Halford & Brough in the Morning - Frank Seravalli On The Coaching Carousel

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason chat with NHL insider Frank Seravalli (1:13) about the latest hockey news and notes, plus they talk NBA playoffs with the ALL NBA Podcast's Adam Mares (22:55). 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.

Frank! Cerebelli! Cerebelli! Cerebelli! Frank! Cerebelli! Frank! Cerebelli!

Frank! Cerebelli! Frank! Cerebelli! Frank! Frank! 7 Valley! Frank! Frank! 703 on a Wednesday, Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650.

You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 5 star reviews. Visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program.

Frank Cerfali from Daily Face Off is gonna join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. Hour two is brought to you by Jason Homonuck at jason.mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him online at jason.mortgage.

We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. To the phone lines we go, Daily Face Off's Frank Cerreale joins us now on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Frank. How are you? Pretty good.

How you guys doing? We're well. Thanks for taking the time to do this. So we just got word that the Utah Hockey Club is no longer. They have officially announced that they are now the Utah Mammoth and interestingly enough Daily Face Off with the byline Frank Saravalli had a piece that went live right around the same time titled meet the Utah Mammoth inside the NHL's fan driven name and logo reveal. So Frank given that the timing of this is working so well, what can you tell our listeners about the Utah Mammoth?

It was a really detailed process involving more than 850,000 fan votes, really kind of an unprecedented process to even include different logos for them to look at and choose which they like the best. And it culminates something that came together in a fascinating timeline. I mean, we're talking about 13 months from delivering a franchise to Utah and playing in Salt Lake City to then getting this branding done

that normally takes two plus years to do. This is a ton of heavy lifting and I think the interesting design elements, the colors that go with it and there's some juicy little Easter eggs that are in this mammoth logo that make it I think really unique and special and I happen to really like it. We have a national lacrosse league team here in Vancouver, the Warriors. They of course play against the Colorado Mammoth. So how did Utah get around that issue? They were actually in direct contact and communication with Cronky Sports and Entertainment, also the parent company of the Colorado Avalanche, which own the Colorado Mammoth.

And we're given their blessing to use the Mammoth name. We're speaking to Frank Zarelli from daily face off here in the Haliford and Bref show on sports net six 50. Frank joins us via, via the hotline powered by power West industries. Don't get caught in the dark when it matters most visit them at powerwest.ca today. They keep the lights on. Frank, let's turn our attention now to the coaching carousel as it continues to spin. We've talked a lot about what the Canucks might

do at the head coaching position. We talked about Manny Malhotra earlier in the show. We've talked about Adam Foot, excuse me, potentially taking over. I kind of suggested that there might be one or two more vacancies that could still open up. I wanted to first ask you about what you know about Los Angeles. Obviously they parted ways with Rob Blake earlier in the week and then it sounded like Luke Robitaille and Jim Hiller still had some things to discuss. Where do you see that Los Angeles situation moving forward? I believe it's gonna be up to the next general manager

as to the fate of Jim Hiller's job status. Look, I think a lot of people are expecting that Mark Berger van is going to be the next general manager. I think it's far away from being able to report that as fact, but he's been in the organization for three years as a senior advisor hungry to step back in and work after being fired by the Montreal Canadians. And he had a 10 year run that included

Stanley Cup final and conference final trips. So, um, look, I think that would make a ton of logical sense, very close with Luke Robitaille going back decades and someone that has an intimate familiarity with the organization and how it works. That it would seem like Berserban would be the ready-made fit that would also then take him out of the running for the New York Islanders job, which we believe is going to include a president of hockey ops and a general manager. And then LA would have their guy and be able to make that decision on what happens next with Jim Hiller. My personal take is, I just don't know how he's possibly able to live down how this playoff round ended. Not just the deployment of players, not just the challenge that went awry, but also like

when you hear criticism from your own players, I mean kind of veiled right in the middle of a playoff series, your starting goaltender is saying publicly, we need to attack more. I mean, that's a pretty clear indication of a team that sat back way too much. That doesn't really make a lot of sense. Are you hearing anything about Philly and the head coaching position there? Is, does the word talk it come up in anything you're hearing? I'm a little surprised we haven't heard anything about Rick Talkett and the Flyers lately. Yeah, I don't think Rick Tauket has been in an

incredible rush. I think to your point and the question you just asked, there's still elements to this that needed to unfold. Like we got word late last week that John Cooper was remaining in Tampa. That crossed one off the list. You've got what happens with LA next. Then you've also got what's the potentiality of the New York Islanders position and Patrick Waugh. Is that another potential opening on the list? So I think he's been in contact with multiple teams. I haven't gotten to the stage where I can report it quite as fact yet,

