Halford & Brough in the Morning - Are Miller & Pettersson Trades Close?

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they preview tonight's Canucks road matchup versus Dallas (6:00), they dissect the latest 32 Thoughts Podcast audio on JT Miller & Elias Pettersson trade possibilities (12:00), plus the boys look elsewhere around the NHL including a late-night trade involving the Flyers and the Flames (27:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- Let me get some dumb shit out of the way first. I think Buffalo is still working its way on what it wants to do with Pedersen from Vancouver. I still think they're in it. I still think they're weighing what they want to do. Max Scherzer to the Blue Jays, how about it? So Toronto making some moves. Ladies and gentlemen, the weekend. Good morning Vancouver, 6-1 on a Friday, sweet, sweet Friday. It is Halford and it is Bruff, it is Sportsnet 650 and we are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Gladdy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Bruff of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver, Honda Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers.

They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec Footwear and Orthotics, working together with you in step. So we got a lot to get into on today's show.

We have multiple guests, it's the Canucks Game Day, we got giveaways galore, we have some big interesting audio from Elliot Friedman and the 32 Thoughts podcast, as it pertains to your Vancouver Canucks. Guest list today begins at seven o'clock. AJ from AJ's Pizza is going to join us. A reminder, it is a Vancouver hockey game night. Six dollar pints at AJ's at 325 on East Broadway. Also, we're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's for the best what we learned or ask us anything. Dunbar number text line is 650-650. Get them in. Your chance to win. Put a pizza emoji into your text.

Right after AJ at 7.05, Owen Newkirk is going to join the program. He is the Dallas Stars podcast host for DLLS Sports in Dallas. Reminder, Canucks Stars, 5 o'clock from Dallas tonight. Dallas team is playing pretty well lately, but also dealing with a number of key injuries. So we'll talk to Owen about all that at 7.05. 7.30, it's the Moge. Yes, it's the Moge. Bob the Moge Marjanovic. We are going to preview his big trip down to New Orleans for the Super Bowl. What can we expect from Moge on Super Bowl media row next week? A reminder, all of his shows are going to be right here on Sportsnet 650 beginning Tuesday

evening so we'll talk to Moj about all that. Eight o'clock it's Dollywall Jason. Rick Dollywall is going to join the program. I have no idea what to expect from Rick is the official show's Dollywall handler. Do you know what's coming? I think it's going to be the same old, we'll talk about Jim Rutherford's interview, Miller and Petey, and he says, "'Besser if we have time.'" "'Besser if we have time.'" That is so, that's perfect. Oh! No, no, no, like,

"'Besser if we have time' is basically like the story of the season. Do you know what I mean? Actually, that's a good point. This is a major decision that the Canucks have to make, and I feel like we haven't really talked about it much. You know, it's better start the segment at eight then. When you hear the audio from 32 Thoughts, it will further confirm what you just said about Besser. Besser if we have time. Also at the end might be a little Brock Besser.

So, okay, we got a lot to get into on the show. Guest list working in reverse, 8 o'clock, Dolly Wall, 730 Moj, We got a lot to get into on the show. Guest list working in reverse, eight o'clock, Dolly Wall, 730 Moge, 705 Owen Newkirk, and then at seven o'clock it's AJ. In addition to our AJ's Pizza Contest, we're also giving away, final time this week, a pair of tickets and a $50 gift card to the Clayton Public House for the big football party.

It's hosted by us, Sportsnet 650. It's on Sunday, February the 9th. If you want the tickets and the gift card be caller number, you know what we're going to do today? Only the best. If you're not first, you're last. Caller number one, caller number one at 8 15 this morning, the phone number 604-280-0650 that number again, 604-280-0650 be caller number one at 8 15.

You'll win a pair of tickets and a $50 gift card to the Clayton Public House for the big football game That's what's happening on the program today laddie to tell everybody what happened Hey, did you guys see the game last night? We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best tools, resources, and safety training.

Visit them online at bccsa.ca. We will get to some hot audio from 32 Thoughts in just a moment here, but we also want to set the stage for a big game for the Vancouver Canucks tonight, five o'clock in Dallas. Canucks looking for their fourth straight victory in a row. They had the day off yesterday, which leads for a lot of questions going into tonight's game against the Stars. Yeah, the Canucks are on a three game winning streak and have a chance to sweep their three game road trip to make it a four game winning streak tonight against a rather depleted stars team. And we'll talk to our guest, Owen Newkirk about the injuries as Halford mentioned.

Um, this is the first meeting of the season between the Canucks and the stars. They'll play twice more once in Vancouver, two days after the trade deadline and the third back in Dallas in April, with just a few games left in the regular season. Uh, the leading score for Dallas, believe it or not here, Matt Duchesne. Yeah, I was doing a little digging, a little research. This is a Renaissance season.

He has had a scoring season close to this before. But don't you think good for Matt Duchesne, maybe not so good for the rest of them that should be up there or? It's interesting because in the glass half full, they're a very balanced scoring team. They have seven guys that have scored at least 10 goals this season.

