Halford & Brough in the Morning - Canucks Training Camp Is Underway!

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they hear from Canucks management and the coaching staff from Penticton ahead of Canucks training camp (6:00), plus they go discuss the other big stories from around the NHL (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 da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da on players that are higher. I know they're capable. They've shown it, and now we're going to find the next level. It ain't going to get any easier. Higher expectations, and it's going to be hard. You have to embrace the hardness. You know, I laugh because my son loves the the spin-up-on-yourself podcasts. Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Thursday.

Happy Thursday, everybody. It's Alfred and his bruv. It is 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.

Laddie, good morning to you. Hello, hello. And Arash, good morning to you as well. Good morning. Alfred and Bruv 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. Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler. Well, they pay the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. And we are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite

orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Soar feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec, the guest list today begins at 7 o'clock. That means, I think we're going to do the first hour of this program, 100% uninterrupted hockey talk, almost exclusively Canucks.

Maybe we'll get to some other NHL stories as well, but hockey is back. Training camp gets underway for real today from Penticton, the South Okanagan Events Center. Our guest list begins at 7 o'clock with Adnan Virk from MLB Network, followed by Sam McKee from Fan 590 in Toronto at 7.30. We'll talk to him about the Leafs. 8 o'clock, it's the Drancer from his new home in Penticton. He's never leaving.

We'll talk to him about what to expect from the opening day of training camp. Thatcher Demko is going to meet with the media today. That is much anticipated. We'll also recap everything that Patrick Alvin, Jim Rutherford, and Rick Talkett had to say yesterday. I also want to talk to Sam McKee about the big corporate news. MLSE, now Rogers. I love corporate news.

Majority Rogers owned. What does it mean? What does it mean for the fans? What does it mean for the teams in Toronto? I'm curious. What about us? Yeah, who cares about us? Okay.

I'm curious about what will happen down the line to a team like the Argos or TFC. Does MLSC still value those now that they're owned, majority owned by Rogers? Or, you know, what potential changes down the road could this all mean? Because a lot of people are talking about, hey, maybe Ed Rogers, who is my boss, could one day, since he's the empire of sports in Toronto now, the emperor of sports in Toronto, maybe he goes after an NFL team.

So I think that'll be an interesting discussion with Sam McKee that probably goes beyond who's going to be the 2C in Toronto. Is it going to be Mitch Marner, Willie Nylander, or Tavares is still going to be the guy? I don't know. I heard that on the way in. Nylander's back playing center. Remember they gave him a cameo last year?

Yeah, that was like two games. Yeah, two exhibition games. They're trying it again. Okay, so yeah, there's the guest list. Drancer, 8 o'clock. Sam McKee, 7.30. Adnan Virk, 7 o'clock. There's a lot to get into, so without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night?

No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... 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 in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Yesterday at around 5 o'clock our time, Vancouver Canucks brass, that being the head coach Rick Talkett, the general manager Patrick Alveen, and the president of Hockey Ops, Jim Rutherford, all met with the media to kick off training camp for the 2024-2025 season. Why don't we start with the injuries, Jason? There will be a few guys missing from the start or all of training camp. Thatcher Demko, probably the most prominent,

given everything that's gone on this summer. We don't know exactly what's going on. They deferred, said that Thatcher himself will meet with the media today to discuss his health situation. All they said is that Thatcher will not be participating on the first day of camp. himself will meet with the media today to discuss his health situation. He, all they said is that Thatcher will not be participating on the first day of camp. I'll run through the rest really quick. Dakota,

Joshua, Patrick Alvin cited Joshua's privacy. So they didn't want to add anything further to the statement that Joshua put out via the team's social media about his testicular cancer diagnosis. We learned of a new LBI injury to two guys, Teddy Bluger and Cole McWard, not to be confused with Ward McCole. Both will be out about a week,

although they said McWard is more week to week. So there's your health update to kick off the presser with the brass yesterday. Yeah, just in case you missed it, there weren't really any bombshells or super controversial remarks yesterday because I wasn't there to ask the question that gets those quotes usually. The hard hitter was not there.

Actually, Jim Rutherford kind of doubled down on, he still thinks everything has to go right for the team to have success and make the playoffs this year, but he does think maybe they're a little bit better than last season. Jim, will Thatcher Demko start the season on LTIR? What are your thoughts? Again, a lot of the stuff we've already heard, like expectations being higher and things

not getting any easier for the team. From I suppose a pure hockey perspective, the most interesting guy to listen to was Rick Tockett and how he spoke about how the team needs to play with, I guess, not to put words in his mouth, but more of an attacking mentality while not ignoring the

defensive staples and structure, et cetera, et cetera, that helped so much last season. Now, I think this is probably a natural progression for this team under Tockett, and at least there is that progression. There have been some teams in Vancouver that haven't made any progress. So this is good. This is progress. You remember his first job was to come in and stabilize the situation defensively and structurally. Everyone remembers his first practice where he's like literally telling people

where to go on the ice and then blowing his whistle and being like okay is everyone in the right position it worked great overall he was the coach of the year for a reason but uh we all know what happened in the playoffs and the Canucks struggled to create scoring chances bottom line they struggled to create scoring chances and championship teams aren't just defensive or offensive. They aren't just good one way or the other. Sure, some of them will be more defensive than others and more offensive than others, but they're both. They take care of business in their own end