but I believe he had an interview with the Seattle Kraken, which would be an interesting development for fans in the lower mainland. And I think this has still got a little bit of ways to go. Well, if he ever takes the job with the Seattle crack and that would kind of push back on the narrative that he wants to go east. Yeah. And I think that's probably a bit of a long shot. I still wonder about his ties to Pittsburgh and the

success that he's had there as a player and an assistant coach and his connection to Sydney Crosby. Like, I think that's also a logical potential option. What are you hearing about Adam foot? A lot. Um, he's a name that ever since Rick talked, it made the decision that he is going to not return as Canucks head coach that, um, that's when his name really began to start to circulate. he is going to not return as Canucks head coach that that's when his name

really began to start to circulate as a head coaching option I think he's got no fewer than four to five different potential expressions of interest and I know that sounds vague it just I don't know how far it's gone in terms of confirming interviews or anything like that, but definitely with this number of openings, a legitimate candidate to spread his wings and become an NHL head coach for the first time really highly thought of. And I would imagine of course that one of those options would remain staying in Vancouver as head coach. So the Canucks are working through their process but as I mentioned earlier this

week in my conversation with Dan and Sat, he also like Rick Cockett had a front-row seat to some of the drama and goings-on. We're speaking to Frank Saravalli from Daily Faceoff here in the Alfred and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Um, so kind of continue on that, uh, that way, Frank, do you think that would make him more of a candidate for the Canucks or less of a candidate for the Canucks because like Rick Tauke, maybe he doesn't want anything to do with it. It's really hard to say because I think in a realistic sense you would think that it

makes him less of a candidate, but if it's one of 32 and it's the only one you're being offered, if it comes to that, it's probably a really lucky opportunity. So it really depends on the way the rest of the market shakes out I think you have to understand and weigh the optionality of everything involved and I don't think there's ever a such thing as It being a bad choice to continue to link yourself to Rick talk it and say hey You know, this isn't the right time or I didn't get an opportunity here I'm just gonna remain as an assistant or associate coach and see what another year brings me. Okay, so we've gone through Los Angeles and Jim Hiller still TBD. Barry Trotz mentioned

this week in Nashville that Andrew Burnett would be back as the head coach there. Before we get into some of the other candidates as it pertains to the Vancouver Canucks job, what do we know so far about Colorado and Jared Bednar? I know that Chris McFarland and Joe Sackett did their end-of-year media availability yesterday. There was a big op-ed in the Denver Post talking about how they should move off Jared Bednar and move on to David Karl, although David Karl just re-upped at the University of Denver and of course passed up both the minor detail. Yeah, slight minor detail there. So let's start with the Colorado situation before we move on to some there. So let's start with the Colorado situation

before we move on to some other candidates. What's next for the Colorado Avalanche? Well, not a coaching change. I mean, couldn't have been more clear and full-throated in their defense of Jared Bednar and saying that they're 100% confident in him returning as head coach. So you can scratch that one off the list.

And I've never looked at the Colorado situation. I mean, you could point to this team choking away at two goal, third period lead in game seven, or frankly, the other ways that they didn't step on the Dallas stars throat, including game two and say, Hey, that's on the coach or the coaching staff. Um, I think that takes the players off the hook, uh, takes two of the best players in the world off the hook at that. And really glosses over what has been a massive roster transformation,

some for the better and a lot for the worse in parting ways of Miko Ranton and changing out 10 of the 20 players on your roster. I mean, they're the first team in the salary cap era to make the playoffs. After having 10 new players compared to opening night, it's, you know, they changed out both of the goalies in their tandem, this is a significant, significant change. And I guess for me, looking at the way that they performed, given all that change, to me that was the mark

of a good coach is that you have an influx of new players and your team gets better throughout the course of the year. I'd put Jared Bednar at the bottom of the list in terms of their concerns and priorities. So on daily face off right now, you've got your eight burning questions for the teams that got dumped in the first round of the playoffs. And Bref and I have said on daily face-off right now, you've got your eight burning questions for the teams that got dumped in the first round of the playoffs.

