00:00Hey Tobin and Leroy here with you on 560 WQAM very excited to talk to our next guest as the
00:07Florida Panthers getting ready for their third straight trip to the Stanley Cup final and one
00:12of the champs joining us here Evan Rodriguez got his first goal of the postseason in the Cats
00:17clincher against the Hurricanes Evan thanks for the time man really appreciate it anytime guys
00:22thanks for having me what uh what what level of honor is it when you get the puck for the puck
00:27board that looks it's one of our favorite things every time they uh they you guys are around the
00:31locker room someone whoever won the last game has to give it to the next guy so when you get the puck
00:36like how where does that go as far as in-season honors for you from your teammates uh yeah it's
00:41pretty cool because it comes from your teammates like you said it's something that um your teammates
00:46recognize uh and it's a cool little tradition right we we did it last year and uh again this year and
00:52um you don't always want to help contribute to a win right so um being acknowledged by your by your
00:59teammates is special and um you know each guy uh each guy will get there how how hard is it because
01:07i we've seen the transition from winning the president's cup but not performing well in the playoffs
01:16to kind of changing how everything is done more physical more defensive um how is that transition
01:26for like guys that come in or even for guys that were here because like you spend your career playing
01:34a certain way and then it's just thrown you know thrown out the door and you have to kind of reinvent
01:40yourself yeah i think the best way i can put it is you don't really have a choice um and you know
01:49it's you go through the regular season and it's still a little bit different than what our game is
01:55in the playoffs and once the playoffs come if you don't play our way and if you don't do the things
02:00that are necessary uh to winning it's not really the coaches that are on you it's the players on the
02:06bench it's the guys next to you that are like we don't do that here that's right that's unacceptable
02:12like that don't do it again and um when your teammates are holding you accountable it's a
02:17different feeling and you know even the coach or or whoever else and um so yeah like i said it you
02:26don't really have a choice or you know everyone's kind of on you and everyone will be like that's
02:30that just isn't it so you learn quickly and and you just adapt because you know at the end of the
02:36day you you recognize and realize that it you know it it's what you need to do to be successful and
02:43um i think everyone recognizes that pretty quickly and then hops right on board it's a it's a weird
02:48dynamic because i played football and a guy who was not tough and physical never just turned on a switch
02:59and became tough and physical and the style of play that i've seen now versus a couple of years ago
03:08is so different and i always wondered did you guys always have it in you or it was just something like
03:16you said like you have to adapt uh i'd say a little bit of both i would say the guys that we have on our
03:23team all have that edge um but at the same time a lot of it's mental right like you even if you think
03:30you don't have it you the team the guys that you know have been here and and i guess lead in that
03:37category kind of drag you right into the fight right like if if you got the other four guys on the team
03:43going into a fight right you're not going to be you're not going to be the one guy standing off to
03:46the side because again like i said earlier your team's going to let you know like that's not
03:50acceptable so um you know we have leaders in that category that you know are we have guys that are
03:57more physical and uh you know maybe meaner than others but um everyone pulls on the rope right
04:04everyone does what they can everyone um you know lays their hits when they have them and
04:10um it's almost like a it's a team thing right when it's over and over and over again the the other
04:18team starts to feel it and it might not be the biggest hits or it might not be you know the the
04:23meanest but when you're getting hit over and over and over again it wears on you and i can imagine it's
04:28the same thing in football and any sport it's the toll eventually catches up to you well speaking of
04:35toughness uh how crazy was it that you got an embellishment call for basically getting torpedoed
04:41into the boards like that was one of the craziest things i think i've ever seen in my life like
04:44when when you were going did you even realize like what was happening when that got called on you
04:49i had no idea i uh i've mentioned this before but i um i went off the ice so i just figured um
04:58you know they got a roughing or matching matching roughings between whoever was out there and
05:03um you know it's funny in between the second and third period ecchi said like that was the
05:08craziest call i've ever seen and i was a little bit pissed off i didn't i kind of ignored him a
05:13little bit and just didn't acknowledge like what he said and then after the game uh i got a text
05:17from my brother being like yeah that was a crazy embellishing and i that's when i found out that i got
05:21an embellishing call yeah like didn't even know how to react because i couldn't like i was i could not
