Halford & Brough in the Morning - Is Jordan Binnington Really Going To Start For Team Canada?

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), plus they preview tonight's Canucks matchup at the Red Wings with Detroit Hockey Now's Kevin Allen (26:30). 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.

You're listening to Haldan-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Here's celebrating moving in. Back to Acklin. He's got it. He scores William Eickland from Becklin's celebrating. The Sharks win in overtime, four to three. Oh, no!

No, no, you know, quickly wins it for Toronto. Three ball at the horn. Banked in. Paulo baked it in. Paulo baked it in. And the magic, get out of here with a dump. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Thursday. What energy to start the show. It is Halpert and his broth in Sportsnet 650. We are coming live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Hey, dog.

Good morning to you. Good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Bruff in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Score a debt freedom hat trick, one no more interest, two much lower payments and three financial peace of mind. Visit them online at sands-trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program.

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The guest list today, also known as the Doick Morning Drive, brought to you by the Duick Auto Group, begins at 630. Kevin Allen from Detroit Hockey Now, longtime USA Today writer is going to join the program. Canucks are in Detroit to take on the Red Wings tonight. 4 p.m. You can hear the call right here on SportsNet 650. Kevin will join us for a Red Wings preview at 630 this morning. 7 o'clock this morning, former Vancouver Canucks assistant general manager,

newly minted VP of Hockey Ops for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Lawrence Gilman is going to join the program. Longtime friend of the Halford and Bruff Show, dating all the way back to the curtain blog days. He now gets to work with another long-time friend of the program, Don Waddell, the only general manager that will take our calls in the summer. And a very funny guy. He's great.

They're going to have some laughs together. They're going to be great. Lawrence is a good dude. I'm happy for them. Lawrence Gilman is going to join the program at 7 o'clock this morning. 7.30 Brady Henderson, our Seahawks insider from ESPN. No Seahawks game this weekend. Uh-uh. They're maxing and relaxing. As the number one seed in the NFC, they get a buy right through this wild card weekend. Some Seahawks talk with Brady at 7.30 this morning. Losers having to play games in the wildcard weekend.

Could you imagine? Not me. 8 o'clock. Thomas Dr. Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Connecticut. It's going to join us at 8 a.m. As mentioned, Canucks are back in action tonight, and they now have to win four of their next five to keep my road trip prediction alive. We can talk to Dranser about that,

and whatever else we want, because it's our show at 8 a.m. this morning. We have two giveaways on the program today as well. At 7.30, Vancouver Giants tickets for the January 10th game against the Wanchi Wild. The new look Giants. Yeah, that's right. They traded everybody.

Not everybody. Most players. They shuffled the deck, quite hard. They are playing January 10th this weekend against the one at you wild. Caller number 5 at 7.30 this morning will win a pair of tickets. 604-280-0-650. That's at 7.30. And then at 8 a.m., we're giving away a pair of tickets to see Chris Stapleton

in the All-American Road Show, July 22nd, 2026, Rogers Arena. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m. 8 a.m. this morning, 604, 280, 0-650. We'll win those tickets. I will do my best to remind everyone ahead of time when the calls are for the Giants tickets and the Chris Stapleton tickets. Anyway, that's the program. That's what's happening today.

Laddie, without further ado, to tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be.

What happened? Missed it? You missed that? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCC. CSA.ca.

Jason, I have a question for you. Would you like to start the show today with news that is positive and optimistic for Team Canada at the upcoming Olympics or negative and pessimistic? Let's start with the positivity. Let's do it. And let's focus on a good North Vancouver kid.

Macklin Celebrini. Late last night, well past 10 o'clock, Macklin Celebrini set up the game winning goal after scoring the game tying goal in a very enter. entertaining 4-3 win for the San Jose Sharks against the L.A. Kings in overtime yesterday. Let's play the audio of the game-winning play in which Celebrini set up William Eklund for the game-winning goal. Campaign still with it, leaves it. Celebrini. It's caught in the linesman skates, but he's got it.

Two-on-one with Eklund. Maclin, the pass. They score! The sharks do it. They beat the Kings here in L.A. Celebrini to Eklund. in overtime. You missed the last part of the call. He goes, in overtime, it's over. And that was the call. There's a huge delay before he says it too. It's probably why I cut it out.

He kept on adding facts. Yeah. In overtime, in L.A. 107. In the state of California, the largest state based on population. A land mass of 60,000. So we need to talk about Macklin Celebrini.

It's over time. It's over. There it is. Celebrini right now has a 12-game point streak. During that 12-game point streak, he has nine goals and 15 assists. That's 24 points during the 12-game point streak. He is tied for the third longest point streak by a teenager, because remember, he's still only 19 years old. Crazy. Joe Sackick, Wayne Gretzky, and Jimmy Carson is in there as well.