And Bref and I have said on a number of occasions that when you look at off season changes, you've got the teams that don't make the playoffs that are obviously disappointed, but there's always at least one or two teams that get bounced in the first round that gets shook up by that early exit from the post season. I did want to focus on the question that you asked right at the top of this article. Can Jack Hughes be relied upon as the New Jersey Devils franchise centerpiece? Now you did astutely point out that he's already missed 85 games in his career and he's only 24 years old. How legitimate and serious are the concerns within New Jersey about his health, his health

matching his, as you put it, immense talent and how that shapes their future. Any reason you would ask me about that on Vancouver radio? No particular reason, Frank. I'm just curious about a really good young player in New Jersey. Yeah, that's what I figured. Oh, is he related to Quik? I knew the same name.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Anyway, go on. Amazing. I would say that you're not going to hear the New Jersey Devils publicly ask that question. And to be honest, it's a question that you could ask and look really foolish asking a few years from now or a year from now. Sure.

This is an immensely talented player who was knocking on the door of being a 100 point player in the NHL that has all the skill in the world and has one playoff performance. I think he had 11 points in that round. That said, I think it's a fair question to ask because out of the six seasons that he's played, he's missed 85 games more than one full regular season. And then I look back to four nations face-off and think about how he was just really a non factor when playing with the big boys doesn't mean he can't grow as a player doesn't mean that he, that that's a, uh, the end all be all barometer or measuring

stick but when you build a team around specific players and and the inverse of this is true has nothing to do with size in Vancouver when you make the decision to build around players and then they turn out to not be necessarily what you thought they might be, I just think it's a natural point in time to ask questions and recalibrate, which obviously the Canucks are doing with Pedersen. The Devils, I think, should be asking some of these questions

about the makeup of their team internally. And then you solve for those problems based on what you believe are the end results or conclusions that you make. I want to talk a bit about Buffalo because we've talked about this in our hits a few times. How is Kevin Adams still the general manager of the Buffalo Sabres? Well, apparently you got a vote of confidence from ownership. What are you hearing on that front? Yeah, it does sound like Kevin Adams is going to be back.

We haven't heard any sort of formal declaration yet. I think you see Eric Stahl added today as a special advisor. I believe the Sabres have also engaged in conversations with other experienced personnel in trying to sort out other ways they can bolster their front office that hasn't come to fruition. I don't even know if it will, but it hasn't been necessarily, it's kind of been like a duck underwater. Like it's been a little bit turbulent in Buffalo and I think we're all kind of been like a duck underwater. Like it's been a little bit turbulent in Buffalo. And I think we're all kind of curious to see how

this shakes out in the end. What kind of moves could they explore in Buffalo? Everything should be on the table. Everything from talking about Owen Power and your defense to what happens next with JJ Paterka and is he an offer sheet target to why is it that this team has an inability to collectively defend? How can they improve their goaltending situation, which is up and down.

And why is it that teams like the Ottawa senators and Montreal Canadians were able to pass by the Sabres who have gone in the opposite direction in recent years? I think now's the time to be aggressive, to sit back and make one move over the course of the season in a year with expectations and trading Dylan Cousins at that which seems to be a fascinating deal. I think this idea that Kevin Adams is in love with his players on an individual basis but doesn't love the collective, those two things they need to be reckoned with because in a

lot of ways they're conflicting. And it's possible to like the individual pieces you've assembled, but understand that the collective whole relationship doesn't work. I think that's the juncture that the Buffalo Sabres have arrived in. Frank, you mentioned Peddersen when you were talking about just looking at your team and wondering if this guy is the right guy for you, even though you've made the decision to lock him up long-term. Have you heard anything about maybe other teams

out there that might be willing to take a chance on a guy like Pedersen? I mean, we thought maybe it's Buffalo because they lost the Jack Icahiel deal. Maybe they could win a similar type deal where they get the player, um, that wasn't thriving in his current environment. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, um, I think it's still really too early to handicap

this situation and where it goes. Um, I think we're all fascinated to see, obviously, the Canucks are open to engaging in those discussions. I think on a private level internally, but also around the league to understand what that value looks like and what options they have on the table. And then I think there's also probably a check- a few weeks from now with, with Pedersen himself. What, what is your plan for the off season? How is it going?

And what is your level of commitment to this team? I don't know if it's possible to gauge that in a conversation or a visit, but that would, I think would be the first order of priority. The second that you have the next head coach's signature dried on a piece of paper, is how quickly can you book a ticket to Sweden and get in front of Pedersen to understand where he's at. Frank, this was great. As always, thank you very much for taking the time to do this.