But in the negative, you would say, well, if like 33 year old Matt Duchenne is your leading scorer, that might be an issue for the Robertsons and the Rope Hintzes and everyone else. You know what, he just turned 34. 34 year old Matt Duchenne. Happy belated birthday to Matt Dushain, who I was like, Matt Dushain is on the Stars?

Yeah. Sometimes you forget about that. He's like one of those players that was and still is, I guess, a very good player in the NHL, but you just don't really think of very often. The strength of the Stars is their depth and the ability to keep the puck out of their net, thanks in large part to goalie Jake Ottinginger, not sure who's going to start tonight.

So we'll see about that. The stars also have Casey DeSmith. Yeah, it's probably Ottinger because DeSmith played on Saturday against St. Louis and shut them out. Well, speaking of goaltending, do the Canucks go back to Demko after his great performance Wednesday in Nashville? I'm a little confused about what the Canucks are doing with their goaltending right now. I couldn't guess right now. I would have given it a very small percentage chance. Yeah.

The Demka would have played in Nashville. They're alternating periods. That's not a bad idea. And then in the third period, they're alternating shifts. That's right. Roll them. Every stoppage, change them. Pucks in deep.

Yeah. Change the goalies. Ask Laddie. Laddie's a goalie expert Who do you think they should go with tonight? Who do you think they will go out tonight? Demko yeah, I'm going with them go just not to the performance you want you want to like I want to see if it's up Yeah, I want to see if he's got his mojo work I will say this him going in Nashville to me was a signal that they are

Not going to do this thing that everyone else thought, which is ride the hot hand. Like they still believe that at the end of the day, and you pointed this out a couple of times, and I think I agree with it, when it comes to what goalie has the highest ceiling and you can go the furthest with, it's still Demko. So they're still not really in that immediacy point. And they're more in that, well, let's look big picture

still when it comes to our goal-tending. Well, Lankton and his former team, too. There's a lot of reasons they could have started Lankton against the Fringes. Did you see they gave him a video tribute? I saw them waving at the Jumbotron. It was a brief video tribute. They gave Kevin Lankton a video tribute.

They loved him, Lankton. It was really funny, because it was like, these distance- Video tributes are out of control. They are out of control. It was just a distance camera shot of him just waving. He's like, hey guys, thanks. Okay, so we'll wait and see who's gonna start tonight in goal for the Canucks.

This is gonna lead us nicely into the audio that we're gonna play by Elliott Freeman. The Canucks are back home Sunday against the Detroit red wings. They could be on a four game winning streak. They could be, but they also are a team that while they were on the road, had a lot of newsbreak, which didn't reflect all that well on some of the key players on the team, whatever do you mean? So how does the crowd welcome them back to Vancouver?

That's a great question. What do you think the atmosphere is going to be like in Rogers Arena on Sunday when the Red Wings are in town? Um, what's it going to be like when everyone gets back and they have to face, you know, the scary Vancouver media, Jeff Patterson and Farhan Lalji. Farhan, just the most intimidating group you

could ever imagine. Like what's that going to be like? And I guess this leads us perfectly into this next segment of audio. If you're the Canucks, when do you pull the trigger on a deal if you're going to pull the trigger on a deal? Because it was awkward enough with JT Miller when they had a Nashville reporter

talking to him. Now the Canucks could easily just be like, yeah, we're not going to make these guys available and they're not going to talk, but Ritaka is going to have to talk about it. And here's the thing, all the other're not going to make these guys available and they're not going to talk. But we're talking, it's going to have to talk about it. And here's the thing, like all the other guys are going to have to talk about it. Whoever they put up there is probably going to have to talk about it.

Quinn's going to have to talk about it. They're going to have to put up someone. They can't just be like, we're making no one available. Well, I guess they could. This one actually wouldn't surprise me if they did. Yeah, Phil DiGiuseppe, you're back. I do, okay, we'll get to the audio now. So overnight, late night Thursday night,

early Friday morning, back East, Elliott Freeman, Kyle Bukowsky has put together the latest version of 32 Thoughts, the podcast. And there was a lot obviously about the Vancouver Canucks, about Elias Pettersson, about JT Miller, and about the Jim Rutherford interview in the Globe and Mail with Gary Mason. Now, we're gonna

play three separate clips. The first is about what Frege thinks and is hearing what Rutherford's MO was in conducting that interview. Then there's some audio on potential landing spots for Petey. Then some for Miller including a really interesting nugget about a JTT. Miller deal that might already ready to be going, sorry, ready to be going. That was very awkward English. Ready to be go? Ready to be go, question mark.

Here now, we'll play the Freage first audio clip. This is Freage talking about the Rutherford interview in the Globe and Mail and what his MO might have been telling Gary Mason all that stuff about his hockey team here. Elliot Friedman from 32 Thoughts. I think Buffalo is still working its way on what it wants to do with Pedersen from Vancouver. I still think they're in it,

I still think they're weighing what they wanna do and whether it'll happen or not, but Columbus is another team, if they wanna make that deal they can and it's very difficult to Turn away from super talented players but I could see them looking at what they're building this year and what they've kind of got and saying

You know, how much do we want to tamper with this? And again, Pedersen is at his best. He's a higher level. And I think there's going to be some teams betting here that it is next stop. If it comes, he'll be better off. But, you know, I look at teams like Columbus and I say, you've got something that could be magical this year. How much do you want to tamper with that?

