Halford & Brough in the Morning - Can You Bunt Your Way To A World Series?

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, including the biggest Blue Jays win streak in a decade, (3:00) plus they chat the latest hockey news with The Athletic NHL's Sean McIndoe (26:09). 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- this long in the conversation talk about punting. He is just my favorite thing as a former Little League coach. Nathan Lucas homered his last time up and he gets a butt down and the run will score. We the North let's hang there together. And as a city, as a nation, as a team, we became champions. Good morning Vancouver! 6 o'clock on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday everybody. It is Halford and his brough in his Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Basketball fan, good morning to you as well. Good morning.

Halford and brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for net help with over 3,000 five-star reviews. Visit them online at sans-trustee.com. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Got a big show ahead on a Tuesday.

Sounded like we had a dearth of clips in the intro this morning there, basketball band. Was it tough? I had a lot to work with. What happened? Is that you, Jerry got slid in there? Summertime. We do have a big show ahead though.

We got a lot to get into on the program. Guest list today begins at 6.30. Sean McIndoo, better known as Down Goes Brown, is gonna join us. Senior NHL writer from the program. Guest list today begins at six thirty. Sean McIntoo, better known as Down Goes Brown, is going to join us. Senior NHL writer from the athletic. I did not realize this when we booked him. But this morning, Sean published something that really relates to us. It's about being old and feeling old and feeling nostalgic.

It's a new article. Let's get. Yeah. Five NHL off season things he misses from days of yore. For example, things like not caring about salaries and the salary cap when it used to be okay to sign old players because we weren't all that hung up on age and being old. It was called veteran savvy back in the day. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the guy doesn't hit his prime until about 37. Those were good days. That's when all the smoking finally paid off and they're like, the guy doesn't hit his prime until about 37. Those were good days. That's when all the smoking finally paid off and they're like, you're gonna hit your peak now at 37. We're gonna talk to Sean about that at 6.30 here on the program. Fair bit of hockey talk on the program today, seven o'clock.

Greg Wyszynski, our insider from ESPN is gonna join the program. He has a bunch of stuff up on free agency, the four biggest lessons from free agency thus far. We'll talk to them about that. We can also talk to Greg about the biggest news from the hockey world yesterday and we will get into this and what happened. Uh, Gavin McKenna reportedly on his way to, uh, the collegiate level NCA is going to be playing for Penn state next year,

not made official, but it sounds like that's what's happening. So we'll talk to Greg about that at seven o'clock. 7.30 we're gonna move over to Alberta. Sportsnet Flames reporter Eric Francis is gonna join the program. We'll talk to him about the youth movement of foot in Calgary. I think we should actually discuss both Alberta teams this AM because there was a bit of news yesterday

about Zach Hyman and the Oilers and then Eric and Mark Spector did a similar thing looking at the depth charts of their respective teams. I don't know if it looks very good for Edmonton going into this year, so we can talk about the two Alberta teams throughout the show today. As we kind of break down cup contenders throughout the NHL, what the Pacific division is going to look like as it relates to the Vancouver Canucks. Eight o'clock this morning, Nathan Rourke is going to join the program,

starting quarterback for your BC lions. Leos are coming off a big 21 to 20 win in Montreal last weekend. No rest for the weary. They're back on the road this weekend. They had to Edmonton to take on the Elks for the second time this season. So we'll talk to Nathan about all that coming up at eight. Also in the eight o'clock hour, eight 30 this morning, we are going to announce the winner of this year's Sportsnet 650 Jays Care 50-50 for Challenger baseball

supported by Tile Town. The draw was last night. The winner is gonna be announced this morning. We're gonna reveal that in the 8.30 hour of the show just before we get into what we learned. And that's actually a friendly reminder to everybody, start sending in what we learned now. The Dunbar Lumber text line is 650650.

Tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports, hashtag it WWL, and then to kick off that segment at 8.30, we will announce the winner of this year's Sportsnet 650 Jays Care 50-50 for Challenger Baseball. Working in reverse on the guest list, eight o'clock it's Nathan Rourke 730 it's Eric Francis 7 o'clock Greg Wyshinski 630 Sean McIndoe that's what's happening on the program today basketball Ben let's tell everybody what happened I missed all the action because I was busy. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Missed that?

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 in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca You heard it in the intro, we do need to start with the red hot Toronto blue Jays. Joey Loper Fido, one of my favorite names in the bigs. Homer drove in three runs.

The Jays rip off their ninth consecutive victory with an 84 win on Monday night against the white Sox. A couple of things of note happened. One basketball Ben's jinx did not come to fruition. The Jays did manage to keep the good times going against one of the worst teams in the American league and up seven one, as we also heard in the intro in the sixth inning, the Jays decided, you know what, we love bunting as much as Mike Halford loves bunting.

