Halford & Brough in the Morning - Is Lankinen The Answer For The Canucks In Net?

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they preview tonight's matchup versus Philly and the potential lineup changes (6:00), plus the boys chat yesterday's Seahawks loss to the 49ers with ESPN's Brady Henderson (29:05). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da American League Division Series over. Yankees win. The Yankees win. I mean, fired up. Had a couple IPAs with the boys. Ran some champagne. I mean, like, you know, this is the greatest. Keller, just named captain of this Utah Club hockey team. Ladies and gentlemen, the weekend. Good morning, Vancouver.

6-0-1 on a Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. Sweet, sweet Friday. It is Halford and his brough. It is Sportsnet 650. And we are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning.

Hey, dawg. Good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for,

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powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, Rafit, what are you waiting for? Kintec, what a day, what a night, what a Friday we have in the world of sports. Another Canucks game, game two of the season for the Vancouver Canucks tonight, seven o'clock from Rogers Arena. Game one. Game two of the season for the Vancouver Canucks. Tonight 7 o'clock from Rogers Arena. Game one, Jason, of the season for the visiting Philadelphia

Flyers. And Matvei Michkov. And Jet Lachenko. Okay. Two teenagers in their lineup. Jet Lachenko sounds like a figure skater. Kinda. Right? Yep. Got a 5.4 from the Latvian judge. Lachenko? Actually sounds like a figure skating move. He pulled a Lachenko. Yeah? Yep. Got a 5.4 from the Latvian judge. There's Lachenko.

It actually sounds like a figure skating move. He pulled a Lachenko. Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing, what is the deal? Well, maybe we'll find out about Lachenko, but Michkov is the guy that I'm excited to see tonight. And also, you know, a Canucks win. Ah, yes.

And some new wrinkles to the Canucks lineup as well, which we'll get into in a sec. But the guest list, the guest list, because tonight you've got a very pivotal game five in Major League Baseball, of course, between the Padres and the Dodgers. You've got the Canucks, there's a couple other NHL games as well.

It's a good night for sports leading into a good weekend for sports. At 6.30, we will look back on last night with Brady Henderson from ESPN, our Seahawks insider. Another tough game for the Seahawks and their beleaguered defense. They lose to the 49ers. Brady will join us at 6.30 to talk about that.

7 o'clock, it's AJ from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. We will set up the weekend at AJ's. Good place to go if you want some cheap pints tonight. If you want happy hour on Sunday and watch a bunch of sports, that's the place to go. 7.05, Kevin Kurz from the Athletic in Philadelphia. Brackets, maybe. We're working on some technical things, specifically his phone.

So we'll see if Kev can join us to preview tonight's opponent, the Philadelphia Flyers, at 7.05. If it doesn't, don't worry. We'll handle it ourselves. 7.30, Moj, 8 o'clock, Dollywall. Today, the best what we learned gets a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Let me repeat.

The best what we learned, as AJ is now the presenting sponsor of what we learned. So it can't be an ask us anything? It's got to be a what we learned. Oh, okay. We're flipping it up a little bit. Hashtag it WWL and put a pizza emoji into your what we learned and tell us,

what did you learn over the last 24 hours in sports? As Jason mentioned, though, it is also ask us anything Friday. So get those in throughout the show. We'll answer as many as we can on this very busy day where we have many things to get into.

So busy. In fact, that I will not do the reverse rundown. Let's just go laddie. Let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night?

No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that?

What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources,

and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. After that season opening overtime loss to the Calgary Flames, Bruff and I came into this very studio and wondered, maybe even opined, if there would be some lineup shuffles for the Vancouver Canucks. Yeah, so based on the Dunbar-Lumber text line yesterday, I'm just looking at the lines I had at practice yesterday.

Nope, Pedersen was still in the lineup. Still in the lineup with DeBrusque and Sprong. The top six remains the same with Miller between Besser and Heinen. There are some changes on the third line. Ratu is still in there as the center, but Suter is in on that left wing where hoaglander was garland still on the right wing hoaglander dropped down to the fourth line he takes nils amman spot with bluger and sherwood amman was an extra skater arch deep baines was called up and he was an extra

skater so they're like do you want to practice with us and that just sounds good and then he practiced after practice you get some money for this yeah uh and then uh the d had some changes as well at the bottom um are we looking at day rna as a healthy scratch in his second game yeah juleson was skating with forbort on on the third pair. The top two pairs remain the same, Hughes and Hironix, Soucy and Myers. Now, that could be one of those things where it's a bit of a kick in the pants for De'Arne. I don't know if Juleson's going to play tonight, but probably not a great sign for De'Arne that his spot is, at the very least least at practice getting replaced by noah julson this early in the season he has looked struggly struggly yeah now let's not bury the lead here and forget about possibly the biggest change of them all in net where arthur silaves was

out working late with goalie coach marco terranius leading many to believe what we all thought was going to happen anyway, that Kevin Lankanen will most likely be your starter tonight when the Vancouver Canucks take on the Philadelphia Flyers. Our first regular season look at old Kevin Lankanen. Let's hear now from the head coach, Rick Tockett. There was an interesting bit where someone asked that if Juleson, who seems like he may draw in tonight in place of DeJarne,