and they hurt the opposition when they get the chance. And I think what Tockett saw when he went over some of the game film from last season is there were chances to go out on the rush and the Canucks, for whatever reason, took those opportunities too conservatively. They didn't attack those opportunities. And maybe that's natural that the Canucks played a little conservatively last season when they had the puck given that's where all the focus had been just in play a more

responsible game play a more mature game now they need to take another step so hopefully the personnel this season is a little faster uh and that helps. But it's probably, when you're talking about things in training camp that Rick Tockett is going to be emphasizing, it's probably more of a mentality thing. Sometimes you've got to make a play. It's not forcing it. It's not being reckless. But you're not going to win a championship if you're scared to make a play.

And the Canucks need to get the puck to the inside more and garner more scoring chances. Taka also mentioned the need to maybe get the D up the ice more and not just Quinn Hughes, which actually really does make me wonder if they're going to experiment with Hronick on a different pair. One where he isn't tempted to just defer to Quinn Hughes and Hronik can be like, well, I'll be the safe guy on this pair. It's like, well, maybe you should be the risk taker,

for lack of a better way of saying it, on another pair. I think this is the most intriguing thing, hearing Talkett speak about it in the terms that he did yesterday, going into this season, because the structure that they played with last year you kind of alluded to it uh there wasn't really a lot of gray area with structure there was spots you were supposed to be and there were things you were

supposed to do and rick talk had called them staples there were staples of what we had to do non-negotiable non-negotiables right non-negotiable is a very important term because there's no misinterpretation of what you're supposed to do. No gray area. You know exactly what you're supposed to do. Now he's talking about something that is much more gray and that's an attacking mindset

because there's not a lot of hard and fast rules when it's about, well, we need to be more aggressive. It is an approach. There might be with talk, though. But that's hard. Because he's talking about... You've got to embrace the hard, but that's hard.

It is, but... Telling guys... Here, just let me work on this. Telling guys where to go on the ice is actually easy because it's very much, this is right and this is wrong. You have to embrace the hardness. But you can do that in the offensive end. You know where you go?

Front of the net, drive the net, drive the net, drive the net. I'm can do that in the offensive end. And you know where you go? Front of the net. Drive the net. Drive the net. Drive the net. Drive the net. I'm not talking so much about where to go. I'm talking about when to go. Sure, yeah.

That's what I'm talking about. One guy's, while I was trying to make a play, is another guy's, that was reckless. That was dumb. You can't make plays. You shouldn't be making plays. One guy's, I was trying to make a play as another guy. You made a mistake. As Robbo used to say, fine lines.

That's the thing. There are very fine lines between aggressiveness and recklessness. And that's a tough thing to coach, too, because you end up contradicting yourself sometimes. You know, when things work out, you're like, way to make a play. It was a good time to do it. But when they don't work out, it's like, we don't play that way on this team. No, I know. You didn't make the safe play.

And you're like, well, you told me to be aggressive. They're like, yeah, but you also have to make safe plays. So that is going to be interesting with a team that certainly has enough guys with the offensive flair. Like, no question. They've got guys that are probably like salivating at the idea of let's be more aggressive. Let's take more chances. Let's blow the zone, that kind of stuff.

At the same time, they won 50 games and had 100 plus points last year because of their defensive structure. Let's make no mistake about it. The goaltending played a large role too, but they won games last year because they knew how to defend as opposed to the previous year where they looked at the defensive side of the game and they're like, I don't figure it's. And that's why they got to game seven of the second round against a team that nearly won the Stanley Cup is not because they were running and gunning. We've heard all this before from Talkett. We heard it at the end of last season. And hopefully what we see is something like the evolution the Canucks went through under Alain Vigneault,

especially after Mike Gillis arrived. That team was good defensively, or at the very least, they had a superhuman goalie in Roberto Luongo. But at the time when Gillis arrived, they had just missed the playoffs and they didn't have a very dynamic offense. That changed with both the philosophy of the team

and the evolution of the personnel. Yep. Remember when Gillis and A.V. had that trip down to Vegas when they first met each other? Yeah. And they had those long discussions. I don't know what else happened in Vegas. Maybe they had some wild nights together.

Crazy. It was the narrative went that Gillis wasn't quite sure about AV because he thought he was maybe too defensive minded. And then they talked it out. And by the time we got to, here's the reference, 2011, they scored the most goals in the NHL and they allowed the least, which is, you know, pretty good. It's ideal. Can't ask for anything more than that.

You really can't. What else happened? Okay, let's run through some of this stuff. We're going to play more of the audio from Alvin's interview with Sat and Dan on Canucks Central, because quite honestly, it was more candid and more insightful

than some of the stuff that he had at the podium. Not to dismiss his podium work. Shots fired. It was very good podium work. Let's start with the goalie situation, okay? Because Thatcher Demko is going to meet with the media today. I thought it was curious that they kicked the can down the road on all the health stuff, essentially.