Also in most recent piece on TSN, Pierre Lebrun had something about Columbus as well. So put Leas Pettersson in Columbus firmly in your sites and in your focus, because that's very much out there. Credit to Rick Dollywell for, he brought that up weeks ago. Yeah. That he thinks that Columbus is a match for the Canucks and Pettersons. And this is three outlets now, three different media fronts where Columbus appears to be kind of coming to the forefront as a Leas Pettersson suitor.

We'll throw now to some more audio. Again, it all sort of runs in a circular fashion here. Peterson, Miller, Rutherford Zamo was speaking to the Globe and Mail. This is the second clip from the most recent 32 Thoughts podcast with Elliot Friedman. First of all, he knows what he's doing, right? Like this is not his first rodeo. He knows exactly what he's doing.

So whenever I see something like that, I see that to that, I see That to me is a message to the market get ready. This is what we're doing Okay, and That is what that is he's warning everybody this is what be prepared for the possibility of this and he's also laying out why. And he's also saying that.

It might not be as good a return as you would like or think. To me, that was the. That was when like. HR calls a meeting and says, we hate to tell you this, but layoffs are about to happen. That's what that is like, okay?

So I mentioned this to Adog before he heard the clip, and Adog got very upset. He's very concerned about diminished returns for maybe less JT Miller, but more so for- Yeah, Miller, I'm- Well, it's also this- I get it with Miller, but Pederson like, Oh, come on. He's still like, he could be a very good player.

The, the three game winning streak to a lot of people are like, well, maybe they scared them into playing better. No, maybe it's, it's like that, that Simpson's clip with the, with the pig. Like it's, it's still good. It's still good. It's just a little wet. It's just a little wet. It's just, you know, and people are just hoping

that there's like a last minute reprieve. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like you're on death row and the governor calls and it's like, actually, you know, no, we're gonna do it next month or something. You have to live. Yeah. Yeah.

Now- Go back to solitary confinement. So the interesting thing here is that a lot of people thought that about Rutherford's remarks in the sense of maybe this is the final warning. Maybe all the other warnings. Gary Mason left out a quote. Yeah.

Maybe. It was misleading. But maybe really for real this time, this is the last warning. We know there's been other warnings. We know that Patrick Alveen issued one right before New Year, but maybe this is the real final warning. You know how your parents, when you get in trouble as a kid,

they're like, this is your last chance. You know there's one more chance lurking in the background there. Maybe this is it. Yeah, the Canucks are like, maybe we can't keep this. Or the Canucks fans are like, maybe we can't keep this iPad for the weekend. So here's for each thing, eh, no iPad, it's gone. It's not going to happen. So brace yourselves,

I suppose, for whatever trade or trades might be coming. And the final clip from 32 Thoughts, we've already discussed Elias Pedersen to Columbus, Buffalo's in there as well. There's some more information here on a potential landing spot for JT Miller, and then circling back on potential landing spots for Elias Pettersson. This is a lengthier one, about two and a half, three minutes. Final clip from 32 Thoughts, Elliot Friedman, Cal Bukaskis on the state of the Vancouver Canucks. Both those players have nearly been traded once each, Miller to the Rangers,

once each Miller to the Rangers, Pedersen to the the hurricanes. I do think in Miller's case, I think for a long time, it was Eastern United States. I think that's opened up a bit. I think that's more like now

give me a good situation or a contender like there's been some rumors about Miller in Colorado. I think if if that was real, I think even though last I checked on a map, Colorado was not eastern United States. I don't think he would. You think he was mortals. That's right. I don't think he would reject it for geographical reasons. So I think it's opened up a bit. I think in Miller's case, you know, the Canucks have something there that they could do if they wanted to right now. That is my feeling. And, you know, Pedersen.

You know, I think. I think in Pedersen's case, they were close once. I, you know, I think I think Buffalo is still there. I'm sure there's others, you know, I think there's I think there's a lot going on in Buffalo. I really do. I think that they've got some big decisions to make. Some really big decisions to make about their makeup and who they are and who they're going to fly with and who they aren't going to fly with. I think they have some big choices to make there. So I think that this is all part of that. But I think with the Canucks and Rutherford,

that was the warning. And we really haven't talked a lot about Besser, whose contract is up too, and it didn't sound optimistic. Nothing is done until it's done, but it didn't sound optimistic. So we're getting lots of texts into the Dunbar Lumber text line.

And if you have anything to say about this or anything else on the show, you can text in at 650-650 Metro Vancouver's trusted choice for contractors and rental warriors for over 50 years. Visit them at one of their three locations to serve you or online at dunbarlumber.com. Fish dancer, one of my favorite texters, texts in and says, if they trade Petey for scraps, I'm out.

