Halford & Brough in the Morning - Moj On The Miller & Pettersson Dynamic

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

In hour two, Halford & guest host Jamie Dodd discuss the latest stories from around the NHL (3:00), plus they talk some Canucks and football with analyst Bob "The Moj" Marjanovich (24:56). 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.

703 on a Friday. This is a little more like it. Yeah, you happy now? Yeah, kind of. Yeah? A little bit. Define happy. Moderately.

Nothing puts you in the Christmas mood. Like salsa music. It's pretty good. Happier. Not happy. It is a Fiesta Friday here on the Halford & Brush show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brush 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, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program. Hour 2 is brought to you by Jason Hominuk from Jason.Mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money,

then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Just kidding. Let him do exactly that. Visit him on the internet at Jason.Mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet.

What are you waiting for? Kintec. To the phone lines we go. Normally at this time on a Friday, we're joined by AJ from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway, but he is unavailable today. His wife, Teresa, the true boss of AJ's, joins us now and she can explain exactly where AJ is.

First off, good morning, Teresa. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you guys? We're good. Where is AJ? Where in the world is AJ from AJ's Pizza?

Where in the world is he? He is on a plane flying back from London with our daughter, Sienna. She graduated from the London School of Economics, so he went to attend the graduation. Very nice, and congrats to Sienna for that. That's very cool. Okay, so this weekend, we got a lot to get through here because this is a unbelievable sports weekend and a very good weekend to go to AJ's and eat pizza and drink beer. Begins tonight. You've got the college football playoff, Notre Dame

in Indiana. Saturday, you've got NFL college football Canucks. I'm trying to run through it all. Sunday, you've got NFL all day. So walk us through what you guys are going to be doing at AJ over the next three days and then we'll get into the holiday schedule. Okay, well, I thought we should just spend the open hour doing a roast of AJ's actually.

There's some good content out there, and I think listeners, they would enjoy that. But maybe we'll look at that in the new year. Yeah, so tonight, obviously, we have college football kicking off, and then tomorrow, lots of NFL. Happy hour all day on Sunday. So that's going to be a busy day. I do suggest people make some reservations on Sundays.

That's one of our busiest times. And then for the holidays, we will be open Christmas Eve up until about 7 p.m. We do close on Christmas. And then Boxing Day, we're back open regular hours, and we will be doing Happy Hour all day then Boxing Day, we're back open regular hours, and we will be doing Happy Hour all day on Boxing Day as well, which I believe World Juniors kicks off

that day. So yeah, busy time ahead. All day Happy Hour on Boxing Day. You know it. I know how I'm spending the 26th. I think we'll be seeing you there. Maybe Brougham. Maybe you, Jamie. We will all be there on the 26th. Teresa, you guys are the best. Thank you for doing this, and best of luck over the next few days.

It's going to be very busy. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. We'll do this again, and we'll talk soon. Sounds great. Thanks, guys. Take care. Thank you.

That's Teresa from AJ's Pizza on East Broadway, 325 East Broadway, open all weekend. Happy hour all day Sunday. Happy hour all day Boxing Day. Go visit the best pizza place in the world. And a reminder, you can win a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza if you send in the best what we learned or

ask us anything. We'll be doing all that at 8.30 this morning. Speaking of ask us anything, it's a good time to dive into the Dunbar Lumber text line. 650-650 is the number. Metro Vancouver's trusted choice for contractors and renter warriors for over 50 years.

Visit them at one of their three locations to serve you or online at DunbarLumber.com. Call in and to us and ask us anything. If you had to do a secret Santa thing at the radio station, who would you dread most having to get a gift for? I was running through. So like sat, you just get him some like beard care products or something right that's easy reach some espresso or something although he probably has like weird opinions about what good espresso is so i don't know i think it would be brough i think the toughest hard to read you people are always hardest because like is he even capable of being

happy and feeling joy like what what would it be that would get him to smile and feel good about himself? Yeah, no, that is the right answer. Very rarely do we get a correct, definitive right answer. For Drance, I saw something actually on Twitter the other day that was another company had a $20 limit to their Secret Santa and somebody

purchased an eight-leg parlay that paid out for about $1,800. And then they just, they gave a photocopy of the parlay. I saw this. That would be perfect for Drance, wouldn't it?

The rights to a $20 parlay. Yeah. That's actually a really good idea for Drance. Drance would love that. Yeah, that is pretty good. Although he would probably like, if you made a pick he disagreed with, he would lose it. And in the eight legs,

in the eight legs, there were about four different sports, I think, too. Okay. So we got an open segment here. If you want to weigh in on anything that happened last night, we have gone deep, very deep on the Vancouver Canucks 3-1 loss in Vegas last night. I kind of want to get to some of these other stories

in the National Hockey League briefly here, because one of them is the team that the Vancouver Canucks are going to play next. That's Saturday, and that's the Ottawa Senators. And the Ottawa Senators are playing some terrific hockey right now. Brady Kachuk, 55 seconds into overtime yesterday, helped the Ottawa Senators win in Calgary 3-2, Ottawa's fifth straight win, and if you haven't seen the highlights yet, Brady Kachuk took a high stick to the face early in that game, had a couple teeth knocked out. Had nine stitches put into his lip.