We appreciate it. Enjoy all the games tonight and for the rest of the week we'll do this again next week. And Frank, good luck and free agency, buddy. Yes, good luck and free agency. Oh, thank you guys. Have a good one. Yeah, have a good one, Frank. Thanks, that's Frank Zarevalli from Daily Face Off

for now here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, before we go to break, I need to do the one to watch brought to you by Delaney's OK Tire. This one's pretty straightforward and obvious. Tonight's one to watch, Toronto Maple Leaf starting goalie,

starting goalie Anthony Stollers. Cause we have no idea if Stollers is going to start tonight. Toronto Maple Leaf's head coach, Craig Brubay, didn't rule out Stollers to start game two of the Leafs second round matchup with Florida. This of course was after Stollers was on the receiving end of an elbow from Sam Bennett in the opener. If you missed it, the incident occurred midway through the second

period when Bennett made contact with Stoller's. Stoller stayed in net for a couple minutes. During the next television timeout he went over to the Maple Leafs bench and threw up. He was then taken to hospital for further evaluation after leaving the game with an apparent head injury and apparent concussion, although Berube wasn't offering any details about his starting goalie during yesterday's media availability. He asked how Stolers was doing.

He said he's doing well. He asked if he was a practice. He said he was. He asked if he had a concussion. Said don't know that. He asked if he was gonna be able to play on Wednesday. Said don't know that either. So there's your update on Anthony Stolars for tonight

as the Leafs take on the Florida Panthers in game two. Is he really the head of the Quickie Mart? We can't say. We don't know. Really? Yes. We don't know. Really?

Okay. It's time to put on your Toyo tires, whether you drive a car, light truck, or van. Toyo tires are designed to perform in all kinds of conditions. Visit Delaney's OK Tire in Langley or Aldergrove. OK Tire service, repair and tires. You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. Rebound down to Christian Brown, you gotta hurry. Eight, seven seconds. Front court over to Westbrook.

Left side, Gordon for the win. Yeah! The right play's open, man. Russ makes the right play. A lot of times, so I saw the paint was, um, just clogged, you know, so I thought that was gonna be the best look that we were gonna do. 730 on a Wednesday happy Wednesday everybody Halford Brough sportsnet 650 Halford and Brough of 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 visit them online at Sands-trustee.com. Just looking at the updated NBA futures. What do we got? Oklahoma City plus 150, Boston plus 190, Cleveland has fallen to plus 1,000. Cleveland now down 0-2, losing both games at home to the Indiana Pacers, including a crazy game last night, Tyrese Halliburton with the big three to win it there. What a great 48 hours

in the National Basketball Association. Great drama, great theater. We didn't even mention the Warriors last night getting a big win in Minnesota without Steph Curry. But Golden State is the long shot of the remaining eight of plus 2000. And I wonder if they're looking at Curry's injury and going, hmm.

I could see that. It was a bit of a slog. He's an old man now. I don't know how much of that game you watched last night. It was a bit of a slog. I know that the Warriors did well and won, but it was trying at times to watch out. Not nearly as exciting as some of the other games,

including that Aaron Gordon winner that we heard the other night. Let's go now, oh sorry, before we get to Adam R as our NBA insider from the All City NBA podcast, I do need to tell you that we are in hour two of the program. Hour two is brought to you by Jason Hominuk at jason.mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him online at jason.mortgage. We go now to the Power West Industries hotline. Adam Maras from All City NBA podcast joins us now on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650.

Good morning Adam, how are you? I'm doing well fellas, you're right. It's great in the NBA right now. Some really good games this round. So you've got the All City NBA podcast which covers the league on the whole but you're also based out of Denver and you do a lot of nuggets and I gotta say, I'm jealous that you get to cover the nuggets because although they're in the early stages of this playoff run, you've been gifted a couple of unbelievable finishes already. All of them almost courtesy Aaron Gordon. What's it been like so far? Oh, it's been really interesting, you know, in this sort of the Denver Nuggets way in the Yokochara. They have exciting series that of course I think this was their sixth game seven in

the previous round. That was their sixth game seven of the Yokoch era. So it's been interesting. And of course they fired their coach right at the end of the year, which sort of reset things. So usually you get to the playoffs, you kind of know who your team is, you know, mostly what you expect out of them. But that's not the case

with the Nuggets this year. They're sort of becoming themselves throughout the course of this playoffs, which has been fun to watch. If you were to look at it objectively, was that more about the Nuggets comeback in game one? Or is it more about the thunder collapse? It was definitely both. I'll start on the Nuggets side, though. I always say that winning is a skill.

And I think the Warriors are a great example of this in the Steph Curriera, they've won a lot of games that you didn't expect them to, or come back in a lot of games that you didn't expect them to, and the Nuggets are the same way. They just know how to win games. And watching that one in game one against Oklahoma City, you know, they stayed connected, Thunder went on a run in that second quarter, built a lead and kind of held onto it all the way through the, uh, the final three minutes of that game when Denver made their move.