Will be an indictment on management that Petey has cratered under them. He will rebound wherever he goes and haunt us. I have that same concern as much as I've been critical of Pedersen. I do have that concern because he is only 26 years old and we have seen him play at a very high level. So I'm with everyone. And we have seen him play at a very high level. So I'm, I'm with everyone that shares the concern. Now I have not reached the level that I've seen from a lot of people that if they trade

Pedersen, I'm out, you know, fish dancer saying I'm out. I've seen that from a lot of people. I'm no longer a Canucks fan if they traded Pedersen. I'm not there quite yet because I also think that Elias Pedersen deserves a lot of the blame in all this. Okay. You know, he was warned, Jim Rutherford said,

you know, like he was warned when he signed the contract, listen, man, you're going to have to dig in even more now, it's going to get even harder. And according to management at least, maybe Pedersen has his own side of things. He doesn't like to talk. I don't know if you've heard that.

Um, but you know, maybe he feels that, you know, I had an e-tendonitis and you guys are yelling at me for not being in shape at camp, you know. That, that is, that is by the way, something that's never really been fully explored because Pedersen doesn't talk, right? He doesn't come out and say much. He said that knee tendonitis thing and like,

we all know that the Canucks and I'm talking about the coach and management, they kind of downplayed it, they were like, hmm. And then you had this whole narrative of Pedersen's got to toughen up. That might've played into it. So I'll be, you know, if they do trade Pedersen, you know, it'll be actually really interesting.

And if these trades do happen, what comes out? What, what, what, what, what comes out? What, what, what. What stories get leaked? What comes up because I could easily see this being one of those situations where let's say they trade Peterson. Then all sorts of information comes out from the Canucks side, but maybe also Peterson's side too of what was happening.

Yeah, yeah. And then the same goes for JT Miller, I suppose. But I just, yeah, it feels to me, agree or disagree. The Canucks are more frustrated with Pedersen than they are with JT. Hmm. I might disagree because Elias Pedersen didn't get a mysterious 10 game

leave of absence for personal reasons. That's true. Yeah. But it does feel always like there's more. Could it be that you're possibly projecting here? No, I think there's more support publicly for JT Miller. Support publicly, sure. No, but Rick Tauke, when he talks, he always like, what do you think about JT Miller. Support publicly. Sure. No, but Rick talk it when he talks, he always

like, what do you think about JT is like love JT? I love, I love what he brings to the group. He's the emotional leader, he's talented player. He's always coming up to me and asking me questions. And then what do you think about PT of, of, of Elias Pedersen? It's like, uh-huh. Yep.

I don't that sentiment absolutely exists, but in trying to just like the hierarchy of frustration internally, I don't know. Cause again, the one tangible thing, and it's not even really that tangible cause we have no idea what the leave represented, what the root cause of it was, what the reasoning for it was. That's the only thing we really have to point to where it was like, this is a definitive thing that happened as opposed to whispers or rumors or innuendo or what,

cause he interesting. It's not innuendo. It's like, it's like. You can't say that like, well, he never says anything about the player. Yes, you can. He's never, they're rarely talking is rarely positive about Pettersson.

He's also rarely negative about him. He's very easy. I don't get me wrong. You infer what's not being said about the player when he talks about the Swedish house mafia line. And he's like, Carlson was good and Hoaglander was good. End of sentence.

You can infer, you could figure things out. Well, I'll throw it out to the listeners. Who do you think is Talkett's favorite between those two? Which child, which problem. Seriously, I bet it is going to be a hundred percent people texting in, Talkett is more of a Miller guy than a Pedersen guy. Yeah.

I think that's a pretty fair assumption. Yeah. I'd be shocked if people went the other way on that one. And that's, and that means a lot within the context of the room He's the head coach. He understands the dynamic of his team and he understands who's probably Not necessarily more important for victories because Pederson is obviously hugely important to win games But if you're talking about guys that I want guys that are my archetypes guys that have the characteristics

That I as a coach want. Like it's Miller, 100%. I'm sure Miller plays a more talkity game, right? Yeah. With the stuff about things coming out in the aftermath, everything would theoretically come out in the aftermath if one of these two players were to talk because they have said nothing. If you want to talk about the only thing

that Elias Pedersen has said in addressing the rift with JT Miller, the only thing he said is that the media was making bleep up. That's it. And then he walked away. That's it. So there's a lot that's been unsaid about the relationship and about what's gone on. So if, I mean, if there was a trade and again, we're stacking hypothetical on hypothetical here, but if there's a trade, the stuff that'll come out in the aftermath, I imagine it'll be lengthy, voluminous, if you will. Like there'll be plenty to parse through. And you know that we'll do it here on the Haliford and Breff Show on Sportsnet 650.

