Tulsky talks Hurricanes' playoff run, offseason additions in Q&A with NHL.com

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Eric Tulsky and the Carolina Hurricanes are in a good place while the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens fight it out to face them in Eastern Conference Final.

Although the Hurricanes don't know when they'll play next after completing their sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Second Round with a 3-2 overtime victory in Game 4 of that best-of-7 series on Saturday, their 50-year-old general manager acknowledged Thursday, "It's hard to have complaints right now."

After all, the Hurricanes are 8-0 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs after defeating the Ottawa Senators and the Flyers in the minimum number of games in the first two rounds. And, though there are areas in which coach Rod Brind'Amour and the players are looking to improve, their overall game has been excellent on their way to reaching the conference final for the second consecutive season and third time in four seasons.

"The team is playing really well and when we are playing our game, we're really tough to beat," Tulsky said. "Up and down the lineup, I think every line, every pair is contributing."

There's still a lot of work ahead, though. The Hurricanes haven't advanced past the conference final since winning the Stanley Cup in 2006.

"We all know this is not the goal," Tulsky said. "I do think it's important to enjoy the ride and be proud of what we've accomplished, but it's not the goal. And everybody in this organization knows that we still have eight more games to win before we reach our goal."

Tulsky said "there's always work to do" for a GM, including already looking ahead to off-season planning, so he remains busy during this indefinite break. He took some time, though, to sit down with NHL.com in his office at Lenovo Center to discuss how the Hurricanes have gotten here.

Are you eager for the next round to begin?

"The break is nice. It's a long season. The players accumulate a lot of fatigue and injuries over the course of the year, and I'm happy to see them get a little time to heal up and return to full strength."

You said it's important to enjoy the ride. What does reaching the Eastern Conference Final again say about where the organization is?

"I think we have this organization set up really well: strong group of players, strong group of coaches, strong group of off-ice staff putting players in position to be their best. And it's showed on the ice year after year. We have not yet gotten where we want to be, but we've had a team that is good enough to compete for it every year."

Why do you think you are better equipped to get past the conference final this season?

"I think we have tried to make the team better each year. This past offseason, we had some big additions in (defenseman) K'Andre (Miller) and (forward Nikolaj) Ehlers. We think we improved our goalie depth this year compared to what we had in the past. So, I think in a lot of small ways, this team is better than where we exited last year. I think over the course of last year with the additions of Taylor (Hall) and Logan (Stankoven) and 'Janko' (Mark Jankowski), we made the team better than we were at the start of last year.

"So, it's been a continuous process of trying to keep taking steps forward and get to where we have a group that cannot just compete for the Cup and win if things go our way, but can win even when things don't go our way for a bit. And this group has shown some incredible resilience this year. We've played through, I think, the worst injuries we've had since the 2014-15 season, and came out of it with 113 points. It's a hell of a group right now."

Did adding Ehlers and Miller work out essentially how you hoped?

"You never know for sure how things are going to go. Our pro scouting group, led by (vice president of pro player personnel) Chris Abbott, works hard to evaluate fit and try to find the players who we think are going to look better here than they did somewhere else. We are on a hot streak where just about everybody we've brought in has fit, and that's been great for us. And this was two more boxes checked in that row."

There was a question entering the season about whether you needed to add a center. How did Stankoven being able to play center change things for you?

"We've been looking to add skill and improve the top end of our lineup for a long time. We found ourselves very, very deep in skilled wingers, and one of the ways to push more skill into the lineup was to have one of them move to the middle. He had played center in the past at lower levels, hadn't done it at the NHL level, but he's a great person with a great attitude who wants to do anything he can to help the team and when we approached him about this, he was all on board. He spent the summer working on things he would have to work on, learning about what the expectations are for a center in different situations in our way of playing. You still don't know for sure how it's going to go until you see it, but he got into the lineup in October, and it just worked from Day 1."

How much did Stankoven, 23, and Jackson Blake, 22, being a year older, and having Hall here for a second season make your team better, too?