was actually the blueprint for DeJarne, and to a lesser degree, Derek Forbort. By that, I think the question was meant to ask is the work that you did, and specifically, I guess, Adam Foote and Sergey Gontar did with Noah Juleson last year, kind of what you're envisioning for Forbort and DeJarne? Because, I mean, look look they did a pretty nice job with making Juleson a not every night regular NHL defenseman but a guy that could come in and step in and contribute and as Rick Taka called him a good player here's what Rick Taka had to say about the idea that Juleson was a blueprint for Forbort and Desjardins. A million percent you know I think

that uh whether you know Vinny sits out some, he's going to work with our guys, work with Hage, work with Dakota. You can't be afraid to have that. Jules can come in, I don't know if it's tomorrow or the next game, and we can have a little bit of a rotation, and guys can work with the coaches. I think that's important. I think he understands, by he I mean Talkett, that it's going to take a little little bit or maybe a lot of work

with those two guys to get them where i think dna more than foreboard i think dna is the project that they brought on and they they kind of said we we see a little bit more in this guy um now not all projects work out but um it's only been a little while that Darnay has been working with this coaching staff. And, you know, the Canucks as an organization, whether it's the management or the coaching staff, it's weird to say, but right now they get the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. And, you know, I don't necessarily hate the idea of internal competition

and a rotation in either the bottom six forward group or the bottom pair on defense i think that's probably partly why arsh deep baines was recalled and thrown back into the mix and why juleson's there maybe at some point we'll see mark friedman or maybe even eric branstrom right you want to have guys pushing from within to try and make everyone not uncomfortable but understand that you know the, those top six spots or those bottom whatever spots, they're not just given. They're earned, right? That sort of thing.

It also goes in, and that goes for being a net as well because Rick Tockett did address Archer Seelovs and the rough game that he had, allowing six goals against the Calgary Flames on opening night. Tockett said he spoke to Seelovs following the game. Here's what he had to say. Yeah, I talked to him after the game.

I said, listen, if you're going to be in this business a long time, those games are going to happen. You know, he's a really good goaltender. And to be a really good goaltender, you're going to ask Debra, you're going to have a night like that where, you know, he said I could add this one, I could add that. He's just going, you know, you come to the practice the next day and you work out your game. I mean, he said, I could add this one. He's just going to come to practice the next day, and you work out your game.

I mean, he's fine. We've put him in tough spots, and he's responded, so I'm not worried about him. And then he yelled at him sternly to never do that again. Yeah. I thought he was going to say, if you want to be in this business, don't do that again. Yeah.

Won't be in this business for long. He's like, did I say everyone has bad games like that? Because I mean, game, singular, as in don't do it again. I don't, again, I think I tried to frame it as non-inflammatory as possible yesterday where I said I'm not concerned about the Canucks goaltending after one game. I am slightly concerned about Arthur Silov's though, because in that one game, it sort of crystallized a lot of the problems that we saw dating back to last year right

inability to track long shots and track pucks God bless you Kevin Lankan and do not go out there and land egg tonight just don't just don't we don't you can't have both guys get off to suspect starts could you imagine

no well I mean one yes but two go oh the responses replies you know just go out there and hold down the fort and look very calm and composed and collected and all those things that we liked about the preseason so what else are you looking for tonight um well one don't allow six goals and not maybe that's not necessarily just a goal tending thing i talk it did i listened all the practice audio yesterday and talk it spoke about getting back to meat and potatoes hockey right that was one of his lines from yesterday he once again and he did this in the post game as

well shouldered a bit of the blame for how they addressed um their approach in the preseason he said we focused a lot on like transitional play and i think think he meant essentially let's get up the ice and be aggressive and try and get some odd man rushes and rush chances and all that stuff. Maybe they got a little bit away from their staples. Since Noah Juleson is going in the lineup, I expect one big explosion at one point tonight. I don't know when, I don't know where, but it's almost guaranteed that it's going to happen.

That guy coming in on a Friday night in front of the home crowd. So what else are you looking for tonight? Do you just want me to say Pettersson? Is that it? Because no one else on the show will. You're just dangling the bait in front of me. Well, it was a pretty big story after game one, especially the response from all the fans.

I mean, whether he played, I don't think he played terribly at all. And we talked about it yesterday. So what else are you looking for tonight, Michael? Well, I'm looking to see how he, if he can take it to another level. Because I don't think he played well. I just don't think he played as badly as some people thought he did. So when Drance came on the show yesterday, and he made mention of the fact that the frustration among the fan base was,

not palpable, but... No, he said it was. He was like, you could feel it in the rink when he made a mistake at the end well it wasn't that you could feel is that they did a bronx cheer yeah right and that is the bronx cheer is a tough one because it means that the fans have enough savvy to give you a sarcastic sort of hey way to go there buddy yeah way to way to try and i that to me is that's where you start to worry right because it's getting toxic it's yeah and this is a canadian market and this is where it goes beyond oh the classic media trying

to stir up controversy for clicks or whatever else and this is where it gets into the fabric of the market and that's the fans right when the fans start getting irate and they start getting frustrated and they start bringing up the, this guy makes 11.6 million. And this guy is not giving the kind of effort and transfer it up. Another really good point. Now it's always going. Pedersen's however you want to classify his effort is going up against the foil. He against the foil.