Brandon in Vancouver texts in, it's neither. It's Pugh Souter. He is a smart player. Pugh Souter, the top sig, might be the 1C soon. Yeah, seriously. In Vancouver. Not the fastest 1C, but still. Okay, we gotta go to break. We'll continue this conversation on the other side. We should dive into a couple things that happened

in the NHL last night though, because obviously the trade winds aren't even blowing. Like it's happening. Things are happening across the league. The Calgary Flames made a big move yesterday, shipping out former friend Andre Kuzmenko for a pair of underachieving Philadelphia Flyer forwards in Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee We can break that down and then what it means big picture as we move forward

So we've got an open segment coming up next. It's gonna be all Canucks and all NHL talk before we get to that I need to tell you about two things one Denny's true north taste awaits with Denny's 100% Canadian Beef Burgers made with guys, new shredded iceberg lettuce on a brioche bun and all the classic ingredients you love. Secondly, I need to tell you about the Clayton Public House. We are hosting the Big Football Party on Sunday, February the 9th. We are giving away a pair of tickets today and a $50 gift card to that party. If you don't win, that's okay. You can visit them at the Clayton pub.com for reservations to the big football party, the Clayton public house, good food, good people, good times.

We're going to go to break. We're going to come back. You're listening to the Halford and Bref show on sports net six 50. It's Canucks central with Dan Rachel and Satya Arshad, your destination for everything Canucks exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the post game show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. It's a Fiesta Friday here. It's also sweet, sweet Friday on the Haliford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Haliford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts.

We are in Hour 1 of the program. Still, Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler. Well, they'll pay the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. So yesterday, late night deal. As a matter of fact, it was happening during the Calgary Flames game against the Anaheim Ducks. And also during the Philadelphia Flyers game.

It's the red hot New York Islanders. Don't even have the- I'm on six in a row right now. Don't even have the bandwidth to get into what's going on there. But let's just say Tony D'Angelo fixed everything. That's a lot of his favorite player. Number one.

Tony D. Loves Tony D. See he already put one in his own net. I did not. Game number two. I did not. He is the main Tony. He's been playing a lot though.

Yeah, yeah. He plays every minute of the power play. Yeah. Every minute. He is a good power play guy. Yeah. Anyway. That's about it. Let's get back on track here, shall we?

So the Flames and the Flyers consummated a pretty interesting deal last night. The Flames acquired forwards Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost from Philadelphia in exchange for Andrey Kuzmenko, Jacob Pelche, a 2025 second round pick, and a seventh round pick in 2028. I did not even know you could trade that far into the future, but apparently you can.

So good on Danny Breyer and the Philadelphia Flyers for knowing this and getting a 2028 seventh round pick. A kid is 15 right now. Yeah, and he's not very good because he's gonna be taken to the seventh round. I'm just kidding. Everyone that gets drafted is great. Anyway.

Hey, Dustin Wolf was a seventh rounder. Yes. Interesting deal for Calgary on a number of fronts. One, this is certainly a deal where they're the buyers and the flyers are the sellers. And this comes for a team that if you were to tell me the beginning of the year that the Calgary Flames would be buying in January, late January, early February,

I'd be like, what happened? How did that come to be? They are not supposed to be good at all, but they are in the second and final wild card spot. I mean, the trade from the flames perspective makes a ton of sense getting youngish players like Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee that might need a change of scenery.

Both on the outs with torts. But we, okay. So that makes even more sense, right? Yeah. What I don't get is what the flyers are doing. So explain that to me. So. Is Kuzmenko like a buddy for Mitchkoff who got

lit up on the bench yesterday by torts and actually dared to turn around and start yelling at torts, which torts didn't seem to like, and then torts stapled Mitch Goff to the bench. So that's going well with their potential rookie of the year. Kuzmenko is going to be the Mitch Goff whisperer. It was pretty well established. They are buddies dating back to their time together with, I want to say St.

Petersburg in the continental hockey league. Ska. Ska. Thank you. So there's that. Um, they get Jacob Pelche, who's kind of in the frost Farabee mold that he's a former first round pick from a few years ago. Was Pelche the guy that got called up and then Darrell Sutter kind of like rained on

his parade? Yes. Was that the same guy? Yeah. It was, I don't know if it was his NHL debut or the night that he scored his first NHL goal. I think it was his NHL debut. Anyway, that was one of the things that Sutter kind of was the beginning of the end for him in Calgary. He essentially mocked it, right? He looked at the score sheet and what Pelche did,

and it was just sort of a routine, like 12 or 13 minute night. Yeah. And Sutter was like, why are we talking about this guy? And then not long after, Darrell Sutter was no longer the head coach of the Calgary Flames. So yes, that is the same guy. Okay. He actually was down in the American league this year, came back up in December and according to reports had been one of Calgary's better forwards

in December and January, but he is now on his way out. So Philadelphia does get a player that I think that they see in their future. I don't know if Andre Kuzmenko is long for the Philadelphia Flyers or the NHL for that matter, but who knows, maybe he discovers something with Mitchkoff. Philly also gets a couple of picks. The general consensus, and again, early responses and early analysis because the trade was consummated late last night was that Calgary made off pretty well in this deal. I'm in that camp.

I think that if you're looking at a guy, especially Frost, who's having a good offensive campaign and he's a pending RFA, that's someone that you're looking at and that's a good buy low candidate. And you kind of have control over what you want to do on the next contract. Now, Faraby. I think Faraby is a good player, man. There's something there. Well, for sure. He's a former first round pick. He scored 20 goals a couple of times in this league. He's having a bad year. He's got eight goals in 50 games. It's interesting because from the Philly side of things, the consensus was we'd rather have Joel Farabee's cap space.

