Halford & Brough in the Morning - How Has Pettersson Looked At The 4 Nations?

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason do an NFL 2024-25 season wrap up with Too Deep Zone's Mike Tanier (1:05), they discuss the NHL announcing that the World Cup is coming back in 2028 (16:00), plus the boys talk some more EP40 at the 4 Nations (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.

Music 7.03 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday everybody. Halford Brough, SportsMed 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for,

sales, financing, service, or parts. We are now in hour two of the program. 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 to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him on the internet for more 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, our NFL insider Mike Tanier

joins us now on the Hellford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Michael, how are you? I'm doing great. Greetings from Eagles country, where everyone is still a little hungover and it's about to get worse. I'm glad you started with that, because I brought up in the intro to this show that you do indeed

live in Eagles country. And I wanted to ask, what have the last few days been like as Eagles fans revel in their Super Bowl victory? You know, it's funny. I don't think I slept on Sunday night. And I don't think any of my neighbors slept as well. You know, I was going around town, getting groceries and then things like that.

And like these very like bleary dilated eyed faces looking back at me, just kind of like, go birds, go birds. Like not even able to process how the Eagles won that Super Bowl. Since then, we had a little snow, we've had some other things here. It's been gearing up for tomorrow's parade where all of us are kind of like, hey, we're all going to go to this parade. Is it going to be okay? Or, you know, is the city going to survive this?

Are we going to survive this? It's a very surreal experience. I just want to congratulate you for your betting advice that you left us with. Truly phenomenal. And the only thing that you did wrong was you didn't go far enough with it. You suggested to tease the Eagles to minus six

and a half and that would give you about a plus 300 because you saw potential for a big Eagles win and you compared it to the scenario when the Seahawks blew out the Denver Broncos in their Superbowl. Was that the game that the scenario that you saw play out or was it a little bit different? It was a lot like that game and there were two games I brought up that one where the Seahawks beat the Peyton Manning Broncos and a couple years ago where Tom Brady Buccaneers beat

the Chiefs but it was mostly the front four not Brady doing most the work. And that was the scenario that I kind of envisioned, where you look at this front four, and then you look at a very weak, very wobbly offensive line with guys playing out of position, and you say, there could be wins at two or three positions in the trenches, two or three places along the line, it could buckle. So if an offensive line buckles in one place, Mahomes can scramble away, or you can do something else.

You can run the ball the opposite direction. If everyone's losing, you get what you got yesterday, which was earlier in the week, which was Mahomes running for his life and not having anywhere to go. You get what you got when the, uh, when the Seahawks beat the Broncos, which is Peyton Manning just throwing the ball away for his life. And that's a lot of what we saw. And that's why increasingly, even early in that game, when it was seven, nothing in the Eagles, offense was sputtering.

It started to look like, I don't know how the chiefs are even going to score points in this game and they didn't until the game was completely out of hand. Mike, what are some lessons that the rest of the NFL can take from the Eagles? Uh, another way of putting it is how did the Eagles build that team? You know, one of the little secrets is when you have really good core players and the Eagles had really good core players getting back to not just two years ago but there's still guys there who were in the Super Bowl against Tom Brady seven or eight years ago.

There were guys who were there in some lean times so they knew where the best players. You got to extend their contracts and what happens is if you've got a guy and you like him but his contract is due in two years, get an extension now. Don't get the extension. Don't wait for free agency. Don't wait till there's, you know, they're talking about him seeking other offers. Do it now. If you look at the contracts of AJ Brown, Jordan Malata, Devontae Smith, Lane Johnson, all of these other key guys who are not the younger guys, Jalen Hurts as well.

They're all extended for three or four more years. When you contrast that with what's going on in Cincinnati right now, where this was a team a couple of years ago that was a Super Bowl team, everybody's mad. Everyone's requesting a trade. Everyone's going to get a top of the market contract where if you pay one guy, you have three others you have to say no to. When you do that, you shatter the teams. What the Eagles did was consistently keep their good players so they were in a position to add to them.

Have we talked enough about just how dominant this Eagles team was specifically in the NFC Championship game and then the Super Bowl to put up 95 points of offense in those two games to outscore your opponents by collectively 50. So an average margin of 25 points per game. Like it wasn't that Philadelphia went on a crazy run and got a lot of luck and maybe got a fortunate road. Although you could say that with Washington in the NFC championship, maybe, but they went in and just flat out dominated the two biggest games of the year. And I wonder if that's really gonna make us

either reimagine or sort of re-rank them when it comes to the great pantheon of Super Bowl winners. Yeah, they're a tricky team to put in that category because I can remember in late October, the same bleary-eyed neighbors I was doing shots with the other day were like, we gotta fire Sirianni. We have to do something about this. It really was. And even when the team was like four

and two, five and two, there were these games where they only pulled away at the end and they're only beating teams like the Saints and the Browns because you know, Barclay gets a late run and that's the victory margin of the game. But the team got better, better and better. And you say, well, why did this team get better and better and better? It's like, well, you had two rookie cornerbacks. Here's a surprise. Rookie cornerbacks are bad when they start and then get better. Both of them got better as the year went on and you saw them in the last couple of games. You know, they had a new defensive and offensive coordinator. It takes a few weeks for everyone to figure out what they're doing. And both