Came back and scored the OT winner. He did not look good. His face was just like a mash of hamburger meat and gums. It was not pleasant to look at. But in true Kachuk fashion, he battled through. So Kachuk is playing great hockey. Linus Olmark. He set up the winner. Yeah.

He is playing outstanding hockey for this team right now. He hasn't allowed a goal in the first two periods of a game in seven games, I think. That's a crazy stat. Ottawa was always predicated on if they got the goaltending, watch out. But they never got the goaltending, so there was nothing ever to watch out for. Now I think we're finally seeing that, oh, people were right. They are a very talented team. And with Allmark locking it down like he is,

they're in that playoff spot in the East. They are on a very lengthy swing right now. It's nine games away from Ottawa, which I only recently learned coincided with the World Juniors that are going on in Ottawa. So good on me for learning that. But it's going to be an interesting matchup on Saturday because this team comes in red hot.

Well, and I think we are. Speaking of definitive answers, we're finally getting an answer to the great perennial Canadian sports radio question of which of Ottawa, Buffalo, or Detroit is finally going to do something and make the playoffs. And it turns out it's Ottawa. And even as recently as a couple of weeks ago,

I'd heard people, I think, unfairly lumping Ottawa in with Buffalo and Detroit and like, oh, another disappointing season. But five in a row, seven, two and one in their last 10, they're in a playoff spot right now. And you look at the teams chasing them and it's Pittsburgh who, okay, is playing a lot better, but still, you know, they dug themselves a huge hole and they've played some pretty uninspired hockey this season. Philadelphia, that seems to be the wheels falling off a little bit the rangers we all know about the turmoil there and then you know you get to columbus the islanders detroit so ottawa has a very very good chance to finally take that step forward and actually make the playoffs in the eastern conference even if it's just as a wild card team and And I mean, shout out to Travis Green, man,

coming in at the right time, taking over that team. And yeah, a lot of it has to do with Allmark, but I think he's had a positive impact on the Senators. He might be rewarded with a playoff spot. And a brief public service address for those that think that poor officiating only affects the Vancouver Canucks. Go back and watch the highlights of the Ottawa-Calgary game last night. Calgary got absolutely boned twice, including in overtime,

by just egregiously bad non-calls from the referees. So prior to Brady Kachuk scoring the winner, Brady Kachuk pretty clearly clipped Jonathan Huberto in the face when Huberto was going in on a two-on-one with Nazem Khadri. I don't know how else to describe it. He got a stick in the face from Kachuk. He went into the end boards hard, crashed, looked up at the referee, and the referee just stared at him.

Ottawa comes back the other way and scores. And it's funny because the Flames actually didn't do the Rick Talkett approach, saying they got the hardest job in the world, we got the best officials in the world. The key is when you're talking about a referee in the post game and they've blown it, you refer to them by their first name and you say that they're a good ref. So you're like,

Kevin, Kevin's usually a pretty good ref. Kevin's amazing. They didn't do that. Here's a quote from a head coach or Ryan Huska after the game. I just feel over the last little bit, for whatever reason, we don't get a lot of calls coming our way.

I don't know if I have to change my approach behind the bench. I'm not sure. Maybe I need to be different in how I handle them. I don't know. So trying times in Calgary with the officials, but a reminder, lousy officiating does not just affect the Vancouver Canucks. Other teams have to deal with it too.

You mentioned Kachuk's face. He also confirmed after though, he already had his Christmas cards done. The photos were done the day before. Thank God. So thank goodness for that. We were all wondering. My first thought, certainly. It was a busy night in the province of Alberta because

the Edmonton Oilers were hosting the Boston Bruins and Matthias Ekholm scored a 104 of overtime for that one. Three straight goals to rally from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Boston Bruins 3-2 in OT. So you do it. Do you have the audio of the winner?

You know what? We haven't played much audio this morning. We didn't get much audio this morning. Let's hear it. Matthias Eckholm, 104 into overtime. Oilers beat the Bruins. Eckholm gets a hold of it for Edmonton. He'll get it out to Nugent Hopkins.

In over the line with Dreisaitl. To Dreisaitl. The shot. Save. Rebound. Here's Ekholm. Scores! Matthias Ekholm! And the Oilers win it! 3-2 in overtime. Coming all the way back

from a 2-0 deficit. If you're wondering, that's now six wins and seven for the Edmonton Oilers. And the reason I'm bringing up all these results is because I'm going to bring up one more. The LA Kings beat the Flyers 7-3 on Thursday night. That is now the eighth win for the Kings in their last 11. Why am I mentioning all these teams? Well, go look at the Pacific Division standings right now.

We all know about Vegas' prowess. We saw it on display last night as they took care of the Canucks. I don't know how many have realized that the Kings are on an absolute heater right now, but I just mentioned it. Eight wins and 11. They moved up the standings as well. And Edmonton, after some early season wobbles, has now really put it together as well, and they've won six of seven.