I don't know how, but good shout out to Jimmy Carson for being on that list. But three teenagers previously had a point streak this long in NHL history. Celebrating becomes the fourth. I am so fired up for what he's going to do in February for Team Canada at the Olympics. And then eventually when he becomes a Vancouver Canuck five or six years down the road, very excited for that as well. Got to be patient. But I'm very, I love this story.

I absolutely love this story. He is great. We've talked. Do you know there's another celebrini coming to? RJ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He's playing at the North Shore Winter Club. He's like 14. Yeah. Yeah. He's on a team that Carl Turr has put together. Oh, yeah. I read about this. Yeah.

He's tearing it up right now. Yeah. Yeah. I feel weird. There's a certain threshold of age with hockey players. Mm-hmm. You know, like junior hockey's fine. Like it's kind of ingrained in the Canadian culture that you're watching like 16-year-olds run around

and back in the day fight each other while you drank $5 beer. But now it's cool. it's going younger and younger. You can watch the Brick tournament, for example, where they're like 9 and 10 years old. But the RJ Celebrini stuff was all over the internet. Celebrini Macklin has 67 points in 43 games. Only two guys are above him in terms of points.

Both of them Canadians. Let's go. Connor McDavid was 75 points, and Nathan McKinnon with 74 points. I mean, those three could easily be the heart, trophy finalists this year. If you had to put a short list together, those would be the three. Those would be the ones, I think, right now.

And Celebrini also plus 17, which says something about him, but Moore says something about the San Jose Sharks. You know, sometimes if your best player is a big minus, it doesn't necessarily say anything about you. Like, Ovechkin had some big minus season when the Washington Capitals weren't very good because the best players on a bad team get a lot of ice time. so are the sharks

What are they? Are they good? I don't even know. I watched him last night. Watch a game last night. Yeah. Maybe it says even more about Celebrini that they're a bad team

and he is actually plus 17. They kind of got caved in in the third period. The Kings took a lead on a crazy Joel Edmondson goal that got chalked off because on review he had knocked the puck in with his hand.

Then they scored again to go up three too late. So you're thinking okay, the Kings played better in the third period. They got their just desserts. With 107 remaining, and Laddie texted this to the group chat as well, as did I, the place Celebrini made to get that thing into overtime was a complete solo effort,

a singular effort. And it was kind of symbolic of the whole year. Like, they're not a great team. They've got their flaws, but he's playing at such a level that he's going to bring them to places that maybe they don't necessarily deserve to be like where they are in the standings and then where they were last night in that game. He's so strong on his skates.

It's crazy, because he's not huge. And, but he's, you can tell he's, he's fit. You know what I mean? Like he, he, um, he, I mean, it probably helps having a dad that's not only an athlete, but also like a specialist in training and keeping your body healthy and that sort of thing. But he, there's a reason why he draws so many comparisons to Sidney Crosby. You know, when Ray Ferraro does one of his games, he keeps, I feel like I'm watching Sid out there. And one of the things about Sid is he's, I mean, he was the perfect for the era that he came into,

which was pretty low scoring, and you had to be really, really strong on your skates. Like you still do, but there are players now that, you know, are not as big as strong as they had to be back at, back in those days. That play, the goal that he scored, not only was it a great individual effort, it showed that he can get to the interior of the ice. Yeah, that's exactly what he did. Do you know?

And I heard Dranzer talking yesterday about Gavin McKenna, and he wonders if McKenna has more to grow physically. And he's 17, right? And he looks pretty skinny. And he said, you know, well, Maybe he's got the type of body that still has some strength to come, right? Celebrini's already there. I know, that's the...

At 19. That's why he's able to thrive the way that he is. Yes. The other part of it was last night... Badard, when he first came into the NHL, sorry to cut you off. But Badard, he was, he was, he looked, he actually looked younger than his actual age. Yeah. You know, and I think he's starting to get a little bit stronger now.

and you're seeing the results on the eyes for him as well. Yeah, well, you talk about the strength and the fitness and everything else that allows celebrating to play the way they did. He was out there for almost the entirety of overtime. The play that happened 308 in overtime where he set up William Eklund for the game-winning goal, he was at the end of a two-plus minute shift. He had been out there for a long time, and he was able to steal the puck. I believe it was a Fiala, go the other way, set up Eklund,

and it looked like it was no problem. Like he could have gone another two minutes on that shift and stayed out the rest of overtime. There have been a bunch of goals where he's made a defensive play and then got those legs pumping and made an offensive play, which is pretty good for a center. Yep. You know, and that's what the great centers can do

because they're great skaters and they're in incredible shape. So that's the good stuff. Yeah. For future Vancouver Caduc Macklin Celebrating. For Canada. Yeah. Now, Jordan Bennington shut out the Montreal Canadiens the other day, and a lot of people were relieved to see that, unless you were a fan of the Montreal Canadiens, because correct me if I'm wrong here, but Canada named the Olympic team,

and Jordan Bennington was on it. And then approximately five minutes later, he allowed three goals in like five minutes against the Colorado Avalanche. That is correct. And had a tough night against the Aves. So got some criticism there, and, like, people are like, oh, this is the guy who's going to be the starter for Canada? He ended with six goals on 43 shots in that game. Yeah, it's the abs, though. They're a good team.