He's the foil to Miller and Hughes. Yeah. They're chanting JT Miller's name. He's a juxtaposition to that. They're chanting JT Miller's name in the first period of the opening game of the season. That's how much he's turned things around. Because things are happening with Miller.

Some of them good. Most of them good. Some of them bad. Miller had two bad passes in that game yesterday, but he made up for it with the good. You know what he is? He's visible. He's a gunslinger, man.

He's a gunslinger. But he's visible at a time where a lot of people are saying that number 40 is invisible. I mean, think of the things that he did. He scored that goal. He had a great assist on Brock Besser's goal, and he dropped the gloves, and he had a big hit. He was everywhere.

Right? Like, he was everywhere. Scored an amazing, like, old school slapper to tie up the game at 5-5. And who's the guy that set that up for him? Quinn Hughes. Yeah. After making a great defensive play

because of a gunslinger pass by JT Miller. So sometimes I like to sit back and take a look at what's going on temperature-wise, right? And good on Drance for pointing out like, yeah, there's a sense of, hey, man, the other alphas on the team are stepping up and doing alpha things. You're the biggest out here, the financial alpha. You make all the money. Financial alpha.

The financial alpha is a good one. I'm your financial alpha. That's a good one. Call me today for your latest alpha plan. But you've got it. There is that sense of now do the stuff that the other guys are doing, right? That you're a leader on this team. And the expectations from within are very high, right?

We've talked about this before. Talk gets spoken on a number of occasions about, you know, Pedersen has to go out there and dominate, right? He has to go out there and dictate play. Yep, and be a guy that makes things happen. So tonight is another opportunity to do that against a Philadelphia Flyers team that I know absolutely nothing about. I know the guys on the team.

Some of them are new, though. They are an incredibly young team. They have 14 of the 23 players on their roster, or 25 or younger, including a pair of teenagers. An 18-year-old, as we mentioned earlier, Jet Lachenko, who was their first-round pick this year. And we're going to get our first look. And as you mentioned, you're very excited.

19-year-old Matt Veymichkov. We thought we were going to have to wait years to see this guy. So good on the Flyers. I don't know if there was a little bit of subterfuge there. I don't know what happened with them. Freed kind of explained it in 32 Thoughts. We've got some 32 Thoughts audio on Thatcher Demko as well. We'll play in a second.

He said that Mitchkoff really wanted to be a Flyer and that there was some maybe like behind the scenes maneuvering and manipulation where this whole idea of him spending like a decade in the KHL before he was going to come over and be ready to play might have been a bit of a smokescreen to land where he wanted to land. Because lo and behold, he didn't take 10 years to come over from the KHL. He came over pretty quickly and now as a 19 year old, he's playing for the Philadelphia Flyers. I did mention Elliott Friedman and 32 thoughts. We've got some hot audio here from the most recent 32 thoughts. Brief aside, those guys record at crazy hours.

So they recorded last night after the Sharks game, which based on my math. Two in the morning and Eastern time. Must have been because the that game between the Blues and the Sharks went to overtime. Spoiler alert, Macklin Celebrini really good in his NHL debut, but the Sharks still stink. They blew a multi-goal lead and lost to the Blues. So anyway, Freed and Kyle

recorded late and they eventually got around to the subject of Thatcher Demko and his workload now moving forward and what the Canucks have expectations-wise and how things are going to change now that Ian Clark is no longer in charge. Hear now from 32 Thoughts, the latest on Thatcher Demko's workload.

One of the things that they are doing is they are changing his workload. You know, Ian Clark, who was the great goalie coach in Vancouver, who's now no longer in that day-to-day position, he was a hard work guy. And it was very successful. You look at all, like Bobrovsky never wanted to take a day off

and he's going to the Hall of Fame. Luongo never wanted to take a day off and he's in the Hall of Fame. And, you know, it was the same kind of thing with Demko. And he has the kind of talent that would eventually take him potentially to the Hall of Fame. But I think that now in this day and age, I think you're seeing a lot of more teams starting to say that can't do this anymore. That there has to be more rest and it's it's maybe it's it's it's sort of like exactly what's happened in pitching with goaltending you know now you know i get annoyed when pitchers come out of games i think there's too many pitching changes you know

a couple years ago in that dodgers raise world World Series I wanted to see Blake Snell keep going but I know it's like old man yelling at clouds the game is forever changed and it's it's that's going to happen we're seeing that in hockey where and this is where I think the change is coming now Kyle it we know that guys aren't going to aren't there's no more broders nobody's playing 75 games anymore but in addition to going to be like between 45 and 55 games the starters the other thing i think and i think demko is at the flash point of it and now you're talking about wool is i think they're going to say no more practicing as much as you do that you even have to start taking like basically already there's already four four days off a month each team gets four days off a month that's cba mandated but i wonder if you're going

to see it even more i i do believe that that's one of the things they're discussing a dog actually came to us after the show and said um i would like a similar plan yep i'm working too hard yeah how do i get that yeah it needs more needs more days off you old men don't really understand rest and recovery anymore so you know i'll work two shows the first time i've ever been the ian clark in a scenario before where i worked i worked too hard i'm a hard work guy it's it's interesting right because when he does come back, you're going to have this great litmus test about his play on the ice. It's going to be, well, was his fantastic efforts in Vesna caliber play a result of this incredible grind that his goalie coach put him through?