And in the case of Demko specifically said, Thatcher wants to meet with you guys tomorrow, almost to clear the air, to give you guys a sense of what's going on with his injury. So we have to wait on that. However, Alvin was asked by Sat and Dan about whether or not he would need to add another goalie before the start of the season.

The answer kind of revealing because Patrick Alvin, well, he doesn't know yet. Here's the Canucks general manager on Sportsnet 650 yesterday. I don't know. I think we're excited about Gio Patera that comes in here from the Vegas organization

where he played, I think, a handful of NHL games and a little bit older and he's been around. So we're excited about the depth on goaltending with Tolopilo and Patera. And obviously, it's Seeloff that came in last year and played for us in the playoffs

and performed really well there. So we'll see here over the next couple of weeks and see how Thatcher comes along and how our younger players are performing. So the exact quote was Thatcher wanted to get in front of you guys, you guys being the media tomorrow, and clear where he is. So I'm very interested to see what Demko is going to say. Very interested. Me too.

When the general manager of the team is asked a pretty point-blank question, do you need to bring in another goalie or not? And he says, I don't know. That's interesting because everyone knows that the Kevin Lankanen rumors have been out there for, I don't know, three weeks to a month. Feels like it's been out there for a long time. Sounds like it's a money thing. So are they just waiting and waiting and waiting until the dollars make sense? I don't know.

But it's going to sound like Patrick Alvino. I don't know. But it's going to... I sound like Patrick Alvino. I don't know. But the goaltending situation, I'd be pretty surprised if they go into... If Demp goes out and they go into the regular season with Patera and Archer Seelovs, that feels a little dicey for a team that's talking about we need to embrace the hard because it's going to be hard.

And Alvins' line is let's not waste any time. Would that change significantly if they went into the season with C-Loves and Kevin Lankanen? I think it would provide them more of a safety net if things went a little pear-shaped. Just options? Yeah. More options? Well, I mean, Alvin's line, by the way, he's not embracing the hard as much as talk it is. His line is let's not waste any time.

He said it yesterday when addressing the group in some sort of ballroom in a hotel they were put the video up in the connect social media and he's like let's get to it right away like let's not waste any time let's not screw around a camp let's not screw around the preseason like everything has its go time right from game one let's not waste any time so for me it'd be like well you know if you need to bring in another goal he would hate this this show. Right. We waste tons of time. We're filibustering constantly. So that was one thing that he talked about. I did notice, and again, I don't think there's any huge revelation here,

but we may as well get into it, because talking about the line combinations is always fun. Taka gave a brief glimpse into what he's thinking about as they open up camp today, and we'll probably see some of these similar line rushes. So no surprise that he said Miller and Brock Besser are going to stick together. Sounds as though Pedersen will indeed start with Jake DeBrusque. Now he said, quote on Joshua and Garland,

those guys together play damn good hockey for us. It's hard for me to break those guys up. But of course he's going to have to because Dakota Joshua is not going to be able to start camp. He also said that Pugh Suter is going to be a center for us to start the season. Well, he is for now because Teddy Bluger's hurt. Right, so I wonder how long that continues, when and if Teddy Bluger comes back and if Bluger slots right into that, the third line center position, or if something else happens,

maybe Suter gets a look there as well. So we spent a lot of time yesterday talking about Petey and Petey ultimately didn't speak to the media there I was a little bit confused about how they were going to do things but it was the Canucks brass yesterday none of the players Demko is going to talk today I assume other players are going to talk today but we still haven't actually had Petey at the podium but Patrick Alvine did talk about Elias Pettersson being in full health and what his expectations were of Elias Pettersson on Canucks Central on Sportsnet 650 and here's what he had to say about that. He's in full health and he had a good summer. Very excited about the new players coming in. Trained

extremely hard. He has something to prove. He's a good player in the league and he has pride and I think he learned a lot and he will be ready to go here tomorrow and he's one of the players that's going to raise the standard and my expectations

are higher on him and he knows and uh he will be ready to go now petterson did speak privately i suppose with uh imac um and well not so privately because imac took what he said what he said and then he wrote about it which is like quite yeah opposite of private not very confidential at all. And exclusively, I should say. And Pedersen told IMAC that he feels recharged, which is good, which is what we all wanted him to feel coming into training camp, recharged. And he said, obviously, it was a lot of noise last season,

but it was expected. It took a long time to sign. and then I signed and signed a big dollar and was not performing as I wanted, but that's behind me now, and I'm looking forward to what's ahead. He was asked about his tendinitis, and he said, I still feel it sometimes, but it feels good now, better than where we left off last season. We had to work around it in the off-season training,

but yeah, I feel good and I feel better on the ice. It gave us more time to work on conditioning and work on speed. And then the three words that we wanted to hear, everything is fine. Good. That's what he said. That's all I wanted to hear.

Everything is fine. So look, I'm still curious to hear from Petey when he speaks to the media. And we actually have sound bites, see how he sounds, you know, but I think for the most part, we've heard all the right things. He's recharged. Last season is behind him now. Everything is fine. The contract stress is over. Now it's just a matter of, you know, playing better and we're all going to be able to see it with our own eyes. That was what was so shocking about Petey's play down the stretch. Unless you've never seen hockey before, you watched him play. And regardless of the wingers he played with, you watched him and you were like, that's not the same guy that I've seen before.

