Halford & Brough in the Morning - Frank Seravalli On The JT Miller Situation

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

In hour two, Mike & Jason chat with Daily Faceoff NHL insider Frank Seravalli (1:20) about the news of JT Miller's leave of absence from the Canucks, plus the boys debate when we might see a Canucks trade (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.

Sarah Valley Frank Cerebelli Frank Daily Face Off Frank 7 o'clock on a Wednesday Frank You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650 Halford & 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. We are in hour two of the program. Frank Cervalli is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. Hour two is brought to you by Jason Hominuk from Jason.Mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around

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Kintec. To the phone lines we go. Our next guest is a presentation of Angry Otter Liquor. Frank Cervalli joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Frank. How are you? Pretty good. How are you guys? We are well. We will start with the JT Miller news from yesterday

that he is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team due to personal reasons. With the pretense and pretext out there that we don't want to speculate and we don't want to try and we don't want to try and for lack of a better phrase guess as to what's going on we do have to ask you um is there any information or do you know anything about anything as it pertains to this situation with jt miller

yeah i mean like anyone else um you know certainly with respect to his privacy um and wishing him the best um you know certainly asked around yesterday and the feedback that i got was he needed a break mentally um look i think everyone would agree that even going back that game against the flyers he hasn't quite been physically right. So, again, from that perspective, it's important. Hey, Frank, unfortunately, we're going to have to drop the call here. It's cutting through like crazy. We actually didn't get any of that answer. All your great answers were garbled, Frank.

I was like, that couldn't have happened at a more inopportune time. We're listening to Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. We are speaking with Frank Cervalli. I know exactly what happened with JT Miller, and the answer is that garble. We're going to literally redo the interview right from the top. I might say, hey, how are you doing today? Like, I don't know, but we're going to try this again

as soon as we get Frank back on the line. I did want to just reiterate, just so we can make it clear, that I think it goes without saying that speculating and guessing and sending off texts to try and figure out, quote, unquote, the real reason should not be done. And I encourage all of you, if you do think about sending those kind of things, to not do it. We are now rejoined by Frank Cervalli from Daily Faceoff here on the

Hufford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Frank, do we have you? Yes, you do. Yeah, sorry about that. That was odd. Yeah, I know. Let's just start right again from the very top okay yeah and certainly with a ton of respect for JT Miller and his privacy and

and also hoping that he's back soon and everything's all right the response I got yesterday was he needed a break physically physically and mentally. I think we can agree that going back to the swing out east and the game that he left against the Flyers, I don't think anyone would argue that he's been 100% right physically. Seems to me and many others to be a shoulder injury that he was nursing, and that has kind of lingered on for a bit but there's definitely I believe a mental component to this as well to just get a reset. I don't think Sunday's game had anything to do with it and and the benching but look he's been the heartbeat of this team for a while now he's he's their motor

their engine and with that comes an intensity and a fire that rages a competitive fire that rages really kind of like few others in the entire league and i think sometimes, you know, and not to speculate, there's a heavy burden that comes with that too, that you feel like you wear a lot. And, you know, I think for a lot of those reasons, I think they felt collectively that getting a break mentally and physically was the best choice of action here. Can you recall anything like this happening in the NHL? Like I know players have taken leaves of absence,

but not framed like this. Correct. Yeah. Not, and certainly not exactly like that. No. And not someone who has, you know, with all those things just mentioned, not something that you see for a player that, relatively speaking, still had a pretty good start to the season. So I was definitely surprised yesterday. And I think whenever you see something like that pop up, the first thing you think of is, man, I hope this guy's all right. On the Canucks front, keeping that, but moving to a different story, there sure seems to be a lot of smoke around Marcus Pedersen in Pittsburgh and for a variety of reasons.

One, his name's been out there. Two, Alvin and Rutherford's connections to Pittsburgh. And three, the Canucks' seeming need to figure out something on defense. What do you know on this front and the trade market in general? Because things have been quiet for the first few weeks of the regular season. Man, you're forgetting number four, which is the Canucks would absolutely have to corner the market on Pettersson. True.

No, look, I think part of that connection has been overblown. I think a couple of years ago, the Canucks front office certainly had some interest. I wouldn't say that it's totally dead, but I think when you listen to the mission and mandate that starts with Rick Tockett and moving the puck more efficiently out of their own end, I just watch Marcus Pedersen on a night-to-night basis. He defends well enough. He's perfectly competent as a number four defenseman.