And then he shuts out Montreal, so you're feeling good about it. What happened last night against Chicago? Well, the big story for the teams, from the team perspective, is that the Chicago Blackhawks whipped on the St. Louis Blue 7-3 last night. Jordan Bennington was in that for all seven goals allowed. Now, where it got interesting was after the seventh goal scored by Louis Crevier about midway through the third period. So you're looking at there's about 10 minutes left to go in the third. It's late, but it's seven goals allowed for Bennington. And this is a team of St. Louis Blues who have repeatedly gone to the hook this year for their goalies.

Well, lo and behold, after Crevier scores goal number seven, Blues head coach, Jim Montgomery, motions to Bennington to come out of the net. you can actually pick it up on camera for which was interesting the national feed that was playing that game where you can see him mouth the words binner let's go okay so there's just one problem binner doesn't go he stays in the net and to make things even more confusing I guess the bench in Chicago wasn't big enough to hold the entirety of the blues team so Joel hofer was supposed to be standing behind them in the tunnel in case of emergency just standing there? the whole game? Well, he wasn't, Greg. Joel Hofer was nowhere to be found. Don't think of him a seat somewhere? He didn't either. He was peeking around the corner.

It was hilarious. Not right away. You could see Montgomery and Steve Ott, their assistant coach, looking at each other, being like, where's Hofer, what's going on? You could see Ott speaking into that little microphone on his lapel. And I guess he was either talking to one of the assistant coaches of the trainers, trying to figure out what was going on. Anyway, you could see Montgomery getting visibly more and more frustrated,

but also, Bennington never made a move towards the bench. He saw his coach signaling for him and just didn't go. About five minutes later, they come back from commercial and the broadcast crew is like, look what we picked up. And they show this camera shot down the tunnel of the Blues Room. And there's Joel Hofer peeking out around the corner

as if to look and be like, who me? It was very strange. Are things not going well for Jordan? Then he held up a single book. Bush, single shrub in front of his face. So do you think Bennington refused it, or do you think he knew that there was no backup goalie to come out? There was a backup goalie, but he just wasn't there in the moment.

And then it felt like the moment passed. He probably looked at the tunnel and didn't see anyone coming, so he's like, I'm not going to leave until Ofer is on his way. I'm not going to. The craziest part in all of this is that I stayed up late to watch the St. Louis Blues post-game media availability. nobody asked Jim Montgomery about what happened. They even asked a question about Binnington allowing seven goals

and if he was having problem on screenshots. And I'm yelling at my computer. I'm like, there's a better question. Ask a follow-up. What about trying to pull him and Joel Hofer not being there? Okay, I want to talk about Bennington. Just big picture here. Now, let's go back to the Four Nations

and the decision to give Bennington, not only a spot on the team, but the starting role. I wasn't in the camp of being super, super concerned because I didn't think Bennington had been that bad. His numbers were down a little bit last season, but the season before, he actually had a very good year statistically, right, Lattie? Like, stay with me on this, right? That's correct.

I had also watched that blues run to the Stanley Cup final very close, and he was nails in that game seven in Boston for the cup he was incredible so he'd played on a big stage I don't really care if he's a jerk or not just be a good goalie so you know unlike a few other people like I know laddie was super nervous about Jordan Bennington being in there didn't want him as the goalie and for four nations he he played well he played well enough for Canada to win I'm not in that same position now like I don't don't think you can say, well, he did it a year ago with a goalie. And I've compared goalies to golfers a lot. Sure. Just because there are some similarities, you know, Kevin

Woodley does the same sort of thing. There are golfers that you'd be like, yeah, I want this guy for the Ryder Cup this year right now with the form that he's on. Sure. And then the next year, you'd be like, I can't, you know, he can't get off the tea or he can't, you know, can't pot or whatever. Short game's a mess. Right. And you, and you could not. You couldn't put them on the team. It'd be ridiculous to do so, and it would honestly be unfair to that guy. I'm going to throw some numbers at you right now. There are 32 goalies in the NHL that have played in 20 games.

Not 20 starts, but 20 games. Jordan Binnington is dead last in save percentage at 871. Do you remember Marky? He led in nine goals the other day? his say percentage is 878. Linus Allmark in Ottawa, who's on a leave of absence, and they're really worried about the goaltending in Ottawa, 8-8-1 for Linus-O-Mark.