That division, just as competitive as it was last year. season wobbles has now really put it together as well and they've won six of seven that division just as competitive as it was last year this is with la playing better hockey during the regular season this year than they were last year yeah and we should even mention as well i mean calgary picks up a point but in the wild card picture as well colorado wins last night so all three teams above the canucks in the pacific winning colorado of a team just below them in the second wildcard spot right now they win Calgary got a point Utah of course beat the Canucks earlier in the week so basically every team in and around the Canucks over the last couple of days has gained ground on the Canucks in the standings and Colorado we should note had the pleasure of going up against their former goalie you know Zayn What an incredible feeling that must have been for Colorado.

So I tweeted this out last night. Everyone knows about the goalie swap that happened. Alexander Georgiev goes to San Jose. Mackenzie Blackwood goes to Colorado. They meet each other last night. And in perfect harmony, keeping fully on brand, Georgiev allows four goals to the Colorado Avalanche, thereby retaining his Forgiev

moniker. I watch a lot of San Jose Sharks games. We were talking about this at the break. A little inside baseball here, but whatever. It's a Friday and we're almost on vacation. The Halford and Brough show, I put together the notes late at night, and oftentimes it coincides with the only team with regular 730 puck drops,

two of them actually, the LA Kings and the San Jose sharks, San Jose sharks games always go late because they often start at seven 30. And this year I've made a particular habit of paying attention to them because Macklin Celebrity has been playing first part of this whole thing. Macklin Celebrity is way better than I thought he was. He is incredible, man. I,

I had pretty high hopes given he was the first overall pick in the NHL draft. Usually sets you up for the potential to be good, but I did not expect him to be, I guess, this dynamic offensively. The points are coming at a really rapid pace. The thing that blows my mind is, okay, so many first overall picks come in, and the reason they're a first overall pick is their skill level is off the charts, right? And often they'll put up points. They'll be a good power play player in their first couple of years.

But a lot of the classic, you know, winning stuff, winning board battles, all of those things, forechecking, all of that, it takes a little longer, not because they're bad players, but just because you've got to get stronger. It's really tough to win board battles against NHL players who are, you know, 28 and have been in the league for a long time. All of that. It's a skill you have to learn. Macklin Celebrini is like elite at that already in year one,

and he's super dynamic offensively. I mean, he has done everything you could possibly want to look at this guy and say he's going to be not just a point per game guy, but like a franchise Stanley Cup caliber winning center because of how complete his game is already at 18. It's a great point by you because the

details of the game, and I hate pitting Celebrini against Bedard, but I think part of it's inevitable because of where they came from, where they were drafted and everything. A lot of people have said like maybe Celebrini's game, while not necessarily having the ceiling of Bedard's, might be more suited to be NHL ready-made.

Like if that makes any sense. Yes, Greg. I have a stat for you. Yes, please go ahead. He's only going to play 70 games if he plays all the games this year because he missed that time. He's on pace for 33 goals, which would be sixth all time in the NHL's history for an

18-year-old. Yeah, that's wild. You're talking about guys like Crosby, Howarchuk, Iserman. That's incredible. That's an incredible company to be in. I don't want to do this classic sports radio thing where we pit the one against the other. It's like, this guy's this and this guy's that. I don't want to do that. But it's inevitable

that those two are going to be compared to one another. All I'm trying to say is I think long-term, Bedard probably has more offensive tools and a higher ceiling in terms of what he can be and what he can produce. But coming into the league, and I don't know if this is because Celebrini went the collegiate route and maybe it was a little bit more tailored to jumping into the NHL. It seems like his game, the details and the well-roundedness of it is better suited for immediate success than Bedard. Sorry, it's not to say that Bedard hasn't had success. It's just Celebrini is just, he's exceeded expectations.

And Bedard's picked it up a little bit lately here, but I think Bedard falls more into what I was describing, right? Where you all see the offensive talent, and he's going to be a really good power play player, and he's going to score goals, but just physically he has to develop and he has to learn some of that other stuff the game that's not a slight against conor bedard at all that every guy who comes into the nhl pretty much has to do it it's just very rare to see an 18 year old who is as ready to physically compete while also being incredibly skilled as Macklin Celebrini.

Honestly, is Crosby the last guy? It sounds wild, but even McDavid obviously put up points, but he wasn't a puck battle winning machine or anything like that. It's very, very rare to see somebody do what Macklin Celebrini is doing this year. And again, the reason in part that I'm bringing this up is that after the Ottawa game on Saturday, the Vancouver Canucks next opponent is Macklin Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks, who will be here on Monday, December 23rd.