And they got across the run to make it eight one in the sixth. I don't want to say they broke the unspoken rules of baseball by bunting across a run to give themselves a seven run lead But it was a good night for the Jays as they ripped off their ninth consecutive win We're gonna have to get on this bandwagon here for not already Jason I was watching yesterday and I thought of you when they when they bunto that run home Would have loved that they broke about four unwritten rules in one single play. I'm like, don't do that. Don't do that.

But they did it and it was great. They are now three and a half games up on the Yankees and four on the Tampa Bay Rays. I bet Jay's fans are, I'm certainly feeling like if they really want to have a chance at the division, make hay right now. Get as big a lead as you possibly can because they're probably gonna lose a few games no they're just

gonna win for the rest of time in the next 80 that they've got a player whatever 70 that they've got to play and the Yankees are probably gonna turn it around a little bit but yeah it's it's it's fun to watch and it's certainly as all the hockey news dies down and let's be honest, this summer we don't have, we don't have like a big event. We don't have an Olympics, we don't have a World Cup. We already squeezed as much as we could out of the Gold Cup.

Yeah, I mean honestly, and with hockey news kind of coming to a a crawl now, it's, it's good to have a least, a compelling story. And early in the season, the Jays weren't looking very compelling. They were just looking like a middling team that you'd be like, well, if you like baseball, you

can watch the Jays, you know, like baseball. But if, but if you want to watch winning baseball, you know, it's hit or miss sometimes with the Jays, but, uh, yeah, but if, but if, but if you want to watch winning baseball, you know, it's hit or miss sometimes with the Jays, but yeah, they're looking good. And it's exciting with, with the all-star game coming up and, and the trade deadline coming up. We'll see if they make any moves. We'll see if management or ownership is emboldened by this team to go out and do something big. And even if they don't, I think you're, you're

going to have the excitement of at least holding on or letting go of that first place in the division. So the big talking point right now is that the Jays have ripped off 27 wins in their last 37 games. And this has vaulted them from being a sub 500 team to, as Jason mentioned, tops in the AL East

with, as Ben pointed out yesterday, an opportunity to pad that lead a little bit, given the last two series prior to the break. They should be able to collect some more wins. It's the most wins in franchise history before the All-Star break of 53 and 38, longest win streak for the team in a decade. So you got to go all the way back to- I actually find that incredible. That's the most wins they've got in franchise decade. So you got to go all the way back. I find that incredible. But that's the most wins they've got. I mean, it's franchise history when you go. It's a 37 game run where they've only lost 10.

Like this isn't just this 11 game win streak, which, by the way, as I mentioned, the longest since August of 2015, like this in the historical context of the club, this is some of the best baseball that this team has ever played now with a plus 16 run difference. And that's OK. I'm glad you brought that. OK, Michael. OK. OK, Mike. Right. So everyone knows the Michael K and Jamie Campbell stuff that happened over the last weekend when the Blue Jays surpassed the Yankees in the standings. And there was a bit of a verbal joust back and forth.

And the run differential thing came up. Right. And there's a sustainability factor where a lot of people say, hey, how real is your record? Well, you're winning a lot of close ball games and over the course of 162 game regular season, that's going to even itself out. Is it a lot of those one run games are eventually going to go the either way? That's just the nature of the sport, which is why when we were talking to Shulman yesterday,

I was really trying to emphasize, like, this is a team, though, that I think understands it's probably going to be in a lot of those games. Can I just say how predictable this is? Ever since analytics came into sports, like, whether it's hockey or baseball, like, we have the same arguments over, the Mariners did this a few years ago, didn't they? They got off to a great start with the run differential, wasn't that? I can't even remember the exact details. And so the doubters outside the market will say it's unsustainable. And then the people that support the team or want the team to succeed

will come up with all the reasons why for this team. It's different. It's different. And with the Jays though it is different. They're built to win one run games. That's just how they operate. They're special. They're not like all those other teams

that fooled their fans with the low run differential. This team is different. It's just funny to watch how it plays out. And it's so predictable, cause it happens in hockey too, right? Like we've seen the teams that either go on a PDO bender or, you know, win a lot of close games or whatever. Their goal differential is different.

People in the market, they'll be like, no, no, no, no, no, let me explain. You obviously haven't been watching this team. This is what this team does. A little different. Can you buy your way to a World Series? Yes, the answer is yes. Well, exactly, right?

All those other teams with the problematic run differential weren't bunters, they weren't bunters, right? They play small ball. They manufacture runs. These guys manufacture runs. I love that saying, they manufacture them. Yes, you know, there's a selflessness about this team that other MLB teams don't have.