So I don't know how Team Canada is going to handle this, but it's a short tournament. You know, it's really difficult to go over there, and Canada opens with, Czechia, and then plays against a couple of minnows, I think. So how are they going to determine which goalie is best by the time they get to the medal round in the elimination game where one bad game could end the tournament?

I wonder if it ends up being a redux of 2010, which is where Binnington is the Broder. And then Logan Thompson, question mark. Is it? Is it Logan Thompson? He's the guy Laddie is He would be Kemper after what we saw against the sharks

yesterday He was okay But I get what you're saying It's got to be Thompson Logan Thompson by the way Far and away the best goal Third in save percentage at 915 I think you got to give Thompson

The first start Which would be against Czech Republican Listen you don't I don't think you get to say Well you were good for us a year ago so you're the goalie. Sam Bennett could say, I was good for you a year ago.

I'm not even on the team. Yeah, I agree. It's getting so extreme right now. You know, it's getting so extreme. Like sometimes you can have little rules while, you know, like, you know, I trust you in big games. But eventually your play becomes so bad that it outweighs all that stuff, which I do think is important.

Have you played in a big game before? Have you delivered in that big game? You know, that sort of thing. I do think that's important. But sometimes you get to the point where, like, yeah, I know all that. But, man, look. Like, I think, here's another thing. I think St. Louis is the worst team in the NHL.

At the very least, I know that they've got the worst goal differential in the NHL. It's actually significantly worse than the second worst team. your Vancouver Canucks So is that Is that Does that reflect poorly on Bennington Or is that an excuse for him Because maybe the environment is so bad

In St. Louis Well if you're asking Doug Armstrong That's exactly what he brought up While addressing the goalie selections for Team Canada So we've done a bad job in St. Louis And putting a good team in front of Bennington They bend over backwards in St. Louis to protect Bittington, and they've done it over the last two years.

And part of me understands why he was largely responsible for the team's first and only Stanley Cup championship. And that carries some weight and quite frankly some time in a market. But I think that Armstrong's allegiances are a bit split on this one. I think that not naming Binnington would have been catastrophic. It would have been an acknowledgement that it's not just the team in front of them in St. Louis. It's the guy behind the crappy team. It's always interesting how these dynamics,

the personal dynamics, whether it's Doug Armstrong with Bennington, who, you know, Binnington helped Doug Armstrong win a Stanley Cup. Yeah. That's garbage, though. This isn't the Blues. No, I know.

I agree. I'm just saying it's difficult for some of these guys to separate. You know, why do you think Sam Bennett is not on the team? Do you think it's because Horvatt made the team because Sorrelli made the team and Coop went to bat for Sorrelli. Who knows, right? I would say Sorrelli, right?

That's just my thought on it, is that if you're going to go and give the, hey, we're splitting hairs here, Coop between player A and player B, you're going to go with the guy that you know, you trust, and you have a relationship with, as opposed to a guy, if you want to throw even more fire onto the conspiracy,

more fuel onto the fire, Sam Bennett plays for Tampa Bay's biggest rival in the entire national hockey league and a bitter rival at that because the Panthers and the lightning hate each other. Now, put that aside for a sec. This Bennington's situation as we get closer and closer to a profoundly important Olympics is a huge issue because they're either going to

give him the starting job right out of the gate, which quite frankly, he would only be getting on reputation, not on merit, but on reputation. or they're going to have them sitting there as the number two and then it's going to be that thing where the moment, and I'm going to go with Thompson, I'm just going to say Thompson for the sake of argument, the moment Thompson falters,

everyone's going to be looking to, are you just, are you waiting to put Bennington in? Because he's the guy that won you the Four Nations? It's a great dynamic from a drama perspective. Jordan texts in to the show, Dunbar Lumber Text Line 650, 650, Metro Vancouver's trusted choice for contractors

and run a warriors for over 50 years. Visit them at one of their three, locations to serve you or online at Dunbarlumber.com says Bennington will play the first game for Canada and Thompson will start the second game and be the starter for the rest of the tournament. Not if he wins the first game. But Canada's playing, I think, France in the second game. So it's a second or third game. They're playing France for sure. What will that prove if any of those guys go in there and play well against France? Oh, they shut out France. Hey, Alex Texier is on France.

I think the other team is Switzerland, which has some good players, but it's still Switzerland. Canada should be able to control that game and make it pretty easy for the goalies. I think the only one really are the checks, and that's the first game. So for me, the biggest decision is who gets the first game. I agree. And it seems like it's been hinted at that the job is Bennington's to lose, and that's what I'm pushing back on. I think he should have already lost it based on his play this season. A friend of a reminder, opening segment of the show was brought to you by the Duick Auto Group.