So that's the last game before the Christmas break. That's also an Amazon Prime game. It's a Monday night Prime game. So it's going to be a very unique one for a lot of people involved. But yeah, seeing Celebrini come back. So these next two games for the Canucks, I think at this stage, every game is going to hold some extra importance

because it's now like a lot of losses in the last, I think it's like two wins out of the last seven, two wins and five losses. Yeah, two wins, five losses in the last seven, which is okay because some of the losses they've been able to carve out points in overtime but it's not a great it's not a great juxtaposition when i pointed out the fact that uh the top three teams in the pacific are streaking and they're all putting together pretty comprehensive uh stretches of wins here and you've still got those wildcard

teams that are scratching and clawing and not going away you know when we talked about the utah game earlier in the week being a potential four-pointer we kind of did it with a chuckle but also i was like but he might be serious like i i don't know i don't know how much of a joke it is because the canucks are right there they're firmly in wildcard land right now they're much closer to wildcard one or wildcard two than they are to the top three i mean utah's three points back of the canucks with a game in hand yeah and it's early to be doing the game in hand talk obviously but like that that's a team that you're competing with that's not that early that's a team you're battling with in the standings three points back with a game in hand you have to be concerned about that team and your position in the standings and again a team you know a stretch on the schedule

with ottawa and san jose right before christ Christmas that probably at the beginning of the season or even earlier in the year, a lot of people looked at and said, all right, that's a nice way to ease into the Christmas break. Ottawa's playing really well. And San Jose, I don't want to say they're a massive test or anything like that, but they're not a pushover and they're not a joke like they were last season. They have guys who can hurt you if you're not at your best and it would be you need you would love to find a way to get both of these wins on home ice to just calm the waters a little bit before taking some time off for the holidays now uh before we go to break i just want to touch on one more thing and that is

the trade freeze and it's now officially a freeze because last night at midnight and by the way good on sat for uh unearthing this one it was actually midnight for every team in their local time zone it wasn't midnight eastern so the canucks theoretically could have made a deal right up until midnight last night after that loss hold on does the deal that you're making have to be with another west coast i was gonna say presumably you do it, but I guess why it's local for every team is like they could have sent someone down. Yes. Right up until that, right? So a unilateral transaction that doesn't require

another team. A moot point regardless because it didn't happen. Now let's talk about it more. Let's get into the rules a little bit more here. I want to know the minutiae of this one. The imaginations of time zone changes as it pertains to the roster freeze. Let's really dive deep on this, guys. There were a bunch of trades that were made this week. Jamie and I went over a bunch of them yesterday.

And in the aftermath of the trade that sent Alex Carrier to Montreal in exchange for Justin Barron, National Predators General Manager Barry Trotz said that he ain't done moving pieces. The quote was, don't be surprised if there's the right piece. I'm going to add it. I want to make our team better.

I'm not happy with where we are, but I also realize where we are. And I don't think he meant Nashville. I think he meant where they are in the standings. They and the Rangers, the Predators and the Rangers are going to be the two most interesting teams, brackets, non-Buffalo division once the trade freeze is lifted on the 27th.

I think you can go to the Canucks in that mix, too. I keep waiting for the Canucks to do something a lot in the way that I keep waiting for Buffalo to do something. I'm just thinking about the reports we're hearing, though. It sounds like they're trying something. They're working on something. The reason I led with Nashville and the Rangers is it felt like the first shoe has dropped. It felt like they've got things going, right?

It's like, okay, we're moving things along to maybe make a bigger trade. In the case of the Rangers, they've done it twice now, right? Nashville is in, I think, one of those terrifying positions for a team where they've invested a lot. They're bad. They want to make moves, but with no real clear direction other than to make moves and it's like well we could sell some guys but add others right and hey we're not tearing down we want to be better next year and we're going to try to add to our team but you go to their salary cap page right and all of these guys who are over 30 or 30 or over are

signed for at least two more seasons beyond this. Philip Forsberg, 30. Stamkos, 34. Marchessault, 33. Ryan O'Reilly, 33. Brady Shea, 30. Yeah. Right? Roman Yossi, 34.

And he's hurt. It's not getting better for these guys, right? They're not all going to bounce back and be better. And the young players that they do have on the team, like, hey, Luke Evangelista, nice player, but he's not changing your team's future. Love Luke Evangelista. And so this idea that, well, we're going to trade

and we're going to shuffle the deck chairs around and, hey, maybe we'll go out and buy. This could go even uglier for Nashville than it has been this year. It could turn even uglier than that in a hurry if they make some of the wrong decisions. I just got to say, Philip Forsberg being over 30, by the way, I'm so old.

It's wild. I am ancient. It's Martin Eurad up, too. What is Martin Eurad? How is he over 30? But here's the thing. Everything you said is absolutely correct, but I also want them to get even crazier, even bolder,

and even uglier. Oh, 100%. Don't get me wrong. Because in that same article that I read from, Barry Trotz said he doesn't regret anything that he's done. If anything, he wants to keep going. And I'm like, you do it, Barry Trotz. You go, Barry Trotz.

My only regret is there weren't more old guys I could sign. Hey, if you want to trade for them, there's a bunch available across the league. We need more guys like Barry Trotz who double down the boldness with more boldness. That's what you want to trade for them, there's a bunch available across the league. We need more guys like Barry Trotz who double down the boldness with more boldness. That's what you got to do. You don't just sit there and let it sort itself out. You got to trade your way out of it.