And that's sort of, uh, the mo of the Yokocherin nuggets, just stay connected, get it to the clutch and out execute, uh, when all the details matter. But at the same time, it required some mess ups and some perhaps some nerves from the Oklahoma City side including Chad Holmgren who missed the dunk, missed the corner three and missed two free throws in the clutch to open the door for Denver. So a little bit of both, but I will say this is sort of

how Denver wins games in the playoffs. They just find some way in the last moments to pull ahead. Before we move on and get into some of these other NBA stories, we got to check in on the good Canadian kid, Jamal Murray. How's he looked lately? You know, he's to me the final piece and he had one great game in round one, I think a 36 point outburst where he

looked phenomenal and outside of that, he's been okay. He's been good, you know, hasn't been great. And I think they're going to need him to be great. I mean, a lot of people are asking me, are you believing in the nuggets and this run they're on? Are you believing it? And I say, I'm halfway there. I think I'm seeing the signs of a team that's coming together, but Jamal Murray is the final piece to really become that second star alongside Nicola and to really get the two man game going. And it's bubbling below the surface but we really haven't seen him break out yet

and if we see that I'll start to bite Denver but you know he's been good just not great yet. We're speaking to Adam Mars from the All City NBA podcast here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. I want to jump over to the Eastern Conference here and what happened last night a stunning Tyreserese Halliburton game winning three in the dying second. So the Pacers go up 2-0 on the Cavs. The Cavs fall behind and they don't just fall behind 0-2 in this series. They lose both of the opening games at home. My question for you is how much trouble is Cleveland in right now?

I think they're in a lot of trouble. I really like this Pacers team. I think they're built for the playoffs, the way they execute offensively, elevated roles from Nemhart and Niesmith and guys like that. So I think they're in a lot of trouble. Last night, if you get that split with all the things that have gone wrong with some of the injuries to Cleveland, I think you catch your breath a little bit and you say, okay, it's a battle. But dropping both of them and now you've got to win four out of the next six uh five games that's just such a tough spot to be in uh and then the

injuries are starting to pile up with gleevelyn they're looking a little short-handed now and they're going to be fighting uphill so i think they're in a lot of trouble i thought that after game one i think i picked the indiana after game one. And I definitely feel like they're going to close up the series here in the next three or four games. What does a built to win in the playoffs mean in today's NBA? So I think built to win the playoffs, you have to be able to solve problems because every matchup is going to be different and you have to have the versatility in your strengths to be able so that teams can't shut you down.

They can't shut down your fastball. And I think when you look at Indiana, they play three traditional point guards between Halliburton, McConnell, and Nemhard. That gives them three guys that can always read the court and make the right plays. And then you have a very smart team behind them. You got guys like Siakam and Turner who know what they're doing. They have chemistry and some continuity. So when you get into a playoffs with the Cleveland, a very good defensive team,

and they're going to throw different looks at you and they're going to mix things up. Do you have the versatility and sort of the team connection to solve those problems collectively on the fly? And I think Indiana is just really good at that. That their offense has been good against great defenses all year. And so you put them into the situation where there's a chess match quarter by quarter, sometimes possession by possession, and they just figure it out. So that's, that's what I look at.

And then the defensive end is the exact same thing. You look at some of these teams who weren't great defensively in the regular season, but do they have seven guys or six guys that can defend and not just defend, but be versatile defensively to mix things up? Indiana has that. I think Cleveland did as well, by the way, in the regular season, but some of the injuries have thrown them off and maybe even just a little bit of nerves

has thrown them off in this playoffs, but I'd say playoff, good playoff teams are versatile and today's NBA are versatile and able to solve problems on the fly. The Celtics are obviously a good team being the defending NBA champs. But what did you think of them taking 63 point attempts against the Knicks and their loss to the Knicks?

A big reason why they lost is because they missed 45 three point attempts. Well, this, it kind of plays into what I mean about versatility. And, you know, I thought that the Knicks did a great job of sort of forcing the types of threes. I mean, sometimes Boston's at their best when they're generating the type of threes that they want, not settling for them. And they can get lured into both.