And it is why I brought it up with Shulman yesterday though, because you do, if you're gonna play that style ball, and they make no mistake, they do play a style of baseball where it's like in these very clutch moments. I think that's why they're perhaps practicing their squeeze bunts when they're up seven one on the lowly white socks in the sixth inning is that I think they realize that they're not built to go up and you know, have everyone at the plate mash. There are,

there are going to be times where you have to manufacture runs and it is a, you know, it's kind of a cliche, but it's funny as well, especially in the post season, right? And you know what, with this Jay's team in particular, if you go back to post season's failings in recent years past, one of the things that undid them on a number of occasions

was sloppy base running and the inability to get guys over from second to have them cross home. So I do wonder if there was a philosophical shift there along the way of, Hey, if we really make this a priority and stop wasting these opportunities, we can win more ball games. Okay. Let's talk about Gavin McKenna.

Sure. He's expected to join Penn State and he was largely expected to leave the CHL and go down to the NCAA. This isn't something that broke yesterday. They're like, oh my God, he's going to college? What? There was talk that he was talking to Penn State

or Michigan State. He ends up in Penn State, which in terms of elite hockey programs down in the States is relatively new. Sabres owner, Terry Pagula, I think funded a lot of the Penn State program. They only entered Div1 Hockey in 2012. So they've only had a Div1 Hockey program for just over a decade. So I saw a clip online, I think it was through Spitting Chicklets or something, of the Penn State facilities, their hockey facilities.

Even the Canucks were like, oh, that'd be nice. You know, like it is really, really incredible what some of these programs have. And, you know, we've seen the programs that, uh, the football teams have or the basketball teams have, or in the case of, uh, you know, basketball, Ben, who's more of a golfer, Ben, I'm sure you've seen the facilities at Arizona state golf team. I mean, it's incredible, right? Like it looks like, it looks like a fantasy camp basically for, for golfers. The hockey stuff at Penn State really doesn't look any different than an

NHL team would have. Right. They have really nice dressing rooms, great gym, medical facilities, training facilities. It's all there. And I think this is what is concerning or should be concerning to fans of the CHL because I don't think the CHL can keep up with this. Like these are, these are like $50 million

facilities. Then he gets to go to like the whiteout. He has to be on campus for a bit. Yeah. The experience of, of, of going to, to college isn't going to be for everyone, but man, the ability to go down there and make some extra money too, like Gavin McKinnon is going to make a

lot of money in his professional career, but it's nice to get started early and he'll be able to go down there and there's certain rules that will, um, you know, apply to Canadians that you can get around, but he'll probably make, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars in name, image, and likeness. And if you're a player like him, think of how much

Connor Bedard was worth to the WHL. Yeah. When he was playing out his final season in Regina, he would go around and he would sell out games. Gavin McKenna could have done that next season, but now he's gonna go down to the NCAA and play for Penn State. So to give everyone that's listening right now

an idea of why this story is so significant and important, it's because of McKenna. He's not the first star player from the CHL to defect to NCAA hockey. As a matter of fact, like his medicine hat teammate, Kaden Lindstrom, a top Columbus Blue Jackets prospect, he just recently confirmed his commitment to leave medicine hat and to go to Michigan State.

McKenna is different because this is, if you wanna talk about generational talents, and I know we throw that term around a lot, but he's the third youngest player to win Canadian Hockey League Player of the Year. The only guys that were younger to do it, Sydney Crosby and John Tavares, who won it at 16, McKenna won it at 17. McKenna's year, if you didn't follow it at Medicine Hat last year, was off the charts. He had 129 points in 56 games.

So this is unquestionably, unquestionably the most high profile superstar in junior hockey leaving the Canadian hockey league and going down to NCAA hockey. Now the other part of this, and Jason touched on it earlier, is he's not going to a traditional powerhouse. He's not going to one of these teams.

That's a perennial final or frozen for contest. And he's going to one of the up and coming programs. So on two fronts, you've got a guy leaving Canadian hockey and leaving it not for Michigan or any of the big historical programs. He's going somewhere new in in a to a certain degree. And that's where a lot of people have raised eyebrows and saying, you know, what is this going to mean for the landscape moving forward? There's a lot of Canadian hockey team CHL teams right now that I think are genuinely concerned about what their future is going to look like, not that they're going to have a lack of players players because with player movement comes player movement.

There's gonna be guys that are gonna go to the Canadian Hockey League still. It just feels like the path is going to be spend one year in, I don't know, Regina. Then I try my opportunities at a big NCAA school and I get the best of both worlds. For the player, I don't think anyone can argue that this is hugely beneficial and a win.