Kellan Moore's offensive, Vic Fangio's defense came around at the end. So yeah, this was an outstanding team at the end. I think their defense started to become really outstanding around week seven, week eight, week nine, but it was hard to see because sometimes the offense played down to their opponents. Sometimes there was a lapse here and there. Sometimes they were facing a great team like the Ravens and they were beating them, but you know, it's going to be a little closer. What we saw at the end was really a fruition of a season long journey for these Eagles. How big a challenge is it going to be for the Chiefs

to get back to a fourth straight Super Bowl? Ah, the same, it's going to be the same challenge as ever. It's like they're going to, it's going to be them and the Ravens and the Bills, and they've got the mojo advantage because the Ravens and the Bills are kind of used to not quite getting there. The Chiefs are going to lose some guys. I know Travis Kelsey is talking about mulling about mulling things. Um,

but the bills are probably going to lose some guys too. And the Ravens are going to lose sometimes guys, all those teams are veteran teams with some cap issues that they have to solve. Uh, I think that, you know, in the end, uh, you know, Andy Reed can look at this and say, I see what I did wrong. I thought the offensive line was going to stay together. It's not going to stay together. We need more guys there.

He's going to do that. He's not going to lose Spagnola. They're not going to lose some of the young players on both sides of the ball. They're not going to lose Xavier worthy who looks like he's turning into a player. They're going to be fine. They're going to be in the mix again in 2025. How tough is life going to be for Philadelphia now that they've lost their offensive coordinator, Kellen Moore, who took the head coaching job with the Saints?

Moore is going to be a loss. And people here are talking in Philly. It's like, get somebody like Frank Rykin as offensive coordinator who's not going to get a head coaching offer. Get somebody in who's like an older guy who's stable, who can just sort of maintain the things that the team does well rather than risking the next 30-year-old wonderkid who stable who can just sort of like maintain the things that the team does well rather

than risking the next 30 year old wonder kids who might not, who might rub somebody the wrong way. The real loss is coming. The one guy the Eagles cannot afford to keep probably is Zach Bond, the all pro linebacker. They only signed him on a one year deal because they didn't know how good he was going to be. He's probably going to get like a hundred and some million dollar contract elsewhere. The Eagles can't really match that.

So the Eagles are going to slip a little bit, but again, if you look around the NSA, most of the teams in the top are going to slip a little bit. Most of the teams are behind, are going to stay behind. You know, the lions are going to be good when they get everybody healthy and they're going to be a problem, but the Eagles should stay in the mix. Now, speaking of the saints where Kellen Moore landed,

their former offensive coordinator, Clint Kubiak, is now the offensive coordinator in Seattle for the Seahawks and I've been meaning to ask you about this for a couple of weeks because I know that a lot of people were high on Kubiak because it like the lineage, the coaching tree that he came from and then when the few weeks the Saints were actually healthy last year and they had all their component pieces They look like a pretty interesting offense and that they could move the ball around pretty well What's Kubiak's profile like and what can we expect in Seattle this year?

You're right those first couple weeks I was like a Clint Kubiak is a head coaching candidate the running game was really diverse and Interesting and it looked like the kind of things that you see from Kyle Shanahan. And of course, all those things come from Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak, the coaches who were very clever about building zone blocking, running games, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So you should see some of that. The more the wheels fell off the wagon in New Orleans, the less solutions he had it was

actually kind of depressing to see okay it's one thing when Spencer Rattler is your quarterback they're not going to get much done but they weren't so injured for a few weeks that they had to like abandon all their creativity they abandoned all their creativity quickly so what I hope for a Seahawks fans you're going to see is a team that can put two running backs in the backfield and have them you know doing two different things and then you know faking one going to the other throwing in the flat to see is a team that can put two running backs in the backfield and have them, you know, doing two different things and then, you know, faking one going to the other, drawing in the flat to one it for play actions, the other, all those kinds of things that NFL teams did 30 years ago, they don't do now. You can catch up offensive spots, opponents by surprise. You've

got the backs to do that. I hope you see some of that stuff, some of that level of creativity, because that's what he brought to the table for the Saints early in the year. It seems like running the football is so back. Yes. Isn't it great? Isn't it fun? Balance. Balance is wonderful.

Did it ever really go away or, you know, like, I mean, we lived through the let Russ cook era here in Seattle where, you know, running the football was like, what are you doing here? You're running the football too much. And now I'm laughing. I'm having a chuckle because now we're back in Seattle. It's a different coaching staff, but they're kind of

like saying a lot of the same things that Pete Carroll said. You know, when you look at the Patrick Mahomes Chiefs, they don't run the ball much. The running is very much an afterthought. If you look at the Tom Brady patients, they didn't run the ball much. The running is very much an afterthought. If you looked at the Tom Brady patients, they didn't run the ball much. Running was an afterthought running was we're up by three scores in the fourth quarter, everything's built around Brady and a lot of the modern coaches, a lot

of the guys who were coaches for Brady and for Peyton Manning, the running game was the afterthought you created your passing game and then you had some running plays that you would use almost like, okay, everyone needs a rest, now we're gonna do in-side zone, outside zone, and it was super primitive. What you've been seeing from the McVeys,

the Shanahan's, and from like, on the other side of this, you know, the coaches who have like offensive lines, like the Lions, like the Eagles, is the return of the creativity. It's not just that you're willing to run the ball a little more often, but there's more thought put behind how you're of the creativity. It's not just that you're willing to run the ball a little more often, but there's more thought put behind how you're running the ball. It's not all very primitive.