Or is it going to be like he's fine without doing all of that? And he's staying healthy. Uh-huh. Or is he going to be an inferior goalie who's healthy, but not put an 897 save percentage? Yeah, give him some more rest on the bench. Yeah, because he's not sharp, right? If this is how all the teams are talking, though, about their goaltending,

why are we beating around the bush? Can we just get that third goalie roster spot already? For the practices? Yeah, for the practices, because it just makes so much sense. Every team seemingly wants it. Counterpoint. That'll be something probably that'll be done in the CBA. Counterpoint, if you do that,

then are you now paying your number one goalie less? It's Shisterkin's ask crazy now, because you're not going to play him as much. No, because when they do play, they play 100% of the minutes. I think they can carve out that third goalie from the actual salary cap and just have a third goalie. But the NHLPA wants it in. Somehow. Anyway, we're not going to get bogged down in the details of that.

No, no, let's spend more time on that. So last night in the NHL, there were some bounce backs. The Boston Bruins bounced back after that loss to Florida. They beat the Montreal Canadiens. The Toronto Maple Leafs bounced back after the loss to the Montreal Canadiens. And they beat the New Jersey Devils. The Pittsburgh Penguins, after that horrific start to the season, they got smoked by the Rangers.

They beat the Detroit Red Wings. So the Red Wings are off to a tough start at 0-1. But no team is off to a tougher start than sad club brethren, the Buffalo Sabres, who went over to Prague. They lost two straight games to the New Jersey Devils. They came home, and they said, all right, fine, we're back in Buffalo. We've got L.A. coming to town. They don't even have Doughty on the team.

This team, I don't know. Yeah, they lost to the Kings 3-1. They don't have Doughty, but you know who they still got? Andrzej Kopitar. Darcy Kemper. Natural hat trick for Anze Kopitar last night. 3-1 loss for the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres are already in a hole.

That's, man, like Lindy Ruff. This team has tried everything except winning. That's true. They brought back, they fired Lindy Ruff ages ago. Went through, what, like 20 coaches or whatever, and then they finally thought, okay, fine, we'll just bring Lindy back. No answers for Lindy Ruff either. 0-1-3 for the Sabres.

The Senators got off to a good start. Yeah, man. That's what I wanted to focus on. Greener. 3-1 win over the defending Stanley Cup champs, the Florida Panthers. What was the story from that game? God, take your pick, man. First off, Stutzla gets a goal.

Barkov suffers a pretty serious injury. Has to limp off the ice in the third period. Not putting any weight on his right leg when he was helped off the ice into the locker room. No update from Paul Maurice afterwards. That would be a massive loss for the defending Stanley Cup champs.

And, of course, kudos to Greener. Travis Green, former Vancouver Canucks head coach, gets a win in his Ottawa Senators debut. So I watched this game yesterday. The amount of CanCon, by that I mean ex-Canucks content in this game, was off the charts. So you got

Greener and Mike Yeo behind the bench for Ottawa. Ottawa also features a roster that has Adam Gaudette and Travis Hamanick, two of my favorite Canucks of all time. On healthy scratches for the Senators last night, Matthew Highmore and Zach McEwen, another two of my favorites. And then on the Florida side of things, you had Jonah Gajewicz and Gustav Forsling. There was all of these famous,

famous ex-Canucks out there last night, but good on Greener for getting the win. Speaking of former Canucks, did you see the Oliver Ekman-Larsen breakaway from the other day? That was against Montreal. Yeah, that was yesterday. Yeah, coming out of the box after a penalty.

Yeah, he tried. He didn't really do much. He tried. He was out really do much. He tried. He was out there a lot, though. I just noticed him as Ekman-Larsen, Ekman-Larsen. I'm trying to figure out how many. Yeah, he played over 20 minutes. 20 minutes and 34 seconds for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Had one assist. It was a plus two, so it was a good start. Speaking of the Leafs. This was last night against the Devils. You know what I learned about the Leafs last night? Dennis Hildeby is Swedish. Yes. I had no idea. He's also extremely, extremely tall. The tallest goalie in the Devils. You know what I learned about the Leafs last night? That Dennis Hildeby is Swedish. Yes. I had no idea. He's also extremely, extremely tall. The tallest goalie in the league now.

Dennis Hildeby is a Kitchener name. I thought Dennis Hildeby was an 84-year-old former Army Sergeant from Windsor, Ontario. He's Swedish. You notice the old man Hildeby's in there.

He's very Swedish. Old man Hildeby. That sounds like Yeah, like he's Swedish. Oh, you notice the old man Hildeby's in there. He's very Swedish. Old man Hildeby. That sounds like something like a story that Norm MacDonald would tell. He'd be like, oh, an old man Hildeby. That's right. So I'm looking at it, and they're like, yeah, he was playing in Sweden. I'm like, what was he on vacation? Like, why was he there?

And then I realized Dennis Hildeby. And all the stars are there, like old man Hildeby. So back to the goalie guru on this one real quick. Do the Leafs have good goaltending now? Yeah. That's their third guy. I said that on the last show. I said their goaltending isn't their problem anymore now.

They just can't score. It's crazy. They got four last night. Yeah, but if Hildeby's here. Is Hildeby a bit old for the league, though, at 84? Yeah, it's true. Joints aren't going to hold up. You're worried about Demko.