That guy is not involved in the play at the same level i was thinking about this yesterday i was like why is this so jarring when other guys other superstar players have had down seasons before and i it kind of the light bulb sort of went off and it was that oftentimes when a star player has a down season or a prolonged funk, the team goes in a funk with them. Or the team's just bad. Nathan McKinnon, he had that one year in Colorado where he was visibly embarrassed that he had to go to the All-Star game because he was playing poorly and his team was playing poorly.

And there's been other guys too. Conor McDavid got off to a slow start this year and the team was trash and they fired the head coach. The really strange thing when I think about it now, is that Elias Pettersson had these very noticeable, invisible struggles, both eye test and production-wise, and the team was still doing really well. Right.

And I think maybe that's part of why we're just looking at this and being like, what's going on here? Yeah, there was like a pack of happy dogs at the beach, and one sad dog that didn't want to play in the water. It's like doggy daycare. All the dogs are running around they're having a great time there's that one dog in the corner that's not having a great time that's kind of the analogy we're going with here i miss my owner right there who knows what's bothering the dog he can't talk he doesn't know a little tendonitis in his name right maybe the dog has tendonitis who knows point being it was very jarring to see it because, like, not only did they win 50 games and accumulate over 100 points, they won a playoff round with PD not contributing.

They went to game seven against, like, they went to game seven against the Oilers with a chance to go to the Western Conference Final on the line with their highest paid player, asterisk, soon to be, not producing anything. And that's a very weird dynamic. So I think that's partly why we're constantly looking for, well, one, answers, but two, any sign that this thing is going to right itself. So one more thing from the Alvin interview on Connect Central. When the news about Ian Clark first came out and we said, this is a big deal. Some people said, it's not a big deal. He's still with the organization. He's still going to be around.

And we kind of pushed back to say, no, it's a big deal. He's not going to be there on a day-to-day basis. He's not going to be working with guys like Thatcher Demko and Archer Silov. He's not going to be their day-to-day coach. Some people still were like, no, he's in the organization. If he needs to help out, then he'll help out. He's not even around right now. His aura will still be over top of this

organization. Yeah, he is. Okay, listen to Patrick Alvin, who was asked about Ian Clark. It was a surprise when Ian approached me letting me know that he wasn't able to handle the day-to-day job of a goaltending coach due to personal reasons. So we worked on a kind of a transition plan for him where he felt that he could help out with scouting and development. He was with our amateur scout here in Penticton over the weekend for the Young um and he's uh that that's his that's his job so marco and uh we hired uh justin

pogey uh from from hockey canada to um to be the goaltending coach in uh in uh abbotsford but uh yeah ian clark is is uh part of our staff and and definitely uh uh to his strength evaluating goalies. He's out there scouting. He's out there evaluating goalies. Doing his thing. Maybe he's finding a guy right now to bring in, that veteran goalie that he doesn't know about. And Alvien admitted it was a surprise when Clark came to him

and said he can't do the day-to-day. So it was something that they had to deal with, and I don't know how much more we're going to talk about ian clark it probably all depends how the goalies play this year yep if they don't look as sharp as they had if they had in the past then we'll probably bring it up if they're fine we'll just be like well new guy's doing pretty well marco torremius uh before we go to break i need to tell you about Tile Town. As BC's favorite hockey team kicks off a new season,

receive 20% off any regular priced in-stock tile. Visit them online at mytiltown.ca for details. If you would like us to dabble into any conversation about the Vancouver Canucks training camp,

what was said yesterday, what you're expecting today, Dunbar-Lever text line is 650-650. Coming up on the other side, we'll carve out some time for that we will also go around the National Hockey League as the 31 other teams in the NHL all got ready for training camp as well some big stories across the league to get into that is the first hour of the program the back half of it is coming up you're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. 631 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody.

Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. God, I love this song. Halford and Brough in 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. How could this be unlicensed? That's what I want to know.

Who is not licensed? I know, right? What a missed opportunity. I hear this, boom. Licensing it. Yeah. Not thinking twice. This is my walk-in and walk-out music. I play this at funerals. This is a little dour. Pick this up a little. Play it at yours. Yeah. Man, this guy must have been really cool. out music. I play this at funerals. This is a little dour. Pick this up a little. Play it at yours. Yeah.

Man, this guy must have been really cool. Great music. I'm so sad. How about a little pep in our step here, people? This guy wants to move this funeral along. Best funeral ever. Let's go. We're going to be in and out of here in 20 minutes.

He's a good guy who's all right. I got another one I got to do right after this. Let's go. All right. Let's get serious here, shall we? Must we? No more funeral talk here, even though we're both wearing black today. A lot of it, I might add.

I forgot my hat. You guys have coordinated yet again. It's not really coordination. Well, it's accidental. It was aggressively boring. It's a lack of options. Yeah. And I got dressed in the dark this morning.

It was very dark. Anyway, we mentioned that there's a bunch of other stuff going on around the NHL, non-Canucks related. The start of training camp in the regular season is always great because general managers have to go up and finally address all the stuff that's been festering over the last few months, right? They've been able to avoid it up until now. You just don't answer your phone.