And that helps a lot of these backs. That makes it harder for defenders. Then you can run passes that look like those, like play action off of those plays, and it creates a different offense. I think the NFL is better for it when we're doing this, and we're not just lining up in shotgun 45 times a game, and everyone's

so wild you hand off off tackle to Isaac Pacheco. But it all starts with the offensive line, right? I mean, the Seahawks can say they want to run the ball, but if they're not blocking for the running back, they can scheme up all they want and have a very talented running back, but it's not going to work. It's not going to work, but you do have guys on your offensive line who might fit better in a more run blocking system,

who might get coached into a better situation because a lot of times good, not great. Your second tier office of lineman can look a lot better when they're teeing off the ball where they know where they're going. They don't have to worry about the pass rush. And yeah, you're always looking like a better blocker on third and two, then you're going to look on third and 12. And that's one of the things that Clint Kupiak is going to try to bring to the

table. Okay. So the Superbowl is done. The parade is tomorrow. Mike, what's next next up for you in terms of benchmarks in the NFL off season, what are you focused on next? Focus on getting ready for the scouting combine and for free agency. And you know, the scouting combine is twofold. It is the draft. It's getting ready for the draft and it's getting those coaches, coordinators A up on the podiums where they have to lie to us and then B into the steak houses of Indianapolis where they talk to the agents and they make all these crazy deals.

So that's what I'm looking for. There's going to be stuff on the too deep zone right now. There's some, some humor on there where I'm joking about some of the crazy things we're going to be talking about in the off season, but it's only a week and a half away we're gonna be down in Indy and we're gonna be talking about transactions and first round picks and Cam Ward and Sugar Sanders and it's gonna be amazing. Well, Mike, on behalf of Jason, the entire show here,

we wanna thank you once again for another awesome season of NFL coverage. We love having you as our weekly NFL insider. And I always say this when I bid farewell, it's like, I always say goodbye. And then I know in two weeks time, we'll be like, let's get Mike on the phone. Something big has happened. So it won't be that long until we talk again, but I did.

What do you think about Aaron Rogers and Pete Carroll together with the Vegas Raiders? Yeah, like when we call you the first day of March to talk about that. However, all that said, I do want to thank you very much. It's been another fantastic season talking NFL with you every week. A privilege and a pleasure and an honor absolutely working with you guys every week.

Thanks Mike, we appreciate it. Talk soon bud. That's Mike Tan here, our NFL insider from the Two Deep Zone here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, let's get back into the Four Nations face off. Four Nations facing off. Now, we're not gonna have a foreign nations face off, foreign nations facing off. Um, now we're not going to have a foreign nations face off three years from now in

2028 Jason, sounds like we're getting back to a good old fashioned world cup. Yeah, it's going to return in February of 2028, so we are going to do the mid season break. We're not going to do the, do the August and September tournament that the Canada Cup and the World Cup used to be. Nah, I kind of disagree with you on that. I disagree with you on that.

Okay. Well, that's fine. I don't, you know, whatever. Uh, it's, it's a long time away. Um, what it's going to do is it's going to establish a regular cycle of international best on best hockey competitions. It's all going to be played in February,

whether it's the World cup or the Olympics, and it's going to alternate between the Olympics and the world cup every two years. It's going to feature at least eight national teams without combining countries, as we've seen in previous editions. No more team North America, no more team Europe. The bidding process for host cities and venues

is expected to commence in the next few months. So cities or teams are going to bid for the rights to host these games. And we might see a few games over in Europe. Now, will Russia be there? Um, that remains uncertain due to geopolitical issues, but the way things are going down south, I think Russia is going to be involved in this.

And I wouldn't be surprised if Putin is invited to drop the ceremonial first buck. Like honestly, it's headed that way. Russia is going to be in this thing. Like it is, um, so, so getting back to this regular schedule though, I think, well, there's never really been a regular schedule in hockey. Let's face it, but starting a regular schedule

is going to be great for the game. If you like this international best on best. So this is really interesting because a reminder that the four nations face off and the world cup of hockey in 2028 are joint NHL, NHLPA ventures. But if they're gonna go to an eight country and possibly more, there's gonna be a couple things. I think one, they're going to have players

that aren't in the NHL. There's no way that you're going to be able to have eight rosters of players of purely NHL players. So they're going to have to go outside of that. That'll be interesting too, because they're not going to use the double IHF. Nope.

This is going to be a, I don't, I mean, I don't honestly, I don't know how that's going to work. So are they, so is the KHL going to be like, yeah, sure. You can have your, you can have these players for this non-KHL, non-double IHF. It's one of the things theyL going to be like, yeah, sure. You can have your, you can have these players for this non KHL, non double IHF. It's one of the things they're going to have

to work out because I mean, when Bebban said at least eight teams, that really kind of caught my attention because you do have an opportunity here to put together something that wouldn't necessarily rival the Olympics, but would be a lot closer than what the Four Nations is. There was talk of qualifying. Yes, that's the part that I wanted to bring up.

