Halford & Brough in the Morning - It's All About Salary Cap Chicanery

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason look at a wild Week 4 with Too Deep Zone NFL insider Mike Tanier (2:13), plus they talk the latest NHL news with The Athletic's James Mirtle (26:24). 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.

702 on a Monday. You're listening to Sports Talk with Mike and Jason. It's just the Halford Impruff Show. Not just the Halford Improft Show. What our first hour we had. I think we covered every single significant. sport over the weekend. We laughed, we cried.

We did forget, and we were talking about it over the break, Canadian women's rugby team. Yeah, I mean, England was just better than them. But what an experience for those Canadian women to play that game at Twickenham and gain the respect of the rugby world. And it takes nothing away from what they did in the tournament. The Prime Minister was there. Yeah. And, well, he's familiar with people in England.

lived there for a while. Yeah. And they, yeah, they, they, people, it was, it was cool to see people say that, like, Canada was playing the game in a way that many other countries have never even tried to. And England was, too good, they were almost destined to win that tournament. Yep. They are really good, but so was Canada. So congrats to the Canadian women. You are listening to the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650.

Halford in Brough of the morning is brought to 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 dash trustee.com. We are now an hour two of the program. Mike Tannier, our NFL insider from the two deep zone is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. Our two is Bradtray, Jason hominock at jason.

If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at jason. down mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintech studio, Kintech footwear and orthotics, working together with you in step. To the Power West Industries hotline, we go. Our next guest is our NFL insider, and he's probably very tired from what was a very, very long NFL Sunday. Mike Tanier here now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Michael. How are you? It was only a 16-hour Sunday and a little bit of Monday morning. I'm fresh as a daisy this morning. So for those that didn't pay attention yesterday, our time zone, the Ireland game between the Steelers and the Vikings kicked off at 6.30 our time, AM.

And then the Sunday night football game went past 9 p.m. R time because, of course, it went to the very final stages of overtime. So it was a very long day. I'm glad you're fresh as a daisy. Let's start with that overtime game, Mike. What did you think of the 40 to 40 tie between the Packers and the Cowboys on Sunday night football? it was perfect it was perfect because the Packers did not deserve to win that game

they made some really foolish mistakes up and down all through all five quarters of it and we're lucky to come away with a tie so I think that they deserve that tie and the last thing we needed this morning was Jerry Jones tackling and explaining how he got that win because it was his plan all along to trade Micah Parsons because he's playing galactic chess

or you know 4D poker or whatever he thinks he's playing so he should be happy to come away with a tie and this tie in the standings will preserve for the rest of the season what a wacky game it was and kind of how weird and flawed and like overdramatic the storyline surrounding these two teams were at the beginning of the season Green Bay got off to a good start to the season

and everyone was like are they the Super Bowl favorites since then they've lost to Cleveland and they tied Dallas and now they're going into the bye week just general thoughts on Green Bay's start to the season. A mistake-prone team, a team that makes fundamental errors, a team that commits sloppy penalties, a team doesn't manage situations particularly well, also one that has several injuries on the offensive line that hurt them a little bit on Sunday night, or

hurt them against the Browns in week three, because there's too many backups out there in the game, have some injuries at defensive tackle, too, so they're hurting in places that you don't always look, that, you know, don't always get headlines, and I think that's been a factor as well. I think they're a strong team overall. I think, overall I think Michael Parsons was a good selection. They have to stop being the young team that makes mistakes. They kind of lived off of that vibe last year. Hey, they win, but when they face the lions or the Eagles, they're the young team that makes mistakes. They're not the young team anymore. They have to close out some of these victories. Those were two winnable games. They

could be four and oh if they executed better. They've got, I think, I believe they're going into their buy. They really have to sort that out during this off week. The marquee game from the afternoon slate was the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs. A 37 to 20 win for the Chiefs. I got questions on both teams, but first with Baltimore. Lamar Jackson gets hurt. He sits out most of the second half. I forgot where Cooper Rush ended up. Now I know. The answer is Baltimore. Baltimore is now one in three. That's happened

twice in franchise history in 05 and 2015. And in both those years, they missed the postseason. All of that to ask, how much trouble is Baltimore in right now? They're in serious trouble. Yeah. The Lamar Jackson injury, we're monitoring it. It's not clear with that all day. If Jackson winds up starting with limited mobility, that's a problem. The Namede-Metabuque injury at defensive tackle has really made it easy for teams to run

up the middle, and it's not just Mabuque. Some of his backups also got hurt and ended up on IR. Myerlin Humphrey, the cornerback, got hurt last night. He's their store cornerback. He was struggling. He was out of the game for a lot of the second air. They're thin there. They tried to bring in Jir Alexander.

He's like a permanent resident of the injured reserve from his days in Green Bay. He's not available. So in addition to the vibes, addition to the idea that this team's going backwards, that they started out for the first three quarters of week one looking like a Super Bowl champion have been going backwards since. Tangible injury report is very troublesome, and it's a real big problem for the Ravens.

