John Forslund

It's been a never ending question since we got here in 1997.

But anyway, he was able to watch and I was able to observe him watch and look at Kirk Muller and then look at Bill Peters and take some of that.

And then, of course, he's taken a lot from Peter Laviolette and Paul Maurice.

He said that and then morph into his own guy.

And it was very similar to when he played, you know, right away with the Hurricanes and Ron Francis was still the captain of the team and he came from Philadelphia and

And they went to the Stanley Cup final in 2002, and he was a subordinate to Rodney, but what a great one-two punch that was down the middle.

But then after the lockout in the 05-06 season when Francis retired and he became the captain, he just went to another place because now it finally was his room.

Well, my analogy to that would be this is what happened when he became a head coach.

And to be fair, the new owner, when he came in, was reluctant to go to Rodney.

And kind of just said, all right, we'll give him a chance.

And that's all it was.

So any suggestion that this was a brainstorm by the new ownership group and at the time, the management group to go to Rod Brindamore, I think it was, let's give him a chance and see.

And they're very lucky.

They're very lucky that he's been able to build that culture.

Because without that culture, it would be interesting to see where it all goes.

Because he gets a complete buy-in, guys.

He gets a complete buy-in from every player.

You look at the guys that come in here, based on whatever history they have, they blend in because of him.

And he demands a high work ethic, but he's relatable.

He's a communicator.