Then Joel Farabee. And this was another guy that really didn't find his footing under all the flames are probably like, yeah, we, that's, that's the same way we feel about cause men go. And with the flames there's, I think it's a great bounce back, like opportunity here. I mean, how much worse can you be than getting paid 30 million on a contract and scoring eight goals in 50 games? Like I do, I do think that there's a buy low here, especially on Faraby.

That's a good example. Do you know how much Kuzmenko, like, do you know how much Torts is going to hate Kuzmenko's game? Like he's going to hate it with a passion. Maybe the plan is- He's slow. He doesn't like to even engage in battles. He's too happy.

What if he turns it around? You guys aren't giving him a chance. You know what he might be? He might be the lightning rod so that Torts goes after him and not Mitchkopf. Yeah. Think about it. He's the distraction. Yeah, he's like an umbrella.

Every time, every time, every time Mitch Cobb does something wrong, Torch just looks like Kuzminko smiling on the bench. What are you so happy about? So that could be the thing. I don't know. It's a weird trade. It's a weird trade from Philly's perspective. He's Martin on the bus.

Finally, people look away from my waiting computer t-shirts. Exactly. That's exactly on the bus. Finally, people look away from my Wayne computers. He should exactly. That's exactly what he is. So I don't know. Mitch cost where the way computers. Oh, he wears it on the bench. All I know, all I know is the Calgary made a move of significance yesterday in a week where there was another big trade, a blockbuster trade that saw the Carolina Hurricanes

acquire Miko Ranen from the Colorado Avalanche and Ranen scored his first goal as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes yesterday. So what does it all mean? Well, stack up a blockbuster trade earlier in the week. I wouldn't quite classify last night's trade as a blockbuster, but it was certainly a big deal. Certainly a big deal and a statement from Calgary. Now we come back to the Vancouver Canucks as they got one more game on this road trip. It's

going to be tonight in Dallas. A reminder, five o'clock puck drop. You can hear it all right here on Sportsnet 650. Now, if you missed the Elliott Friedman audio from the first segment of the show, I'll try and paraphrase as quickly as possible. On Pedersen, the teams that are being bandied about right now in terms of potential suitors are the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Buffalo Sabres. On JT Miller, Freage very loosely threw out that there was some rumbling around Colorado. Not sure if that would work, although it would make sense from the fact that they need a 2C behind Nathan McKinnon and they did clear up some cap space with the ranton and trade a bit of cap space.

The Pettersson one is very interesting because Buffalo has resurfaced after being a team of interest months ago. Remember we were doing this song and dance back in December. Breaking down Dylan Cousins and Bowen Byrom and maybe even dreaming about bigger fish out of Buffalo, the likes of Owen Power. I don't think Rasmus Tallin will be on the move, but a Tage Thompson perhaps. Point being in Buffalo is it certainly sounds as though they feel like they need to do something moving forward.

Well, of course they do. Like I think you differentiate Buffalo and Columbus with what Freage had to say about Columbus. Like we just had Kent Johnson on the show and he's talking about how the team is, you know, I don't know, I don't think it's fair to say that like they rallied around the tragedy of Johnny Gajreau because I think that's like, you know, that might've been part of it. I might've been part of it.

Probably too simplistic. Too simplistic, right? Um, I also think that's a group there that's, there's some young guys and some veterans and they're probably just motivated anyway. They got a new head coach. Yep. Um, they got a new GM.

They're trying to start over a little bit in, in Columbus and they do have energy there over a little bit in, in Columbus. And they do have energy there right now and all it's positive energy. They score lots of goals. They probably allow too many, but maybe you watch a Columbus blue jackets game is, you know, like this isn't bad. It's not bad. It's there. There's some energy there.

They want it. They won in Vegas last night. Right. So do you want to bring in a potential issue into the room? If you don't know fully, if you're not trusting fully what's going on with Vancouver, right? Yeah. Either one of those guys, okay?

Versus Buffalo, where you're just like, why wouldn't you do something? Like, there's no reason. There's no reason not to. And if I'm Buffalo, frankly, I'm probably thinking like, Hey guys, we learned a lesson the hard way that, you know, Jack Eichel gets traded out of here and goes and wins the Stanley cup and Vegas. And he's unbelievable. Like, you know, our relationship soured with Jack Igel

for numerous reasons, but it was mostly the injury thing. But I don't think the losing helped. We lost that relationship. Maybe we can win one. Maybe we can take advantage of a team that was in a similar situation to us. can take advantage of a team that was in a similar situation to us. Sure. And we can be the ones that take advantage of a dysfunctional team. And by the way, that is very much what the Canucks are.

Yes. They are a dysfunctional team. Did you get that yawn out, Adog? There it is again. I didn't yawn, I stretched. We need a counter. We need a counter. Not even allowed to stretch now?

Adog yawn counter. Running some kind of a sweatshop back here? What's going on? Get back to work! Whoosh! Oh god. You had a 30 second yawning break. That's it for the morning.