Did the Chargers get stuck looking ahead to whatever followed the New York Giants? So what happened in that game? Obviously, there were big stories on the Giants side, too. Well, first, you know, never look past the rookie making his first NFL start because he gets the gingerbread playbook and you don't have any film on it. That's part of it. The big thing that happened for the Chargers is left tackle Joe Alt got injured. Joe Alt had to move from right to left tackle in the preseason to replace

Rishon Slater, the Pro Bowl left tackle. He's out for the year. So you lose your pro ball left tackle. Then you lose your former first round pick. Left tackle replaced him. You had to replace him at right tackle. Then you have your third stringer at left tackle. You're facing Brian Burns and Abdul Carter and Kvon Thibodeau.

The one thing the Giants can do is send pass rushers at you. Justin Herbert was under siege. He started making mistakes. He started taking hits. Things snowballed and the Giants came away with an upset. The gingerbread playbook. I love that. What did you think of Jackson Dart?

You know, people are going to make more out of that than it was. Because it's in New York media and it's a big win. And, you know, he was better than Russell Wilson. There's no question about it. He's athletic. He's peppy. He seems like he's got confidence to spare. He'll go out there and liver hits when he's scrambling.

A couple of nice throws. They didn't ask him to do much. There were a lot of situations where they got the ball deep in Chargers territory because of turnovers, returns, mistakes, et cetera, and they settled for field goals. He had one really good drive at the beginning after that, that offense sputtered. So the big problem for the Giants right now, is we're waiting for the Malik neighbors injury, or maybe we aren't. I haven't checked the news in about a half hour.

Neighbors might be out for a year. If neighbors are out for a year, the growing pains are going to come fast for Dart. Maybe not next week against the Saints down in New Orleans, but definitely when the Giants have to play the Eagles like two times in the next three or four weeks. So the defending Super Bowl champion in Philadelphia Eagles go out again, get another win again against a good team, another undefeated team previously in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They go to 4-0 in the year. They just kind of keep rolling along,

and we don't really talk about them that much. Why is this? What is this dynamic where you've got the team, the defending Super Bowl champs get off to this great start? I think they've won like 20 of their last 21 games or something ridiculous. And we're all just like, oh, okay, the Eagles are doing Eagles things. You know what?

The Eagles haters like to find fought with the team, and the Eagles fans really like to find fault with the team. I'm based here in Philly, and when I go out to walk the dog later, my neighbor's going to be like, yeah, we got to do something that we let them back into the game. It's going to be this absolute negativity, and that's kind of how Philadelphia fans roll. But you know what? If you look at the Eagles, you can pick apart some of the things that aren't working particularly well.

Offense comes and goes. They've got a problem at one of their cornerback positions, the pass rush. They've lost some guys there. You can definitely pick at them. You can pick at the bills, too. You can pick at the lions. You can pick at everybody. I think what's different about the Eagles is that people just don't necessarily look at them and say,

oh, this is one of the great franchises of the NFL, or Jalen Hertz is one of the great quarterbacks, or Nick Siriani is one of the great coaches. They keep waiting for this team to falter and trip and expose themselves. Guess what, the Eagles have a championship. There's no more exposing themselves. This team is for real, and you should take them seriously. Hey, Mike, I went into this season now as a Seahawks fan. I was curious to see what Pete Carroll and Gino Smith,

could do with the Raiders, I am no longer curious about the Raiders. Like, I, I was, I was interested in the Raiders for like, that was tough yesterday. For like, three days. I'm like, you know, the Raiders need to be relevant in the NFL. Like, what, so where are they, where are they now? And like, honestly, Pete is not, he's not a young guy. Could it be a short stint for him with the Las Vegas Raiders? It could be, I don't know. I think that the people running the Raiders will be.

kid gloves with Pete Carroll in terms of his reputation, et cetera. I can't see Mark Davis oucing him after one year. I'm not sure Tom Brady would have the guts to make that kind of quick hook. But man, talk about a team. Everyone talked up in the preseason.

And it's like, well, Pete Carroll's coming back and Chip Kelly's running the offense and Geno's coming in and they have this fourth round wide receiver and I'd be listening to that like, do you hear yourselves? Do you hear yourselves what you're talking about? That sounds like a 6-11 team. As Seahawks fans, you know, you watch Gino Smith every week, and, you know, he was out there doing his best, had the comeback player in the year's season, would make all these mistakes, you know, would really, especially when he got to the Red Zone start pressing, do some wacky stuff, and somehow nationally we're like, well, you know, that's not Gino Smith's fault.

Now we're watching it and you see, well, that's Gino Smith's fault. He's very limited as a starting quarterback. He's not somebody you can rely on to do more than kind of like manage the game and win the most winnable games. and I think the Raiders are really getting a taste of that now. So this is probably the first time that we've talked about the Jacksonville Jaguars, quite frankly, in a long time. But they're three and one now. They go into San Francisco and beat the Niners.

I'm trying to get a read on this team. And I know the storyline from yesterday was the argument that Liam Cohen and Robert Salah got into postgame where Salad accused Cohen of sign stealing and then Cohen snapped back at him. But lost in all of this is the fact that the Jaguars might be a good team. I'm still on 100% certain. That's why I'm asking you.