So I'm going to be looking forward to them, them being, of course, the Nashville Predators once this trade freeze lifts. And you're right, Laddie. I do think if we're to believe the reports from various insiders, including Frank Cervalli, who came on this very show and was discussing it, felt like the Cucks were close prior to the freeze happening. So I wonder when they get out of it, if that's going to be one of the first things that they do.

You got two more games, as mentioned, against Ottawa on Saturday and then against the Sharks on Monday, both at home. Then you've got a five-day break before a Saturday date, an afternoon affair against the Seattle Kraken on the 28th. So there's a lot that could happen in the next week. We'll be keeping tabs on all of it right here on Sportsnet 650. We've got to go to break. When we come back, Bob the Moj Marjanovic is going to join us,

and then Rick Dollywall at 8. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650. Or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. It's the Moj. I did not eat four burgers. Yes, it's the Moj.

I don't want to go to Winnipeg. Nobody wants to go to Winnipeg. Yes, I love food. It's the Moj. I went online and kind of did a little surfing. It's a millennia. Yes, it's the Moch. Halpert's fine, but, you know,

Brumfuss is grumpy all the time. Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, Moach, on a Friday. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650 featuring Jamie Dodd. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program.

Moj is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour 2 is brought to you by Jason Hominuk from Jason.Mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him at Jason.Mortgage. To the phone lines we go. It's the Moj. Bob Marjanovic here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

What up, Moj? Okay, first off, you cannot use the term featuring Jamie Dodd. Okay? He's a counselor. He's billing you right now. I watch the firm. I know what's going on. You're going to get a bill in about three weeks for X amount of hours that he was on air. Now, when it comes to featuring, you can only feature Josh Elliott Wolfe because the dude sounds like a soap opera star. I mean, think about it. And featuring Josh Elliott Wolfe as Rider Stone. So featuring is only to be used with Josh Elliott Wolfe. I'm not going to lie.

There's some credence here because the hyphenated surname, there's a heightened element of gravitas. Well, it also sounds like, or like, now Josh doesn't really fit, but Elliott Wolfe as a last name sounds like an old author or something. You know what I mean? Like a playwright, something like that. So how do I introduce Jamie if I can't say featuring jamie dodd i say with jamie dodd alongside jamie dodd alongside or with okay alongside or with uh okay i'm gonna use there

you go forward thanks moj okay let's start with the bc lions here uh what's going on with the coaching staff what do they still need to figure out What's left for the Lions to do on their offseason to-do list? Well, first off, coaching staff from what I've been told is pretty much settled. They're waiting on Ryan Phillips, I believe. So, as Farhan Lalji reported yesterday, Mike Benavides

will be the defensive coordinator in all likelihood, barring something catastrophic. So, Ryan Phillips, who is still under contract, will probably be coaching the secondary if he does return. Now, that's the big question. Does he want to return and coach the secondary after, you know, going through the interview process?

You know, he applied to be the head coach or was interviewed to be the head coach, and now, you know, you're going to look look at this and it's going to be a demotion so that's what they're waiting on from what i've been told the coaching staff's pretty much finalized and they're just waiting to see what ryan phillips decides to do uh we also saw this week moj the cflpa player poll evaluating all the teams on a bunch of different things, right? Facilities, training, you know, treatment of the players, all of that. Not necessarily rave reviews for the BC Lions, which I think maybe got some fans by surprise given how positive Amar Doman's ownership has been.

What do you make of the results for the Lions of the player pool? Well, I talked to three parties that were involved. Well, David Mackey, the Lions player rep for the CFLPA. I talked to President D that were involved well david mackie the lions player rep uh for the cfl cflpa i talked to president duane veneau and i talked to cflpa president solomon alimonia about this i think it's a good process they took their lead from the nfl which started doing this like a couple of years ago and the nflpa actually assisted the cflpa in doing this they have a really good relationship according to david Mackey. And it's more of a feedback loop for potential free agents and for them to know what they're getting into. So that's one of the goals of this. The other thing, too, is, as David Mackey said,

he goes, a lot of times guys go into exit meetings and they might not be as brutally honest as they should be considering, well, I mean, if you're a bubble guy and you go in there and start complaining about facilities or this or that, you might be looked at as some guy that's maybe a bit of a negative influence, so they'll let you go. So players aren't as honest as they'd like to be. So this gives them a vehicle to provide some feedback to the teams, and the teams look at it.

I was talking to Dwayne Renu. They look at it as the positive in the sense that maybe they weren't aware of some issues, and now this is being brought to the forefront, and at the same time, you want your organization to be the best that it can be, so you try to improve in some of those areas. My biggest beef, and I talked to this about Solomon El-Eminy, my biggest beef with this whole process was the fact that some of those comments that were published on the CFLPA website, you know, they published about 12 or 13 quotes about, you know, four of them might have been positive, six or seven might have been negative.

And guess what people are going to run with? The negative ones. And I told Solly, I said, hey, if you're with your partner and you're with your wife, and this is a partnership between the CFLPA and the CFL, I go here with your partner and you kind of publicly embarrass her about something that she has to change, you're sleeping on the couch for the next two weeks, or at least I would be. So that was my concern because now you're giving ammunition

to those people that just like to pile on the CFL and rip the CFL and you're giving them all these bullets. So to me, that was the one thing I didn't like about the whole process. We're speaking to Bob the Moj, Marjanovic, here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. A presentation of the Clayton Public House. Moj, let's turn our attention to the NFL, the Seahawks game on Sunday.