"It's absolutely part of it. We've brought in players from the outside, but we also have had a pipeline of young talent that keeps improving. Stankoven, obviously, came from a trade, but Blake and (defenseman Alexander) Nikishin came through the draft. And credit to (associate GM) Darren Yorke and the amateur scouting group and the development group that he oversees. They've built a pipeline that keeps putting out players who can help us. And you're right; the difference between Year 1 and Year 2 for those guys has been big, and they've taken real steps forward and helped elevate our team."

You thought Hall would fit here, but why do you think he has elevated his game, too?

"There's no doubt he had the skill to do what we need him to do and the ability to sort of win pucks along the wall, protect the puck, and the vision to find players open in space and get it to them. I think we knew that skillset was a fit. One of the places where things have gone even better than we hoped is the way his mentality fit. We play differently from teams he had played for before, and he liked it here and threw himself headlong into it and learned how he needed to change his game and worked on it."

When you look at how well goalie Frederik Andersen has played in the playoffs (8-0, 1.12 goals-against average, .950 save percentage two shutouts) compared to his regular season (16-14-5, 3.05 GAA, .874 save percentage), has he been a pleasant surprise?

"Freddie is a very consistent person and a consistent player. He approaches every day the same way. He approaches every shot the same way. He just has a calm, steady demeanor that serves him really well. There was a period of time this year where things weren't going his way. He was unfortunately in a situation where we happened to have some really catastrophic breakdowns when he was in net. And even sort of the midlevel breakdowns, where someone got a good chance that isn't an automatic goal, the shooters were putting it bar down and making it so he didn't have a chance to make a save. There's only so much a goalie can do in those situations … So I do think he was playing better through that than the sort of casual view of his stats would say.

"To his credit, he has the demeanor and the psychology to just play through it, and he didn't let it get to him and he kept playing his game. Eventually, things turned around for him, and we got healthy, we started playing better in front of him. He stopped having the misfortune of having every shot go bar down, and he's looked great for us."

You re-signed Jankowski earlier this week (two-year, $3.7 million contract). Andersen is also on an expiring contract. What will be your approach with potentially re-signing him?

"We'll be talking about that, for sure. He's been really good for us and we are very comfortable with him. He's at a point in his career (36 years old) where we'll get to the end of the season and talk about what he wants to do. But we would love to have him back if that's the way it's going to go."

What kind of impact has your coach had?

"Rod is fantastic in a couple different ways. I think everybody knows he really has the respect and care of the players. They really like him and want to do well for him and want to do whatever he's asking them to do. And that's a skill. The ability to build those connections and get players to do that for you is a skill. Also, it's not just about personality for him. He is incredibly thoughtful and detail oriented, and the way we play with applying pressure all the time creates opportunities for cracks and being exploited, and he's very thoughtful about how we cover for the pressure and minimize the number of breakdowns."

How was your second season as GM different? You'd been in the organization for a while before that, but did you feel more comfortable?

"Yeah, there are some things that probably I'm a little bit more used to now and have been part of my job for long enough that they feel natural. Like you said, I've been part of the organization for a long time (since 2014-15), so it's not like I needed to get to know people. I knew how we operated. I knew who did what. I knew what we were looking at. So, it wasn't as big of a change for me as for people who moved to a new organization, but there are new roles and responsibilities that you have to get used to."

It can be stressful, but are you having fun?

"Of course, it's been fun. It has to be. This is an incredible job, and there are times that it doesn't go well, and that's never fun. But even the worst day in the NHL is still a really good day. This is a great job and you have to be able to enjoy it."

With Sunny Mehta being hired by the New Jersey Devils and John Chayka being hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs, what do you think of the trend of more GMs, like you, who have a strong analytics background?

"I think a lot of times when people see somebody who comes from background like mine get promoted to GM, they think of it in terms of data now being the important thing in the organization, and I don't think that's the right way to think about it. When I got promoted, that didn't mean that now the data group was in charge of the organization. It wasn't a promotion for the group; it was a promotion for an individual. I think what it reflects is a recognition that there is a new source of talent for finding front office executives, a new pathway for finding people who have the strategic insight and the emotional skills and the leadership abilities to run an organization.

"It's not anything unique about that pathway versus another. It's just a new source, a new path and a new way for talent to enter the fold and rise to new opportunities."