Are the Jaguars good? You know when they're not making mistakes, they're great. The problem is they are always making mistakes. That was a mess of a game. The 49ers with all their injuries, Brock Party comes back. Looks like he needed another week off. He was just spraying the ball all over the place. So the Jaguars, you know, they take a, I guess it was 146, what was it, 176 at one point,

and they did everything they could to cost of that game away. It is a frustrating team to watch. they will drop passes. Third and one, might as people will be third and 21 for them. They were lucky to have an interception call back. They were lucky that Travis Hunter fumbled at the end of a catch, but he was able to jump on it himself.

All this wacky stuff happens. I don't have any faith in the Jaguars because this was the same story last year before Lawrence got hurt. This was the same story two years ago. This is a mistake-prone team. I know they change coaches, change general managers, whether it's Lawrence,

whether it's some of the other veterans, whether it's the leadership. they never fix these problems. So could they make the playoffs? Yes. If I have to pick a team in that division right now, I'm going to hold my nose and pick the Indianapolis Colts. Because even though they lost yesterday,

they looked pretty good in defeat, and I can see what they do well, and I know what kind of mistakes they're going to make. I got one more for you before we let you go, and it's probably the worst team in the National Football League. It's the Tennessee Titans and Cam Ward. What a disaster. 26-0-0 shutout loss to fall to 0-4 on the year.

It feels like it's getting worse. The Texans needed a game against them. Yeah, it feels like everyone needs a game against it. Like, it is, they are a bad football team, the Titans. We're going to play the audio from Cam Ward later in the program because he was very, very dispirited and very angry after that loss. And we lost Mike. Man, this is happening way too much.

Mike was dispirited too. Yeah, he just hung up. He's like, I got to go. That's fine. We'll try and get him back on the phone. You know what, Lattie, in the interim, let's play the Cam Ward audio. This is the rookie quarterback who has lost for. straight games to start his NFL career, and the worst was a shutout loss to the Texans on

Sunday. Hopefully we get the bleeped version. We're going to see what happens. We'll see what happens. Here's Cam Ward after another loss from the Tennessee Titans, 26 to nothing to the Texans on Sunday. I mean, we're keeping a buck right now. We ask, so we owe and for it. We have this point, we got nothing to lose. We dropped a quarter of our games, and we've yet to do anything. So we have to lock in, especially myself on the offensive line, from the defense line, from the special teams to all three faces we have to play together we have not played together this year yet um and that's just something that you know we want to preach about it every day every day we got to do better and we're doing that but it has to show up on sundays it hasn't showed up yet

but it got to show up next week if we keep it a buck we ask is an all-time line i'm going to use it probably explains two-thirds of our show i'd say we go back now to mike tannier our NFL insider from the two deep zone mike we played the cam word audio while you were away there um your thoughts on what's going on in Tennessee, because this is not a good start to the professional career of the first overall pick, Cam Ward. Yeah, Ward is a tough-minded kid. I love me. He reminds me of the young Baker-Mafio where he doesn't mince words, and he's super competitive.

The problem is it's him and a bunch of rookies running around in circles right now. I don't know how long Brian Callahan keeps his job. Last week, he was calling, like, 69-yard field goals and doing crazy stuff like that. This week, it was flea-flickers that look like a bunch of. kindergarteners drew them up in the dirt. There were two of them, two trick plays that looked absolutely ridiculous. So it's a team without talent, but

they can't be a team that plays without passion. They were in that game yesterday against the Texans until early in the fourth quarter. They went down 12-0-0. They reacted like they went down, you know, 52 to nothing at that point. That's the type of thing that's got to get fixed, both for Cam Ward and for the future of that organization.

Okay, finally, before we let you go, I do have one more, and Jason said in the previous segment, he's having a hard time getting fired up for a Monday night football doubleheader. I need a sports day off too and I'm looking at Jets, Dolphins and Bengals, Broncos, and going, that's okay, I can take a day off.

So, Mike, try and convince Jason that it's not a sports day off that he needs to watch not one but both games on this Monday night football double header. I am not going to do that to Jason. Jason, take your day up, or at least take the early game off here on the East Coast. I'm recommending

that people watch Jeopardy and Will Fortune. And then switch over to the other game. I'm worried about a preemption, though. I fear that there will be a preemption and then I will be sitting there watching Jet Dolphins and wishing I could just go to bed. Mike, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do it. We really appreciate it.

