constantly has teams in the Final Four, constantly has teams winning national championships. Oh, but the Big Ten has more money.

They're not going to run away from the ACC anytime soon. And the story with television, it's just evidence that it might appear that somebody down the neighborhood has a lot more than you do. Oh, they have a lot better life than you do. They've got problems too.

Not everything that's reported in the media or what you see on social media is real life, often it's highlights. John Forslund, he's going to join us in a bit. Tonight, we've got the Boston Celtics facing the Miami Heat. Miami trying to do what Denver did last night and complete a sweep. For Joe Mazzulla's sake, W.D., it's probably best for Boston to win the night.

For his sake. Because do you really want to be in front of all those fans again in Game 5? Really, all going back to Boston would be is an opportunity for Celtics fans to potentially assault Joe Mazzulla and throw things at him. And boo him. And they'll do it. They will.

It's an unforgiving city. The players, they want it to end. That seemed pretty clear in Game 3. But regardless, I want to see Boston win just because I want to watch basketball sometime between now and next Thursday. The finals date's already set. June 1st, next Thursday.

So if Miami closes out tonight, we'll have nine days without basketball. Our friend John Forslund going to join us in just a bit. Longtime Canes TV voice. In more recent years, he's been broadcasting the Seattle Kraken. He's been doing the Eastern Conference finals on national radio. The Carolina Hurricanes fell behind three games to nothing.

In Florida last night. Game 4, the Panthers looking to go for the sweep tomorrow. But it's not the only other series that's going right now. There's a chance we could be looking at another three games to nothing series. Except when Vegas won its first two games, they won those games on the road. The Golden Knights did. Or Vegas won at home, excuse me. Florida won on the road. So now we'll see what happens as the series transitions to Dallas, kind of like the Canes Florida series. First two games of that series went to overtime. So last night, Canes Panthers, that was the first conference finals game out of five that we had seen so far. That did not go to an extra session. But every game has been decided by one goal.

Very thin margins we're seeing at this stage. John Forslund now joining us. John, how many series in Canes history do you remember going down like this? Where the Canes are deserving of winning, but just running into a side that is slightly more deserving, it seems. Well, to answer your question, Josh, and thanks for having me.

I don't recall anything like this. I don't necessarily agree with they deserve to win. I know that, you know, you look at various statistics and you listen to narratives that come out. But, you know, when I look at this series and I look at every period that's been played, there's an extra step for the Hurricanes. And if they want to fool themselves into believing that it's just Sergei Bobrovsky, that's okay. If that's what they want to take to their summer, okay, fine. They have one game to prove that they can be better. They have one game to prove that they have a willingness to get to the interior of the ice. They have one game to prove that they can win more board battles in Florida. And if they do all of that, then they can win a game.

They can take it back to Raleigh. They can ride the crest of emotion from the Caniacs in game five and push for game six. But if we're going to get into this thing about they deserve better and they should be up in the series and all of this, they're not. And if it is one player, if it is Sergei Bobrovsky, and that's the only difference in the series, that's hockey. Because a goaltender has always been the difference.

You can go back 100 years. Nothing's ever changed. Nothing ever will change in this sport. That's the dynamic of hockey. So the goalie is out playing everyone right now for Florida. That's true. But I'm not sure that Carolina's best players have been at their best in this series if we want to be really objective about this.

Yeah, I see. I guess what just came to mind for me, if you're going to the overtime session in game two, Jordan Stahl had a great chance, 15 seconds in. And he's one of those best players that you're talking about that need to show up. And Jacob Slavin, he got a stick on that power play that ended up netting the goal.

But unfortunately, it just ended up in the back of your net. I guess, what do you point to then as the primary thing that Carolina might have had as an oversight going into the playoffs that, you know, some point to the deadline of not bolstering the top six and leaving yourself vulnerable with Pasi Uredi getting hurt and with Spetsch that got hurt shortly after that, especially how active a lot of other teams were. Is there something that you point to as this is what's to blame if the series does end up being Florida going to the Stanley Cup?

I think they absolutely needed to add something at the deadline more than they did. They added a third pairing defenseman who's worked out and Shane Gosterspere has played above expectation, I believe. Yes, Sapule Harvey has been a bust. He was a bust in Edmonton. He's got, you know, a lot to figure out in terms of his NHL career moving forward.

So that's a moot point. You know, when you look at Spetschnikov, yes, he's a game breaker. He has a power game, which is needed. He had 23 goals in 61 games.

That's just okay. For a player of his stature and his contractual value, I think he needs to have 35 to 40 goals every season. So 23 goals in 61 is below average for me. So they're missing that player.

Pasi Uredi, for me, doesn't count. He never had him. Played a handful of games. He wasn't part of the mix all season. You know, yes, maybe that's part of their plan. So is Andrei Kasha, who never played a game this season. So, you know, all these things I'm not sure really matter in terms of the 82 games they played leading in the playoffs.

So what I'll say is this. The Hurricanes are going to look at this, and depending on what happens, if they pull off a miracle and they beat Florida and they move on, they're going to have a really good chance to win the Stanley Cup with this group. Rod Brind'Amour is an outstanding coach and he's very good at selling hope. And that's what he's going to have to do to make them believe that they can win Game 4 and take it back to Raleigh. But if they don't, if they don't win, this is the fifth year of this cycle. This is the fifth year they've been in a position to win, to win the Stanley Cup, not just reach the conference final. You know, there are other teams who are in a different type of cycle right now. And those teams are going to retool and they're going to get there. For the Hurricanes, they've had a few kicks at this. So if they're going to look and be true about, you know, what they have, I think they're going to have to add some grit and heaviness to their lineup. Because as of right now, and I thought this way going into this series, when you go man for man, there's just a little bit of a difference. If Florida could get gold to any which they have beyond expectation, if they were able to continue to ride this crest of an unbelievable chemical equation they have going in their locker room, that's taken them through Boston and Toronto to here, okay, good. But what they do have is they have a little heavier presence in their game. They have a little bit more grit that I think the Carolina Hurricanes need. And I've felt that way for a long time.

And I don't know. I think it's rearing its ugly head because, yes, Jordan Stall has had great chances. Jordan Martinook has had great chances. But the chances have to fall for Sebastian Ajo and Marty Nances and Thabo Taravani.

Those are the players that have to be the best in this series, and they have not been. Jon Forslund's with us here calling the series on national radio, former longtime voice of the canes. I can concede this, Jon. The conversations we used to have every single year talking about, oh, man, you can't really rule out potential relocation if you keep missing the playoffs and nine straight years of missing versus where they're at right now, I do enjoy that a lot more. And with that in mind, on the way out, Jon, how about those Baltimore Orioles? How about them?

You would have to bring that up. 31 wins, Jon. 31. I know. You know what? I will start to pay a lot more attention to baseball.

That's how it works. But I will say this. You know, the Hurricanes in a business sense are in a great spot. The fans are back. The fans are back better than ever. They had 33 sellout this season.

The stadium game was a home run. They have the framework of success in place. They just need to take an extra step. And hopefully they get there. And I hope, you know, at Camden Yards it's showing up at the gate, too.

We'll see. I need to get out there. There's no doubt. Jon, I hope you were able to get back out to Fenway and watch your Red Sox at some point this summer. But I really do appreciate the time. It's good to hear your voice. Good to see you as well over the weekend. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, it was great seeing you the other night. Continued success and keep up the great work.