First things first...
No, Rod Brind'Amour is not going to coach another team
Not Seattle, not Ottawa, not anybody desperately looking for a new coach.
The fact of the matter is that Brind'Amour isn't going to coach anywhere but Carolina.
It's either he coaches Carolina or he's just not coaching in the NHL anymore.
That's just the truth.
But when things persist, rumors are bound to start and that seems to be the case with Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour.
The longtime veteran turned coach is in the final year of his current contract, having spent the last six seasons as the head coach in Raleigh, and with an extension still not reached yet the national media rumor mill has really taken off.
However, the word directly from the source, i.e. from both Hurricanes GM Don Waddell and Brind'Amour, is that things are moving in a positive direction and are expected to be finished up relatively quickly.
"We talk daily about it," Waddell said Wednesday. "I feel very confident, as I've said before, that this deal will get done. Rod wants to be a Hurricane for life and to me, when you're dealing with contracts, there's always two sides. Rod's been great to deal with and there's going to be a solution here very quickly, I feel."
Then on Thursday:
"I had a great conversation yesterday with Don and again this morning," Brind'Amour said. "I feel really good that we'll figure it out quicky. I'm not concerned."
Brind'Amour has lived in Carolina for 24 years now.
It's his home. His family is here, he has a young child here.
For goodness sakes, he helps out as an assistant coach on the his son's youth team in his off-time. The same team with Justin Williams' daughter and Brent Burns' son.
He loves Raleigh and wants no part in moving somewhere else to coach a middling team back into relevancy.
Brind'Amour lives and bleeds Carolina Hurricanes hockey. If he went anywhere else, he just wouldn't have his heart in it and he knows that.
He has a special bond with the city and team and he'll always be a Carolina Hurricane.
And he's delivered tremendous results.
In six years as the Hurricanes head coach, he's brought the team to the postseason every year, won at least one playoff round in each season and been to the Eastern Conference Final twice.
He has a 278-130-44 record in that span and has won a regular season division title three times.
Tom Dundon is no idiot.
He knows that Brind'Amour is a key part to the team's success.
He knows the players love playing for him and that the fanbase reveres him.
He does try to lowball where he can, but he spends to the cap for the players and wants to have the best product available.
So a deal will get done.
It's just that Brind'Amour isn't only negotiating for himself.
He wants his staff to be taken care of too, and their deals come first.
Then he has the commitment to the NHL coach's association who wasn't too happy with his low contract last time, so he has to make sure he gets a deal closer to their expectations.
And then there's just the agent posturing in all of this.
When a negotiation goes public like this, it's usually just a way to get a deal closer to fruition because the media starts buzzing.
So for everyone worrying or holding their breath that this won't happen, you can rest easy.
A deal will be done and Rod Brind'Amour will continue to be the Carolina Hurricanes head coach.