But you know what I'm saying, right? Like, Buffalo, you're kind of like, why wouldn't you try and make a big move at this point? And if you can bring in a talent like Elias Pedersen, is there risk there? Yeah, absolutely. There was risk when Vegas brought in Eichel. There was injury risk there. And with Pedersen, there's a different type of risk. But I think there's still risk, but there's upside. There's tremendous upside. T.U.P. tremendous upside potential. For whoever acquires Elias Pedersen.

And I guarantee you, because it's the Canucks, as soon as he gets, if he gets traded, as soon as he gets traded, he'll become a great player again, he'll get a hundred points, he'll probably win some trophies and we will be miserable. Here's a followup question to that line of thought. Do you ever think that he's going to regain that form in Vancouver?

That's, that's the argument, right? That's the argument. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it could happen, sure. You think so? Yeah. You're optimistic? Wow, I don't know if I'd say, I would say 60-40 maybe. In favor of? In favor of.

Okay. Like, no, he could. I mean, he's way too skilled for it to be an impossibility. Is it fair to suggest that the well might be poisoned here? Well, yeah, but if you move out the poison and he stays then theoretically. See and this goes back to his earlier point though is that the aftermath of trading- We still don't really know what's going on. I know that's why- We still don't really know.

That's why it's so hard to answer. I'm just sort of guessing. The aftermath of trading won isn't as simple as addition by subtraction because you've still got the remaining party having to deal with everything that's unfolded, right? Dirty laundry being aired, being in the same market with the same teammates and the same culture and environment where things weren't going great for you. If what Rutherford said about that was totally true and he's like, he understood that he didn't work hard enough in the off season, he didn't have the proper preparation,

but he gets it now, which he said in that article, if that is in fact true and PD understands what he did wrong and what he needs to do to get back to the original form of his star play, then theoretically next season, sure, part of that will be good. Yeah, that struck me a spin. Part of that struck me as spin. Part of that struck me as spin. Yeah.

Sure. I mean, the interesting thing when we bring up Buffalo is that the root cause of everything that happened in Buffalo is that O'Reilly and Eichel didn't get along and didn't like each other. And eventually, both got moved. Because they realized that it's not one or the other, that's not the argument.

The argument is it's both. Yeah. And I think sometimes that's what it comes down to is you don't choose player A or player B. You choose player A and player B to go. You just have to move them both and kind of start over. It sucks, but do what you gotta do. So here's something that just popped into my head.

What if the Canucks trade Pedersen to Buffalo? Buffalo pulls it together, wins the Stanley Cup with the help of Pederson, leaves the sad club, and then the Canucks are the only members of the sad club. It would be very befitting of you being the originator and commissioner of the sad club for it to play out exactly the way it was. That is a very, that's what I was saying earlier.

That's like, that scenario is a very real possibility for Canucks fans, which is why it's so terrifying to think of a trade knowing the return will be diminished because not only do you have a diminished return, you just traded this superstar player who regained his form and win a Stanley Cup with another team. That could totally happen. Is this just Cam Neely PTSD all over again or what? Yeah, that'll never go away. But it could be.

Yeah, but it could be in a while. It could be like that. It could be, that's a good comparable in that sense because although Neely was never a star in Vancouver, but I mean, in terms of what the regret was after the trade, then yeah, that's very befitting. I understand that there's some commonalities between the two, but it is kind of apples to oranges.

Wait, Neely wasn't a star here. Right. How long did you play, I was before my time. Three seasons. Neely was viewed as a bust pick. We hadn't turned into the player that a lot of people envisioned he was going to be. I wouldn't say bust, but they were frustrated. They were frustrated with his development. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think, I mean, obviously nobody here at the time thought that he was going to turn into the player that he did, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because he

went on to be a hall of fame power forward. I mean, I think the worry about Pedersen being traded and finding his game again is totally legitimate, 100% legitimate. It was only a, it was a year ago that he was playing at a very high level. And I just go back to, we still don't really know what happened.

There are so many theories out there. There's the knee tendonitis theory. There's the JT Miller is bullying him theory. There's the lost his love for the game theory that might've been, I don't know, related to JT. There's the got fat and happy with his contract theory. There's, um, I mean, if you just want to quote, call this quote, like low character theory, do you know what I mean?

Like there's all sorts of theories out there. We don't really know. No. We don't, we, we don't know. And that's, that's, that's the thing, right? Maybe it's a combination of all those things, but, you know, there's some people out there that are still like, he's playing well.

He's in good position. The other. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, I mean, yeah, he was, he's always in good position. It's just, it's not what he's, it's not what he's doing without the puck. It's what he's doing with the puck.

And that's why the Canucks were working with them the other day on, you know, having the puck and feeling the pressure on you and still going out and making a play. Not just throwing the puck away, not deferring it to someone else, still making a play with someone on your back. I actually do like the way that that line looks. I know it's not like feasible long-term to play better 15 minutes a night with Linus Carlsen and Nils Hoeglander, but in the interim, I know it's not like feasible long-term to play better 15 minutes a night with Linus

Carlson and Nils Hoeglander, but in the interim, I think it looks great. And it's, I mean, he does look more engaged, but I'm tired of saying- That's the best line last game. I'm tired of saying like, oh, he looks more engaged or oh, maybe this is the time that it turns around. Maybe this is the sign. Maybe this is the signal. You shouldn't have to do that maybe this is the signal. You shouldn't have to do that so often with a player of his talent level, a player, his caliber, and the player that makes the paycheck.