Enjoy both games tonight and Jeopardy and the Wheel. We'll do. Take care and enjoy your week. Yeah, you too, thanks, buddy. That's Mike Tanier, our NFL insider. From the two deep zone here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. A reminder that Mike is a presentation of the Clayton Public House. From pregame to post

game, the Clayton Public House is your home. football. Catch all the action on 15 screens and two giant projectors. Visit them online and the Clayton Pub.com. The Seahawks host Tampa Bay on Sunday. No longer undefeated Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Three and one, both teams, the Seahawks and the Seahawks are two and a half point favorites in this one. Lumen is so back, Lumen is so back that the Seahawks are two and a half point favorites over Tampa Bay. Here's a question for you. Uh, buy is, week eight. The Seahawks are currently three and one. They've got Tampa Bay at home. Then they got to go to Jacksonville. Then they have

Houston at home. So three more games for a three and one team. What record do the Seahawks have at the buy? Hopefully five and two. I would take five and two. I would take five and I would take that too. Tampa Bay is banged up right now and they're coming off a loss and they got to go all the way out west. I wish they'd won though. It's coming off a loss. You're more likely to get a focus performance. I'm a little worried about the Jacksonville game going on the road to a Jacksonville team that's three and one right now and has a pretty good defense. That said, Seahawks are always good

in those games, though. But the Seahawks have been great on the road under McDonald. They're nine and one in his first ten games as a coach on the road. And then the Houston game, see the Houston game's tricky because right now you're penciling that in as a win because Houston's got off to such a bad start. It's a trap. It is a trap game. It really is. Okay. We got a lot more to get to on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Let's do a quick reset here because we're coming in on the midway point of the show. On the other side of the break, James Myrtle is going to join us for some NHL talk, some salary camp talk. He wrote a pretty cool piece for The Athletic last week talking about how capologists are already finding new ways to exploit the CBA and find some loopholes.

We can also get into some of the big stories from around the National Hockey League, the Barkoff injury in Florida. That happened on Friday and then confirmed after we got off the air on Friday that he's going to miss the entire seasons. That means he misses the Olympics as well for Finland. And the Toronto Maple Leafs, James Neck of the Woods, Toronto, they re-upped with Anthony Stolars on a deal. Mason McTavish's deal finally got done in Anaheim, and that's something that we had been monitoring for a while. Six-year deal there?

It kind of got lost in the shuffle over the weekend because there's so many things going on. But another target off the boards there. No one in the sports world was watching the Rider Cup and the NFL and they weren't like, what's going on, Anaheim, Duckswise? Under any other circumstances in this market, McTavish would have been. big news, but there was just too much

going on this weekend. We can also, and then at 8 o'clock we're going to talk to Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Ingole magazine. A reminder, we do have some Canucks content to parse through. I know it's been a loaded show and we've been going all over the map, but we will get Kinect-centric in the final hour with

Kev. It was a win on Friday. It was a loss on Sunday. The win over the crack and the loss over the Oilers last night. I know we haven't spent a ton of time talking about what happened against Edmonton last night. We can do a little bit of it right now because we got some time prior to the break. You know what I haven't really done and I'm going to start doing this week is actually laying out a potential roster for the for the Canucks to start the season with because

I'm not 100% sure of the numbers right now like Niels Holglander is week to week and it sounds like high ankle sprained so that presents an opportunity for someone. Does that make it more likely that lecker-macki makes the team i don't think baines has been very impressive no you know there have been some guys there have been some guys that had big opportunities presented to themselves um and you know i know ratu scored and that was a nice shot i don't think he's been terrific lecker mackie a lot of people were impressive lecker meckermacki that's he said that for sure lecker mackie um you know has max sassen been good not really um has lecrow has lec Linus Carlson showed up.

Not really. I'd say Leckermackie and Coots are by far the two most noticeable will connect so far. Of the young guys. I mean, their first round picks, right? You know what the hardest thing? They're talented guys, but they're young. The hardest thing.

And physically is the big question with both those guys, I think. The hardest thing to do right now, in terms of handicapping, like, your sports futures, is trying to figure out internally how much emphasis and how much stock they're going to put in these preseason games. And you got to remember, this is the last year, if I'm not mistaken, that we're going to have this kind of preseason in the NHL. Like this is gone starting next season, this overdone, long, drawn-out preseason. Like, let's put it this way.

There's no real reason why the season needs to start on October 9th from now. Like, they're ready to go now, right? They're ready. The reason that a lot of the Canucks stars aren't playing in these games is why get hurt? Like, you're ready to go. Maybe you get a game or two to gel, but they're ready to play. These preseason games are too much of a concern to get your big guys hurt. Like, I know that Edmonton put out dry saddle and McDavid yesterday, and I know they tore it apart.

But they didn't need that game yesterday. So someone texted in and said, any thoughts on Adam Foots, the style under Adam Foote? And my answer, I apologize, is just like, it's too early and I can't tell. How about that goal? That goalie poll yesterday, eh, dog. Yeah, I have four minutes, and it worked. Yep. It seems maybe this is.

The deer are more active. That's the main thing I noticed. It seems looser. It seems looser, and I don't know if that's good or bad. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I thought, here's critical Jason again, I thought the beginning of the Cracken game was really disappointing.

The Cracken had a very young lineup, and the Canucks did not, and the Cracken owned them. And people were like, well, it's good for that the Canucks took over in the second and third period. I was like, well, yeah, they better of. Look at the lineup.

By the way, I don't need to see Crapsoft play in any more games ever again. This guy is not an NHL player. He never was. Dan Milstein, you can take them, put him somewhere else. Because I know the Canucks always seem to be in the business of doing favors for Dan Milstein. And I don't know if the Craftsoff, a rival had anything to do with Van der Kaine coming to the Canucks. I don't know if there were like, can you do us a favor?