Pre-tournament qualifying. I don't know how that would work though. Because the thing is, when you have an expanded tournament, logistically it just gets harder to pull off. You need more venues, you need more dates, you need longer time off. You need to figure out how you're going to come up with the eight teams.

Like the four nations was admittedly like, it was so stupidly simple. It was kind of brilliant. It's like, we'll just ask four countries and that's the end of it. We call it the four nations, really simple. This gets a lot more complicated. Um, do you, does the NHL want to host a separate

qualifying tournament to find the eight teams that they want in the 2028 World Cup. I mean, it would take place in Europe. I know, but I'm just saying. I don't think Canada and United States are going to have to qualify for the tournament. But it's all logistics. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's all getting the teams to, you know what I mean?

But it's also an opportunity to make money, right? 100%. And those qualifying games probably aren't going to be the biggest moneymakers on the planet, right? Like Latvia playing Germany with NHL ice and NHL officials. I mean, who knows? There's an opportunity for sure. Um, here's what I'll say. One thing that you've got to remember about

Olympics past, and we always tend to focus on the big marquee matchups and how Canada, US or Canada, Russia, whatever is that there's also, and I've talked about this a lot, the Cinderella factor, right? The really small underdog tiny nations that the Olympic competition can only really ever bring to the fore.

And I'm not even just talking about hockey, man. You go through the lengthy history of summer and winter Olympics and you talk about the massive underdogs, the David Verthaus Goliath, the Minnows, that wasn't expected, but gets on this grand world stage and is able to shine. You know, you had Latvia throwing a scare into

the Canadians at the 2014 tournament. You had Belarus sort of famously upsetting Sweden, and that was at the 2002 winter Olympics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. The stupid Swiss all the time with Canada. Swiss and their shootouts. Let's not forget, I mean, the 98 Czech team

led by Dominik Hasek 20 years on is still considered one of the most important sporting accomplishments in the history of the country. So there are those moments in those instances that only the Olympics can bring. If the NHL is able to kind of grab on to some of that, I think it would be great. I think it would be great, for example, if Leon Dreisaitl was able to drag a German team up by the bootstraps and get a result against a big country in an NHL an NHL event, like that's fantastic marketing for the NHL, right?

I mean, by the time that this tournament comes around, it'll be a little bit tougher for like a Copa Taro to do it with like Slovenia or something like that. It's going to be really interesting to see how the NHL gets the release of players from their own pro leagues, you know, whether it's KHL or other European leagues, I mean, there's going to have to be, they're going to have to pay for it. Yep.

Right. Like how, how do you imagine, right? Would you like, if you're a pro, let's, let's take the KHL out of it. Let's say you've got a German player playing for you in the German league. And then, so he's obviously a pretty good player if he could play for Germany internationally. So then the NHL and the NHLPA goes to that club and goes, Hey, can we, can we have this guy for two weeks?

Well, okay. Why? What's in it for us? It's going to be the same, they're going to make the same argument that the NHL makes to the Olympics. What's in it for us? I'll throw another wrinkle into this too. And this was actually brought up by Chris Johnson back in

December talking about, I don't know if you guys saw this story, the Italian Hockey Federation, the head of the 2026 Olympics, is they were looking to sort of, I guess for lack of a better term, naturalize some players to play for Italy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wonder. This was always the case with the host nations if they're not a hockey country. I do wonder if that might, I mean, it would be a little bit more difficult because I think most of the nationalities are already established, but maybe there's a handful of guys that could qualify

for a different country through lineage, grandparents, whatever, and play for somebody else going into an eight nation tournament. They don't have Mike Keenan as the coach anymore though, so. Italy? Recruiting is going to be tough. Uh, it will be, but however, like think about it.

Like if you're, I don't know, Andrew Mangiapane and you're not going to play for Canada. Yeah. I think that's pretty well established. Do you go and say, okay, like I want to, I want to do this. I don't, I wouldn't see. He would play for Ireland. Of course.

That's an Irish name. Yes. I like, I, but all joking aside, like why wouldn't you? It's again, as I bring it back, because I did this yesterday with international competitions, always looking at international football, soccer, because that's the one that has the most frequent competitions.

They've completely redone citizenship and who you can play for and what the boundaries and limits and statutes are on changing affiliations, you know, using a greater lineage in your family's past to be able to play for different countries. And it's really opened it up and made it very interesting. Should ask Landon if he'll come out of retirement.

To play for Italy. Italy, yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay. We've got an open segment on the other side. So texting any questions or comments into the Dunbar lumber text line, 650, 650 Metro Vancouver's trusted choice for contractors and Renault Warriors for over 50 years. questions or comments into the Dunbar Lumber text line, 650-650, Metro Vancouver's trusted

choice for contractors and Renault Warriors for over 50 years. Visit them at one of their three locations to serve you or online at dunbarlumber.com. There are a lot of texts about Pedersen. So I guess we will talk about Pedersen. Believe it or not, I didn't want to do it. It's my fault. Pedersen is really not a big storyline for me after last night's game, but he is for a lot of people. So we will talk about it. It was not a good game by him, but look at the competition guys.

And maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe that's part of the problem, right? Pedersen is not looking like he belongs so much in a game where the best players in the world are all playing and he is being paid like that. But that's been the case for a year. So, you know, maybe did we all think that one game against Toronto was going to change everything? I sure did. Yes. Yeah. I guess we, I guess we all think that one game against Toronto was gonna change everything?

I sure did. Yes. Yeah, I guess we had that hope. Anyway, lots more to discuss and we'll also go through some of the other, we'll do a little trade deadline stuff if we've got time because we didn't yesterday on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Mick Nazar. Have your say and join me on the People's Show with big takes and even bigger bets,

weekdays three to four on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. 7.33 on a Thursday. A thrash Thursday here on the health and the prep show on Sportsnet. They should have played this during the overtime last night. My heart couldn't take it. It would have fit nicely. What did everybody think of the 10 minute overtime? Amazing. The NHL should adopt that.

Did you hear McKinnon was like, no. Seven minutes maybe. Because he carried the puck by himself for like four of the minutes. If they would have lost, I would have come in and called him a puck hog. Yeah, you could have tried passing maybe. Once in a while, buddy. If there was one guy that got way too jacked up by the crowd cheering every time he touched a puck and overtime was McKinnon He's like I can hear it. It's powering me to the other end of the ice. He's so fun to watch though

That was great. He just I could see why he was exhausted by the back of the net every once in a while though. I really I Really really hope there's at least one more Canada power play so I could see McKinnon, Crosby, and McDavid again. I think there'll probably be one more Canada power play. Well, you never know. They might be like, nope, we're not taking more penalties. We can't.

Do you think they drew that one up? Yeah. That was planned, right? So nice. That was 15 seconds. So quick. That was planned. And the way that Sid did the cross-ice behind the back.

How do you defend that? It's just perfect. Block the pass. Well, you block the pass. That's where it starts. You wouldn't know because the pass is perfect. Yeah. It cannot be blocked. And it was so quick. Yeah.

They definitely planned that one. So did you know that- I really hope we see more. If this tournament was playing normal overtime rules, we wouldn't have seen Mitch Marner's goal last night because it came in the sixth minute. That's why the NHL needs to adopt it. I think, well, it's funny because Connor McDavid was asked about it in the post game

media availability. And he said that he thinks it's a great trial run and that got a lot of people's attention. Well, the BCHL has used it for the last couple of years and I cut all the games for the highlights for the BCHL. And it's actually kind of rare when a shootout happens.

It's like, wow, it's kind of a novelty all of a sudden all over again. McDavid added, the players liked it, the fans liked it. It felt a little more like it's in our hands. I don't really think anyone wants it to ever go to a shootout. That'd be interesting. This is an easy one that they could implement,

like starting next season. Like we're going from five minutes starting after the four nations. Right, yeah. And don't do some half measure where it's a four on four for the first seven. And then like just go three on three for 10, like come on. What did you guys think of the them not getting the full three points for going to overtime? I think it's a good idea for tie breaking purposes.

Yeah. So yeah, when they explained that, I was like, oh, I didn't even know that was a thing. It's very World Hockey Championships. It could be a costly point lost. Yes. Well, that's what I was thinking like. Yeah. For Canada.

Their punishing teams were going over time. Because there is the possibility that, let's say, to pick on them, Finland goes 0 and 3. Canada, the US and Sweden all go 2 and 1, right? Yeah. Maybe I'm, I don't know, maybe I'm not doing the math right there, but it could be costly, I guess. Well, it could, yeah, it could be.

Uh, I think put it this way, you're going to have a much clearer picture after tonight. After two games are in the books, you've got a really clear idea of like who's up against it and everything else. Also other, uh, fun little things that happened yesterday in the game that we noted. Did everyone see Sidney Crosby get in a loot bag at the end of the game? I tweeted this out.

Yeah, me too. I jokingly- Had a bunch of coupons. Did he get a watch? Yeah, I jokingly tweeted out. I was like something like, oh, there was like a fidget spinner and a rolo in there for him or something. Like they gave a hockey card. Right. It was an Arby's gift card.

It wasn't, he got his choice of watches apparently. It was either a Rolex or an IWC. And he went with a swatch. Casio actually. Yeah, he's like, look, you can see the gears. It's pretty cool. He went with the Casio calculator watch. You know that would be a Sid thing too.

It's like, I like a calculator on my watch. It seems handy to have. I never heard, I'm not a- For the 10% tip that I leave at every restaurant. I'm not a watch guy at all. No, me neither. Ron Hainsey apparently put this together. He went out and got the watch people on board.

I don't know how it works, but- Did you see the watch that Brady was rocking during the Super Bowl? Was it the big ornate gold one? Yeah, it was a very expensive watch. All the watch nerds were all over it. Are you a watch guy? No. Do you have a watch? Yeah man. I have a... You got a watch? Right now I have a Garmin to track my heart rate. That's pretty nice. Every time... That's always beeping loudly. Every time Adog yawns during the show my heart rate

goes up to about 175. Anytime Petey's on the ice, your watch just explodes. Oh God, I guess we need to get into the Pedersen discourse with that. I was trying to dance around it with all this fun watch talk. Yeah, he looked slow last night. Okay. What else, I don't know what else I can say about it. Well, I got some things I wanna say.