I think losing Porzingis in that second half made things a little bit easier for the Knicks defense to funnel them and to keep them out of the paint, keep the defense out of rotation. And I thought Boston played into their hands. Some of those threes that they were taking were not, you know, the ball's not popping and flying around, you're making the defense rotate. They were a lot of just ISO side steps, step backs, and they're good at those, you know, when they have a lead or, you know, they could, they can play into that with guys that know how to make those shots. But I thought that they fell into the Nixis trap of settling for those over and over again and losing momentum. And that's sort of the question I think people had about Boston last year. They weren't really tested in their, in their run. They, they performed so

well. They never had their backs against the wall. What would happen when a game got close? And I thought in game one of that series, the Knicks and Boston, you saw them settle. You saw the game get close and they kind of went to the same type of shots over and over again. And you had some good perimeter defenders out there,

Mikhail Bridges, OGN and OB, who I thought did a good job of contesting those shots. So I hated it. And if you listen to my show with Tim Legler, Tim Legler really hated it. He had like a five minute rant about how much they settled for those shots and how little pressure they were putting on the room. Legler loves threes. Like that was his bread and butter. So I got to, I could only imagine what the show sounded like. We're listening to Adam Marez from the All City NBA podcast here on the Haliford and Bruf show on Sportsnet 650.

You mentioned problem solving in the playoffs and how important it is. How did the Golden State Warriors solve the problem of not having Steph Curry available last night for a large chunk of that game but still getting the win in Minnesota? Well, I was so surprised because I think that one had more to do with Minnesota. First of all, they were extremely cold shooting. I think they missed the first 15 or 18 three-pointers they took. It wasn't until the third quarter, I believe, that they got, Nasreed got one to go down. But so I think a lot of this just had to do with cold shooting.

But when you talk about problem solving and basketball intelligence, that Warriors team is as good as anyone in that capacity. They're short-handed in terms of skill and obviously last night losing Steph Curry is going to be a big story. They don't have a ton of size in their front line, but what they have is a bunch of intelligent and tough basketball players. And so I think, and then you look at the Minnesota side and you say, okay, that's a good team, especially defensively, but offensively, they're also limited. They have so many levers they can pull offensively to generate offense. And I just thought Golden State did a really good job of keeping them out of rhythm, forcing them

into their least favorite options, really getting into Anthony Edwards and making things difficult on him, getting the ball out of his hand. And I think the Wolves will bounce back. I don't think they'll always perform like that offensively. But I just thought the Wolves didn't adapt to Golden State's pressure and to Golden State sort of getting the ball out of Edwards' hands. We have two games in the association tonight. The Knicks take on the Celtics at four o'clock our time.

And then at 6.30, it's the nightcap. And if game one was any indication, game two should be electric as well. It's the N and the thunder Adam Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it Enjoy all the games tonight and let's do this again real soon That was good, man. We'll talk soon. Thanks man. Appreciate it That's Adam Maras from the all-city NBA podcast with noted former NBA three-point shooting

Contestant Tim Legler here on the Haliford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. 63 point attempts. That's a lot. Is that entertaining when 45 are missed? It's not entertaining. I will say the NBA to steal a classic Bill Simmons phrase, having a bit of a moment in these playoffs, considering how bad last year's playoff was, it's been pretty good so far.

Now I know a lot of people were bemoaning the Lakers bowing out early. And kudos to Charles Barkley, who's never afraid to say what he's thinking. He talked about it on Inside the NBA on TNT the other night saying like, that was a media driven thing because there's lots of good stories and lots of good games and great finishes being played in the NBA right now.

You don't need the Lakers, even though they have Luca and LeBron, to make up for what's been like a great playoff. Like, and I have some time for that argument because it has been really good so far. God, I hope Steph Curry is not out long term, although it doesn't sound like he's gonna play in game two of that series. Mm-hmm. With the hamstring injury. Okay, I want to do a little housekeeping here before we move along. I mentioned earlier in the show that we are doing a ticket giveaway today. It's going to be at 8 15 this morning, so don't call now. Okay. But at 8 15, we're giving away a pair of tickets to see the C's. Yes, your Vancouver Canadians host the Everett Aquasocs at the NAT on Saturday, May 17th at 105 PM. So it's a Saturday nooner at the NAT. It's a Sportsnet 650

presentation. It's Women in Sports Day. A special guest appearance by Sportsnet's very own Hazel May will highlight the day. Today in about a half hour's time be caller number 5 at 8 15 this morning. The phone number here 604-280-650. That number again 604-280-650. That number again, 604-280-0650. Don't call now, call at 815 this morning. It'll be right in the middle of our hit with Abbotsford Canucks GM Ryan Johnson. Again, the phone number 604-280-0650.

Now I mentioned Ryan because his Abbotsford Canucks are in action tonight. They go Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. The best of five series, the final three games are gonna be played in Abbotsford against the team I hate the most in the American hockey league, the Coachella Valley Firebirds. I can't stand them.