Players get the opportunity to try different things, play in different places, experience different developmental paths, and as you pointed out, get the opportunity to get paid before they go pro. There was something maybe a bit off. I think a lot of people will say that Connor Bedard was a traveling road show for the Regina Pats and wasn't,

you know, really benefiting from that financially other than whatever stipend he got for Pats along the way. Yeah, he got some extra subway. Right, here's the $5 foot long card. It's got all the stamps and you enjoy that, Connor, for your pregame meal. You know, there's that element of it. I guess if you are a traditionalist

and someone who cares about the rich history and the fabric of junior hockey in Canada, you'd probably be moaning this because there's probably a lot of small towns across Canada that, you know, where the team is the backbone of the community and into the cultural fabric. And there will be a struggle. There will be a player drain and an Exodus.

And some of that star talent will get lost to this behemoth, this Goliath that is NCAA hockey. What do you think is the, what do you think is the main factor? Do you think it's for McKenna, I'm going to go down to Penn State and I'm going to play against older players to help prepare myself for the pros. Do you think it's the facilities that Penn State

has? Do you think it's the nil money that he can make? Or do you think it's the college experience going down there, maybe playing fewer games, not having to bus around as much as you would in the dub. Like there's quite a few factors at play here, right? And I actually don't know the answer to this. I don't know what. Well, I think the answer is the total package.

Is if you look at it, you're almost saying, how do I not do this? Because you just rattled off four things that, quite frankly, he's not able to get if he puts another season in at Medicine Hat. Like what, yeah, I mean, what more does he have to prove in Medicine Hat? Was he gonna go back next year?

He's like, yeah, I fell off a little bit, right? Like he had a, he could win the Mem Cup, there's that, right? Yeah. But I get this part of it. I think we are entering into a very interesting moment in the pathways for development for these players. And I think this is going to be fascinating to watch play out because the one thing I don't like someone takes it in also get an education.

I mean, that's not it. Like he's going to be a Penn state. He's a Penn state for one year. Right not it. He's gonna be at Penn State. He's there for one year. He's taking introductory PE and maybe like a class where he does some pottery and then that's it. Like he's not... I saw some people yesterday, our good buddy Sam McKee actually from fan 590 at Toronto threw it out on Twitter and he was bemoaning the drain of players going from Canadian hockey league teams. You know the guys Ontario, I do think that there's a little bit more of an affinity because the O.H.L. is such a big thing.

And a lot of the dubs big here. I know, but it's just different, right? I think it's different anyway. But Sam's one of those guys that grew up like in one of those towns following one of those teams. You know, a lot of them had aspirations that you want to go play junior and like wherever, Peterborough or whatever. I don't know. But the point being, you know, they watch Youngblood

yeah, over and over again. And that's that that's very much it's a generational thing. And it's a cultural fabric thing where guys, that's just the path that you took is you played youth hockey, you went and played junior and then you got hopefully a chance to go play in the National Hockey League. That's changed now. And again, if I look at it from the player's perspective, I'm saying this is a great thing

because you want players to have the opportunities to try different ways to get money, figure out how they're gonna develop, and get the experience. I mean, that's a big part of it. Yeah, but I understand that some of these Canadian teams might get left behind. And it is a risk that you run now. The real interesting thing for me is how fundamentally different college hockey is going to look.

Because we're getting to the point now where it's going to start being a circuit that you're going to have to pay attention to with regularity. You know, I do wonder about the I mean, right now, college hockey on TV is nil. There's not a lot of it, especially in Canada, right? I wonder if that's gonna be another phase of this. You obviously don't have the Big Ten channel. I don't anymore, right? It was funny when we were in Calgary on the weekend,

the Big Ten channel shows really old historical programming and they had the 2014 Big Ten Hockey Championship on it. I was like, we have to watch that. So I didn't, we didn't watch it. We didn't watch it. So I'll be very curious to see what this does for collegiate hockey moving forward and how big it truly gets. Cause the next, the most logical leap on the horizon is that you start getting more of these

gigantic schools that don't have D1 hockey programs, getting D1 hockey programs, right? Like how long is it gonna be before they have a West Coast version where we've seen the rise of Arizona State hockey, for example, right? Where they're now a fully fledged program and the allure of going there between the weather and the facilities.

We talked about Arizona State, they've got one hockey team. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Can you imagine? What do you do? I play hockey in college. Where do you go? Arizona State. That sounds amazing. Yep. It is. Yeah, and then the next one.

And every once in a while, they'll let us over into the golf program and I can hit balls there. Oh, I mean, the next logical step, I guess, would be like you start looking at when do the UCLAs and USC USC start getting involved. Are the girls prettier at Arizona state or moose jaw? Yeah. It was like, you can find out, you can play in both. That's the great thing about this. Okay. We got a lot more to get to on the program on the Haliford and brush on sports net six 50 coming up.

We're going to talk to Sean Mackinac from down goes Brown at the athletic seven o'clock, Greg Wyshinski, seven 30, Eric Francis, eight o'clock, Nathan Rourke, a reminder, get your, what we learned in Dunbar Lumber, text message in basket six 50, six 50. If you want us to weigh in on anything that's going on in the world of sports right now, we can do it. We've got several open segments after our guests throughout the show. We are going to get into what the Pacific division looks like this year.