It is a big one. So we spoke to Brady Henderson earlier about a variety of things, but we didn't get into the offensive play calling and offensive coordinator, Ryan Grubb. I know you've got in your notes, and I'm glad you want to discuss this because I think Grubb came in with a lot of hype, and I've read a couple different things that are suggesting he might be a one-and-done-year type guy,

not unlike Shane Waldron, because people have been unimpressed. Only 208 yards on offense against the Packers last week. People have been very critical of the short yardage calls, the plays in the red zone. What are your thoughts on the offensive play calling for the Seahawks? Yeah, I mean, first off, I just want to throw this in there. I don't know why no one is talking about Sam Darnold.

Nine games in a row, 200-plus yards passing, longest streak in the NFL. He's got 20-plus yards, 53 completions of 20-plus yards, which is the most in the NFL. Passing rating, I think he's fourth, top five in touchdowns, and no one's talking about Sam Darnall. I think he's had an outstanding year. Now, getting to the Seahawks, I mean, they're facing a ferocious front in the Minnesota Vikings.

What you have to do when you play teams that are that aggressive, you have to create doubt. In the CFL, a lot of that doubt is created by pre-snap motion. Clearly, you don't have that luxury in the NFL. So it's mainly more on your play calling and your formation. So you've got to be able to make those defenses go east-west. You've got to create doubt, whether it's screen, whether it's draw, whatever. The thing is, you cannot allow those guys just to come back,

to get into situations where they can just pin their ears. The other thing, too, I mean, you want to take a team out of an aggressive mode on defense, you have to run the football. Get them in the second and fours, second and fives, third and threes. You can't get into situations where you're going to be second and ten and just become one-dimensional. So I think a big thing for me this week when I'm watching that Seahawks offense is how much doubt do they create?

How many receiver screens do they throw? Draws, this, that. Anything you can do to take the bite out of that Minnesota Vikings front seven, which is absolutely phenomenal. I'm going to throw you on the spot here, but you're good on your toes. Where's Sam Darnold going to be playing quarterback next year? Man, that's a good question. I mean, he should be worthy of a starting job somewhere

next year based on the body of work this year but it's a pretty decent chance it won't be in minnesota because of mccarthy and then you start looking down the road and there's only a handful of teams really that are going to need a veteran guy to come in and you know the thing is with sam dartle i mean this isn't a guy who's you, it's his second or third year in the league. I mean, what, seven, eight years, three teams, San Francisco, Carolina, the Jets. So this is his fourth team. Whoever picks him up next, that'll be his fifth NFL organization. I don't know.

Maybe this is an outlier. Maybe this is kind of one and done, one of these situations where he's a good fit for the system. But, you know, I imagine somebody will have to take a chance. Somebody will have to go out there and grab Sam Darnold, and hopefully he can duplicate what he did this year in Minnesota. But I just think it's a great story this year in the National Football League, and not too many people are talking about it. Moj, the quarterback on the other side, Geno Smith,

what do you make of his season overall? Because I think you can look at individual games and certainly some throws and say you know he's playing quarterback at a pretty high level at stretches but we also all know about the big time mistakes in big situations in the red zone how would you overall evaluate what Gino Smith has given the Seahawks this year well you you hit on it those red zone situations and those mistakes in the red zone really concern me because those are, I mean, your game's on the line a lot of times in those red zone situations, and those are pressure situations, right? When I look at Geno Smith,

I just look at him as a caretaker, a guy who, you know, could lead you to 10 wins or 11 wins, but he's not a guy that's going to lead you to a Super Bowl. I mean, to me, that's the ultimate goal of the National Football League. So you're just kind of treading water while you have Geno Smith. I don't think you have any real Super Bowl aspirations when you have Geno Smith as your quarterback. So to me, I just look at Geno Smith as one of those guys that you have in place and you develop another quarterback, and hopefully the quarterback that you develop leads you to the promised land.

But here's the problem. Geno Smith is good, but he's not great. And as a result, you're going to wind up getting 9 or 10 wins or 11 wins or 12 wins. And you're kind of going to be in the middle of the pack or the lower half of the draft order, so you're not going to have the luxury of drafting a quarterback maybe in the with the first 10 picks so um it's it's a tricky situation and here's the other thing too about geno smith this sunday to quote a brian burke line i don't care if you can start can you finish and to me that'll be the big question okay geno smith's gonna start but is he gonna be able to finish the game i I never need to see Sam Howell again. Never.

I saw enough. No, like, you might as well put Brough in at quarterback. Like, you could put Brough in at quarterback and get the same results. We're speaking to Bob the Moj Marjanovic here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. A presentation of the Clayton Public House pregame to postgame. The Clayton

is your home for football. Catch all the action on 15 screens and two giant projectors. Visit them online at theclaytonpub.com. Let's turn our attention to the Vancouver Canucks here, Moj. We were thrown around this question earlier. I'd love to get your take on it. Was last year the outlier or was this year the outlier for the Vancouver Canucks? Last year.

