Tweetmail No. 188: Front Office, Available Players & Worlds

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Tweetmail is a weekly feature on CarolinaHurricanes.com in which I take your Twitter questions about the Carolina Hurricanes or other assorted topics and answer them in mailbag form. Hopefully the final product is insightful to some degree, and maybe we have some fun along the way.
Let's get to it.

This question is a couple weeks old, but I feel like it's the perfect time to revisit it with the news of last week.
Over the last few months, and especially within the last three weeks, the Hurricanes have retooled their front office. Removing the "interim" tag from Don Waddell's general manager title installs a chief hockey decision maker, but it's important to note the team that surrounds him. Rick Dudley, brought on board as the senior vice president of hockey operations, will play an influential role in the new-look front office. Vice President of Hockey Operations Paul Krepelka will handle a lot of player contract-related matters. Assistant General Managers Mike Vellucci, Ricky Olczyk and Brian Tatum continue to offer input while Manager of Scouting Darren Yorke, in addition to Eric Tulsky and Kevin Kan in the team's analytics department, help round out the front office team.
It's truly a collaborative effort, and we'll see what sort of things they're able to accomplish this offseason. Speaking of …
Tweet from @NateWells33: Are the Hurricanes actually doing a firesale?
Ah, the internet. There are reports floating around (give Twitter a search) that essentially read like this: "The Hurricanes are making everyone available for a trade except Sebastian Aho."
Now, you may read or hear or see this and initially react with confusion or panic or concern or all three. That's fine. That's fandom. That's human.
But let's dig deeper and backtrack to something majority owner Tom Dundon said in his
end-of-season press conference
: "There's none of them I'm not trying to replace. I want a better player than every one of them. That's our job. … We're not finding better players than Sebastian Aho. We're just not. We're not finding harder workers or more committed hockey players."
That seems to jive with the report, right?
And here's the thing: just because the Hurricanes are going to be willing to discuss things doesn't mean there is going to be a fire sale or that everyone is actually going to be traded. There's a chance nothing happens. There's a chance some things happen. There's a chance a lot happens. The Canes aren't going to make a change just for the sake of making a change, but in order to improve the team, they have to be willing to consider pretty much everything. That's all that's happening at the moment. It's not a negative thing, and it's honestly not even a new concept. If the right move is there, though, the Canes are in a position to make it happen.
Tweet from @jmjones0784: Is it true post-game press conferences have been moved to the gym?
Yes, this is 169 percent true. A reporter will ask a question, head coach Rod Brind'Amour will crush a rep and then he'll answer said question. Question, rep, answer, rep. Repeat as necessary.
In all seriousness, we conducted a few morning availabilities with Bill Peters while he was mid-workout on the stationary bike, so it wouldn't be completely uncharted territory.

Team USA certainly had an impressive preliminary round, not losing a game until their seventh and final match-up of round robin play - against an equally, if not more impressive Finnish squad. Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen are playing on another level right now, and they're carrying that team with them. The Finns earned a favorable match-up against the Swiss in the quarterfinals after scoring a decisive 6-2 victory over the previously unbeaten Americans in the prelim finale.
All five Hurricanes involved in the tournament - Aho (FIN), Teravainen (FIN), Derek Ryan (USA), Scott Darling (USA) and Martin Necas (CZE) - are moving on to the medal round, which begins with the quarterfinals on Thursday. Team USA will square off against the Czech Republic, so at least one Hurricanes representative will not advance to Saturday's semifinals. A recap of the preliminary round and a look ahead to the quarterfinals can be found
here
.

Of course! I wasn't sure what to expect considering the turmoil in production, but I'm holding out hope because Disney hasn't made a bad "Star Wars" film yet. The initial positive reviews have me that much more optimistic about the film, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in check - just in case.
I'm kind of surprised I don't have my tickets yet (and seat availability for opening weekend seems pretty slim), but I'll see it as soon as I can. And then I'm sure TV's Mike Maniscalco and I will break it down on
#CanesCast
in the near future.
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Join me next week for more questions and more answers!
If you have a question you'd like answered or you'd like to debate Yanny vs. Laurel (I heard both to begin with, but now I can only here Laurel), you can find me on Twitter at
@MSmithCanes
or drop an email
here
. (That email address works again!)