Okay, go for it. You, I'll put my mic off. Yeah, okay. At the beginning of the show, we were running through a bunch of stuff that happened in the game last night. And I said, okay, I put together the numbers on Pedersen real quick.

I said, look, these are what they are. He played 1632 time on ice. That was ninth among Swedish forwards. Only Lindholm and Arvidsson and Nyquist played less. He was credited on the stat sheet with one hit and one shot on goal. And he took 12 face-offs, one two lost 10. People were upset that I was pointing that out. They're like, why don't you point out that Adrian Kempe only played 35 more seconds? I'm like, I don't feel the need to. Like you go go looking up if you want.

You played the ninth amount or the ninth most minutes among the forwards. You played the ninth most. It is what it is. I don't know why I need to recontextualize it for any of you chuds. It is what it is. You can say, well, Don't, don't, don't call the listeners chuds. Scott, you're being a chud. You can say, well. Don't, don't, don't call the listeners chuds. Scott, you're being a chud. You can only, you can only say what it is. Like he's an $11.6 million center who was

supposed to be either the one C or the two C. And yesterday he got deployed as the three C. Yeah. So you tell me what. And he got like two shifts in overtime. He was not a go-to guy for Sweden. He was not a go-to guy for Sweden. That's the way you should put it.

No, I'm not putting it, I'm putting it, you know what, I don't want to put any spin on it whatsoever. I just want to deliver. That's not spin though. He was not a go-to guy for Sweden. But you know, if you were to ask the coach in the aftermath and Sam Hallam, Sam Hallam, whoa, bench PD.

In his post media availability, I think there was only a select number of reporters there because shockingly the majority of them went to go do Canada and John Cooper in the room and everything. So he was asked very specific questions about very specific players. I did not hear a question about Elias Pettersson.

He was asked about like Ricard Raquel and Lucas Raymond, two of the guys that he thought played really well yesterday. He also shouted out Eric Carlson. He thought Eric Carlson played a really good game. Nice pass on the second goal through the neutral zone. So that was the Swedish takeaway. Didn't really get the coach's thoughts on

Pedersen in particular. Um, it was a game in which a lot of Swedish players didn't exactly have the greatest night. And, and I'd say Pedersen was one of them. That's being objective. But anyway, as I was saying this in the intro and some people were I guess trying to accuse us of finding new creative ways to hate on Pedersen which wasn't the intent at all some people then followed up with you

guys aren't holding PD accountable enough there needs to be more Elias Pedersen criticism. And this is another reminder that he's not playing up to the standards befitting of an $11.6 million dollar player. You know, I just think at a certain level, the PD discourse is unavoidable. I also think that a lot of this is born of people incredibly desperate to

see him return to form. I think that's all it is. Yeah, that's all it is. That's 100% it. And I think this one breathed new life into old tired discourse because it was a new team with a new role and a new opportunity and a reset and a breath of fresh air and all those things. And in game one, I think a lot of Canucks fans, probably scarred from what's gone on through the first 50 games of season, saw too much of the number 40 that they've seen through October, November, December, January, February.

If you can only just play the Toronto Maple Leafs. Maybe that's the key. You know, remember he won the two Toronto. Yeah, well he won the Selkie in Toronto. I forgot about that. And then had that, that, that good game against the Leafs that had a lot of people in Vancouver and for, for, for reasons thinking that maybe he was

going to turn his season around. And it wasn't just his play on the ice. A lot of it was his demeanor. And if you're in the camp like I am, where you think a lot of this is a confidence thing with Pedersen, you were hoping that his confidence would switch over with that performance, Saturday against the Leafs and then going to

play with his fellow countrymen for Sweden. Now, I think a lot of it is confidence, but I also think some of it is he's not strong enough physically. And I know his agent was on with Donnie and Dolly the other day and said that his knee tendonitis didn't allow him to train fully in the off season. And I have a lot of questions about that.

Um, like what was the training plan for Pedersen because he went into the off season, having just told the media and the fans through the media that he was having some issues with tendonitis. Now that got weird immediately because the Canucks kind of downplayed that and they were like, oh yeah, I think I heard it was almost like, I think I heard that. Like he had tendonitis and you know, they acted like it wasn't a big deal. But I want to know what was the plan for him in the

off season, because it's fairly clear to me that when he came to camp, tendonitis or no tendonitis, the Canucks were not happy with the work that he put in in the off season. So what kind of conversations have been occurring around that issue? Because no matter who's right or wrong, I think we can see that Pedersen needs to get stronger. Lower body, upper body, he needs to put more work in.