But the one thing he really struggles with, the one hole in his game, is making a quality pass. Short, long, chip, whatever it might be, it feels like when he gets the puck on his stick, it's an adventure. So I'm not saying it won't happen. I'm just saying, I don't think it's a match. And I, I, you know, at some point this season, Marcus Pedersen is very likely to be moved.

Have a new trade targets board coming out today. He's very high on the list um but i i have to really squint to see him as a canuck is there anyone on your list that might be a better fit in vancouver hmm it's a tough one right it's a tough one now you're now you're making me think a little bit um You know, it's hard because when you think puck mover, the next part that comes of that is guy that's going to contribute on the power play. And the Canucks don't really need that, so to speak.

So I look at someone like like personally if i were to go through the 15 names on my board i'd say the best fit might be mike matheson now i don't know if if the canucks see it that way this is pure you pure speculation and matching on my part. I think he's... I don't know that enough people recognize how good he's been the last 100 games in the NHL. Right. He was ninth in the league last year in defense scoring 62 points. And if you readjust and properly set expectations for him to defend first,

I think he's actually way better than he gets credit for. So, look, I don't think the Canadians are hankering to move him. In fact, they're so thin on their blue line and so young already, I can tell you that they really don't want to move him. But at some point this year, someone's going to come calling and his value is going to be probably higher than it ever will be with one more year left on his deal. I could see him making sense for a lot of teams.

I do want to ask about Boston and get into it. I have a lot of questions about that. But one more thing on the trade front. Is something going to shake loose out of St. Louis? Because they've been bad. They're 26 in the the nhl they have eight wins in 20 games they have a minus 20 goal differential i know robert thomas missed a bunch of time and he came back but if you look at their blue line there's a lot of guys that are making over four million dollars it's been a disappointing underachieving year i mean pareko has been out there for a long time and they've got some other guys as well. Torrey Krug's obviously on the shelf.

But what's going on in St. Louis? What sense are you getting out of the Blues? Well, I think they were waiting to get Thomas back to see if that helps things improve because he is one of the drivers of that team. That said, I don't think that Doug Armstrong is under any disillusion that this Blues team is a playoff team this year, or frankly, even if they were to get in, is a team that could make some noise. I think he's open to a lot of different things, but I don't think that they've really gone far

down the path in determining what that looks like quite yet. We are speaking to Frank Cervalli from Daily Faceoff here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, to Boston we go. Jim Montgomery out after a very tumultuous start to the season. I have many questions here. The first one is, this is having read some stuff in the aftermath and everyone do the look in the rear view. Was he maybe on thinner ice going into this season than I personally,

like I thought, and in part because of, I know he won coach of the year. No, they had a great regular season record, but the two playoff failures, I think you can call them that and not having an extension was maybe this a little bit more likely than we thought,

regardless of how the Bruins started the season. Look, anytime you have a coach that's accomplished what he has, I mean, he's essentially averaged 120 points over each of his first two seasons behind the bench. When you go into a third year and you don't have a contract extension, like, yeah, antennas are raised. Eye right eyebrows are up at that for sure um what i didn't see happening was i guess some and look this is this is not to

blame him at all like when you have 140 84 games coached and you only lose 41 times in regulation um you're like something that you're doing is working so like let's park that full stop however where things really started to kind of move in a different direction this year beyond just kind of the criticism that he had for david pasternak in the playoffs all of a sudden you saw the back and forth with brad marshand on the bench and yeah marshand defended him but then you see the comments about jeremy swayman and the lack of training camp and you kind of see him it's not fair to say needling but you see him going after the star pieces the core pieces of that team that's another flag raised right like that's another attention grabbing element to this and then you look at the effort and compete and

intensity and you have a game like the loss to columbus the other night i i messaged some guys on the blue jackets after the game i said did you guys just get Jim Montgomery fired? And the thing is, that's exactly what a game like that felt like. We've all been around long enough to see it, and everyone was on high alert after that. Sometimes you take a bunch of those different things and you mash them all together and you say, yes, maybe something isn't working here. So the New York Jets fired Robert Sala, and then a few weeks later they fired the general manager, Joe Douglas.