We've got a bit that we're gonna do this week as well. Looking at the different levels of Stanley Cup contenders based on what the sports books have for their futures right now in terms of next year Stanley Cup odds. What different tiers of contenders are there throughout the NHL? Where do the Vancouver Canucks fit in all that as well? We're here until nine o'clock.

We got a big show ahead. Don't go anywhere. You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 PM on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. 631 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday everybody. Alford and Rough, Sports Night at 6.50. Alford and Rough in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates.

Learn how a consumer proposal reduces your debt by up to 80% with no more interest. This is them online at Sands-Trustee.com. Sean McAdoe, better known as Down Goes Brown from the Athletics, is gonna join us in just a moment here. A highlight of hour one. Friendly reminder, get your what we learns into the Dunbar Lumbertex message in Basket 650.

650, hashtag them, WWL, tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports. I know I'm asking a lot today. Wasn't a lot that happened in the world of sports last night. There was a lot of baseball, not a lot of hockey, but try your best. Get creative, send in something that might catch us off guard. Dunbar Lumbertex line six 50, six 50 hashtag at WWL. Tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports.

Let's go to the phone lines. Now the power West industries hotline, Sean McIndoe better better known as Down Goes Brown from The Athletic joins us now on the Haliford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Morning Sean, how are you? I'm doing good. So I was gonna start just with the article, which appeals to us very closely as old people,

like yourself, but I want to start ahead of that with the Mitch Marner thing. I think if anyone you know has the the writing chops and in the history of like Contextualizing things and writing the narrative now that that chapter has been closed Where are you on the Mitch Marner era now that it's over in Toronto? I Think I'm on board with I

don't know if I'd say the consensus, but it's something that I have seen percolating up from both the fan base and then concurrently in the media is this idea that this should have worked. This should have been a slam dunk. I mean, Hometown Kid shows up with little pictures of him when he was four years old toddling around in a Leafs jersey and comes in at the exact right time, new era is beginning, everything's fresh and new and optimistic. He should have run Toronto the way that Doug Gilmore did back in the day. I mean, forget about being the most

popular Maple Leaf, he should have been the most popular athlete in that city. Yeah. And it just didn't work. And I know that there is a very appealing narrative here to point the finger at the fan base and say, you guys did this. You guys were unreasonable.

You guys drove the local kid out. And, and there's certainly some element of that. I mean, you, you guys know you get any fan base, you get any group of people that's large enough, there's going to be some idiots in that group. And those idiots are going to shove their way to the front and make themselves heard. But I mean when you look at it, I'm not convinced that a fan base that we typically point at and say they're not demanding enough suddenly was too demanding on one particular player. I just think at the end of the day, Mitch Marner and the people around him were not

suited for that role that seemed like such a slam dunk. And on some level never wanted that, even though they probably thought they did. Um, they didn't want any of the stuff that comes with it. And now they get a fresh start somewhere else. Uh, look, full credit to Mitch Marner. He delivered in regular seasons to a level that Leaf fans are not used to seeing. You know, regular season stats, he's one of the greatest Leafs of all time, even though he only had nine years there. Playoffs obviously a very

different thing and that's a huge part of the story too. But at the end of the day, I mean, this is, we can go back and forth on whose fault it is and that sort of thing. But this was a breakup that needed to happen. It was time. And I think both sides will be happier for it, maybe not better for it, but at least in the short term, they'll feel like they got what they wanted. You mentioned that, uh, the playoff performance was a huge part of the story.

Was it the entire story of why things went wrong between Mitch Marner and the Toronto Maple Leafs and the fan base, or was there more to it than that? There was more to it, but I'll, I'll say this. I think the playoff performance at both an individual and a team level, um, that was the first crack in what should have been the perfect

scenario because if it, if it had played out the way it should have, then, you know, I said Mitch Marner would have owned the town. Lots of athletes own towns and they have all sorts of warts, both in terms of, you know, themselves, but you know, in terms of their game, in terms of there's, there's no such thing as a perfect hockey player. There's no such thing as a perfect athlete, but all that stuff gets looked past because the city looks at a guy and says, that's our guy. passed because the city looks at a guy and says, that's our guy.

And the, the playoff stuff was kind of that, that first crack that said, okay, you know what, maybe we're not doing the, maybe it's, this isn't a perfection. Maybe we're not doing that. Maybe we're not going to even pretend. And then that's when I think a lot of the, the other stuff started to rear its head. I mean, you know, I'll give you an example. Mitch Marner was not great with the media, put it lightly. He would sit down to say things and sometimes they came out wrong or they came out in a way that he should have known were going to be misinterpreted

or maybe maliciously interpreted, you know, like saying that, oh, we're treated like gods in this city, okay? Not actually an incorrect statement, but not the sort of thing you typically say when you've just been knocked out of the playoffs. That sort of thing. He also had a tendency sometimes to come across kind of petulant and sort of, you know, like he was complaining and maybe even when he wasn't, that's fine. Lots of people are great at the media. Certainly lots of people in the NHL don't come across as super charismatic guys when you point a camera at them.