Find out why nobody beats the Duick Deal and why nobody has since 1926. Visit Duick Jam on Marine Drive. Visit them downtown, visit them in Richmond, and visit them online at the Duick Auto Group.com. First half hour is in the books on the other side. Kevin Allen is going to join us from Detroit Hockey now. We're going to preview tonight's Detroit Red Wings, Vancouver Canucks game from Detroit, from the Detroit side of things that's coming up next on the. Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650.

Canucks Talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drans. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on SportsNet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. 632 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford Brubb, Sportsnet, 650. Halford Brub in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Only a licensed insolvency trustee can cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees.

To learn more, visit them online at sands dash trustee.com. We're in our one of the program. Kevin Allen from Detroit Hockey Now is going to join us in just a moment here. Kenucks Red Wings Night 4. clock from Detroit. You can hear the call right here on SportsNet 650. Our one of this program is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal recycling, they recycle. You get paid. Visit the Middle 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. Our next guest, as mentioned from Detroit Hockey

Now, long time. USA Today hockey writer. Kevin Allen joins us now on the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650. Good morning. Kevin. How are you? Great. Good morning. You guys. Thanks for taking the time to do this today. We appreciate it. So it's been almost exactly a month since John Gibson and the Detroit Red Wings came into Vancouver and Gibson made 39 saves for his first shutout as a Red Wing. And I noticed that Detroit Hockey now a couple days ago, you were writing about how Gibson has been the key to the Red Wings ascension this season.

Tell us a little bit more about the acquisition, how it's worked out, how well Gibson has played, not just against the Canucks last time out, but throughout this season. Well, absolutely. You know, when they made the trade, I think at the time, the fan base thought, yeah, this really is going to be a missing piece just with regard to get the team in the playoffs. But it didn't start out that way. He started out slow coming out of the gate, and all of a sudden, the fan base started to think that this is going to be another Eisenman deal that didn't quite work. out. But that win against Vancouver was an important one because it was part of that stretch when he won

eight in a row and really established that he can still be that goalie. I mean, the reason they got him was he had a career save percentage of 9-11 and the Red Wings for the last few years have been, you know, sub-900 with their goaltending. They really felt if they could get someone who could make just a few more saves

it would make a difference. And that's really what's happened during this run of success. He's 10 and 2 in his last 12 games. He's been at about a 9-25 clip, and then the last three games that's been in the 930s. So he's playing in a very high level. And that's given the Red Wings, the confidence number one, and allows them, even in games where they play a little sloppily,

defensively, and they do that from time to time, they can still win those games. and I think that's been crucial. How important is it for this organization and this management group to finally get over the hump and make the playoffs this season? Yeah, I think it's huge. You know, you wouldn't think that an icon like Eisenman, I never would have guessed that when he took over.

You know, he could do no wrong. He walked on water as far as the fan base is concerned. But over the last couple of years, you know, his popularity as he was, roaded just because the fan base has thought that he's been, he didn't bring his prospects along as quickly as they would like to have seen them. You know, some of his deal, the long-term contract, a J.T. Comfer, for example, even I, Andrew Kopp, who's actually playing quite well right now. But, you know, in the course of the contract, people thought that contract was probably a bit

much for what they've got on them as well. So because of that, I think the fan base had become a little bit disillusioned. And now I think this season coming into it, a lot of fans that this is it. Either he's got to get into playoffs or, because, you know, the team has drafted well. Like the players that they brought in are good players. You know, some of them now are kind of struggling, but, you know, you expect that with younger players. So I think they are pleased with his draft, although they would have liked to have seen, you know, the team bringing their prospects in quicker

and sort of allow them to develop at the NHL level instead of the Grand Rapids Griffin's. But the other players that he's brought in until this season with James Van Reemstike has been a really good acquisition and of course it's until this season

they've been disappointed with the veterans that he's brought in to help. Kevin the Detroit Red Wings have had some of the greatest players of all time suit up for them and you go back and look at some of those rosters that they had 20 or 30 years ago and you're like, that's kind of unfair

that the Red Wings had all those first ballot Hall of Famers on the team. So Detroit knows the bar that you need in terms of greatness to win Stanley Cups. Do any of the players on this current roster match the bar that was set by, you know, players well?

like Steve Eiserman himself. Yeah, that is a great question, and I think really it's at the heart of the issue. I think the answer to that is, are there players on this team that could have played with those championship team? Absolutely. You know, more at Cider, Dylan Larkin, you know, Lucas Raymond.

But, you know, there's no real superstars in this group, not the kind of difference makers that they used to have when they had, you know, Sergei Fedoroff and Nicholas Lidsstrom and, you know, Eisenman, and, you know, a lot of other, you know, Future Hall of Fame with Brendan Chanahan. There's nobody like that on this team, but, you know, it's a different era. And I think you can build around, you know, very good players as long as you have, you know, the right mix of the goaltending and strong defensive team and, you know, having the right coach. I think they've found the right coach in Todd McAllen.