So I've got to ask, now that Montgomery's gone, how much heat is there on Don Sweeney? Because right now, Lindholm contract does not look good. Zdorov contract does not look good. And the way that the Swayman thing played out definitely does not look good on Sweeney and neely in this front office well the caveat or pushback i would give you on that is it's cam neely who was speaking some of those words at the press conference that really ignited the jeremy swayman thing and so i think cam neely and don sweeney have been in lockstep on this really you know

from the beginning so it would seem to me at least behind the scenes that sweeney has the support of his president and i would also say that a fair bit of this belongs on the players. Zdorov has really struggled. So has Lindholm. And Lindholm, to be fair, you guys heard his comments in Vancouver after his tough start. But he rebounded and got comfortable and settled in. Do I think this Bruins team is as bad as they've shown? Absolutely not. Is Jeremy Swayman

going to continue to be in the mid-880s in save percentage? I think that's probably unlikely. Are the Bruins, by that nature, also then going to 26th or 27th in the league in goals against? Probably not. Will their top players be outscored by their fourth line at even strength? Unlikely. So, yeah, it's been ugly. They've got two players that are double-digit points scorers compared to, like, 11, half the Winnipeg Jets roster. It's been a grind. I just think this is a team that's drastically underachieved

and one that has been propped up in some ways by the strength of their goaltending the last couple of years that now for the first time when they didn't get it, Jim Montgomery is definitely not the first coach to be fired after a poor save percentage run by his net minors. Okay. One more on Boston. How interim is Joe Sacco? I'd say he's quote pretty interim. I don't think they have any intention right now of opening a coaching search would that change if i don't know pick a guy mike sullivan

we're gonna get fired in pittsburgh yeah i could see that changing but joe sacco is someone that has head coaching experience spent four years behind the bench with the Colorado Avalanche as head coach. Since then, he's pretty much since then, he's been in Boston, we're talking a decade now plus, and was elevated from assistant to associate before this year started. Got that bump in title and probably pay and he's a he's a boston guy so um i think they're gonna try and give him every bit of runway that he can to show that he can coach this team because they seem to be believers in him frank i am obsessed

and fascinated with the trio of hopefuls in the atl of Ottawa, Buffalo, and Detroit, and the Canucks are going to play the Ottawa Senators on Saturday in Ottawa as they kick off a six-game road trip. None of these teams are above.500 right now. The Sens have lost a few in a row. The Sabres have kind of been fine, I guess, based on this relative to other Sabres seasons, but that still doesn't mean it's good. And I think the Detroit Red Wings have probably been the least impressive of those three. They've got a minus 14 goal differential. Just your thoughts on those three teams

and their seeming inability to get to the next level. Yeah, I would call that a very morbid fascination on your part. Yeah, well, I'm a Canucks fan. I have a lot of morbid fascinations. Yeah, I would say that's pretty sick and twisted, and I love it. Look, it's been a grind for all of these teams. I would say the fascinating part about it is that they've all done it, this kind of exit the rebuild strategy, in a different way. For Detroit, it's been, let's pay for some big-name vets to come in and add to this team to help support our really young guys.

The Sabres have just been like, yeah, you know what, we're going to acquire all the young guys and we're going to just try and hope that we burst through this together as the youngest roster in the NHL. And then you've got the Sens who are kind of a little bit of a hybrid version of that, right? Like they go out and they add Amadio and David Perron and some other guys who have been around for a bit, Claude Giroux over the last couple years, that they're trying to do a little bit of everything. And the tough part is none of them have really worked. All of them sub 500. The Red Wings, I think by far, are the team in the biggest trouble in that group.

I don't think it's long before a team that was much further behind them to start soon passes them in the montreal canadians with the pipeline that they've built there and i just i don't know where the red wings go from here because there's not there's no way to trade your way out of that. And the other part of it is this time in which we thought the Atlantic might have a bit more of a redistribution in points, the usuals at the top have still been kind of exactly that. Even the Lightning, who have shown some warts over the last 12 to 18 months, they don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. And they're kind of hot again. So there's not really a big opening for

these teams to burst through to begin with. I just saw that the Blue Jackets have sent David Juracek down to the AHL. Sixth overall pick in 2022, a defenseman, and he's certainly not alone in that defenseman class in that draft in terms of struggling to find their game. They're only 20 years old. I think Simone Nemec, number two pick, i think he's with utica right now kevin korchinski is the seventh overall pick he spent last season in the nhl but probably shouldn't have it was an option between the chl and the nhl and he's gone down to the ahl um but we have had

a few people text into the show asking about david urochk and is he possibly available in a trade or are the Blue Jackets going to be patient with this guy? Well, an early preview, he is a member of my trade targets board today, David Juracek. And look, I think this is a situation that has gone sideways on a number of different levels. Last year and the way that it played out, being shuttled back and forth from Cleveland, then up to Columbus, and then sitting as a healthy scratch, obviously some trust issues that had developed then with the coaching staff.