Fans would have looked past that, but when he's already wearing the gold horns from a playoff collapse, suddenly people latch onto that. And it happened to him over and over with people again fairly or unfairly latching on to things that he had done wrong a lot of people would have been able to shake that off a lot of people would have been able to turn that into motivation Mitch Marner and the people around him for whatever reason did just were not wired to do that they saw it as your personal insults

lack of respect however you want to phrase it. And they, they weren't going to let it go and they didn't know how to let it go. And, and eventually that meant that they had to go. I think he's the epitome of the athlete that you hear this saying a lot. He just rubs people the wrong way. Like that quote about, you know, we're

treated like gods here. I mean, he, you know, if you, if you read it without hearing him say it, it's kind of like, oh, you think you're a god, but that's not what he intended by it. Not at all. He, he was, he was trying to say like, we're so lucky here and we're so privileged, but it just came out the wrong way.

Is that the way you took it as well? Yep, absolutely. I mean, he wasn't, what he was trying to express, any fair interpretation is, was not wrong. And you're right. He was basically saying, Hey man, this is a great place to play as a player and you know we're treated really well and it just it just came out badly or even you know there were other times where during regular seasons the Leafs would maybe get off to a slow

start that happened a couple years in a row and you know Mitch Marner would would say something that I think coming from someone else's mouth would sound defiant. It would sound like circling the wagons like, hey we all believe in ourselves. We're you know we're not gonna let any of this noise get to us. It would sound like what you wanted to hear a leader say but the way he would put it, it sounded tone-deaf. It sounded like no everything's great. Who cares that we're losing games? We're fine need to change anything no need for any of this it just didn't quite come across right and and again with some of that nitpicking by a fan base that at this

point had maybe started to get frustrated with them sure with some of that a media that in in a big market like Toronto there's always going to be somebody who tries to find a different angle on something and maybe takes it in a negative way. Absolutely. But some of it was on him as well. And it just added up over time. Any one of the individual things you would look at and you'd go, okay, I get why maybe some people are upset about that, but you're not going to run a hundred point player out of town based on him saying that you know

they're treated like gods or whatever else he said but it just kept adding up and adding and there never seemed to be a moment that put the fire out and again you know we can point at dozens of things that Mitch Marner and his camp did quote-unquote wrong in Toronto. Um, one good playoff run, one Stanley Cup, one Con Smythe. We're not talking about any of that ever. It would get whitewashed out of the Mitch Marner story and it would, uh, it would just all be about the statue on legends row. Just never happened. We're speaking to Sean McIndoe down goes Brown from the athletic senior NHL

writer here on the Haliford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Uh, so in the aftermath of this season, there was Brad Tree Living saying that the Maple Leafs needed to redo or reimagine their DNA. And then it sure seemed like part of that reimagining of the DNA was guys taking less money to stay in Toronto. And the two biggest examples probably being the haircut that John Tavares took to sign his extension and a lot of people pointing that Matthew Nyes might have left money on the table as well signing a long-term extension that he did. Do you think that

intentionally or not that was sort of an intentional juxtaposition to Marner who one of the things that he was known for during his time in Toronto was making sure that he got every single cent out every single contract that he signed with the Maple Leafs. Yep. And obviously, I mean, we just talked a bunch about Marner and the contract is the elephant in the room.

That contract that he signed, his second deal and everything that went along with it. The fact that it went into training camp, the fact that the number was so high, the fact that there were so many transparent media leaks to certain reporters that were meant to you know change the market and all of this stuff and then the fact that his agent was talking to newspapers about always being low-balled and this and that yeah and that was a part of the DNA of this team was you squeeze every dollar. Now in fairness to Mitch Marner, by the time he was done squeezing every dollar, and he did, Austin Matthews had already done that, and John Tavares had done that when he came

over as a UFA. Now Tavares, we heard there was more money elsewhere because he was a UFA, but John Tavares didn't come in with his maple leaf bedsheets and and sign a significantly below market deal to play for the hometown team he got a one of the richest contracts in nhl history so from mitch marr's perspective you could absolutely see it going along i mean everyone else is squeezing why why wouldn't i do it you know and neil and randall so uh... had his holdout into the season already by that point.