I can't stand them. The series is tied one-one. They're coming off a pretty wild five-four loss in game two, the Abbotsford Canucks are, but because of their work in the regular season, they get to host the final three games of this playoff series. But I think they've some injury problems right now in Abbottsford. Leckaromacky, and I think it's Willan and have yet to play in this series.

Yeah. Leckaromacky got banged up at the end of the NHL regular season. I know we talked to Brandon Astle a couple of times. He was wearing the full face shield and everything. And then I guess during this series, they've also lost the services of Atu Ratu and defenseman Jet Wu. So tough times for Abbotsford. It's kind of been like the veterans or the, like the, we don't, the guys we don't talk about too much have been doing a lot of-

The NHL assassins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like Sammy Blay and old Jujar I think has had a few goals as well. He's been very good. Sorry, I'm busy learning about mammoths. Oh, right, the other news of the day. Mammothi, mammothi. Adog just woke up.

Cause he's like, oh, is a sports talk over and we can talk about ridiculous stuff? Sweet. And he is a big logo and name guy. Okay. So Utah, the NHL team is officially going to be called the Utah Mammoths. Yes.

No, singular. Singular. Mammoth. Yes. No, singular. Singular. Mammoth. Yeah. Singular, just one guy? Thank God. Just singular. Plural would be awful.

Mammoth is so hard to say. That is tough. Okay. So Utah Mammoth. Singular. Um, Adog, tell us what you know about the mammoth. It's a, it, it, it, it's a retired elephant. It's not a, it's not retired. It didn't. He filed the papers. Yeah. It's not retired.

He filed the papers. It's not collecting its pension. Yeah, it's retired now. We're going to have cake in the break room. The word is extinct. Thank you. There we go. Retired.

Retired's close enough. Retired from existing. There we go. Just watching the prices right all day. It's an elephant that's retired from existing. Yeah, hung up his tusks. Yeah, it's an expired, what's the word? Extinct.

Thank you. For God's sake. This is why we do this, by the way. This is great. This is why we do it. The content that's coming with this is the retired elephant. Get him his slippers. I'm so big.

Keep going. It's an extinct elephant, part of the elephant species from prehistoric times and I guess they were around in Utah at one point yeah a couple 20 30 years ago recently extinct he got a nice pension he's happy elephant why do you think he retired well it's tough out there you know our rexes they run really fast and it doesn't want to be tough on the food chain anymore. I'm going to hang up those tusks and just take a reesey.

You know, there is, OK, so. Training those tusks for hockey stints. All joking aside about the elephant cashing in his 401K and settling in nicely at home. He had to turn his RRSP into a riff. Yeah. I had to do that for my dad recently. It took forever. He's not a mammoth, is he?

So there is an unincorporated community, it's basically a borderline ghost town now in Utah called Mammoth. So there are links, not just with the retired elephant that you're talking about, but also with Utah. You've got audio, right laddie? So they did about a two and a half minute video announcement this morning, the former Utah Hockey Club. And it's all voiceovers explaining the ties between. It's very hype. Sorry?

It's very hype. Is it hype? It's very hype. I don't even know what that means, but I'm excited to hear it. Let's hear some hype video from the Utah Mammoth, freshly minted NHL club from this morning. From Zion to Park City, Moab to Salt Lake City, some say the legends never died. They once roamed Utah, and now they roam again.

I just pictured the logo. See I was right. They roamed Utah. Now, how hilarious would this be? I just imagined a retired mammoth walking out onto stage there and he's like wearing a dressing gown. How hilarious would this be? Possible animal cruelty, so maybe not hilarious, not that I'm thinking about it in real time,

but instead of an actual, instead of a mascot, they get an actual elephant and just dress it up in this giant furry costume and give it giant tusks and it's the mascot. And it drops the puck with its snout before every game. How do you get through the day, buddy? It's trunk, rather. Snout. How have you?

I'm just trying to work in through the marketing of it all. How do you just, how do you live? I think that'd be very entertaining as long as they took care of the elephant of course. Do you sometimes forget to breathe? Well, sometimes. OK. It's called sleep apnea.

Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Back to the mammoth.