They make two regime changes essentially, or one giant one, depending on how you want to look at it. So now this has stretched across multiple general managers and multiple coaching staffs. And yet he's been sat out of the lineup this year so that 37 year old Jack Johnson can play and jake christiansen and now the newest flavor of the week has been waiver claim dante fabbro and you know he's sitting there as

the number six overall pick from a few years ago and when he is getting in the lineup, he's only getting 12 minutes and doesn't really have a lot to prove in the AHL. It's a messy one to unpack. The big question moving forward is, how does everyone get this back on the rails and can it be in Columbus? And I have a pretty healthy dose of skepticism whether that can be the case. Frank, this was great, buddy. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to do this. We appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll this was great, buddy. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to do this. We appreciate it.

Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again next Wednesday. See you guys. See you later. Frank Cervelli was brought to you by Angry Otter Liquor, your home headquarters for your favorite game day beer, wine, and whiskey. Ooh, whiskey. Visit them at angryotterliquor.crs.

CRS? Yeah. Oh, okay. Bourbon, brownest of the brown liquors. We got a text in. It's so funny when teams like Columbus sit players like that. Oh, no, this young player might hurt our cup chances in our rebuild. Yeah, I think it's more complicated than that.

I get it. But if you're telling a player as a coach to do something and the player isn't doing it, then you're in a tough position as a coach because you're supposed to be sending a message to the team that we've got to play a certain way. And just because a kid is the sixth overall draft pick, you can't make exceptions. And I don't know.

It's not like I've watched a lot of Blue Jackets games, let alone been like, I'm going to really hyper-focus on David Juricic in this game. Columbus has had a history of this. There's been a long lineage of troublesome prospect development. Yeah. They seem to rush guys, and part of it has to do with the fact that the NHL team has been so poor for so long.

Guys have been elevated into roles, and you can take your pick. There's a lot of them that have gone through and have probably been put into the NHL too early. But look at this class of the 2022 NHL draft. Simone Nemech, I think, overall, has probably been underwhelming for New Jersey. He's down in Utica now, and that's good. Again, these guys are very young.

And I mentioned Kevin Korchinski with Chicago, talking about rushing a guy. Yeah. And I realized that it was a choice between sending him back to the CHL or having him in the NHL. But sometimes you just got to say, go and kill it in junior. You know, just go. Well, that's a thing of the past now anyway, right? Well, yeah, maybe, depending how it all pans out.

But let's go beyond the defenseman here. Fourth overall, Shane Wright in Seattle, still not doing much for them. And then Cutter Gauthier, fifth overall to Philly, forces a trade to Anaheim and not really doing much for them. So this draft

class, and I guess it was supposed to be not the strongest draft class. Right. You know, Uri Slavkovsky went first overall and he's turning into a player for montreal but i don't know what his ceiling is i not maybe not typical first overall he's a good player but maybe also all the guys that had their their yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no no for sure so but it is uh it is an interesting draft class in the sense that a lot of these young players even top 5, top 10 picks are

having some trouble Okay, we've got a lot more to get to on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650 It's an open segment coming up next so we could get into some of these stories from around the National Hockey League We can also dive in to the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket at 650-650

If you want to weigh in on last night's game, a 4-3 loss for the Vancouver Canucks. A pretty valiant effort, but ultimately another loss at home. If you want to talk about, and there's no other way to put it, than a squandered homestand where they got just four of 12 points, you can text in about that. If you want to look ahead to the upcoming road swing, Canucks are going to get

a former friend in Travis Green on Saturday night. Then they're going to play a I don't know what to expect Boston Bruins team under their new head coach Joe Sacco. So some very interesting story lines as the Canucks head out on the road. If you want to get in on anything, Dunbar-Lumber text line is 650-650.

We're going to have an open segment next. 8 o'clock, it's Randeep Janda. And then at 8.30, we're going to do what we learned. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650. Or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. We'll be right back. Jim. That is all. 7.32 on a Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. I will note that the dogs, now known as the jackals, were just waiting. Laddie's like, we got it all queued up. Just waiting for someone to get fired. You guys are jackals. You're not even dogs.

You're jackals. Thank you. It's a joke. Come on. Do you think Jim Montgomery thinks it's a joke? It's his career, damn it. Yeah, there was already an article on where he's going to resurface, by the way. He will get another job. He's fine.