Lower body, upper body, he needs to put more work in. Now, if the tendonitis is going to be an issue, how do you work around that? And this is where the decision for the Canucks gets tricky because let's say the conclusion that they make on Pedersen is, all right, it all starts with getting stronger out there. Okay. His confidence will come if he's stronger, if he's able to, you know, put more into his stride, if

he's able to win more battles, he just needs to get stronger. Then, so you say, okay, we're going to hold onto him and we're going to hope that an off season where he works his butt off in the gym and, you know, we really help them and, you know, not against the CBA rules or anything, but like we monitor his

training and make sure the tendonitis isn't a thing and you know, like you can work around this stuff, right? And often tendonitis can be, can be because you don't have enough strength and it's an overuse injury and you're not strong enough. So, but then you, but that's a hell of a bet that you're going to make that an off season is going to

work and it's going to really help because as soon as July 1st hit hits the no move clause kicks in. So are you going to bet that number one, the off season training is going to help so significantly that it returns him to his game. And number two, are you going to bet that he can train to the level or he will train to the level that you need him at?

Do you see the complication in all this? Yeah, I mean, it's blindingly obvious. They've got, cause again, it's very much a, can we solve the problem with Pedersen? And that's what it's been since he signed the extension. Can we solve the problem? First, the problem was the wingers he was playing with. Well, they addressed that.

Then the problem was, huh, he didn playing with. Well, they addressed that. Then the problem was, huh, he didn't get along with JT Miller. Well, they solved that. And now the problem is apparently the off-season training regimen and tendonitis. It feels like a lot of problems. It feels like they spend an awful lot of time trying to solve the issues of a franchise

caliber player. And there's certain instances in the NHL where, you know, guys that are paid that way and are relied that much upon solve some of their own problems. Yeah. Because they're motivated to do it. I'm making this too black and white. Because they want to play better. Well, yeah.

And now there's another one. And the biggest problem of them all is, do we stay committed to this guy or do we move along? I just think of a guy like Mark Stone. We just saw him yesterday. Like, would you be having any of these kinds of issues with a guy like Mark Stone? No.

And his skating stride is not pretty to look at. It's terrible, but he's just so hungry all the time. Every time he touches that ice surface, he wants to be a madman. He's awesome. And he's awesome. Now the issue- He looks like a lunatic too, right?

Like have you seen him with like his hair is all like- You want that on your team. You need that on your team so badly, right? When you watch a game. He looks like Nick Nolte's mugshot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He looks like. Like if you, if you, if you were to get

them to pose for a picture, you'd be like, okay, hold this ax. Perfect. But there's no issues with a guy like that, right? Like he just, he just goes out there and gets the job done. Hold on.

There is an issue though. He misses a ton of time. That's true. Because that's his body through hell. It's advantageous for the golden knights though. Right. But he puts his body through hell. You know, like he's got a bad back and then he grinds the way that

he does and he's throwing himself all over the place and you love it. But he's also I mean, I don't want to say he's a bandaid, but he misses a lot of time. It's fair. Yeah, it's fair to say. Yeah. Okay, I think we should go. We tried to get into this yesterday, but we kind of ran out of time and we did cover some of it with Frank. But as we look at the NHL because a reminder a very important reminder NHL activity is not frozen rosters and trades are not frozen right now during the four nations face-off Teams are able and on some cases may be motivated to make moves now

so we wanted to identify some of the teams that we should be keeping an eye on because moves now. So we wanted to identify some of the teams that we should be keeping an eye on because this is sort of an opportunity for teams to maybe lay groundwork for trades going into the March deadline or you know get busy right now and continue on what over the last few weeks has been a very entertaining National Hockey League when it comes to player movement. We've seen more player movement on the marquee than we have in a long time this season. There's been more big in season trades this year than I can remember from years past. And it's been a very cool thing.

I'm curious to see what Montreal does. I don't know if you've been following this Russian kid that they've got Demidov. Yeah. He just had five assists in a KHL game and he's going to come over to the Habs at some point. And I know a lot of people were, you know, we were talking earlier in the show about where

Sid could go and maybe Montreal makes sense. And people kind of texted in, I was like, Montreal, like they're not even close to winning a cup. Why would, do you think they're just a Sidney Crosby away from winning a Stanley cup? They got some good young players that are coming and they've already got a good center in Nick Suzuki.

They're building something on the back end. Maybe Sam Montembeau can be the franchise goalie for them. I'll be curious to see what Montreal does just in terms of trying to clear something for the off season to try and make some big moves in the off season. When they trade for Sidney Crosby. Well, they got to appeal to Sidney Crosby even more if they're going to do that. But a guy like, I think they'll, the thing is they've got a lot of future assets that they could use to kind of accelerate the process.

That's what they've been bankrolling and stockpiling for years. Who are some of the guys that could move from Montreal ahead of the trade deadline? Jake Evans is the big one. He's probably the most enticing of them because he's having a career year offensively and he plays down the middle.

Actually, Harman Drantz, and we can talk to Drantz about this coming up at eight o'clock, had Evans as a potential fit for the Vancouver Canucks if they were going to dip into the rental market, David Savard, Christian Dvorak and Joël Armia, also known as Joel Armia. Joël Armia are guys that are expected to be shipped out because-

Could they move on from like a Josh Anderson. That's who I was thinking. Do you think they could clear space? You just somehow. You'd have to find someone willing to take on whatever is remaining on Josh Anderson's. He's so streaky and so slow a lot of the time. He's got two years left at five and a half, and I

think he's got like a five team, no trade list. Yeah. But that would be clearing some space. Um, I guess they're just going to keep Lina. Um, although as, as, as good as a story as that was early on in the season, like I, I don't know. Get to see Lina play tonight. Yeah.