I'd be worried about Hildeby. Okay, so we've avoided talking about the seahawks and that's for some reason that's for two good reasons number one we didn't really want to talk about it because it was tough to watch and number two we got brady henderson coming up next to actually talk about it um so uh yikes the seahawks started out 3-0. They are now 0-3. Personally, I blame the schedule. The schedule was too difficult. Also, I don't think they're very good.

We'll talk about this with Brady Henderson on the other side of the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the postgame show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app.

It stings to have lost three in a row. Just to lose against your division rival at home in prime time. Such a great environment. That guy's fought their tails off down to the last minute, but we're not playing well enough to beat the team we need to beat. 6.32 on a Friday, a Fiesta Friday. It's good vibes for everyone

except for Mike McDonald, apparently. That was the Seattle Seahawks head coach you heard coming back from break here. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. So these are the last three losses for the Seahawks. They go to Detroit and they give up 42 points.

42-29 loss. Then they come home and they are 7.5 point favorites, something like that, over New York, the Giants. They lose 29 to 20 to them and then last night they give up a lot of points again 36 to 24 to the san francisco 49ers so 42 for that turnaround defense remember i like i like against New England. And Denver. Miami. So 42, 29, and 36 points surrendered in three straight games, two of which were at home.

And the quarterbacks you faced were Jared Goff, Daniel Jones, and Brock Purdy. Better than the first three quarterbacks you faced, for sure. But not exactly Patrick Mahomes. No, it gets harder. There's better ones. Trust me, there's better ones. Do we have Brady on the line?

No, okay. Brady may have... I mean, it's early. He's on the West Coast, and they had a game last night, so he might be tired. The Coles Notes version of last night's game. San Francisco 49ers never trailed in that game.

They won 36-24. They got out to a huge lead in the first half. Kudos to the Seahawks, I guess, for making it reasonably close in the second, but it was just too much of a hill to climb. And at the end of the day, the once 3-0 Seattle Seahawks

are now 3-3. And I think we found out maybe too much about this team. After 3-0, I was like, we need to find out more about this team and just how good they really are and what they really are. And then the next three games happened. I'm like, I've learned too much. I know too much about this team.

Here's what I think. I threw it out there on Twitter yesterday after the game. I said, someone actually tweeted at us, a listener. I can't remember who it was in the time, and said, how about them Seahawks, Halford and Brough? And I said, another great night for defensive guru Mike McDonald. This was not meant as a direct shot at McDonald

because I think he's probably as pissed off and as frustrated as everybody else as a defensive guru. All I was saying was, if you're a defensive-minded coach and you come in with the reputation of being a defensive guru, All I was saying was, if you're a defensive-minded coach and you come in with the reputation of being a defensive guru, you are going to be livid when your team gives

up 42, 29, and 36 points in three straight games, right? There are a lot of mistakes otherwise, too, though. It wasn't just on the defense last night. Well, they're injured. Turnovers, two picks by Geno. There was a fumble. Penalties, ill-timed penalties.

It was concerning. The Seahawks are now 3-3. I guess they're still technically tied for first in the division. Well, no, they lost to Tiebreaker. Well, they lost to Tiebreaker, yeah. So now they go to Atlanta next, and then they come home to host Buffalo. They could easily lose both of those as well.

To the phone lines we go. Brady Henderson, ESPN Seahawks insider, joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Brady. How are you? Good morning, fellas. What's going on? Not much. We were just sort of picking apart the carcass of last night's game. It's not often we actually get Brady on to do a post-game hit. Usually we're looking ahead to the game,

so this one's going to take a little bit of a different tone. And my tone today is going to be frustrated because after starting the season 3-0, it's not that the Seahawks are now a 500 football team, but the defense being gouged the way that it has been is frustrating. And I know that they got a lot of injuries on the defensive side of the ball, and I was willing to trot that out as an excuse or trying to explain what happened, but you know who else had a lot of injuries was the San Francisco 49ers running game. They were down to their fourth string running back last night, yet they still managed to put up over 200 rushing yards. So at a certain point, Brady, I got to ask the question,

when do the injuries stop becoming an excuse? Yeah, I don't think you can point to them in that game. And certainly you could in Detroit when, you know, they were missing half of their defense, basically, and they were trying on a lineup. But, you know, it was something like you might see in a preseason game. But, yeah, no, I agree with you. Last night, I mean, yeah, it's tough to lose.

You should have known it was your best edge defender. And, look, you know, Draymond Jones is not playing very well. He's not setting a very good edge. And they've had to rely on him a lot more with Nolese out. But, you know, and obviously you're missing your first-round pick in Byron Murphy. But, yeah, to your point, San Francisco was pretty shorthanded as well. And so, and you're playing at home on a Thursday night, and they're the team that's got to travel and everything.

