Sportsnet 590 The FAN: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show on the Carolina Hurricanes and Rod Brind’Amour situation.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Now we wonder what’s next for the Carolina Hurricanes. And I’ll throw a couple of, a couple of, couple of positions, titles and situations at you and you tell me which one you think is most pressing.”
Friedman: “K.”
Marek: “Coach …”
Friedman: “Yeah.”
Marek: “The manager …”
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Friedman: “Stop you right there.
Marek: “Yeah.”
Friedman: “It’s the coach. It’s the coach. Like everything else, I, and this is probably the only situation that I would say that in. Look, you are not a good coach without good players.
And you know, I remember talking to Peter DeBoer about that once. Peter DeBoer was, as you know, a hugely successful Junior coachm and his first NHL job was in Florida. And, and the Panthers then were not the Panthers as we know them now. And you know, he talked about how. like you know, he talked about how, you know, I believe I’m a good coach, I believe I know what needs to be done. But he learned that if the infrastructure and the players, you don’t have a good team, it doesn’t matter how good a coach you are. You’re just not a winner. So I always defer to players first.
But this is a situation where I believe that the coach really sets the tone for the organization. And I think the Hurricanes know that. I think they know it’s a very, very different situation if Brind’Amour is not there.
He’s married to the area and you know, he’s gonna have to convince people that he really wants to leave there. I, even with everything that’s gone on, you know, a lot of people Brind’Amour don’t think he really wants to leave there.
But the whole tone and tenor around the organization changes of Brind’amour is not there. And it’s, I don’t think you can change a coach and any other team in the NHL and face the kind of seismic change that would caused an organization if Brind’Amour left Carolina.
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So I think that’s the number one thing they have to sort out and figure out. And like I said, people believe it’s going to happen, but there’s a lot of people, whether they’re throwing random or throw organization, however you want to call it, they kind of can’t believe it’s gotten to this point.