OverDrive
Ferraro on the Hurricanes' Stanley Cup win, Brind'Amour's identity and Marner's playoff run
15 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's a guy that was there throughout the Cup Final. Here's our main man, Ray Ferraro from ESPN, joining us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline. Ray, you can jump in on this chat with Mitch Marner, what you saw out of him up close and personal in the last couple months.
How is your opinion or viewpoint of kind of the Mitch Marner legacy or reputation possibly adjusted over the last couple of months?
Well, I got to say, I'm shocked this was the first topic. Shocked. You know, like, unreal. Now, I'm listening to you guys. Now, it is the finals, right? It is different than the first round.
Chapter 2: What insights does Ray Ferraro share about Mitch Marner's playoff performance?
I would definitely think, in my opinion anyway, it looked a hell of a lot different than it did in Toronto in rounds one and two. Like, that's a... He got to the final. It's a big reason. He's a big reason why they got there. I don't know if everybody noticed, but Jack Eichel had two goals in the playoffs. Does he hurt, Ray? I don't know. I don't think so, but...
Because I thought he skated pretty well. He did have some crap. He hit the crossbar a couple of times. So that would have got him to four goals. But it didn't... I think Vegas played until the tank was empty. And all of them... From game... The last part of game four through game five and into game six, they were done. They didn't have... They didn't have any energy left.
And it seemed like Carolina was getting more and more strong as the series went on. As for Marner, clearly he's a brilliant passer. He's a great creator. And as their pace wore him down, it wore everybody else down around him. So you only become so dangerous. And in the last couple of games, he didn't have anything. He didn't have anything left, I don't think, to give.
That's what it looked like to me.
So in terms of, you know, Carolina flipping that switch, right, it's 2-1 after three games, and you mentioned they seem to get stronger. Vegas, I guess, seemed to run out of gas. Was there anything, you know, tangible that you can point to? Was it Bussey going in? Was it Ajo and Svechnikov kind of arriving in the series?
You know, like what did you see that allowed that to happen, the series to flip the way it did?
I think the 13 games that they played to get to the final, the 11 days off before Montreal, I think somewhere along the line it gives you more gas in the tank. Like there had to be an advantage for the fact that they do not ever overplay anyone. No forward for Carolina plays 23, 24 minutes. They don't do it. They play three and a half lines all the time.
And so the rest, the style of play, the freshness of their players, certainly when Bussey came in, I think almost by accident, they were able to make a goalie change that Vegas probably would have liked to have made. Because Hart, to me as well, looked like he was worn out. Played 25 straight games. And they're all...
um cory schneider was saying uh yesterday i was talking to him he said there you got to remember they're all high leverage games like there's not there's no eight one games where you can take a snooze and and i i just think carolina was fresher and as much as maybe people don't want to give them their due that's that team's been roughly the same for four or five years
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Chapter 3: How did the Carolina Hurricanes' style contribute to their Stanley Cup win?
Those guys are like worker ants. And to watch them is so impressive. And I think in their scouting profile and in their profile of players they bring in, if you're not a worker, it doesn't fit. And when they brought in, for example, when they brought in Rantanen, his style of play... doesn't quite fit Carolina. And remember how much he struggled when he was there.
It was like the pace and the style just didn't suit him. So they flip him to Dallas and they end up with Stankov and a couple of firsts, one of them that they turn into Miller. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, they got back. They took a swing, didn't work, and then they went right back to what they know best.
So I would think the one thing is identify whatever you want your team to be, if this is the copycat. and make your pursuit of the players fit that. Don't sign somebody. There's players that sign every year, and you go, nah, I don't know if that's going to work. You don't really say that in Carolina. I use these three guys.
I said, if you didn't know what their face looked like, and you changed the jerseys of Martinuk, Robinson, and Carrier, would you really know the difference? They all scored 12 goals. They all hit 200 times a year. They're fast. It's a Carolina player. I just think it's really admirable.