So, yeah, I think the injury excuse was a lot more valid against Detroit, but probably not in this one, given that San Francisco was dealing with its own injury issues. What is Mike McDonald's biggest frustration, biggest challenge going forward now? Well, I think the biggest issue with the team, and he said this last night, is, you know, the turnovers and losing the turnover battle as bad as they have been. And he said that that is single-handedly probably the biggest issue for them right now. So just football-wise, that's their biggest issue. i think the biggest challenge is keeping a team together when you start off like they did and now all of a sudden you've got

all these issues and you're on three i mean there's a chance you know like there is with any team for something like this to snowball and for resentment to start building and for finger pointing and you know all that stuff so i think his challenge is there's the football side of it and actually fixing the issues, and there's a lot of them right now. But there's also just kind of the personal component of it and, you know, keeping the team's mindset where it needs to be and not allowing this thing to snowball. Because as we've talked about, they're 3-3 with three straight losses,

and it's not like it gets a lot easier. It's not like they've got a bye here coming up, or it's not like they've got a gimme win. It's Atlanta, it's the Rams. Obviously the Rams are struggling, but it's a team that still has a very good quarterback and still has had their number, and you've obviously got the Bills in that mix as well. So they've lost three straight straight and there's a real chance that this losing streak can continue and so the challenge from mcdonald is keeping everybody

together right now i think the most surprising stat from last night was that the 49ers only sacked geno smith once and because there was so much pressure on him there are so many times where it looks like the pocket's collapsing or he has to throw the ball away. And I asked that question combined with their challenges establishing a running game. Is the offensive line still a major problem for this team? Oh, it's a huge problem. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, just looking at how imbalanced their offense has been over the first few games, and it was again in this one, but I think you chalk some of that up to, okay,

it's another big deficit that they're chasing in the second half, and so some of that is, you know, a game script thing where the game sort of, you know, forces them into throw mode. But, you know, I honestly think that Ryan Grubb is part of this issue, that Ryan Grubb has looked at this offensive line and said, okay, well, they're not very good at anything. They're not very good at run blocking or pass protecting. And I think he says, okay, yeah, if you run the ball on first down,

then you're probably looking at second and nine. And your whole drive gets out of whack that way. And so, yeah, you're putting a strain on your offensive line. You're asking those guys to do a lot when you're dropping back 50-plus times a game. I think he may just look at that as the lesser of two, you know, unideal options and says, okay, yeah, you are, but maybe you can get Geno to get the ball out quickly.

You're still giving your offense a chance because you're putting the ball in the hands of some very good perimeter players when you throw it. So I think this offensive line is not good. And I think Ryan Grubb, I think that's impacting his play call, among other things. The other thing, too, is remember, this guy was a bit, you know, this guy coordinated one of the most pass-heavy offenses in college football the last couple seasons at UW. And I wondered, I know the Seahawks wondered as well, like, when they were thinking about hiring him as, okay, what's his willingness slash ability to switch gears?

So I think part of this is just there's some natural inclination to throw the ball. When you mix in a bad offensive line, I think that's a big part of it as well. It's an interesting dynamic, right? Because I know midweek, like McDonald was pretty blunt in saying we need to run the ball better. We need to run it more.

We need to run it more effectively. So it's almost like the mandate was out there. And then I think maybe you've got an offensive coordinator who's like, yeah, I'd love to run it too, but our O-line isn't that good. And the end result is 20 carries for 52 yards on Thursday night, which is nowhere near

good enough if you're going to have a balanced offense. And it's against a 49ers defense that the week prior got run on pretty good by Arizona, so you felt like the opportunity was there. Yeah, no, and they did run the ball more in the first half. I think they had 28 plays, and I think it was 18 dropbacks

to 10 rushing plays in the first half. So still pretty pass-heavy, but even then that wasn't as bad as it's been in recent weeks. And so, yeah, I just think, I mean, in the second half, you sort of understand it because they get into, you know, at one point that was a, very briefly it was a three-score game, but it was a two-score game for most of that second half. And so you understand, you know, shifting into throwing mode then. But, yeah, I mean's it's just sort of

been the the uh the story of their season so far at least in the last three games is that you find you get into these big holes because you start so poorly and then um you know if you want to run the ball i mean you can it's a lot harder when you're chasing big deficits like they have been the last three games we're speaking to espn's brady's Brady Henderson here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. So, Brady, prior to getting you on, I said, you know, after the Seahawks started 3-0, I said, you know, I need to know more and learn more about this team against better opponents

and better quarterbacks and better offenses. And now I think I've learned too much. Maybe I know exactly. I wish I hadn't. Yeah, I kind of – I like those more naive days where I thought that they were going to be a good football team because it wasn't that they've just lost these games. They're getting scorched on the defensive side of the ball.

Do you have an idea of if, honestly, super simple question, but is this Seahawks team good or not? Yeah, I really don't know. I mean, because even in the three games they won, remember, the one game that was not a really close one was the Miami one. They won by, you know, three scores. But that was obviously a very tough situation with the Dolphins when by the end of it they were down to their third-string quarterback. But, you know, the first two games, look, it was one score, you know, 26-20 against Bo Nix in his NFL debut.

Then you go to overtime against the Patriots the next week. So they were 3-0, but, you know, there was some caveats with all three of those wins. So, yeah, I think the jury has very much been out on them. You know, I don't know. I'm afraid that jury might be nearing a verdict right now that, yeah, this is not a very good team. Or maybe they're just an average team. And I think if you pull back a little bit, you know, some of this makes sense.