You say, I'm busy. I'm at the cottage, hanging out on the dock at Muskoka or wherever. But now you got to answer the questions unless you're Patrick Alvin. And then yesterday in Boston, Don Sweeney had to do exactly that. So for those that don't know, there's been a big issue hanging around the Boston Bruins. Also in net, so very similar to Vancouver Canucks, they got questions in net going into the regular season. Everyone knows that they traded away Lena Solmark, right? Everyone's up to speed on that.

He's in Ottawa now. He's in Ottawa now. So they sort of said, you know, Swayman, we think you're the better of the two guys. We're going to trade away your long-standing goalie buddy. It's going to be your job. You're our number one. You're our go-to. Jeremy Swayman, you're our guy.

Just one problem. Jeremy Swayman is a restricted free agent. He needs a new contract. So it's made this really weird dynamic where they've traded away half of the tandem. They've given Swayman the number one job. They said you're the guy. But now they're at this contract impasse. Now, complicating things

even further is that Paul Bissonnette and Ryan Whitney from the Spittin' Chicklets podcast keep mentioning this contract negotiation. They keep saying that they've got sources who are leaking details about what's

going on that the ask between what swayman wants and the bruins is way far apart they also reported that like don sweeney is not returning calls from swayman's agent there's and they're throwing it out there in typical chiclets fashion like they're having a laugh and they're kind of like i heard this and i heard that anyway it's other guys on the podcast, too. It's not just us two. Right. Right. But I mean, they're kind of in charge of everything that's going on.

Right. So yesterday, Don Sweeney got asked, not surprisingly, about Jeremy Swayman's contract situation, negotiations and impasse because he's not there in training camp. And Sweeney kind of went off and started going after the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. We've got about a minute of audio here. About 90 seconds. Yeah, it's a good rant, actually, for day one of the season. Here is agitated Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney on the Swayman situation and the Spittin' Chicklets podcast.

Go ahead and ask me a specific one. If you've got knowledge of it, like that we haven't offered an eight-year deal or we're not willing to compromise or we haven't moved on things. Like, at the end of the day, I'm not talking about specifics. You're not going to, you're just not going to get it. But, you know, the fact, I did reference ones, as a matter of fact. I think it's bulls**t that somebody says, I wouldn't return a call for three weeks. There.

That's inaccurate. Was it written? Was it said? Was it written? That one I'm not sure of. Well, I will tell you, you know, I don't listen to podcasts. As I said, my son loves, you know, loves biz, thinks he's fabulous, and he's a great entertainer, okay? But at the end of the day, they're inaccurate.

And that's okay, because that's all part of the business nowadays. It's okay if you turn around and say it's your opinion or your belief and such, but don't report it as fact. That's all. Listen to everybody, you know, bark at you for doing things right or wrong. You have to put the earmuffs on at times. You know, I laugh because my son loves the, you know, the spit up on yourself podcast. And he, yeah, I did that on purpose, Joe, you're right. Because I'll go back to the inaccuracies of what everybody's reporting. And, you know, it's great entertainment.

It's great entertainment. But at the end of the day, you know, it's not a lot of fact checking going on there. So that part of the business, you got to recognize the city is awesome for that because they want their teams to win. Have you ever heard someone like develop thoughts in the moment and in real time? Because you just did right there.

It was very much the Michael Scott thing. He's like, I'm going to start a sentence. I'm not sure where it's going to go. When he realized that he was bringing up what Spittin' Chicklets said about him unprompted because the reporter was like, I have no idea what you're talking about right now, Don. What's the Spittin' Chicklets podcast? All the old hockey i have no idea what you're talking about right now don what's the spitting chiclets podcast all the old hockey reporters what are we talking about here what's a podcast so what you heard right there was a guy that had been sitting there

and stewing on that podcast for months months and finally got a chance to address it also whenever you make a joke and nobody laughs the most important thing you can do is explain to everyone that it was a joke that is comedy and it's well sounding like joe hagerty laughed i don't know if he did joe was like i got done i got the reference that's the joke that was it um so how much of this is complicated by the fact that uh swayman had to go through arbitration last summer it's complicated. There's a lot of layers to it. That's part of it, for sure.

He went through Arb last year. It's very strange that they sort of anointed him as their guy and then they're playing hardball in negotiations. I get you have to. Yeah. But if he doesn't sign, and we're a long way away from this, but if he doesn't sign by December 1st, that's the deadline. If he doesn't sign by then, he ain't playing.