Yeah, sure. We'll sign him. But like, if that guy goes on waivers, I hope someone takes a chance on him. He's not an NHL player and I don't want to watch him. Yeah, that's fair. I thought when they brought him back it was bizarre I thought that ship had long sailed

Well I think they're desperate I think that was the It's a shot in the dark Listen listen to the words That Quinn Hughes says When he's said it multiple times Like we're not the most talented team So they were looking for a guy

That he does have talent But you know The first goal that Seattle scores He's standing next to the no name Crackin player that tipped it in And I'm watching him Was that real life that I just saw an NHL player standing next to him

and not taking a stick. He was like chatting to him. He was like, it's going to be a crazy sports weekend, isn't it? You're going to watch a ride out. Hey, nice tip there. Wow, great tip. You know, I'm trying to make it in the NHL. I'll say, like, start celebrating one.

What are you out? Like, what are you out of your mind? Tie up a stick! If you want a perfect anecdote about how distressing the Kinex Forward group might be right now, it's that the Hoaglander injury is like profoundly important to this group. Definitely. There's a mean garlander.

has to play in the top six now. There are other teams that if a Nils Hoaglander type gets hurt, it's a blip. Like, all due respect to him, he's a nice player, and he works hard, and he's probably due for a bounce back. But other teams, that guy gets hurt, a player of equal caliber gets hurt, they're fine dealing with it.

The Canucks, it suddenly becomes an issue because it moves a lot of things around the chessboard, not in a good way. Okay, we are up against it for time. We got to go to break. When we come back, James Myrtle, senior NHL writer from The Athletic, is going to join the program.

you're listening to The Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Strance. Get your daily dose of Canucks Talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650. Or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. 733 on a Monday. Halford Brough, Sportsnet, 650. Halford and Brough for the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Only a licensed insolvency trustee can cut your debt by up to 80% with no up-front fees.

That is Sands, of course. To learn how, visit them online at Sands. We are an hour two of the program. We're at the midway point of the show. James Myrtle from The Athletics is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour two of this program is brought to by Jason hominock at Jason.orgage.

Is this our Beverly Hills Cop Part 11? Yes. We're workshopping a Myrtle theme, I think. This is not bad. This is a good place to start. This is about as bad as the remake they did of Beverly Hills Cop, which was just horrendous. I forgot they did a reminder. God, that was bad.

If you love paying too much for your mortgage, don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason, Dow Mortgage. To the Power West Industries Hotline, we go. Our next guest is a senior writer with the athletic NHL style. James Myrtle joins us here, now live, on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. What up, Myrtle?

I think I'm rejecting that theme as my own, so you can offer that up to someone else. Ah, the enthusiasm. James, you've written a lot over the last little bit about salary cap chicanery. We said earlier in the show, you said it actually. It's like every time a loophole closes, like the circle of life, a new one opens up, which is great. People are trying to figure out ways to get around the cap. So you've been writing about it a little bit.

Let our listeners know some of the thoughts, the idea is what you've found or what you think you might have found with regards to maneuvering and manipulating the cap. So when the announcer was going to be a playoff salary cap, you know, I thought, okay, well, that's going to come in next year. It's going to be something people will be talking about more next year. And then all of a sudden, you know, I think it was right before training camp or ready to start a training camp. They're like, nope, it's coming in right now. And I started talking to teams and they're like, well, like, we didn't really prepare for this. Like, we didn't set up our rosters for there to be a playoff cap right now.

And, you know, it creates some issues because the way the playoff cap works is different than the way the regular season cap works. So now when you talk to a capologist, they're like, we need to have two, salary caps in our big spreadsheet or whatever program they use in the front offices to track how things are looking under the regular season cap and how things are looking under the playoff cap. You know, and one of the first things that stood out to me when they announced the playoff cap was they only take into account the 20 players you're playing on your roster

that night. So whatever the 20 players are, you write down that are going to be playing in that playoff game, those are the ones that count against the cap. in the regular season the roster size is 23 players and it counts those players and it changes day to day and you can accrue cap space if you're under over the course of the season but in the playoffs it's just name 20 players you got to be under the 95.5 million cap

and that's it and the first thing that said out to me when I looked at it was well what if you just your backup goalie in the playoffs what if you just put in a league minimum guy and let's say you have a $5 million backup goalie that creates, you know, 4.2 million right there that you could spend on something else. That was the most obvious one. But, you know, there's a bunch of other things I can see teams potentially doing.