It's the first year of a new scheme on both sides of the ball. So there's just a lot of – it's a transition year for them. And then you've got a new head coach who I still think he's the right guy for the job, but he's learning a lot of this stuff on the fly. So I think big picture, yeah, it makes sense. And I also think that, look, if you were to ask yourself before the season, where would they be after six games? You might've said four and two at best. And that, you know, the only game that they have lost that they should have won so far would be that Giants game. So that one remains a big disappointment.

But we've all known that this is a 49ers team that has really had their number in a big way. So I think even before the season, you would have thought that injury issues aside, this is going to be a tough game. So are they very good? Yeah, I don't really know. And again, they're going to get challenged here even more over the next four games before they're by.

But I don't know if they're that far off from where we reasonably could have predicted going into this season. Brady, we got a text in from a listener, and it says, Can you ask Brady why the Seahawks didn't do more to address the O-line in the offseason? It's been brutal for years

and never seems to be a priority for John Schneider. Yeah, fair question. Their offensive line is bad right now. And I think the answer to that and a lot of questions about their offensive line is that they, in their minds, offensive line is a huge issue around the NFL. And there's such a lack of quality offensive linemen that anybody who is any good gets way overpaid. And the thought, I think, in their eyes is that, you know, they're not going to pay, I guess, a good way of, just as an example, they're not going to pay, you know, $12 million a year to an offensive lineman that they think is only worth, you know, $4 or $5 million a year. If that guy is only going to be a little bit better than an offensive lineman, that is a lot cheaper. So I think they play the value game with the offensive line and they don't, know make these huge overpays or what in their eyes are just very small upgrades from what they could get for a lot cheaper um but you know they

would tell you that that's kind of what you've got to do in the nfl just because there's so few good offensive linemen because you know the college game is not producing enough of those guys and all of the good you know guys who are big enough to play that position and athletic enough to play it, they're instead playing defensive line. And John Schneider's talked a lot about that, about how there's just not that many good offensive linemen, and I think they're playing a value game where they're not going to be slightly, they're not going to get a slightly better player

if it means vastly overpaying for him um but the other you know issue of it is they've had chances to to get better players for cheaper meaning drafting them um and they haven't done that you know there was a player that i think they really wanted in this draft cooper bb and i think they tried to trade up for him in the second or third round and they weren't able to do that um so they drafted Christian Haynes who obviously has given them very little but you know there was a player who I believe San Francisco drafted a few picks after that a guard who was starting and playing well for them so you know part of it is there's not that many good offensive

linemen the other part of it is they're just not picking the right ones. Yeah, I just wonder how Geno Smith feels about all this because I don't, this is anecdotal, but I've seen him look frustrated on the field before, but yesterday he seemed to be frustrated at everything. He didn't seem to be on the same page with some of his receivers. He looked frustrated with the sideline, and he did look frustrated with himself and some of the things that happened out there.

What did he have to say after the game? He sounded frustrated, too. And, you know, Gino, I know that the organization has been impressed with him in the way that he handles himself in those post-game press conference because he is such a fiery competitor. And in the heat of the moment, he doesn't always keep his cool. And he will get on players and maybe he'll be a little bit too hard on guys in

the heat of the moment. But then, you know, by the time we hear from him, you know, 30 minutes or so after the game, he's always calm. He's always, you know, always taking the heat all on himself. He's the first guy to take the blame, even when it's clear that somebody else screwed up. Last night, there was a little bit of a difference in that postgame press conference. The second interception, if you watch that route or watch that play, it looks like DK Metcalf or the second interception, if you watch that route or watch that play,

it looks like DK Metcalf kind of rounded off his in-breaking route where he started to run just a dig route, and then he sort of got a little lazy. That's what it looked like to me. I'm not positive on that. But he got a little lazy in the route, and he didn't run the route that Geno Smith was expecting, and that's why the ball looked so underthrown and the defensive player was able to undercut it. Afterwards, you know, Geno was asked about that play, and he said, it's an interception, man. It's on me.

So he took the heat for that like he usually does, but then there was another question about, you know, some misthrows in the first half, and he said, watch the tape, man, you'll see, watch the tape. So to me, I heard that comment as, watch the tape, and you realize that those mistakes weren't on me. And that was uncharacteristic of the way he typically answers questions in post-game press conferences. And there were some other answers where he was pretty short

and he just definitely seemed more frustrated than I heard him. Between the offensive line, between the receivers not always making plays for him, I can understand why this would be a very frustrating start for a guy who, as we've talked about, he's playing for a new contract and he's

trying to show the Seahawks that he is their long-term guy and you know when when you can't beat the 49ers you know they're now 0-6 against them in their last six he's 0-5 against them in that span and every one of those games has been a big struggle and yeah I think that that question remains up in the air. I'm glad you brought that up because that was exactly what I wanted to ask about it's this mastery that the 49ers have had over the Seahawks recently. I can't even remember the last time that the Seahawks beat

the 49ers. It's been a while, I know that. This used to be a rivalry. We used to have a rivalry here, and now it's so one-sided. I do wonder if maybe last night that also played into the frustrations because it wasn't just that the 49ers had dominated the series recently. The first half, that thing looked like

it was going to be a blowout. Like, kudos to the Seahawks for clawing their way back to make it respectable. But first half was all San Francisco, and that's all the rivalry's been for the last little while, all San Francisco. Yeah, it looked, I mean, that first half just looked like it has the last two years, the last five games. It is amazing, to your point, that this was, I mean, you know, 10 years ago, this was a very

good rivalry like back and forth but you know for much of kyle shanahan's tenure the first you know four or five years it was very one-sided in the other way and it's it's the 49ers have been so dominant last few years that it's easy to forget that it was the other way around. I mean, the Seahawks won the vast majority of those games, you know, from when Shanahan took over in 2017 up until 2022, which is when it really turned back in the 49ers' favor. I mean, you know, 2021 season, Seahawks beat them twice, and then all of a sudden that flip just switched for whatever reason. And it felt like that again in the first half.