And I heard you guys talking about this earlier, but, you know, you look at last year, everything went right. And, you know, I talk about the Jack Adams situation and, you know, Rick Tockett winning that award. That award is given to a team that's basically played over at Ski's the entire year. And if you look at that award, going back, I think the last 15 years, there's only been two teams that have actually improved their record the following season right and i read somewhere i think it might have been i don't know whether it was coos or patrick johnson talking about the fact that you know like a whole bunch of jack adams awards winners have lost their jobs within three years after winning the award uh because the expectations go through the roof after that you know outlier season but i'll say this. When I look at the Canucks this year, and I've talked to several players on the team about this,

whether it's Besser, whether it's Joshua, when you're out of the lineup for an extended period of time, you lose your timing. And it takes you a while to get that timing back. Besser talked about that coming off the concussion. He was on a 40-goal pace before the concussion. And you know what? I think he's got maybe one or two goals since his return. Dakota Joshua, I talked to him.

He said he's still looking to get his swag back. Hopefully got a little bit back after that goal the other night. But, you know, you've got players that have been out of the lineup. JT Miller's another guy, right? Maybe that first game running on adrenaline. But, you know, there's so many guys that have missed time with this team. I think that it's going to take some time for this team to get their swag back as dakota joshua said i'm looking at this

team you know maybe say mid-january maybe starting to get on a heater then as guys kind of get ramped up again but you know it is what it is i mean your record tells you what you are and what we're seeing with the canucks right now is a team that's going to get, what, 95, 96 points. Moj, the dynamic between Miller and Pedersen has really been the dominant storyline this week. And, you know, when Rick Tockett is keeping them on separate power play units consistently and flipping them back and forth between the top unit and neither of them is producing, it's hard not for that storyline to, you know, really be front of mind for fans. Is this being overblown or is there something serious going on here in your mind that's preventing both of those guys from really getting going and playing their best?

Well, we haven't been told anything by Canucks management or the coaching staff in terms that there's a real issue here between those two guys. So a lot of this is speculation. Of course, you know, we saw what happened in practice that one day. But clearly, I mean, when you start digging around and talking to people, there's an issue there. There's a personality conflict between the two. I mean, you know, coaches have gotten involved.

They've had sit-downs. You know, management's gotten involved. Agents. I mean, this isn't something that's mean, you know, coaches have gotten involved. They've had sit downs, you know, management's got involved agents. I mean, this isn't something that's just, you know, two guys that kind of not, and this is a serious issue from, from what I'm led to believe. But that, that being said, you gotta be a pro. You gotta go out there and just do your job. Right. I mean, put this stuff aside. I mean, we've all worked with people in the past, at least I have that we this stuff aside. I mean, we've all worked with people in the past, at least I have,

that we didn't like. So it's just, you know, you just got to go out there and you just got to do your thing. But when I look at this whole situation, here's the thing that I don't understand, fellas, is that they knew this conflict was there, and, you know, these two guys don't like, why the hell did you sign both of them to long-term contracts?

I mean, that's the part that I don't understand. I would have dealt one or the other, but you have two people that obviously don't like one another. There's an issue there, and now you're going to go sign them to long-term deals. That's the part that I don't understand. Well, and why did they do it, Moj? Why did the players say, I'm signing up for eight, seven, or eight years of this

if it's this bad, right? If it's as dire as it seems to be. Again, it's just speculation, but from the outside looking in, I agree with you from the team perspective, but from the individual players' perspective as well, it's kind of baffling. Yeah, it is. Maybe they thought that the other would be moved i don't know but there's just there's a lot of muddy water here when you're

trying to look at this thing right and you just you don't get a clear perspective because to be honest we're not really getting any sort of info or intel from the connect organization itself we're led to speculate because no one's going to comment on anything. But like I said, when you talk to people in the know and you kind of dig around, you find out about, you know, how much of an issue this is. So I'll be honest, I don't think this is just an issue that the Canucks have. Other teams have to deal with this too.

But for whatever reason, it's kind of made its way to the forefront with the Canucks. Okay, Moj, before we let you go, ask us anything food division. And it's a holiday one, Christmas meal. We're going to go favorite sides, not mains, but sides for Christmas dinner. Favorite sides? Okay. I know people are going to get really ticked off about this.

Brussels sprouts. Interesting. I like Brussels sprouts a lot. They're good. Yeah. Especially with cheese and stuff on them and a lot of salt. Yeah. They're not my favorite, but I like them, yeah.

Cranberry sauce, right? Mm-hmm. I'll do a hard pass on yams and sweet potatoes. Like, no thanks. We had a big debate on that earlier in the week. Moj, can you tell us what the difference between sweet potatoes and yams is? No clue, and I don't care. That's how I feel.