He really seems to have had an impact, but I think they are missing that. To be honest, I think the fan base hoped they were going to get one of those players when Quinn Hughes before he was traded. A lot of people saw that, especially since it was a second chance for them to get a guy they could have drafted, but chose that to. So, you know, I think the fan base was hoping they could bring him in as well. and in the end, they just weren't really willing to give up Simon Edmondson because they foresee this cider-Edvinson pairing,

these two big, strong European defensemen, you know, having an impact for the next 10 to 12 years. It's a tough situation, though, because, I mean, we're here in Vancouver in that situation now. We thought a couple years ago we had four real difference makers in, well, we had the goalie, Thatcher Dempka, we still have, who's not played as well recently and he's also got some injury concerns. J.T. Miller and Quinn Hughes have been traded and Elias Pedersen's game has really fallen off compared to a couple years ago so now all of a sudden we're looking at the Canucks roster and going who there's

some good players on there but who are the real difference makers and I just look at the Red Wings draft and obviously 2018 when they had a chance to draft Quinn Hughes and they took Zadena instead That was a massive mistake for the organization, but understandable, given where Sedina's draft profile was. You get the sixth overall pick in 2019, Maurice Sider, who has been a very good defenseman for them, but maybe not Norris Trophy caliber. And then the fourth overall pick in 2020, and again, you get a really good player, but maybe not a superstar elite player in Lucas Raymond. is there any way is there any way for the Red Wings to address this or is this

I don't know are they paying the price for all the great teams that they had in the past where they just had First Ballot Hall of Famers on every line it seemed? Yeah Yeah you know they've been unlucky you know I've said that if I decided to write about my career

and one chapter is going to be dedicated to the fact that what we never talked about in sports is the luck factor. And they've been unlucky in the draft lottery. And, you know, the difference between picking in the first two and picking four or six is major. And they've had zero luck. Every time they've had an opportunity to possibly move up,

instead they've moved back. And that's really, really hurt them. And so they haven't, you know, got the, you know, celebrating or they didn't get a badar, I didn't get anyone like that. And I think the only way you overcome that is if you, as I said, is if you do everything else right, you know, if you pick the right coach, if, you know, you have the right chemistry, you know,

if you get a team that somehow is cohesive enough to play, you know, that playoff style in the sense that will win it for you. And, you know, the other thing in play here that it doesn't get talked about enough is that we've seen a changing of the guard, in my opinion, and how you win in the NHL. And if you look now, like a team like, for example, the Vegas Golden Knights, they don't believe in the drafts one bit. Like, they just can't wait to move their draft picks.

They utilize those assets to get veteran players. Florida Panthers, again, very much a team that doesn't pay much attention to the draft. They trade those draft picks. They use them as assets and they try to get along. And I think that's sort of what's been a failing in recent years, with this Red Wings group is they haven't done enough of that. They haven't gone out and utilized.

They've used all their draft picks. And now they've got a collection of really, you know, interesting draft picks. But, you know, are any of them going to be superstars? Probably not. And, you know, they need to find the superstars. So they're going to start utilizing those picks to try to bring in the missing pieces that they need to do that.

And I think they're going to start doing that now. They've made it clear, for example, that they're, you know, they'll move this, years picked, which would be the first time under Eisenman to get players if they want. Well, on that note, before we let you go, if Steve Eisenman is going to do some aggressive shopping

at this year's trade deadline, what might he be looking for to bolster the group? Well, he really, you know, number one on this list would be a number two center, a legitimate one, someone to play with the Brinket and Patrick Kane, you know, right now tops the filling that role. I'm actually playing

pretty well. But again, you know, that's a stop gap. You know, that's not a long, term fix. So he's going to be looking at a market for someone maybe with a year or two on his dealer, you know, not necessarily a rental, but he would love to get a number two center. But maybe that guy doesn't exist. I look that. I don't see anything that really matches up. Barring that, he's really into getting on top four defensemen, Sandin Pelican, again, very good young player, really not ready to play at that level. So, you know, if he could get in on Erasmus Anderson, I think he would do that.

that. I think he thinks the cost is too high right now for a rental. But he's looking around. I think he will get a defenseman. I feel pretty strong about that. And finally, he's looking for another goal score. You know, he's trying to find someone like Van Riemstike, a guy with

the history of scoring that knows how to do it, uses his experience and savvy to get things done. And I think he'll pay to get a player like that. Kevin, I did want to ask you about the past of Glenn Hall.

I'm sure you've written about him numerous times. He, of course, started his NHL career with the Detroit Red Wings. What should people, what should young people know about Glenn Hall? Well,

it's a durability. You know, I've interviewed Glenn many times, and I've also talked to many people about him. I wrote with Bob Duff. I wrote a book on goaltending. And I remember what Dryden said about Glenn Hall was that he was in the era of the maskless goalie, he was the first to put his face below the bar.