Do you think Rod Brindamore will be remembered more as a player or as a coach?
Coach. I think he should be in the Hall of Fame. I look at his numbers and I look at other guys that have numbers similar to his that are in. but I think his numbers would tell us he's probably a hulk. His impact is in the top shelf.
It is just remarkable how much he means to that team, and so I think people will, in time, people won't remember him quite the player that he was, because he was so good. But man, as a coach, I think I think they'll remember. He's so intense, right?
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Chapter 4: What factors led to the Carolina Hurricanes gaining momentum in the finals?
It kind of cracks you up sometimes. Ehlers scores in the empty net. It's 3-0. Everybody's going. And he's yelling behind the bench, one more minute. One more minute. Can we please have a hug here? And then when they win, he just explodes in joy with the players. They're all in there. That is Rod's team. That is... Everything they do goes through him.
I've never seen anyone bear hug the cup on the ice either like he did last night. I thought he was going to dent it.
Did you see him without his shirt today?
Oh, yeah. Probably did dent it with his pecs, not dropping it. The guy's a beast. With Ray Ferraro, something to chew on, brought to you by Boston Pizza, Canada's favorite sports bar. We've been asking Ray, did they make the right call, Jordan Stahl winning the Conn Smythe?
Okay, again, this is probably a Carolina problem. It could have been Stankoven. It could have been Hall. It could have been Freddie Anderson until the last couple of games when Bussey took over. And at the end of it is Stahl, who had just a... He kicked the crap out of Vegas in that series. I don't know how good Jordan Stahl is. If you individually skill them up against other players...
But he's a monster. He's 70% in the face-off circle, but he has six goals in six games. I'm going to say yes because I think he's as valuable to that team as anybody else.
Ray, when you look at Vegas, you talked about the high leverage situation that Carter Hart was in. When he gave up four goals three games in a row, do you think Torts, looking back on it, said, I should have, just for a change in momentum, should have tried something different? Or would you have done what Torts did and just rode with it?
When they won game three, I thought that if they were going to make a change, the freebie start was game four. Because if you lose it, you're 2-2 anyway. But they won, and I know he's thinking, if we can get one more, we've got a stranglehold on this thing. But until game six, the big save was not there for Hart. And I thought he was fine for the most part.
But Noodles, you know better than we do. But didn't he look just a little bit off? He wasn't catching anything as cleanly. He didn't. track the puck quite as well. And to me, those are marks of a guy wearing down a bit.
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Chapter 5: What role did Rod Brind'Amour play in the Hurricanes' success?
He had seven goals, I think, in 30 games. Man, that would be a tough one. That would be a tough one for me to go, yep, this is the right thing. You know, like I don't see it. But the changes, absolutely. Like Smith is going to be gone. Todd will be gone. He didn't play. I do think Hill will go.
They'll make a change on D because I think at some point their pace, Carolina's, was too much for that D. As for sports, I don't know, guys. I mean, like it felt like ā They were going to wait and see. The guy there to keep an eye on is Ryan Craig. He's been there a while. If it's not now, maybe Ryan Craig starts a name popping up somewhere else too.
They sent him to the minors to help him run his own bench and to be ready to be a coach. It kind of feels like it's getting close to his time.
So hang on a sec. Before we go, Ray, what do you think happens with Cassidy now?
Oh, I don't understand this. I mean, I understand it, but I do not understand that he can't be coaching. I mean, they don't want him to coach for them. I don't know. It feels like he's going to be available, but I have no insight to it as to say, oh, this guy told me something, but I don't have any insight to it. It is so odd to me that this situation even exists.
Yeah, it's bizarre. And there's only really one coaching job available, possibly, and we all know where that is here in Toronto.
Which, okay, but we haven't talked about it, but... The Babcock and Edmonton thing is bizarre. Crazy. To even think about how you landed there. Here's something I thought of. So McDavid and Dreisaitl and Hyman are interviewing the coach.
That's it.
That's like you guys interviewing the boss of TSN for his job.
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