And, you know, one of the other ones is the bonuses that go to veteran players, like Jonathan Taves, Winnipeg signed him, 2 million-based salary, 5 million in bonuses. None of the bonuses count against the playoff cap. So Jonathan Taves is theoretically can make $7 million this year, but he's only going to count $2 million against the playoff cap. so I think you're going to see a real proliferation of those veteran contracts with bonuses and you could do some really wacky ones you could do like a league minimum base salary and then if they play one game they get a $2 million bonus but they're still only going to count

as an entry level contract a league minimum contract when the playoffs start so those are two of the ones that really stand out I had some other ones in there too but I think it's going to be really interesting the way the teams work around that playoff cap now I think this is ultimately wrong, but the first player I thought of was, on the enough, Darnell Nouris, because the Oilers have been in the playoffs a lot. The season, or the last few years have been back-to-back

Stanley Cup finals. And I always think of his cap hit as being very problematic for the Oilers. Now, I don't think they would healthy scratch him or anything to keep them out, but like, could there be a situation where you've got a team in the playoffs

and you just set your cap for that individual night and you go, you know, what, like, we're going to keep this highly paid underperforming veteran out of the lineup. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the example that I thought stood out the most to me was New Jersey, who were at the cap, and they've got Andre Palat, who's basically a third, fourth liner at this point, making $6 million. And that could be a situation where you get to the trade deadline, and you're like, you

know what, we really need probably more help up front. We really need another center, let's say. So we're going to make a trade at the trade deadline. and we're going to use that $6 million that Andre Pallat salary is, and we're just not going to play Pallat in the playoffs. And I think that that could become really common. I mean, you could even

take the goalie thing to an extreme. What if you're a team, let's just like theoretically, you know, Bobrovsky makes $10 million. Their backup, Teresov makes $800K. What if Tarasov has an amazing year and Bobrovsky's hurt and doesn't play very well?

And they're just like, you know what? We're going to start Teresov in the playoffs and maybe we'll add some more salary at the trade deadline, and you know, that'll be what they do, you know. So that's obviously not going to happen to as Popovsky's won the last two Stanley Cups, but if it's a team in a different situation where they have a wide disparity

and what their goalies make, I could easily see that as a way that they could generate some more cap space for them in the playoffs. So is LTIR still though the vehicle that you stack your team? Because you have to get to the playoffs with this roster.

You know, you have to get through the door between the regular season and the playoffs. So how do you actually add those players so you do have these decisions to make once the playoffs start? Well, I mean, a ton of teams have cap space. You know, I think it's something like 23 teams have 2 million or more in cap space. And if you go into the season with that cap space, it accrues over time. And by the trade deadline, it's a little bit more than four times that 2 million.

So if the majority of the teams in the league have accrued cap space of $7, $8 million by the deadline, there's not going to be the same kind of cap crunch that we've seen at the deadline in the past, where teams are really struggling to fit players in. There are some teams that are right at the cap, you know, the Edmonton's right there, and like I said, New Jersey, and there's going to be some teams that are really tight. And what they're going to have to do is they're going to have to, you know, trade salaries out. You know, maybe they have to trade, platt out with a pick or something to get rid of that con. contract in order to create room to bring players in. But I think for the most part, it's going

to be pretty easy because during the regular season, the contracts you're acquiring at the deadline are only a quarter of their value. And then you can use retention to get it down even further. So you really only need one eighth of the cap head. I mean, to use simple numbers, if the guy's making $8 million, he's only going to count $1 million against your regular season cap. If you use retention, if you use all the vehicles. If you have 50%. If you have 50% retention, right? So you look at how many teams have one million space or it can easily create one million in space and there's going to be ways to bring in players.

I've heard people say that, you know, LTIR doesn't really matter anymore. Is that true? Teams will use it when players are injured, you know, to... It doesn't matter in the way that you can't put, you know, you can't put Kuturov there or Mark Stone and then activate them for game one of the playoffs, you know, after spending their money. Well, you could if you're willing to trade it off with sitting a veteran or sitting a goalie, couldn't you? Yeah, you can use some of it, yeah.

The way that they changed LTIR, though, is that it's limited in how much relief you get. Okay, okay. You know, we're getting in the weeds a little bit, but, you know, I think it's three, and I'm lost in the weeds when it comes to that sort of stuff. So I'm just, I'm just looking for, like, the basic rules of the new landscape. Okay. So the new landscape is, let's say you have a $10 million player you want to put an LTIR. you can't get full $10 million relief.

And that's part of what teams were abusing. You can only get relief for an average NHL player salary, which is this year $3.8 million. So the most relief, unless the player's completely gone and not coming back in the playoffs. So that's something that the Panthers have to think about with Barkov right now. You know, he's got a big ticket.

I think he's $10 million. You know, and if they have to decide, is he going to be back this year. If he's coming back in May, which I think is around what the timeline is from the knee injury that he's got, then they can only get the $3.8 million. in relief. But if he's out the whole season

and he's not coming back, they can get the whole $10 million and spend that. Halford, what is your brain doing right now? You guys are asking the questions. I don't even understand the questions I'm asking, though. I'm just throwing things out there and hoping you'll provide some sort of clarity. I can go deeper if you guys.

I've read the whole new CBA so I can help you out with anything you want to know. You put that in your athletic article and then we'll kind of read it and kind of understand. That's the way we do things around here. It makes for good radio for sure. How do the Florida Panthers, can the Florida Panthers recover from this Barkov injury? Because I know they've got a lot of great players still, but, you know, this is, you know, a first ballot Hall of Famer, the best two-way forward in the game right now and a pretty important player.

