WRAL’s Pat Welter sits down with Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky to discuss the upcoming season.

Show Transcript

Eric, it feels like yesterday we were doing this interview right before the start of last season. You’ve just been named GM. How much more comfortable are you not necessarily on this couch, but just in this job a year later? Yeah, no, it’s been good. It’s, you know, first year there’s a lot to learn, getting up to speed on everything, building relationships around the league, and you know, second year I feel like I’m settled in a little more. Couple of the pieces that you brought in this year DeAndre Miller, defenseman from the Rangers, and Nikolai Ellers forward from the Winnipeg Jets. What specifically. About them and their fit here was appealing to you. Yeah, so they’re very different players playing very different roles and they fit for different reasons. I like the thing they both have in common is they’re really good skaters, and that’s important with the way Rod wants players to play with Nikolai, he brings his sort of skill along with that speed that adds to the high end talent in our forward group. Andre is different. He’s a defenseman and. You know what he does with his skating is you sit to close plays down. I’m gonna throw a theory at you here. I know your background worked in nanotechnology. One of your patents is related to, I think you told me, making rocks so small that they could emit light. So is this where your affinity for small forwards comes from? It’s a little bit different. I, uh, I, you know, it’s a little bit different, you know, we don’t fetishize anything, right? So size is a useful attribute. It’s something you want to have on your team, but it’s not an absolute prerequisite to being an effective player. Guys like Stan Coven and Blake battle really hard, and they make it so their size doesn’t hold them back. Here’s Blake out in front with a shot. It almost feels unfair for fans to view this year as Stanley Cup or bust. Is this the year? Do you think this team can do it? Why? What’s unique here is we’ve reached a level where we make it to the Final Four and that’s perceived as a disappointment. We want to have it that high, and we want to get to where Final 2 would be a disappointment, right? That’s where we want to be is we want to be winning the cup and you know the goal is to keep taking steps forward until we’re there.