So Mitch, in theory, was the last of the big four to do it. But it did add up. And it was, you know, the contract was so much higher than anybody imagined that it did put the target on them and the spotlight was brighter and whatever metaphor you want to use. Maybe you're seeing that turnaround. You know, Brett and Shanahan tried. Brett and Shanahan had a few quotes where he was basically saying, writer and whatever metaphor you want to use. Where maybe you're seeing that turn around, you know, Brett and Shanahan tried. Brett and Shanahan had a few quotes where he was basically

saying, hey, we're going to need everyone to take a little less to put it, to fit it together. He never said it in that many words, but you know, he talked about, here's what we did in Detroit and this and that, and the players just rejected it flat out. They went for the dollars. And then the piece of it that often. They went for the dollars and then the piece of it that often gets left out of the story is they fit them all in under a

contract structure that was going to be tough but that they thought was going to be manageable and then the cap went flat unexpectedly for five years in a situation that nobody could have seen coming. Maybe things are very different if that doesn't happen and then there is a little more room to keep the Zach Hymans and whoever else they may have lost. It's a good start getting Matthew Nye's, at least in a deal that, even if it's not a bargain, there was no friction, there was no offer sheet nonsense,

there was no dragging it into September, got done nice and quick. John DeVere's obviously took significantly under market value to stay Maybe that's the new way to do it. I mean, it's it's I'm a player guy in the sense that I think they should get every dollar they can But you can't deny you look around the league the teams that win have guys who take discounts I'm just the real Florida Florida. Yeah, Florida. Absolutely. You see in Vegas You see it in you know other places it in, you know, other places too.

And whether it's guys taking them intentionally or whether it's guys who just sign at the right time and you know, Nathan McKinnon, I don't think took a discount on that contract that he had before the previous one. He just hadn't blown up yet, but he was on a big discount. So, I mean, you've got an extra few million to

spend because you're not spending it on a star player. That's the reality. That's the formula. So you either mean, you've got an extra few million to spend because you're not spending it on a star player. That's the reality. That's the formula. So you either want to win or you don't. And I think people are figuring that out, including Mitch Marner, whose contract in Vegas is actually for a lower percentage of the cap than

what he held the Leafs up for six years ago, which is a fun little way to end that whole story. Hey Sean, this is a good segue to your most recent article. That whole story. Hey Sean, this is a good segue to your most recent article. Things you miss and things you remember because you're old now. And sometimes I wonder as a guy who goes to work every day and spends three hours talking about the salary cap, it seems, what do we talk about before?

teams, what do we talk about before? How do we analyze players and teams without a contract or a salary cap to relate them to? Can you fill that in for me? Cause like I can't even comprehend doing a three hour show now without the salary cap to fall back on. And, and I got to tell you on one level, it's pretty great. Um, and they're really, you know, there's almost two sections to this.

You look at the nineties and the two thousands before the cap came in and we knew what everyone made and we knew there were budgets, we knew the dollar values, but there was no hard cap. So if a team, ultimately, if a team signed a guy for a little too much money, that, but there was no hard cap. So if a team, ultimately if a team signed a guy for a little too much money, that was really an owner problem.

It maybe would influence other things. Maybe they would have to shuffle guys around, but it wasn't as obvious and in your face as it is today. Before that, in the 80s, we didn't even know who made what because the owners kept that a secret because you can pay people less if people don't know what everyone else is making so you had no idea whether it was Wayne Gretzky or the fourth liner you had no idea who made what and and what happened was moves would happen and they would just be evaluated based on how good the

player was you know you you would look at a trade that Leafs and Flames make a 10 player trade and you'd look at the names on both sides and you say, this guy's good, this guy's so-so, this guy's a prospect. And you would figure out in your mind who you thought did better, which teams are, you know, and who was going to slot in where and play on one line.

And you never really thought about the money aspect of it. And it was, it was pretty great. And I say that as someone, I don someone, I'm not against the salary cap and I kinda, I like the extra strategic piece of the cap hits and everything and fitting the puzzle pieces together. I think that's fun in a way.

But man, I mean, there's a phrase I use in the column today that I've used before that says in today's NHL, a good player with a bad contract is not a good player. I was just reading that. I was just going to actually ask you about this line because we're speaking to Sean McAnough, Down Goes Brown from The Athletic here on the Haliford & Bruff Show on Sportsnet 650. I think that's the important thing to note here is this isn't just a bunch of old guys clamoring for nostalgia, although to a certain degree it is. But there's also there's a sense of this that the era

that we've entered here is it's dangerous because the memories that we're going to have of these players, like when when we're even older and we're looking back on it, is that they're going to be identified almost exclusively by their contracts. There's three guys in this most recent era, I'd say the last 10 or 15 years in Vancouver, that when you think about them, you do think about their contract, maybe not necessarily the first thing, but one of, and it would be Luongo,

because quite famously he said, my contract sucks, Louis Erickson, who like six by six was his nickname by the end of the time that he was gone here. And then when they inherited the Oliver Ekman-Larsen deal, was you couldn't get away from any conversation about Oliver Ackman-Larson in Vancouver without mentioning how much money he made, which was not his fault. He signed it with another team and it came along with him and everything else. But that's how he's remembered in Vancouver, it was Oliver Ackman-Larson and the price tag.