05:29believe it like i couldn't fathom that that could even be possible is it literally though
05:36it's impossible to call roughing on one guy an embellishment on the other it's either one or the
05:42other yeah i i it's one of those like i'm just gonna move on from because i can't even i can't
05:49even explain it to you like i couldn't even tell you like oh this is what he saw or like this is
05:54what maybe like this is what like maybe i could see it through his eyes but i just like i i got
06:00nothing for you you have nothing to explain it it was it was it was it was crazy to me i i i just
06:06it still is one of those things that's going to be like you'll we'll look back on uh on the dvd of
06:10this season and be like oh my god i can't believe that that was a moment yeah uh one of the things
06:15that's crazy though evan like you do finally get your first goal but you guys have so many guys who
06:20have scored but you were amongst like the group who didn't and it didn't seem like you belong i
06:25know you have a ton of assists in the postseason run so were you getting any uh any any talk from
06:31your teammates because you're usually like piling it in into the net during a postseason run how crazy
06:36was it that it took that long to to get one to finally go for you no it didn't bother me at all i
06:41don't think even the guys on i'm i'm gonna be honest i don't even think the guys on the team knew i
06:45didn't have a goal yet like it was it's just uh we couldn't be more of a team in that sense of the
06:52word like it doesn't matter who's scoring who you know who's getting points at the end of the day it's
06:57just about wins right so um personally obviously you always want to contribute you always want to
07:01you know put the puck in the net health team win but um you know like i said before i was saving
07:07i'm saving them for the david ready for we're ready for an avalanche yeah exactly so just just
07:13stockpiling them and um yeah obviously nice to score though and contribute to that one the way you
07:19guys play though um it's almost like the way even when paul explains games the scoring is a product
07:29of doing all the other things necessary to win so there's not as much importance put on scoring
07:36even though you need to score to win yeah i think it the the biggest message i think and and
07:43the biggest takeaway is that we're all in the nhl for a reason right we all have the talent we all
07:50have the ability we all got to this spot because we have talent so when you focus on you know the
07:56little things and the defense and you know the things that are more mentally hard than you know
08:03actual talent um the talent will just come out when it has to come out right the goal scoring ability
08:10the playmaking ability those things will come out just because it's what we've done our whole lives
08:14we know how to do it it's the reason why we're here and so when you put the mental focus onto you know
08:20like you said the defense the the physical you know nature of the game the hitting those sort of
08:27things that aren't just natural that take you know focus and and attention the rest of it just takes
08:34care of itself and i think that's you know that's where we're having our success is that we can you
08:40know put our our mental capacity into the the hard things and um you know the fun and the goal scoring
08:47the playmaking that's just that's when your natural instincts your natural talents just take care of
08:53themselves and and uh you know shine through how have you found this season for your team uh being
09:00the hunted like being the team that everybody wants to chase down some people are calling you the
09:05standard right now but like what is it like bringing that uh that in the back of your head to the rink
09:10every single night instead of you know redemption getting your first championship and trying to get to
09:15this big accomplishment is is it a different mental exercise to to bring it again and knowing that
09:21everybody's got them for you with their best i think in the regular season more than the playoffs
09:25the regular season you know it's it's a long year it's a bit of a grind um like you said every team is
09:33now bringing their best because they know that's kind of what they need to to beat us and um you know
09:39it's i'd be lying if i said it's not you know extremely hard to bring it every single night right like
09:45it's it's a long season and um yeah but but once it comes to the playoffs i think you know that's when
09:52you're seeing every team every player's best night in night out um and in that token it's you know we've
10:01been we've been fine in that regard it hasn't been that too much of a challenge it's um something i think
10:06we've embraced more and and uh you know we'll look to continue to do that the rest of the way
10:12do you guys laugh when other teams come to you and say we're gonna try to be as physical as you
10:18and you go you're not that guy right because it kind of happened early in the carolina series where
10:25you know i've known carolina to be just extremely fast on skates like just from one end to the other
10:32whatever then all of a sudden now we got fisticuffs all the time we're like that's not your thing dude
10:37that for the panthers that's tuesday yeah i think you know that's where the experience and
10:44doing it all regular season long that this is where you see the payoff right this is where