They're both disgusting disgusting there's this clip from a few years ago the annual nfl thanksgiving broadcast where vernon davis i think he was then with the 49ers he has this clip where they're asking your favorite side and he says sweet potato yams and then everyone stops and they're like sweet potato yams. Those are two totally separate things. Then the in-basket at 650 was filled with contradictory information, people telling us that they were the same thing, that they were totally different things. We could never come to a resolution on it. But anyway, I have one for you.

The old-school green bean casserole with the can of mushroom soup, some bacon, and then the fried onions on top of it. Let's go. Yeah. Right out of the 80s. Best of Bridge cookbook. So good. That's my favorite side.

Hard pass. Oh, Moj, you're killing me, but it's okay. No, like, are you talking about green beans out of a can? No. No, the can of mushroom soup. Can of mushroom soup. I'm not a big mushroom fan. You're uninvited from Christmas dinner.

No. It's fine. No big deal. I'm sorry. I'm not going to be invited. You're uninvited from Christmas, then. No. It's fine. No big deal. I'm sorry. I'm not going to be invited to Christmas at the Halford household. I was going to ask you guys something, but you know what? I'll save it for next week. It's not a...

I'll let you think about this for a while. Yeah, do it. Okay. The worst movie you've ever watched in person. I know the answer, but I'll save it for next week when I'm not here. Save it for next week. We're not on the air next week. Oh, okay.

Two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks. Sounds good. Hey, Merry Christmas, fellas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you, Moj. Great doing this with you. It's been a fun 2024.

I guess, will we talk in the new year, or are we going to talk before the new year? If we don't talk in the new year, happy new year as well. Happy new year to you, too. Thank you very much for doing this. The folks love hearing you every week, and we love having you on the program, dude.

Take care, fellas. All the best. See you, buddy. Bob the Mojmerjanovich here. Can you do it one more time so I'm not talking over it? Sweet potato yams. You got the first part though where he just says yams and then he clarifies

sweet potato yams. My favorite dish. Sweet potato yams. That's a different one. That's not the clip I sent you the other day. It's fine. He said it a few times apparently. He really likes his sweet potato yams. So by the way, all of you

listeners, you all contradicted one another. Yeah, that's true. We had so many well actually guys. Actually the root vegetable sweet potato is from the same family as the yam like and then someone would say yams sweet potato yams why is it always like the soft guitar music in the background anyway and then one guy yelled at us because i think he tuned in as soon as we started talking

about sweet potato yams and that's all he heard. And then he just went on a rant about how the show has gone down the tubes. It's all my fault. It's related to sports. It's an absolute toilet bowl of a show. It wasn't totally unrelated to sports. It is related to sports. By the way, I'm glad you brought up the cream of mushroom soup thing.

Whoever invented that, pouring cream of mushroom soup over a dish and putting it in the oven genius absolute genius anything cream of mushroom soup in a casserole i'm there for it i love it how are you gonna jazz up and by jazz up i mean ruin a green vegetable it's you're gonna it's funny those those best abridged cookbooks you know the ones i'm talking about yeah company's coming every everyone's mom had one in the 80s every vegetable uh is either layered in mayonnaise or covered in some sort of beige creamy sauce that has no nutritional value whatsoever ruining whatever nutrition the vegetable was bringing to the table and i'm here

for there are accounts on social media that will post it's like 70s dinner party or whatever and it's all like recipes from the 70s that were supposed to be fancy but it's like 70s dinner party or whatever and it's all like recipes from the 70s that were supposed to be fancy but it's like a lot of like gelatin involved or like yeah mayonnaise as well it's like if you serve somebody this at your you're like hey come over for dinner and you put this in front of them they will look at you like you were crazy there's a lot of experimentation back in the age they were trying to find the next big thing jello salads were pretty hot in the 70s i know that for a fact like a lot of people were trying them they were trying to find the next big thing. Jell-O salads were pretty hot in the 70s. I know that for a fact. Like a lot of people

were trying them. They were willing to roll with it. Okay. Quick reset here on the Halford and Brough show featuring Jamie Dodd. I don't care what Moj says. We're featuring Jamie Dodd.

Eight o'clock hour. We're going to have Rick Dollywall on the program. He's going to talk about last night's game, Canucks loss in Vegas. He's going to talk about what's next for Nils Hoaglander

after getting healthy scratched against Vegas. He's going to talk about what's next for Nils Hoaglander after getting healthy scratched against Vegas. He's going to have some Santa wish list stuff for our local sports teams and we'll talk about the holiday roster freeze and what the Canucks might do on the other side of it. At 8.30, we're going to do what we learned in Ask

Us Anything. We're going to give away the final pair of tickets for the week to the PWHL Takeover Tour that is going to be played at Rogers Arena on January the 8th. If you want to win, call in at 815-815. The phone number here is 604-280-0650. That number again, 604-280-0650. Be caller number 5 at 815,

and you'll get a chance to win a pair of tickets to the PWHL Takeover Tour. Finally, we are also giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. That's going to go to the best What We Learned or Ask Us Anything. All you got to do is text in Dunbar Lumber text line to 650-650, hashtag it WWL or AUA, depending on what you send in.

The important part is put a pizza emoji into your text. That will enter you into the grand prize contest for a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. One final hour to go. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.