Yeah, I don't. I mean, it's hard to doubt this team because they always seem to find a way. Like, I thought going into the playoffs last year with how hurt Kachuk was and how limited he was going to be, I didn't think that they were going to be the team that was going to be able to come out on top, but they found a way. So, you know, they're going to get Kachuk back in, I don't know, December or January or something, and that's going to be a big boost to them. But I just look at down the middle, what are they going to do?

Like, is Sam Bennett, their first line center now? Yeah. You know, and is, so they move Reinhardt to center or Lundell becomes a second-line center and then they're not going to have the deep third line that they had. It's still a good team. Like, there's still a playoff team. So, you know, I think the scenario for them to potentially three-peat would be you spend some of your LTIR money, you make some kind of acquisition, and then cross your fingers

that Barkov's ready in the end of round two or the start of round three or something like that. then I think maybe you can come up with a scenario where they can pull it off. We're speaking to James Myrtle, senior writer from the Athletics NHL Front, and the author of the Red Net Light newsletter here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. I was reading the newsletter is what I was doing, actually. This is good. I like this stuff. These are my kind of lists.

The worst teams in the NHL this year, the projected bottom 10. I like that. Because we just talked about the Tennessee Titans and Cam Ward and how bad. They're awful, right? They're going to be the worst team in football this year, I think. Who's going to be the worst team in the NHL? here, James? Our projection was,

well, you guys have it in front of you, right? It was either San Jose or Chicago. Play the game, Myrtle. Tell me who it's going to be in Chicago. Chicago, San Jose, Pittsburgh, or the three. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's an interesting list because, you know, and this is based off the statistical model that we use,

and, you know, I didn't write the story. I just wrote the newsletter about the story, but we have huge, long, 3,000-word season previews about every single team, and we release them in order of where we think they're going to finish. So, you know, Chicago and San Jose probably no surprise that they're last and second last just because of their rebuilds. But what's interesting now, as you look at the projection,

they're very close to another group of teams, which includes Pittsburgh, Nashville. Seattle. Seattle is still down there. Philadelphia. You know, there's a bunch of, so, you know, basically the Gavin McKenna sweepstakes for the first overall pick are going to be very interesting this year because this is another one of those

really transformational players that's going to become available. I swear to God if he goes to Pittsburgh or Chicago. Like, you know, like Pittsburgh seems almost destined to get him. You go Lemieux to Crosby to McKenna. Look at, like, that Pittsburgh roster now is like, it's so bad.

You know, we're working on some projections ranking like the defense cores and like the different parts of the roster. And like, it's like 38-year-old Chris LaTang Eric Carlson, who they're probably, going to trade and then like just like a bunch of nothing there and it's you know they kept Tristan Jari who like has barely been able to play in the league the last two years in goal and did you know did your did Kyle Dubus accept a mission impossible there

yeah well the problem was that the ownership there and when they brought him in they wanted him they didn't want him to give up and rebuild right away which is I think what they should have done yes you know it was kind of like let's try and try and win with this group. I mean, he should have went in there and said, that's impossible. But it sounds like that's what they wanted. And then now that Fenway group, you know, they're the Red Sox owners. Now they want to dump the team. You know, they've only had them for what, like four years. Yeah, and they're probably going to make like $700 million on the transaction. So good for them. But they made a real mess the last couple of years. So, I mean, it's, I hear what you guys are saying.

You don't want them to get the first overall pick, but it'd be kind of a cool story for him to come in there and play with Crosby for over many more years Crosby's going to play. It would be a cool story. Hey, what do you think about, because you and I were texting about this, what do you think about the Seattle Cracken?

Like, do you, or do you think about the Seattle Cracken? And if you don't, is that a problem for the league? I do think about them because I think about them because I think they're a problem for the league. I don't know how much they're talked about in the Vancouver market.

They're not talked about at all here in Toronto. I was talking to some friends this week, who were up and they live in Seattle and they were just saying like how buried that team is down there and just how little buzz they've created. And like I've seen the numbers and like their ticket

prices are like the fifth or sixth highest in the league. But they're dropping them. They've been dropping them. The ticket prices are coming down. Yeah. And the second season ticket holders that I've heard from are just they're just unhappy there. And like I think that you know,

charging those kind of prices and then putting that kind of product on the ice year after year, it works for the first three or four or five years when the season ticket holders had to make that long commitment when they first signed up. But you just wonder what happens if they can't get it together. And they've made so many baffling decisions there. Like, how was Philip Grubauer still there? How is he still there? Why?

Yeah. Are they going to carry three goals? I don't know. But, I mean, he was a big part of what sunk their season last year. And it's not like they're going to be a contender without him there. but it's just I'm not really sure what they're doing there

and they make the GM switch but they keep Ron Francis and promote him after what he had the mess he had created in the first three years there so yeah it's interesting I mean they're kind of like

the flip side to the Vegas scenario like what if an expansion situation goes bad and what does that turn into and they do have a decent prospect pool so it's not like there's no hope there but it just seems like a market that's in other places forgotten and in the city

they're getting a little bit restless or they just don't care and all those things are problems. How much are the Blue Jays overshadowing the Leafs right now? Yeah, that happens when they make the playoffs. It's, you know, the radio and the fan conversation

definitely dominates. And I mean, we can see it with our stories too. Like there's fewer people interested in Leaves Training Camp right now and it makes sense. Yeah, jays are a massive, massive story. for sure. Yeah, but is it something also to do with the Leafs?