Yeah, he'll get another job. Coach of the year is the kiss of death. Lad, he sent the graphic. When talk at one, he must have been like, oh, no. All of the finalists the kiss of death. Vlad, he sent the graphic. When Talk It won, he must have been like, oh, no. All of the finalists from two years ago. I got to get my contract now. Jim Montgomery won the award in 2023, beating out Lindy Ruff of the New Jersey Devils

and Dave Haxtell of the Seattle Kraken. None of those guys are employed by those teams anymore from the top three to completely gone in one season it is a bit of a kiss of death award i wonder how much of that had to do with the salary cap being so tight and a lot of teams just going all right i'm gonna fire the coach so as a because that was a crazy few years of just coaches getting fired left, right, and center. As an avid follower of the Premier League, I have seen this script play out where you can't wait

for full-blown panic anymore. You can't wait for, well, you can't wait for rock bottom. Rock bottom. Because when you do that and your season is sunk, everyone's going to say the same thing. You waited too long. You could have saved the season. You could have salvaged this.

If you look at the Bruins right now, they're like 19th in the standings. There are teams that are in significantly worse positions. I know that they got off to a bad start. I know that we led the show with it. I know you could feel it coming. But it's not like the Bruins were 32nd in the NHL. There were some troubling signs for sure.

But as Frank said, there's a pretty good chance that they turn this thing around because they're too good to be this bad but you just can't wait you can't so does rick talk it still feel like a relatively new coach to the canucks like relatively new coach i mean he's he's it's not like he's been here forever right yeah the first the sign for me where you've you're no longer got that new car smell is when the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket. You start to get those texts, and everyone knows what those texts are. Has the coach lost the room?

There's those ones. Okay, so last season was his first full season with the Canucks. He was hired in January of 2023. I'm going to read all the names of coaches that have been hired since then. Spencer Carberry in Washington, who's doing a really good job. Andrew Burnett in Nashville.

Greg Cronin in Anaheim. Ryan Huska in Calgary. Lavi with the Rangers. Chris Knobloch with the Edmonton Oilers. John Hines with the Minnesota Wild. Drew Bannister in St. Louis. Patrick Waugh went to the Islanders. Jim Hiller with the LA Kings.

Lindy Ruff to Buffalo, you mentioned him. Travis Green to Ottawa. Craig Berube to Toronto. Sheldon Keefe, who was with Toronto, he goes to New Jersey. Scott Arneal, Winnipeg. Dan Bilesmith, Seattle. Ryan Warsofsky, yes, him, to San Jose. Dean Evison to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

And then Joe Sacco now with the Boston Bruins. That is a long list of coaching changes. The NHL. John Cooper is a magician, man. Even Paul Maurice with the tenure that he had, right, in Winnipeg. That was a long tenure. And now he's one of the longest tenured head coaches in Florida all the way back to 2022.

Oh, my God, he's been there forever. I do agree with what you said right off the hop, that this is a circumstance of a hard cap league. It's just really difficult to make the traditional changes how many like when you fire a coach oftentimes is to wake people up wake up this is what you did you cost the guy you cost a good man his job because you're playing so lousy and in a hard cap system you've taken away in large part the old traditional one, which is the Jim Rutherford school of, you know how you can shake up that room? You don't get rid of

the coach. You trade one of their buddies. Take a guy that they like. Ship him to Columbus. See how they think about that. Let's set an over-under for a Canucks trade. I think one's coming. I think one's coming. I think in some... This is my hot this is

pure speculation we're allowed to speculate about trades get the button ready i just feel like one is coming and i am going to set it um i think it's going to happen during this road trip i think there's gonna be a a trade. So you are saying... I think they will make a move. Just because I think... Well, give me a few days once they're back. No, no, no. This is good. Is it a couple of weeks?

You are looking at roughly two weeks. You're looking at a 13-day span because it's now the day of our Lord, November 20th, 2024. The road trip goes all the way to December 3rd in Minnesota. So let's say December 4th, which is a Wednesday. Yeah. Two weeks to the day.

You're saying in the next two weeks, there will be a trade. I like it. Yeah. The over-under, that road trip is, I mean, it's a long one. There's six games. And here's the important thing. It's coming off a homestand in which they did not play very well at all. So if you want to talk about making a trade to jolt the season

or, dare I say, save the season, maybe it comes on a road swing where things aren't going great at home and then you go out on the road. You can't put together, let's say it this way, a 2-4 mark at home, and then go out on a mirroring six-game road swing and go 2-4 as well. That is really damaging in terms of the standings.

You're going to come back home. You're going to be a sub-500 team. You're going to probably be out of a playoff position in the West, and you will have already passed that very important date that the Canucks are going to probably be out of a playoff position in the West, and you will have already passed that very important date that the Canucks are going to get to on the road of American Thanksgiving, where everyone says, including Freedj,

you've got to be in a playoff spot. Otherwise, the numbers are stacked against you. So if you look at the standings of the teams that the Canucks are going to be playing, this is not a particularly tough road trip. They played the big three of sadness in the Atlantic Division. Ottawa, Buffalo, and Detroit are all on this road trip.