10:49we can you know withstand that and and do it over and over and over again and and it'd be normal for
10:56us you know on the playoffs a lot of you know even when i was on different teams before this you can
11:01get up for a period or two and be physical and hard even a game you can do it for 60 minutes but to do
11:06it night in and night out when you haven't done it before is extremely challenging it's i've had the
11:12like i said i've had the experiences on other teams doing that and i think that's one of our biggest
11:18um you know advantages i would say is that we've had the experience of doing it it's what we
11:26preached all year long from the start of training camp it's what we did last year it's what the guys
11:30that were here did the year before and um it's just more natural to us i believe and and i think
11:36that's you know a big reason uh a big part of our success a couple more randos before we get you out
11:42of here evan uh in the last win you guys uh the the team put out a mic'd up and paul marie said at
11:50one point you guys are sweet saucing it tonight boys what the hell does that mean what is sweet
11:54saucing it uh he makes fun of us when we try to get cute with the puck and you know make plays and
12:00and be fancy so that was someone probably threw a you know a nice head high saucer passed across the
12:07ice and um that was his subtle that was his subtle not so subtle way of saying hey enough
12:13that's you're done so it wasn't a compliment no well it was a it was a it was a compliment but also
12:22there was a uh there was a hidden meaning of hey that's your like that that isn't us and that was
12:30your one and now stop is is that is he like that with everything because you know when he talks to the
12:36media he kind of has a sly way of making his point where everybody gets it but then he'll smile or
12:43stay in this one tone of voice but then you'll hear him on this on like in the box yelling at you guys
12:50and i'm like oh he's a different dude yeah he's he's really it's one of his that i found over my two
12:57years here is he's really good at controlling or i guess getting the message across like whatever his
13:04message is um he has a way about him whether it be in a sarcastic way or whether it be sometimes
13:11like he almost knows what we need right so when we need you know a uh what's gonna say it um well
13:19we need a strong and yeah when he when your mother f's you you know like sometimes we get the message
13:26but then like you just mentioned like sometimes they'll say something extremely sarcastic where we
13:32all kind of get a chuckle out of it but then it's like hey guys like let's go but you know we get
13:36so he's uh he does a really good job of knowing what we need and what our team needs and um yeah he's
13:45he's a fun coach to play for that's for sure my favorite my favorite game i think you guys end up
13:50losing a game or something and he goes you know what i i like a lot of the things that we did
13:56it's not like we're gonna come up here tomorrow and have a punitive skate
13:59so i've been wondering what the hell is a punitive skate
14:04you know i think i'm wondering with you i don't know i'm guessing we're not coming out here and
14:11having like a i i maybe like being all down and upset we're gonna go out there we're gonna get
14:17his big message is uh you know we win or we learn type deal so if you win and you're feeling good you
14:22get back to work but if not you learn from it and you get right back out there right you learn from it
14:26you you take the things you change the things you need to change and you just get back to work and
14:32um you know there's no we obviously have a good setup here with brand new practice facility you
14:38know beautiful weather this that and the other thing we're all living uh you know living our dream
14:43in a great place but at the end of the day when when we come to the rink and it's between the hours
14:48of whatever it is nine to one or however long we're here till it's we put the work boots on and
14:53um we put our work in and then we get to go enjoy ourselves so i'm sure that was uh that was part of
15:00his uh part of his message was that we're gonna get back to work evan rodriguez thanks for giving us
15:05so much time man best of luck safe travels up to edmonton will you be making any dq runs in edmonton
15:10is that part of your go-to dessert will you be part of the dq crew i haven't been part of the dq crew
15:16but i've seen some things online that people are already uh mapping out where they are so
15:20what part of canada are you from pardon what part of canada are you i'm from toronto so my wife is
15:27from sherbrooke okay yeah yeah so that small little town had a dairy queen dairy queen brazier because
15:34they had hamburgers so so i'm not gonna put any names out there i'll let you guys figure it out but
15:40there is someone on this team that swears that the bacon cheeseburger dq is the best fast food burger
15:47okay so it's gotta be micola i am not i'm not putting i'm not giving you the name but there is
15:55a human being on the florida panthers that lives by the dairy queen that's crazy that's a crazy take
16:02that's that's what i'm leaving you guys with all right hey best of luck this series evan thanks for
16:07spend so much time with us today thanks for having me appreciate it guys
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