And that's a really interesting dynamic when we look back on the history of this league and individual markets, maybe 15 or 20 years from now, is there is that tipping point in the NHL where guys were almost solely defined by how much money they made. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it worked to the benefit of some guys where, you know, there were some guys in the league that maybe were a little bit underpaid. And so they got raised up as, you know, suddenly a guy who was very good became a superstar

because he had superstar value, you know, he was, and certainly there were a lot of guys who worked the other way, and you know, it used to be that if a guy, part of this is also not just the cap hit, but the term, right? When you sign a guy and you go, okay, even though the salary's okay, man, that's a lot of years, and you're just thinking, man, five, but the term, right? When you sign a guy and you go, okay, even though the salary's okay, man, that's a lot of years, and you're just thinking,

five years down the line, are we gonna be stuck with this anchor? Are we gonna have, is it gonna be LTIR? Is it gonna be RoboDos Island? Is it gonna be whatever we have to do to fix this? And again, like, back before the cap, that wasn't an issue. You know, you might hear that somebody signed a contract,

that there weren't eight-year contracts back then for the most part but you might hear somebody sign three or four years and go wow he's kind of old but they would figure it out guys just kind of went away you know there wasn't that cap hit there wasn't that that list of numbers you were staring at all the time and it really has rewired our brains to the point where I'm sure if you're a fan who is either young enough or you're new enough fan where the vast majority of your time is spent in the cap area, it just, it sounds like

how could you even do it that way? Um, it's, it's just, we, we thought about what was put in front of us and dollar signs were not in the first paragraph of every single transaction report we ever wrote back then. I mean, I understand the Siler cap and I get what you mean by what, you know, there are some good parts to it. Sometimes like it's just a puzzle that you're trying to figure out as a fan base and everyone

has different ideas. That being said, man, like do you remember the multiplayer deals? Like it was incredible because you didn't have to, the GMs didn't have to worry about the salary cap. They would just, they'd be upset at their team one day and they'd call up another GM that was upset with his team and there'd be like a 10 player trade. I mean, the Canucks made so many trades before

going to the Stanley Cup final in 1994. I mean, the team was completely different. And, you know, the Leafs made some famous trades with the Calgary Flames. Like it was, I think that was, I think that's what I miss when, like you could just change things a lot quicker. And now we sit here and we look at the teams and you go,

God, like if you even wanted to tear it down, how would you tear it down? Yeah. I mean, the Canucks, the perfect example, those of us outside of Vancouver are looking at the guys that they just re-signed and thinking in some cases, hey, good deal. Maybe I'm not so sure on that one.

But all right. But now you just kind of look at the Canucks and you're like, well, they're done for the next three years. We know what they're gonna look like. It'll work or it won't, and we'll see. And obviously there are teams that we say that about who end up going in different directions, and there's always surprises.

But yeah, it just was a different time where you didn't, and look, when GMs back then were making those trades, they knew the salaries. And in some cases, they probably had to go to owners and say, hey, I know you gave me this budget, I need to go over it to get this guy, but here's why I think it's a good idea. And the owner might say yes and he might say no,

but I mean, it wasn't the hard cap it is today and it almost feels like not only do we have this hard cap hanging over them, but now we've got this generation of new school GMs who've come up in the hard cap world who just don't even think it's possible to pick up the phone and make that deal quickly. They've got 10 people around them in the front office who are assistants and then you know analysts and all this other stuff. It's such a process, I mean we've all seen GMs where it's, you know, there's a guy on the third line needs to be traded. It takes three months and we're told how complicated it is and then at the end he gets traded for

a third round pick and you're going like, was it that complicated really? They're making 17 trades in the NBA and it's too complicated for you guys, but it's just become the way that the NHL works nowadays. Again, total old man yelling at cloud stuff. I get it. All I can tell you, I'm not even saying I'm not even using words like better or worse. I'll just tell you a lot of this stuff was a lot more fun back in the day. Sean, this was great buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the summer and hopefully your neighbor starts mowing his lawn.

Thanks buddy. All right. Thanks a lot guys. Sean McEnough from Down Goes Brown from the Athletic here on the Haliford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. We got to get going to break, but before we do, I need to tell you about Jan Pro from the boardroom to the break room and everywhere in between Jan Pro keeps workplaces tidy, clean and disinfected for a free quote. Visit them online at Janpro.ca more NHL talk and news in general at large. Coming up next, Greg Washinsky from ESPN is going to join us. That's all coming up next on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650.