That's right. He is. He's got like 12 goals this season and his play has really fallen off. If you haven't been watching the Montreal Canadians, like I could easily see Linay out of the league soon. Uh, you know.

When his contract is up. You know who I'm going to be keeping an eye on over this break and then leading up to March, the St. Louis Blues and whatever Doug Armstrong is up to in St. Louis. So if you missed this over the last week,

there are reports out there that Braden Shen has been drawing interest around the National Hockey League and that maybe, just maybe, Army and the Blues might consider doing it. I mean, at this point, they've gone down a lot of different roads with this roster. They've made the coaching change, plural, right? They went from Barube to Bannister to Montgomery.

It's just not happening. They are the dictionary definition of mid. They're not bad enough to be rock bottom. They are good enough to be a playoff team. They bet on Kairou and Robert Thomas. They gave those guys big contracts and those are good players, but they're not franchise players in my opinion. I could understand why a lot of teams would be lining up to get Brayden Shen. Hell,

I would love to have Brayden Shen, especially if you're on the way to the playoffs. It will cost a pretty penny. I think that's the holdup here. You've got three years left after this. Right. And he's 33. You may be doing this sort of like, well, he'll help us this year, maybe next year, maybe it doesn't age especially well, but I got a lot of time for Raiden Shen. And I think if you're a playoff team, you could

do a hell of a lot worse than adding him, but it would have to be one of those things where you're acknowledging it's for this year and the next, and you're going to need to pay a lot because this would be a pretty profound trailer. You don't trade your captain all that often, especially when it's still performing at a relatively high level like Shen is.

What about Seattle? They're, if you look at Frank Saravelli's trade targets board, it's like littered with Seattle cracking players, whether it's, you know, Yanni Gord or Brandon Tanev or Oliver Bjorkstrand and all the superstars that they've amassed in Seattle. And now I guess we're hearing Jared McCann's name in trade rumors.

Yeah, this one came up midweek is that McCann, who is 28 now, remember when he was just a kid? Just a kid. He's now 28. He's got a $5 million cap hit through 26, 27. It's a weird one because at his height, McCann He's got a five million dollar cap hit through 26-27. It's a weird one because at his height, McCann was like, he was a 40 goal guy.

And some people are saying that it could just be a case where he's played his best hockey and he might be in the downturn or even though he's only 28. Don't pay so there's 60 points this year. Yeah, it's more of the goal scoring that's down. He's only got 14 through 57 games. I think you could do worse

Five million you got to remember as we go along and the cap continued to goes up go up There's a pretty affordable ticket for a guy that has bounced around a lot like make no mistake about her Canucks fans I think are pretty well versed in the Jared mccain journey as he's gone throughout the NHL And he had me to me he had that one year in Seattle where he was probably their best player or at the very least their best forward. But I don't know how much of a market there would be for the guy.

I've got a real mental block going right now with the Canucks because if they're addressing things in their top six, I really want them to add some size and toughness to the top six. So I see Jared McCann and I know he can score goals and I know goal scoring has been an issue for the Canucks, but he's a pretty slight guy. He's what?

190 pounds, doesn't play a super physical game. So I don't know if that's my blind spot or just, I don't know, but every player that I hear, you know, should the Canucks target this guy? Like I'm just going to admit it right now. Like everyone, like people will say, what about Barzell? I'm like too small. Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? I don't like the physical mix of the Canucks top six right now. I think Barzell is a great by low candidate. If you're going to do something big in the off, you can completely remodel. And by that, I mean, like if you're going to do something big in the office and completely remodel. And by that, I mean, like if you're. PD and Barzell down the middle. Well, I'm not, I'm not thinking about those two

together in Vancouver. I'm thinking about Barzell being in Vancouver. It's just so hard to find that these top six guys that are big, strong, but if you want to win in the playoffs, look at Florida's top six. Yeah. You know? Like Sam Bennett is going to get paid and

probably overpaid, but there's a reason for that. And, and no question you're going to need it. I'm talking about like a remodel remodel. And if you, all I'm saying with Barzell is to one local kid, which I think would be great to get back, but also I do think that if you're looking at by low candidates across the NHL, he might be one of them where he's played

in a pretty structured defensive oriented system. He's never really had like elite wingers to play with. And I think if there's a guy, did you see that video that was floating around a month ago where he was sitting on the bench in New York and he seemed to be caught mouthing on the bench. Like, I can't believe how sad this crowd is. I'm paraphrasing.

Yeah, yeah. But like, there could be a guy where there's motivation with a move and I would love it as bring, like I'm always about bringing the local kids home. Right now, is he eventually gonna block Conor Bernard and Macklin Sellabree, when they come back to Vancouver? Maybe, but for now, for this year anyway,

I think I'd like to see it. Okay, we're up against it for time, we gotta go to break. Before we go to break, I need to tell you about Denny's, yes, the restaurant. True North Taste the Waits with Denny's 100% Canadian beef burgers made with new shredded iceberg lettuce on a brioche bun and all the classic ingredients you love. Thomas Drance is coming up on the other side.

The hockey talk continues here on the Haliford and Bref Show on Sportsnet 650.