Like, what are our expectations for the Leafs this season after all these years of not getting it done in the postseason and then Mitch Marner leaves? And I don't think they have a replacement for him. They have some candidates, but I don't think anyone's going to replace what he brought to the team. Yeah, I mean, it's, the fan base is really kind of split with how they feel about the team. You know, there's the diehards that all will always believe. And, you know, there's some members of the fan base that are, optimistic that they finally got away from putting all this money into four players.

And DeVars is only making $4 million this year. Marner's gone. They added some interesting depth pieces. I mean, there's no doubt the Leafs are better on, you know, like their third line is better than it's been in many years. And they've got the same goaltending tandem and the same defense corps that pushed Florida to game seven of round two last year. So there's optimism in that respect.

But what's happened is that, you know, that that base. of diehards has been eroded over the last few years as fans have just gotten fed up and been tired of watching them losing the playoffs and really gotten sick of the star players not being able to get it done. So, you know, there's a little bit more of a softness in the, in the least fan base, but, you know, I think they're still going to be fine. I mean, I think it's still a hundred point team. They're going to be in the playoffs. They've got a lot of cast face to try and make something happen at the deadline, and that's when they're going to be looking for the Mitch Marner replacement. So we'll see. How far did Morgan

Riley's game fall last year because it seems like, you know, the stories that are getting written about the Leafs. There's, there's quite a few about Morgan Riley and him having conversations with management or the coaching staff or whatever. You fill me in on this about, you know, coming back and being better this year. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the talk in the market last season during the year was that he was a piece they were going to have to try and trade and force him out, even though he's got the no movement clause. And, you know, there was a lot of discussion, you know, and talk radio and in the fan base that they would have to do something like you know you look at the guys with no movement clauses that are getting traded on other teams and fans are saying why can't we

do that with morgan riley you know he's making seven and a half million hasn't been a number one defenseman you know his game did slip last year but it's been slipping the last couple of years you know so there's a lot of pressure i think on him because he's one of the bigger contracts where the that a player's not living up to in this market there's a lot of pressure on him to get that back and And, you know, he's talked a lot about rededicating himself to off-ice training. And I think one of the biggest things for him was they brought in the new coach, Greg Berube, and just the style that Berube wants to play is not really a Morgan Riley style. And it really threw him off for the first, you know, 50, 60 games of the season.

And he also got taken off PowerPlay 1. So now he's back there with Marner gone. He's more used to the coach. He's got a defense partner in Brandon Carlo, that they brought over the deadline last year, who he played pretty well with. I think he's, you know, if you want a fantasy tip, I think he's going to have a pretty big year, especially being on that first power play unit.

So I think it's going to be a bounce back year for Riley. James, this was great, buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the preseason. It goes on for what feels like another month. It's not that long, though. And enjoy the rest of, we'll talk when we get close to the start of the regular season.

Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thanks, buddy. That's James Myrtle, Senior NHL writer from the Athletic here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sports Night 650. You know what else he has in the newsletter that I was reading during that interview? Murr trivia.

It's Myrtle's trivia. Oh, can you do it? You want to try? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to rattle off some guys. Veteran NHLers that are currently in camps on PTO. You have to try and guess the team, okay? Okay.

I'm going to get all these wrong. First one's pretty easy. Milan Luchich. Just shouted out if you know it. A-Dog and Laddie, you can play. St. Louis? St. Louis, correct. Matt Grizzlick.

Back in Boston? Chicago. Okay. Jack Johnson Oh, I knew this one I saw it somewhere Philly? Minnesota

Okay Luke Glenn Denning No one knows that one That's New Jersey Robbie Fabri I don't know Pittsburgh

Okay this is getting less interesting Connor Sherry Formerly known as Conner Sherry Philly New York Rangers I'm just gonna say Philly For everything

Finally Tyler Mott Oh we don't Didn't we talk about this? We did. I don't know. Florida Panthers. I was going to say Panthers.

Panthers, yeah. He's the new bark off. Okay, Mauder, we've got an assignment for you. It's a big ask. We've got a lot more to get to on the Halford and Breft Show on Sportsnet 650. Final hour of the program's coming up. Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Ingole magazine is going to join us. Busy weekend from the Canucks games on Friday and Sunday.

Lots to get into with Kev. Before we go to break, I do need to tell you about the BC Lions. It's another season of hard hits, heated rivalries. and nonstop entertainment for tickets, visit BCLions.com and get ready to roar as one. Huge game against the stamps coming up. Can't wait. Another one at BC Place.

The fortress that is BC Place, soon to be the Apple Bowl. I wonder what Dollywell's night at BC Place was. Remember he was all excited? He was in the mostly sweet. He was going to have the most Canadian night ever. It's true. I wonder if he did. We'll have to wait until Friday to find out.

You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 650.