Like everybody else stood up in the face behind. Players were always trying to, you know, keep the puck low. They were, you know, they were, you know, not always, but, you know, they tried the best not to kill anybody. And Glenn Hawson, no, I'm going to go low. I'm going to go into my butterfly, and I'm going to because I think you can stop more fucks that way. So he lauded him for his courage. And, of course, you know, the record that will never be broken. I mean, it's just

incredible 500 to 2% games. Like, that's just too, almost ridiculous to discuss. And the amazing thing about that record is that he suffered from anxiety in preparation for all games. I mean, it's a classic story,

but it's true. He would get, you know, sick before a game and just in anticipation of what he was going to have to do. But once he got in there, he was just incredible and also wanted just the finest gentleman that I ever met just was such a nice man

Kevin this was fantastic thank you very much for taking the time to do this today we really appreciate it and enjoy the game tonight hopefully it's a lot of fun all right sounds good thank you guys thanks Kevin Allen from Detroit hockey now long time USA Today hockey writer was the guy that broke the news of

Mary Lemieux coming out of retirement to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins way back when Yeah, Kevin's a really nice guy. Yeah, very talented. I miss seeing guys like that on the road. Yeah, Glenn Hall. I was watching a few of the vignettes that SportsNet put together for him. I just kept on thinking, imagine playing hockey,

not let alone goalie, just hockey without any sort of protection for your head. This seems dangerous. Yeah, Kevin. And I know they didn't, again, they didn't shoot the puck quite as hard as they do now. They didn't have the same technology for the sticks. And like Kevin said, the guys would generally try and keep the puck down, right? Can I lob a puck off your face? I feel like it was still hurt.

Yes. There's a quote I found from Glenn Hall. And he said, I've had a bunch of little nicks, but I got hit hard three times. If you get hit by a puck in the forehead, that doesn't hurt. like they do around the nose or the mouth. It's true, your forehead's hard. Those are the ones that really hurt. Our big concern was the eye injury.

There are a lot of kids who had to quit playing goal because of an eye injury. You felt lucky that you got out of the game with both eyes. Can you imagine having a tough game and then afterwards you're like, you know what? At least I got my eyes still.

I got both my eyes. You got to look at the bright side. Jordan Bennington, right? Hey man, how are your eyes? Are they good? You got two of them still. Did you lose one? Apparently they don't work well on screenshots.

Another cool stat, though, about the Glenn Hall. You know he's got the 5002 games in a row record. Yeah. Do you know what the longest streaks for goalies were last season? No. I don't. Six and 11. Get out of here.

Hellebuck had six, and Vasilevsky had a streak of 11. Really? The longest consecutive start streak for any goalie lives. See, I feel like we've gone too far the other way, where I'm going to start chastising goalies for being weak and not being able to show up. 11 in a row is pretty decent by today's standards. 11. 11.

Certainly not 502. Do you remember when the Minnesota Wilde acquired Devin Dubnick? And I think Bruce Boudreau was the coach at the time. And he ran him out there like 37 consecutive games. That was an amazing streak. He just didn't lose. Yeah, he was amazing. Didn't he come from Arizona and people like,

Dubnick's going to, people didn't even know how to pronounce his name. They still don't. I don't know. And Boudreau was like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I was like, that's a good coach. And the backup was Kemper at the time. Yeah. He was like decent goalie too.

They just didn't play them. Kemper didn't play for like a month and a half, two months. And Boudreau was like, what am I going to do? He keeps winning games. And he was right to do it. Anyway, we should talk about the Vancouver Canucks here because we haven't done that through the first 49 minutes of the program. There was a very large and very well-read piece by Sportsnet's very own Ian McIntyre on

Alias Pederson. It's up now at Sportsnet. CA. Yeah, I encourage you to read the story yourself, but PD spoke to IMAC about his wife's miscarriage and how it meant a lot to hear from so many who shared their own stories with the couple. He also revealed that the injury that kept him out recently might stick with him a while, and he said, it's going to be a nagging injury for a while, probably the rest of the season, but I can play with it. In some situations, there is some pain, but I can. can push through it.

Also revealed that the Canucks had a chat with Pedersen about the clip. His wife posted of the two of them skating together in New York. I kind of heard about this, but I didn't. I never even saw the clip. Of course, at the time, he was injured, and he wasn't able to play for the Vancouver Canucks. And I guess some people online were like, if you can skate, no, no, no, because they're idiots. Sure.