He's going to Europe. Right. Who they got? Corpus Allo? Yes. And Bussey. Brandon Bussey, yeah. He would be the backup. Yeah, yeah. They're obviously... Why is he one of your favorites? They're obviously in a staring contest that is going to

get resolved. There's no way that this drags. I doubt he misses a regular season game. The Bruins would be nuts, right right but we've seen in the past how even missing training camp or having the distraction of all this can get you off to a slow start we saw that when pd and hughes went through this right and they only missed a handful of like days of camp yeah it was just off though there was and it was a little different i know that's when travis green was still the head coach so he wanted to teach a lot of stuff at training camp and they weren't in attendance. So maybe it's a little different with goalies, but it just throws the rhythm of the team

off. And we're going to hear from Thatcher Demko today. And I know a lot of people are nervously anticipating what Thatcher Demko has to say today, but, um, you know, the rhythm of the Canucks, um, could potentially be thrown off heading into this training camp with the uncertainty around Thatcher Demko. And now, unfortunately the uncertainty surrounding Dakota Joshua and yesterday, a couple of names added Teddy Bluger, uh, is going to miss a week, but he's day to day. Um, so he should be back. Um, he's got a lower body injury that required minor surgery um cole mcward was the other guy but it's not like he was slotted into the lineup or anything but you know we're talking about a 3c a very important winger for the team that they

re-signed and brought back and most importantly their starting goalie um we'll see how the connects adjust to that yeah okay so other news from around the National Hockey League yesterday. We'll stay on the goalie front. Very weird situation out of Las Vegas. Frank Cervelli from Daily Faceoff, the first to report this. Everyone remembers Robin Lehner, right? Everyone remembers, you know, a bit of a curious character. The snake guy.

Right, among other things, the snake guy. He hasn't played hockey since he underwent hip surgery in august of 2022 yet he still got an active contract and is still technically on the books in vegas there's just one thing though one more year left this year coming up although that's been thrown into arrears that's you for you jd and kukwilum um in order to make sure that everything is above board, you know, dot the lowercase J's and cross the T's, make sure he can be eligible for LTIR.

There's one thing that Robin Lehner has to do. He's got to show up to a mandatory preseason medical exam ahead of training camp, right? I don't know how elaborate this is. I don't know if you go in and the doctor's like, is your hip still screwed up? And he says, he coughs yep you're still hurt and then he leaves well he didn't do that nobody's really sure why nobody really has the details on this frank just

had the details that robin leonard didn't show up for it now this complicates things because laner as jason mentioned is in the last of a five-year, $25 million contract with the Vegas Golden Knights. Long-term injured players that want to go on LTIR for multiple seasons, it's a necessity. I know it's formulaic and it's sort of like par for the course. You have to do it, but you have to do it. You can't just not do it. And if he doesn't, one, it really screws up his relationship with the team, but two, it might screw up Vegas because, I don't know if you're

aware of this or not, but Vegas likes to be really close to the salary cap ceiling. Sometimes over it. At all times. And Rob Lehner on LTIR is very important to how this team operates, so we'll keep an eye on that as we move forward as well. But I'm sure they'd love to void the contract if they could. Yes.

You'd think so. Yeah. We'll trade some money. they'd love to void the contract if they could. Yes. You'd think so. Yeah. Well, it saves the money. Well, that would be the grievance that they possibly could file. Does anyone else have trouble keeping up with who is actually the goalie in Vegas? Laddie, who's the goalie in Vegas? Top of your head. Ilya Samsonov and Aiden Hill.

Right. And what happened to Mr. Thompson? He is in Washington. He's in Washington now. Okay. When did that happen? At the awards awards he was signing autographs in the

lobby oh of the sphere right with his Golden Knights jersey on and they traded him and everyone in line was great but there's some people like isn't

Fleury still there it's complicated there's a lot of names that have been through like Fleury Lehner and then like the guy that wins the cup is aiden hill but it was supposed to be logan thompson it's all very it's very confusing no was it yeah was it aiden hill

yeah it was right i'm glad you brought this up because um you know the team that uh mr thompson went to logan thompson the washington capitals are going to be the biggest. Oh, yeah. That guy plays. Okay. So first off, Pierre-Luc Dubois. Every time I think about it. See? Here's one that I totally forgot about until the other day because I was actually going to ask Eric Francis about him. Andrew Mangiapane plays for the Washington Cavs. He's still around.

I didn't even get an oh, yeah because I didn't know. They are the biggest oh, yeah team in the Eastern Conference right now. Is T.J. Oshie's career over? T.J. Oshie's career is probably. Nick Dad's still there though. Oh yeah. We'll talk about the Oshie. Okay, so yesterday in other news and notes around the National Hockey League,

some tough news because actually T.J. Oshie is one of my favorite players of the last decade. Oshie is being placed on long-term injured reserve with a back issue, and he's expected to miss the entire year, and a lot of people are saying this might be it for his playing career. He's been dealing with chronic back issues for a while, including all of last year, and the numbers really played out. He had a tough year last year.

He's 37, too. Yeah, and he's put a lot of miles on that block. One year left on his deal. Now, they are holding out hope that he might be able to return if he can rest and recuperate and they make a late playoff surge. But at that point, a guy with a bad back

who's going to turn 38 in December trying to kickstart, you know, ramp up the physicality so you can go into playoff hockey. That seems like a long way away. I always loved TJ Oj oshi you were in sochi for his now famous uh shootout heroics yeah tj oshi again yeah here he comes again i mean that was great theater actually i mean it was highlighted the american performance at sochi it was and i

remember it really you you understood how much uh like patriotism in the Olympics meant to... You knew it all the time. Watch. T.J. Oshie became a national hero. Like Barack Obama tweeting about T.J. Oshie. Yeah, like that kind of level, right? Half the country was like, do you know they play a sport on ice? Yeah. We have a hockey team now?