Boston's on this road trip, and they just fired their coach. Pittsburgh's on this road trip, one of the most disappointing teams in the NHL. There's your trade right there. They get Marcus Pedersen, right? Pick him up. Yeah, pick them up like we just played you hop on the plane meet the guys the toughest game that they play is the final road road game in minnesota yeah against a wild team that is playing pretty good hockey and has a heart trophy candidate in carol kaprizov. So I'm of two minds on this trip. Number one, I guess it's good that they're playing lesser competition because the Canucks are lesser competition right now.

They're depleted. But I'm also like they better not waste these games like they wasted some opportunities at home because their schedule, obviously, I don't know when it's going to happen, but eventually it's going to get harder. Yeah. It has not been difficult in terms of the quality of competition for the Canucks so far this season. And what they've managed to do is keep their head above water.

Yes. They're 9, 6, and 3. So they're 500. They've played 18 played 18 games they won nine of them they're above nhl 500 because they managed to take a few of those games to overtime or the shootout even though they've lost them um but they've also on the other hand had to deal with a lot of stuff the question i suppose is how much longer are they going to have to deal with it? How much longer is Besser going to be out of the lineup? How much longer is Demko going to be out of the lineup?

And obviously, how much longer is JT Miller going to be out of the lineup? We probably should talk about goaltending because I don't think Seelov's played badly last night. Like I don't, and I'm not a goaltending expert like Laddie over here, but the amount of times, and I kind of noticed this in the New Jersey game too, that Seelov's is just getting beaten real cleanly. And oftentimes that speaks to the quality of chances that you're giving up. And if you think about some of the goals that the Rangers scored last night,

the winning goal was wide open front of the net, Chris Kreider. That was a tough one to save. Cooley gets that breakaway. That's a cool name, by the way, Cooley. Cooley. And that was a bit lucky on the Rangers behalf because I don't think Capocacco meant to tip it right between Quinn Hughes and whoever was out there. I can't remember. And, you know, that's a tough one to stop. But great goalies make some of those saves.

Right. So the first answer is that Seelov's is not a great goalie. Yeah. I agree. Not yet, at least. He's not a great goalie. Yeah. I agree. Not yet, at least. He's not a great goalie. He may never be. But, I mean, the bar is high with Thatcher Demko.

And Kevin Lankanen played some really solid hockey to start. But, you know, there's a reason that Kevin Lankanen hasn't been a star goalie in the NHL before. And we're all like, oh, this Kevin Lankanen guy is pretty good. He's not Thatcher Demko. No, but Lankanen is the far better option. See, he's 23 years old. He should be in the American League playing games.

He should be. He should be down in Abbotsford honing his craft, playing games where if you win or lose, it really doesn't matter because it's the American League. Putting him in last night is a lot of pressure. You're at the end of a homestand where you've gone two and three

and you want to try and get back to 500. Four goals against a good Rangers team is nothing horrendous, but given the circumstances and the context, not a great situation to have to put in a guy that has been not good this season. It's funny. Anecdotally, I'll tell you that there's this Latvian journalist that's been emailing me. He's trying to write an article on Silas,

and I just keep ignoring it because I don't want to answer any of the questions. Why are you ignoring the Latvian journalist? Because I don't want to answer it honestly. All his questions are like, how is the Arters doing this year? Terrible. I'm like, not great, pal.

Not great. All of Latvia wants to know.rible. I'm like, not great, pal. Not great. All of Latvia wants to know. He is a hero here, I will remind you. And I'm like, here comes the big stupid Canadian journalist being like, he stinks. Halford stars in international entertainment. Yeah, I don't want to upset Latvia. I got no beef with Latvia. He stinks.

Sorry? You said he stinks? He stunk this year. This year? But I didn't say he's a stinky goalie. I didn't say he was a stinky goalie. They said, how is he doing this year? Is he stunk this year. This year? But I didn't say he's a stinky goalie. I didn't say he was a stinky goalie. They said, how is he doing this year? Is he stunk this year?

It was courageous when he lost his blocker and made a save. That was good. He's trying his best. And Solard's popular. Well, that's the thing. He's trying his best. He is trying his best, but he's not ready for this. The save percentages, in games that he's played this year,

the save percentages are 769, nice, 885, 727. Then he had a 966 against chicago which was good and he's back to an 879 last night so 879 is like the high end for his games this year single game safe percentages come on halford would you like the cumulative one because it's worse what is trying to do the guy a favor. What is it? It is... He had a great game against Chicago, which has a pop gun offense. 8-57.