And Adam Foote said that him and I had a talk about. it after the fact I would just give them an advice like hey when you're injured maybe stay away from the social media part I think young guys we have to teach them that PD being 27 just to keep the noise away look I'm not gonna get into that but IMA did note in the story that the video got the Canucks attention so apparently it was a thing for the team what I will say is that you know is a good article and I encourage you to read it but when you read and quotes from Pedersen or you listen to him speak to reporters as he did yesterday after

practice you never really learn anything about the guy he is extremely guarded and he's probably more guarded than he was not probably he is more guarded than he was when he first came to Vancouver he'll he'll admit something is difficult but then he won't expand much beyond that he'll be like yeah it's hard yeah and his favorite line these days seems to be some version of well what's done is done and we can only look to the future now but that's what a lot of people are doing right now they are looking to the future and they are wondering if ilyas peterson is going to be part of it for the vancouver canucks and i wonder how long it can go on like that where his future seems so uncertain we all know

that he has a no move clause. We all know that, but it's not like the Canucks have come out and given him a big vote of confidence. The speculation continues. And even IMAC noted in his story that the Canucks looked before and after last year's trade deadline at the market for Pedersen. And IMAQ continued, Jim Rutherford would be prudent to plumb the market again before the March 6th deadline this season. And then you know if he doesn't go at that deadline, it's into the off season. You know, I'm very curious to see how he looks at the Olympics for Sweden.

I sure hope he's better than he was at the Four Nations. I think he should be, because he'd been better for the Canucks, but I'm not sure how much better. You know, is he going to be able to keep up to the pace of the Olympics, especially when Sweden comes up against the big

dogs in that tournament? The pace is insane. You'll remember it of the Four Nations. Yeah, and I, you know, I, distinctly remember the four nations being not the first time, but one of the more notable times where the national media picked up on the, hey, what's wrong with Elias Pedersen narrative? I remember it was Fluto Shinzawa, the athletic, wrote a piece about his

deployment with the Swedish national team, what it looked like with the eye test, what the deployment looked like from the head coach, Sam Halam. Because everyone else outside of Vancouver kind of heard that Pedersen hadn't been playing well, but not a lot of people watch the Canucks games, especially the ones back east and then they saw them in person they were like and it was also a different coach with a different set of players it was a different environment but the same individual result which was underwhelming to put it mildly and again

I almost want to remove the nameplate and the number from this exercise and just say it doesn't matter if it's elias peterson or frank smith that's making 11.6 million on a 31st place team that probably at the very least looks like it has some level of a culture problem and needs a change the guy that's making the most amount of money and is

clearly not producing at the level that's equal to 11.6 million, you need to move on from it. And he probably needs to move on from it as well. Maybe if he doesn't even know it, maybe if he doesn't even want to. I think it's the best thing for all parties involved. And then you can start going down the list

and you can talk to Brock Bester and be like, do you really want to play out the next seven years of this thing? Yeah. The way it's going right now. And Connor Garland, you seem like you've got a lot left to give to another NHL team that's not going to be on the outside of the playoffs looking in for the second consecutive season. Garland will be like, no, I want to stay in Vancouver.

And then they'll be like, okay, we're going to keep you. And then his no move clause will kick in. And it'll be like, actually, I want out and I'm going to control this situation. You know, there's maybe a handful is even feels too strong. a couple of guys that you can keep around and they're not even culture carriers or setters at that point they're just the adults in the room right I think heronics probably a good one

although I'd be curious to see what you could get for him on the open market uh Myers is another one but there's nothing over the last two years that have suggested that there's any one definitive leader and culture carrier that set it to the point where it's a really good room Lucas the fuel guy texts in do you blame him for being guarded.

Look at what happened to Zane Perak. The robots get to these guys and crush the personality out of them. I think they should trade PD, but I don't blame him for not speaking. When he first came, he was personable, but now everything he says is so dissected. You know what?

I tried to make this a saying or I said I was going to make it a saying, but I never did. That's a life of a show girl. We tried. That is, that's it. You know, some guys can handle everything. being so dissected.

Some guys can handle it and they either don't look at the dissections online or they're like that's pretty funny or maybe it bothers them a little bit but they can get over it and they recognize that

this is the life we have chosen and it is the life of a showgirl. Can I just say that on a personal level we really need more explaining on that one but we don't have the time. On a personal level is being terminally online.

line. I'm disappointed in myself. I did not know that this video of them skating at the Rockefeller Center existed. I knew it existed. I didn't search for it. I didn't know. I didn't know about it at the time. I didn't know there was a fallout. I didn't know that the Canucks. I do none of this. Am I slipping? Yes, you are. You're like me watching the Grammys. I'm like, I don't know how any of these people are. I signed you fight video now. And you haven't even seen them yet. There's new fight videos? Okay. Who are you? I got to go watch it. I'm with you. I didn't know about the skating video either. Okay. I had no idea. Well, I got to go watch some fight videos. We'll be back on to the side of Lawrence Gilman, Halford Brough, Sportsnet, 650.

It doesn't matter if it's Elias Pedersen or Frank Smith that's making $11.6 million on a 31st place team that probably at the very least looks like it has some level of a culture problem. Patrick, do you have a culture problem that needs to be fixed?