- Rod Brind’Amour told TSN 1050’s OverDrive the NHL should scrap exhibition games entirely
- The new CBA already capped teams at four preseason games and pushed the regular season to 84
- Read below for what the Hurricanes coach said about the end of mandatory fitness testing
Rod Brind’Amour has a simple fix for the NHL preseason. Delete it.
The Hurricanes coach joined TSN 1050’s OverDrive on Monday and was asked about the shortened exhibition slate and how he is getting his group ready for the opener. His answer went a lot further than the league did.
“I’d say go to 86 games and zero preseason. Why waste games on the fans that don’t count. Let’s play the ones for real.”
That number is the tell. The league just moved from 82 games to 84 under the new collective bargaining agreement, and Brind’Amour wants two more stacked on top, paid for by wiping the exhibition calendar off the books.
Owners and players already went partway there. Clubs are capped at four preseason games this fall, and the whole slate got squeezed into 65 games across eight days, Sept. 19 through Sept. 26.
Anyone with 100 or more NHL games is held to two exhibitions under the same deal. Lineups skew young, the real roster calls get made in practice, and coaches have spent two weeks doing the math out loud.
Brind’Amour is less sold on a different change. The CBA scrapped mandatory preseason fitness testing, a long-standing ritual players have argued is outdated now that most of them skate all summer.
He was asked what losing it does to a coaching staff.
“It’s a disservice to the guys.”
Here he is on the testing change:
Carolina has earned some impatience. The Hurricanes beat Vegas in six in June for the second Stanley Cup in franchise history, 20 years after Brind’Amour lifted the first one as their captain.
Watch him on what is driving the group this time:
Eighty-six games is not walking through the door. Both sides negotiated this calendar over the summer, and the current CBA runs through 2030.
Nashville visits Greensboro on Thursday for Carolina’s neutral-site exhibition, one of the games their coach would rather not play. The banner goes up Sept. 29 against Florida.