Wow, look how he screened the goalie. What did you- I know, the bar gets so low. Yeah, it should be like that. Oh wow, I thought he was gonna set cross-legged in the corner. Well, you know, it's not, it's really not hard to go to the net without the puck.

It's not hard to,, half the time, the guys don't even box out anymore. You can get there. Watch the goal that Linus Carlsen scored the other day. The great pass by Tyler Myers. Hogan-Linder went there, no problem, right? Carlsen went there, no problem. Now what they did do really well was they kept moving around and then the

Preds got puck watching on Tyler Myers. They're like, this guy's magic with the puck. So they got puck watching and Carlson was able to get along. Like, but it's not like the old days where, you know, sometimes it is on the powerplay, but it's not like the old days where you're like, man, I'm going to take some cross checks and some slashes in front of the net, even if I don't have the puck. Half the time the defense, I don't want to say they ignore them, but they're not exactly wasting energy trying to box them out.

What's difficult, what's difficult is having the puck in front of the net, it's having the puck. You know, like going to the net with the puck and going to dig out pucks like Connor Garland does so well. Yes. That's the difficult part. It's not standing there and screening. That's quite easy actually.

What did you make of the remarks by Elliot Friedman that Rutherford's comments to the Globe and Mail were a warning to the fans and to the media and to everyone else in Vancouver that one, this trade or trades are probably going to happen. But the more interesting thing from Freach that be braced for an underwhelming return. Well, that's how I originally took the article. That's how I originally took it.

And then, then, you know, the, you start thinking and you're like, well, maybe there was something else to it. Sure. Gary Mason left out that quote. There were a lot of interpretations online of Rutherford's remarks. Different interpretation. Your answer is like, you know, I just think it's quite interesting that Gary Mason has a relationship with Francesco Aquilini and he's the guy that

gets it. Gary kind of shot down that theory, but you know, there's been so many different theories about this, but sometimes you just go to go back to the original one and you trust the writer of the article that he is going to deliver the spirit of the article. And Gary's a very trustworthy writer in my opinion. I know a lot of you don't like the media at all,

but Gary, in my opinion, will get the spirit of the article. And the way he wrote it is like, Connux fans get ready cause they don't think there's a solution to this. Yeah. The underwhelming brace for the underwhelming return is the one that I keep coming back to because that would suggest that he knows that the deal has to happen like soon.

You can't sit on it. You can't let this thing fester any longer. I'd be shocked based on what he said if they let this thing play out the entire season. Because they know what happens. It gets good for a little while and then it gets bad again. You win a couple of games in a row and then you lose a bunch of games in the row. You have a good performance and then you have a gets bad again. You win a couple of games in a row, and then you lose a bunch of games in the row.

You have a good performance, and then you have a really bad performance. Like really bad, embarrassing performance, disgraceful performance. And that often follows the efforts and the outputs of Elias Pedersen and JT Miller. There's often a correlation of those guys had off nights. Also the Canucks lost six one.

JT and Elias Pedersen were invisible last night. Canucks got shut out on home ice. Like those things are often part and parcel. Or invisible, not invisible, but in the wrong way. Sure. I keep coming back to the Miller's game against the Kings. Loud mistakes.

Like it was just the effort level was, it just wasn't there and he looked, he looked checked out at the time and you know, maybe they can find the energy once in a while, especially JT, like he's had some really good games, but he's also had some really low games where Petey has been more like consistently just like under the level of energy. Yep. No peaks, no valleys. So actually, you know what? I think that's the right word that's lacking in Petey's game, energy.

And that sometimes makes me wonder if he's just, you know, when you're not, I don't know if it's like burnout or you're just not, you're not feeling good about everything. Your energy levels dip. And that's what I see from, from Pedersen. Like he's just, he's low out there. He's low. Okay.

We've got a lot more to get to. Our one in the books, our two is coming up on the other side of the break. Before we go to break, I need to tell you to reserve your spot for the big football party at the Clayton public house hosted by sports net six 50 visit the Clayton pub.com for more of the Clayton public house. Good food, good people, good times. AJ is going to join us on the other side of the break and Owen Newkirk host of the Dallas stars podcast for D L L S sports is going to join us to break down

tonight's game from the Stars side of things. Five o'clock puck drop Canucks in Dallas. You can hear it all right here on Sportsnet 650. Torts just looks like Kuzmina goes smiling on the bench. What are you so happy about? He's Martin on the bus. Finally, people look away from my weighing computers t-shirts. Exactly.

Excuse me, Bart's a little upset this morning. So could everyone please be extra nice to him? No, please don't. my wedding computer's t-shirt. Exactly. Excuse me, Bart's a little upset this morning, so could everyone please be extra nice to him? Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Ah! Hey, where's your diaper, baby? Thank goodness he's drawn attention away from my shirt.