Canes coach Rod Brind'Amour rips 24-team playoff format
We already know the Carolina Hurricanes were one of two teams to vote against the 24-team playoff format that has since been approved by the NHL and NHLPA (Tampa Bay was the other). Carolina player rep Jordan Martinook already gave some explanation as to why this happened, which you can read here. . However, in a new interview with ESPN, Canes coach Rod Brind'Amour expanded on that explanation, making it clear he believes the format is a bad one.
"I think the bigger issue felt like, and especially our guys, was like 'what was the 68 games we played for?'" the head coach said Wednesday on the "ESPN on Ice" podcast.
"What did we grind for? The bulk of the season was completed, and they just threw that out, and I think that's how (the Hurricanes) felt," he added. "I think that's justifiable in a way."
Brind'Amour added he would prefer the league allowed the rest of the regular season to play out so it could continue with the normal 16 team playoffs.
"Why not carry the points over that you have?" he said. "If we're playing in, I think the thought was if you're playing in, five, six, seven games, however, we could easily have all had the same amount of games, figured that out and that would have been your play-in, and take your points with you and see how you end up."
Carolina will face the New York Rangers in the first-round play-ins. It will be a best-of-five series. An exact date for the start of the series has not yet been set.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 14, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nick Suzuki | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Phillip Danault | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Josh Anderson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Josh Doan | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Konsta Helenius | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||