He was under 800 like a week ago. Only can go up. He's going up. It can only go up. Trending upwards, I say. Yeah, Jordan in the Ridge takes in,

he's a young goalie playing in front of a decor that has two and a half good players. Exactly why Lankanen is looking shaky now well like it's both things let me finish the thought things let me finish the team in front of them is not playing particularly well defensively and the goalies are not capable of standing on their

heads like some elite goalies are let me let me finish the thought the sea labs that we saw especially in the first round of Nashville last year, was playing under a, I would say, significantly different set of circumstances. They really hunkered down. They really hunkered down. Everything was from the perimeter. They did a good job.

They were low of it. Remember those games? We're like, wow, this is a slog. There wasn't a lot, you know. 16 shots with two minutes left in the third kind of deal. And you had kind of wanted to do it because you wanted to insulate your goalie as much as possible. That's not happening right now.

Right? Like you're saying he's got to jump up and make a great save. Cause that's what great goalie's doing. I'm like, yeah, that's asking a lot. He should be honing his craft. He's 23. He didn't have a ton of experience. He should be honing his craft in the American league.

That's the ideal scenario. Now it's not an ideal scenario. Your number one guy is hurt. The other question that I had for the goaltending, now that we're going to play off your when will the Canucks make a trade? What's going to happen first? Are the Canucks going to make a trade or are we going to see Thatcher Demko?

I think we're going to see Demko on this road trip. Yeah, when? That's what I want to know. I don't know. I'm still working about how to spell Poplatius. So we got Ottawa on Saturday with a lengthy break and having not played the last game. That seems like a logical Lankan start. You get a couple days off then.

Tuesday, Wednesday is the real first decision that you've got to make in net. Because Tuesday you're going in Boston, and then the very next night you're going in Pittsburghittsburgh and that's where you're going to have to make a choice the canucks do practice today so maybe there will be some newsworthiness out of the practice with regards to demko's participation um besser has been skating but i don't think you can expect him at practice certainly not one where he's going to be a full participant. But Rick Tockett did say yesterday, look, we're going to get some players back soon.

He said maybe in a week or in two weeks. He caught himself. He's like, in a week or two weeks, maybe seven weeks, who knows. But I think we're going to see Demko. But I'm guessing here But I think we're going to see Demko. But I'm guessing here. I think we're going to see Demko on this road trip. There's one other thing I wanted to say on C-Lost. Sorry.

Greg's getting all upset because I used the word stinky. I'm not getting upset. You got upset. You cried back there. I will say this. I will say this. In the guy's defense, there are players, specifically on the blue line,

that need to step up and do better and play more efficiently than Art of Seal Outs needed to Annette last night. So mostly all of them. No, that second pair. I think at a certain point, if you're going to run the company line of with all these guys out and with us facing adversity,

we need guys to step up. Then I think you're going to need to look at Susie and Myers and say, we're asking a lot. We're asking a ton of you guys. And you're missed. You're miscast as a second pair, but guess what? This is real life.

This is what we're dealing with. You've got to, you have to perform better than this. And if it's simplify your game or get more nasty or whatever the case, there's going to need to be an emphasis that, hey, we have Kiefer Sherwood stepping up and playing above his head. We have Connor Garland on 25 minutes sleep coming in and being our best player on the ice.

Make Brandstrom and Julsen the second pair for a few games. Oh, that'd be fun. Just give them a break. I said ask more, not ask. Myers and Susie, you get a bit of time to expose yourselves. Well, that's the problem, right? The alternative. I mean, we got someone texting in wanting to pair Quinn Hughes with Branstrom.

I mean, maybe. Give it a whirl. I don't know. Give it a whirl. I don't know. Give it a whirl. But like Branstrom wants to skate the puck up the ice. Well, guess what? So does Quinn Hughes. You know, you're going to get teams out there that will take advantage of the size discrepancy on that pairing.

What do the Canucks do then? Because I don't think Marcus Pedersen is the answer. I'll tell you what. If the guy can't move the puck, it's not going to help your defensive woes. They're in a real tough spot, and this is when Patrick Alvin and Jim Rutherford are going to be really challenged to make something happen. And the reason I think something is going to happen because,

and I know Patrick Alvin is the GM, but Rutherford hired Patrick Alvin for a reason. And he still has obviously a lot of influence in the organization. These guys like to make trades and they like to make them in situations like this. And Paul texted in and asked, okay okay who are the Canucks going to trade and I kind of hinted at it earlier in the show I mean Hoaglander is just the most obvious candidate right now for two reasons number one I think Tuckett doesn't trust him and I don't think it helps that Hoaglander goes out there and takes a bad penalty in a game where, you know, and in a season where he's not producing

like he did last season. Shorty and Ray also got in his case. Shorty and Ray were, yeah. They were just really like, what was, you know, like this guy's got to play more direct. Yep. And I also think that you can sell a good story with Hoaglander.