That's great. This Oshie guy seems good at it. So I saw this in the prep notes that you put together um and it surprised me when i read it the abs would welcome back nachushkin yeah i thought that was done i too thought that nachushkin was absolutely done in colorado but during media availabilities yesterday colorado avalanche head coach jared bednar was asked about Valeri Nachushkin. Now, before we say, I'll tell you what Bednar said. Nachushkin is in stage three of the NHL NHLPA player assistance program after he failed a drug test in May during the playoffs.

That results in a six-month suspension without pay. But with several months having passed, some media and other members of the Colorado Avalanche are looking at the fact that he will be eligible to return to the team not too long from now. Bednar said that Nachushkin would be, quote, welcome back with open arms, adding that there does have to be some forgiveness.

Now, I don't know if everyone remembers this or not, but when Nachushkin was placed into stage three of the player assistance program in May, there were some pretty harsh remarks coming from some of his Colorado Avalanche teammates. I believe one of them was Jack Johnson, who essentially said he made his choice. And we inferred a lot from that because it was a very blunt,

very basic statement, but it said a lot. The Chushkin is in the third year of an eight-year deal a lot from that because it was a very blunt, very basic statement, but it said a lot. The Chushkin is in the third year of an eight-year deal worth $6.125 million AAV, and he's been a very good player, albeit one with a very checkered resume. To hear Bednar say that they would welcome back with open arms is surprising. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it because the guy obviously has some demons and some personal health health issues as it pertains to substance abuse it's just surprising because when you're in stage three it means that you're a repeat offender and i would imagine there's probably a trust broken on some level the timing of his issues too. That's true. Right? And I just think, you know, maybe the Avs are looking at their roster and going,

maybe we need to be more forgiving. Right. I want to read. Calus, but a very accurate way of saying it. I want to read the stats from the Avs Stanley Cup winning team from two years ago. Kale McCarr had 29 points. He led them in scoring.

He's still there. Rantanen, 25 points. He's still there. Nathan McKinnon, 24 points. He's still there. Then the next three. Landeskog was a big part of that, obviously. He's the captain, 22 points.

His future is uncertain. No clue when he's going to come back. Then it was Nachushkin. He had nine goals in 20 games for them, 15 points overall. And then Nazem Khadri, who actually missed a few games in the Stanley Cup final but was good before then. He had 15 points in 16 games. That's a lot of really high-quality players.

And we've talked about the Avs. I think personally, for me, they were certainly a candidate to be the best team I've seen in the salary cap era in terms of how they played, but also just how loaded they were. You know, they had to address certain deficiencies in the wake of Nazem Khadri's departure by making a trade, sending away a pretty good young defenseman to get Casey Middlestad.

So, you know, the team is probably looking at the roster and going, we need more here. Yeah, the goaltending's been an issue for sure. I know that Georgiev, what's the, we'll turn this over to laddie with georgiev because have they kind of come to a resolution that he's going to be fine not great and that he might be overpaid but he was the guy that they had to get because they weren't going to go along with kemper i just don't think there are many other that's yeah that's kind of what i'm getting the fans certainly aren't pleased with the way the things have gone with their goaltending and

i don't know how you can be with the performance that he had last year. But I'm still not totally out on Georgiev. I think he still has a little bit more to offer than what we saw last year. From an entertainment perspective, you brought up a good point there. That one year was one of the best teams that I saw in the salary cap era. When they won the Stanley Cup, they were one of the... But here's the thing. Do you remember when we saw them start in the playoffs that year? When they won the Stanley Cup, they were one of the... But here's the thing. Do you remember when we saw them

start in the playoffs that year? Like, that team... They're winning the Stanley Cup. They're winning the Cup. There was no question about it. They were that much better than everyone else. They had like a couple wobbles

against, I want to say, maybe St. Louis. Yep. But then they got over them real easy. When Vegas was rolling, you saw Vegas was, we'd always say,

coming at you in waves. Colorado did that. Fast waves. It was, yeah. Real fast waves. The fastest waves you've ever seen. Those waves are so fast. And it's almost, I know like from a Canucks perspective, you don't want to say it this way, but it's almost a shame from a hockey perspective that

that team wasn't able to stay together a little bit longer because they did play such an attractive brand of hockey. It was very rewarding to see someone that was that fast and that up-tempo and that offensive-oriented win. I mean, I know that they had their defensive flaws and they've kind of been exposed later on, but it also shows how hard it is, one, to keep a really good band together,

and then, two, trying to replace very integral members of the band because Nazem Qadri has never been replaced there as you pointed out. So what is the most, what's the biggest thing that we all have to look forward to from the Canucks

and training camp over these next few days? Is it Thatcher Demko speaking today? Yeah, looking forward to is probably not the right way of phrasing it, but it's the thing

I'm most intrigued by. I'm very nervous about it. Nervously anticipating. I'm not going to lie. I didn't love that they're like, we'll let Thatcher explain it himself. That doesn't sound good. Really? No. That'm not going to lie. I didn't love that they're like, we'll let Thatcher explain it himself. That doesn't sound good.