And, yeah, I think the Seahawks do deserve credit for not folding in the second half and for battling back. I think another thing we've got to mention, that this was their third game in 11 days. And they were playing two of those games that have been against teams coming off long break, coming off, I think, 10-day breaks. And so, yeah, they looked worn down. And they obviously were short-handed, but they just looked worn down for parts of that game.

So they deserve credit for not folding and for coming back the way that they did. But I don't know how much solace that is going to be for a team that's lost three straight games and still very much, you know, still very much is a ways away behind the 49ers in terms of talent, in terms of coaching, in terms of everything. Brady, this was great. As always, thank you very much for taking the time to do this. Enjoy the weekend. No Seahawks to cover, but some NFL. And we'll do this again next Friday.

All right. Sounds good. Thanks, fellas. See you. Thank you. the cover but some NFL and we'll do this again next Friday alright sounds good thanks fellas thank you Brady Henderson ESPN NFL insider Seahawks insider here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650 yeah the Seahawks are frustrating right now because I'm trying to see if where the team

is going where's the direction I'll say the quiet part out loud if you want it's just like it's mediocrity I'll say the quiet part out loud there's still way But it's just like, it's mediocrity. I'll say the quiet part out loud. There's still way too much Pete Carroll on that team. He needs to gut it. And I think he knows it. I think Mike McDonald looks at that team and he's like,

we're not going anywhere with the way we're currently constructed. Yeah. I mean, he had playmakers on defense in Baltimore. He had guys that were difference makers. Part of the reason that the Seahawks are so lousy in the turnover differential, they're like the second worst in the NFL in turnover differential, is not because they're turning the ball over that much. They're not getting any.

I mean, Jordan Love said it after the game, or Julian Love, sorry, said it after the game yesterday. We don't create enough turnovers. We don't punch balls loose. We don't get after picks. We don't do any. We don't cause fumbles. We don't do anything. they're just there on defense they're just out there just like

run around us and get to the end zone and then we'll get the ball back there's like a couple nice tackles love made a nice tackle yep at one point but it's not but but that stands out but when i was like he's not gonna make this tackle oh he surprised me well someone for him someone responded to that tweet that i threw out there with defensive guru mike mcdonald and they're like well you can't expect him to do what he did in baltimore with the players that he's got right now and i'm like bingo i think that he's looking at this he's like i need way different personnel and even any guys like i need ball hawks and guys that can get after it make a difference i need the legion of boom just anybody at this point because he doesn't have it right now.

Okay, we're going to go to break. When we come back, AJ from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway is going to join us. They are now the presenting sponsor of What We Learned. We've got a $100 gift card to give away to their spot. The best pizza place in the world. I stand by that. After AJ, Kevin Kurz from The Athletic in Philadelphia, maybe.

We're working out some logistics there. We may get him on. We may not. If we don't, fear not. Bruff and I will walk you through the Flyers side of things for tonight's game. 7 o'clock, Rogers Arena, Canucks Flyers. And then we can look at some of the other scores in the National Hockey League last night that we didn't get into.

We can talk about Macklin Celebrini, North Vancouver's very own. Big night for him. Less so for the rest of his San Jose Sharks teammates. They had a pretty disappointing loss. How about the Blues? They're the comeback kids. Didn't they come back from a 2-0 deficit against the Kraken? Yep, the Blues just know how to rack it.

They're perfect this year. That's what we do. We go down multiple goals and then we come back. It's our new system. They've got, well, they're perfect this year, right? And you know, it's funny. That's what we do. We go down multiple goals and then we come back. It's our new system. Their identity. They were like, what's our identity this year? Like, we give the other team hope and then we snatch it away.

It's the St. Louis way. So we can talk about all that coming up on the other side. 7.30. It's a lot like our city. Yeah. Come here to live and then you come and you know. This isn't great. I don't like this at all. 7.30, to live, and then you come, and no hope. This isn't great. I don't like this at all.

730 Moj is going to join us. I believe Moj has already touched down in Saskatchewan for the game tomorrow. It is the Lions, and it is the Rough Riders. The battle for second place in the West. So we'll talk to Moj about that at 730. He's also doing his usual Canucks reporting. He did the exclusive interview and article on Dan Heinen. So we'll talk to him about that at 7.30. He's also doing his usual Canucks reporting. He did the exclusive interview and article on Dan Heinen. So we'll talk to him about that as well. 8 o'clock, Rick Dollywall.

Apparently we have to have Rick right on at 8 o'clock. Reasons, I don't know, but he keeps throwing it out there in a very angry way. Very Rick. So 8 o'clock, we'll talk to Rick Dollywall. And a reminder, $100 gift card to AJ's for the best what we learned. Get him in.

Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet. 650.