Yeah. So a team like maybe Pittsburgh would look at Hoaglander and go, well, we've got to get younger and we've got to get a little bit faster, maybe a little more energetic. Maybe we'll take a swing at this guy and see with a bigger opportunity, maybe he could have some success. Maybe it's Pittler, maybe it's another team. But Holglinder, to me, he had 24 goals last season,

all of them even strength. He's a very talented player. You can see it. And he's not – I wouldn't consider him soft. He's not soft skill. He needs a little more direction and you can sell that as a gm and you can get something good you can also sell the fact there's cost certainty there yeah and he's got a contract extension you know exactly what he's going to get paid over the

next three years i think you can say i buttoned this one up for you like i got him under contract you know you can move him when he signed that contract at the beginning of the season some of it was like good for hoaglander he came into camp in great shape, and he looks good so far. But the other part of me was like, I wonder if they're doing this so it's easier to trade him. I mean, it's a possibility for sure. It wouldn't be the first time that Patrick Alvina and Jim Rutherford have inked a guy to a deal and then moved him shortly thereafter.

It's happened before. Well, he's the most likely candidate. I mean, who else did they move? Now, if a trade does not materialize in the next little bit, and part of the reason that I went from connecting the dots like Seelov's last year to how they played against Nashville in the opening round, I do wonder if we're going to start to see more of that moving forward,

especially on this upcoming six-game road trip, if we're going to see more low-event hockey. Was it you that pointed out yesterday that a bunch of the Canucks goals came off the rush last night against the Rangers? Well, all three of them were. I mean, the first goal, there was a bit of zone time, but it started with a nice rush up the ice.

I wonder if those are going to be the last rush goals we see for a while. No, they still want to do it. I still want to create those rush chances. I wonder if it's going to be, I wonder if this upcoming six game road swing is going to be very low event hockey. What, lock it down hockey? Quinn, I love the goal.

Please do not do that again. No, no, I just, I'm not even joking. When you are, because right now, you can sell the reason to do it. It's like, guys, we don't have JT Miller in the lineup. We don't have Brock Besser in the lineup. We don't have Thatcher Demko in the lineup. We're a bit of a wounded animal.

We have to play. And you guys looking at the defense, man, besides you, Quinn, seem to be having some trouble making some passes. So just pump it out. This upcoming six-game road swing isn't about the evolution of the team. It's about survival. And it's easier to sell when you're under man. We're going backwards. Yeah, you're the wounded animal, right? right you are and it's like we're just fighting to stay alive here we're trying to keep some games close get it to overtime

scratching claw points you know you went that'd be sad to do against the buffaloes and the detroit's and the ottawas of the world i don't know i don't i don't i don't look at it that way pittsburgh i don't look i don't look at it that way. Even Pittsburgh. I don't look at it that way that you're ever too good to scrap and fight and claw for points in the NHL. It's a tough league.

Teams are constantly fighting to get out of whatever funk that they're in. And then when they get out, you go from being the hunter to the hunted. So it's not like your job gets any easier.

The Canucks were one win away from going to the Western Conference final last year. People notice that. People. So it's not like your job gets any easier. The Canucks were one win away from going to the Western Conference Final last year. People notice that. People know that it's not a walkover team anymore. Maybe they thought at bits and pieces last year. Not now. And I do wonder if that's part of... And that's coaching.

That is coaching. The acknowledgement that, hey, we're in a state right now. We're in a funk. Maybe we need guys that are going to play with a little bit more jam and fight and Vim and vigor and all the other terms you want to throw around. And we're not going to worry so much about our evolution as an offensive team.

We're going to generate chances. We need to keep pucks out of our net because the two most damning things so far for me right now are how bad they were points-wise on this most recent homestand. And then if you want to look at the collective throughout the year, the amount of goals

that they have let in at home is jarring. It is among the worst in the NHL. It is jarring the amount of goals that they've given up at home. A place that was

a very difficult place to play last year. And tighten it up. Okay, we got one final hour. Tighten it up. Tighten it up. Tighten it up. One final hour to come on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650.

Randy Janda, who was on the call last night, he will be joining us at eight and then we're going to dive back in to the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket at 650-650. We will read some of your texts in the final half hour of the program for what we learned. So you're listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650.