My goodness. Powerhouse segment by Adog again. Really? That was really great. Like twice in a week. I mean, I just think having a giant mascot, elephant mascot, would be really cool, as long as took it was taken care of of course You know mammoth is like twice the size of an elephant. Yeah. Yeah, I know

Well, they would have to maybe stack to on top of each other Since he's retired some people say he shrunk a bit As he gets older to regular a little bit There were wooly rhinos as Well, okay, I didn't know that I thought it was just the wooly mammoth But there's there's like for yeah, cuz it was so cold all the animals had extra fur there you go That's true that more you know or we know even the hockey team named after I feel like somehow we learned less But I still

how we learned last but I still Mike just takes in great idea Andy then quote hundreds trampled in Utah mammoth publicity stunt so it's a complete no bad it's a complete rebrand for the Utah mammoth logo well not complete font there a way Jersey is still the plain white old Diagonal text Utah. Yeah, they are gonna keep that which is fine. So does I like the logo? I think a sharp. It's good Yeah, all I wish it was yet. Yeti would have been so much better. But alas, yeah, I'm surprised that they had Licensing issues with Yeti, but not yet Yeah, why does Yeti care about this? There would be some, it'd be free advertising for them. They've already got Jersey sponsors,

like the patches there, like a Yeti sponsor patch on the Utah Yeti jersey seems to make a ton of sense for me. But they, and the other thing is like, we talked to Frank about this at seven o'clock. By the way, you're gonna be able to download the Hour Two podcast shortly if you wanna hear all of this. Including Andy's. You learn so much stuff.

Yeah, Andy's thorough breakdown of what constitutes an elephant. Frank said that there's already a professional sports team, the National Lacrosse League's Colorado Mammoth, with the moniker that they had to negotiate with the Cronke family, the owners of said mammoth. So I don't know, I'm surprised. Colors, by the way, in case you're curious about this, rock black, mountain blue, and salt white.

As opposed to all the other whites. Right. Egg shell, whatnot. Exciting. I'm just imagining the life of a retired mammoth. Well, yeah, of course. Nick is on social media going, a dog calling a mammoth a retired mammoth. Well, yeah, of course. Nick is on social media going, Adog calling a mammoth a retired elephant

is peak morning show. We need a regular Andy explains a thing segment. That's why I said it. It's your research. It was just like a wide open question. Adog, what do you know about... I'm in the middle of booking a guest and I hear mammoth like oh

But I know what happened what happened is is you you knew the word that you were searching for yeah instead of extinct you Came up with of all of them Retired see in the morning my brain doesn't work so well, and I struggle to find words lest we forget This is the same show that has now coined the term Tidalizing yeah, yeah, right we use that the other tough one. That's we I did yeah, that was I was a breath special that has now coined the term titillizing. Yeah. Right? We used that the other day. That was a tough one. We, I did. Yeah, that was abrupt special.

That's a combination of titillating and tantalizing. That was a happy accident though. We're gonna use that for a while. I've used it, I've mentioned it to a couple people and they're like, yep, no, that works. They know exactly what you're trying to get at, which is really the important thing. But also we need more words in society.

Did I tell you about the word that the boy made up? What's that? Instead of, he thought tackling, like in football, was called a tackling. Like a, oh like attack. Yeah, and I'm like, that is awesome. Yeah, a tackling. That is amazing.

And if I was a football coach and I was looking for slogans, like let's say I'm the coach of the Seahawks, right? It's like in Seattle, we don't just tackle, we a-tackle. That is really good. You know? That's a good idea. That's part of all culture, right?

Yeah. Like we don't just, some teams tackle, we a-tackle. You could put that sign up. It's short. You tackle a school canoe, that's a tackle. Yeah. Don't tackle, a tackle. That is a great slogan for a football team. Someone's going to steal this. For sure.

We have all these great ideas on the show. That's a tackling. How can we monetize this? How can we monetize this somehow? Okay, Ryan Johnson is probably not too happy about joining this show in about seven minutes, but we're going to talk to the general manager of the Abbotsford

Canucks coming up. Abbotsford is in a battle with Coachella Valley. The series is tied 1-1. Game three of the series goes tonight in Abbotsford. It's a best of five. Abbotsford will host games three, four and five after splitting the series down in the desert. We'll talk to him about Manny Maholtra and we'll

ask him like, what kind of coach is he? What's impressed you about Manny Maholtra because Maholtra is on the list of candidates to become the next head coach of the Vancouver Canucks. And we'll also just talk about some of the players. We'll try and get a health update from Manny Johnson on what's going on because I know injuries have hit the baby Canucks and we'll also just talk about some of the players. We'll try and get a health update from Ryan Johnson on what's going on because I know injuries have hit the baby Canucks.

So Ryan Johnson is going to join us next on the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Before we go to break, I need to tell you about Jan Pro from warehouses to washrooms and everywhere in between Jan Pro keeps workplaces tidy, clean, and disinfected. For a free quote, visit JanPro.ca. Jan Pro keeps workplaces tidy, clean, and disinfected. For a free quote, visit JanPro.ca.

It's a retired elephant. It's not retired. It didn't, he filed the papers. Yeah.