Really? That's me doom-scrolling life. No, it doesn't sound good. If things were good, they would just quickly be like, oh yeah, it's fine. No, I don't know. They don't have that option.

He's not fine. You know what I mean. He'll be back soon. He's rehabbing. I don't think that's it. It's just... It would have been a quick little announcement is what I'm saying.

I think I'm encouraged that he's talking. Why? Why? Because the organization, when things are going bad, usually hide. Right? That's fair. No, he's got a point. He's got a point.

Just keep Thatcher in the back under some coats in the cloakroom. Thatcher cannot speak to the media. He's at the dentist today. He's been at the dentist for three weeks. Long appointment. Long-term dental. Thatcher Dem at the dentist for three weeks. Long appointment. Long-term dental. Thatcher Demko is here. Okay, wheel him out.

No. You know what my gut reaction was now that we're down this road and we're just talking about vibes and interpreting words? Thatcher, I noticed you're in a full body cast right now. My thought was, when I heard Alvin say what he said, Thatcher wants to get in front of you guys and explain this. My thought was, it's so complicated that get in front of you guys and explain this, my thought was, it's so complicated

that we're just going to let him explain it. That it's his body and his health and his knee and he's going to explain it. Well, he's also going to get asked about Ian Clark. Right. That's his relationship with Ian Clark. We're just going to let him do all of it. Which, as you pointed out...

Maybe Alvin just didn't want to explain it and he went to Thatcher and said, could you do this for me? English is my second language. Thatch, do me a solid. I got a lot of stuff I got to get through today. They're asking about Tucker Pullman.

Someone asked a Tucker Pullman question. So a couple other things that I'm looking forward to just in training camp is just what the Canucks work on. And Tockett said that they're going to work on the power play pretty early. And sometimes they leave that sort of stuff for later in training camp. But I think JT Miller has been bugging Rick Ducat to work on the power play. They got to figure that thing out. And that's got to be a strength.

And it's got to be a strength all season. Because remember, at the beginning of last season, it looked amazing. It just looks so dynamic. And there's movement. We love the movement. And then they couldn't even enter the zone by the time the playoffs rolled around. So that's one thing I'll be curious to see.

I'll be curious to see who gets the assignments with Miller and Besser, but also Petey and DeBrusque. And of course how Petey and DeBrusque look together. Talk, it said, don't read too much into the, into the lineups. But I will read one thing.

What's that? If Hughes and Hronik are not playing together. Yeah, that's a good one. I think that's fair enough. But who do you think they would put with Hughes? Deharnais. Deharnais? Yeah.

Is that the number one candidate? Get the big guy and the little guy together? I like that. The way that... My voice is breaking here. Do you think Darnay is good enough for that? I have no idea. I want to see it.

Isn't he like sort of a 7th D? But they've been talking about him as having more potential. So did Jason Greger, by the way, when we had him on the show. From 1440 in Edmonton. He was very high on DeJarne. And Darnay has never been able to pair with a guy like Quinn Hughes. So you never know what the chemistry is. They really tried to make Cole McWard a thing

last season. And he's, he just wasn't ready for the NHL. So the other thing that I would be curious about is that, because hearing talk, it's saying he wants to have more of an attacking mentality and getting the D-men up the ice. because hearing Tuckett saying he wants to have more of an attacking mentality and getting the D-men up the ice, how are you going to, are you going to tell,

let's say, who would Myers be paired with, right? Myers and Soucy? Yeah. He's going to be like, get up the ice more, right? You know, you don't always want that. Well, okay. You don't necessarily want that, but maybe you have a pairing with Hronik and Soucy,

and then, of course, and then Soucy's the responsible one, and Hronik can use his offensive skills a little bit more. So when we had Gregor on the show, he talked about Deharnais' evolution in Edmonton, and he said part of it was when Paul Coffey came aboard, he said defensemen are no longer going to automatically defer to the safe play

if you're one of the let's call them bottom guys right the bottom pair or whatever everyone here has the capability to make plays and we're going to allow you the freedom to have some forays into the offensive zone be a little bit more aggressive and make plays and if you make a mistake that's okay because you're doing it.

And it's kind of what we talked about with Tuckett and the overall approach, right? If you allow guys to do that, sometimes they will surprise you. Sometimes the guys that you think are more stay at home, let's just chip this thing out, actually do have the ability to make plays and get the puck onto the stick of the forwards, right?

Which is what you want. If they allow these guys to do that, you might end up having a better puck moving group collectively and you might not be as reliant on Hughes and Hronik as a pair to drive stuff. You might be able to spread the wealth a little bit more if you allow everyone to make plays. Now, the dangerous part is turning the puck over relentlessly. That's the negative of letting your defenseman do that. allow everyone to make plays. Now, the dangerous part is turning the puck over relentlessly. That's the negative of letting your defenseman do that. Adnan Virk is going to join us next to talk a little baseball.

Let's talk a little Shohei Ohtani, and we can get into what Big Poppy said about everyone clamoring to call Ohtani MVP. And when he was a DH hitting well, there were no calls for that. You're listening to the Harvard Unbreft Show on Sportsnet 650.