Halford & Brough in the Morning - Now THAT'S Tanking

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss last night's Canucks 6-1 loss to the Stars as well as Elias Pettersson's comments (3:00), plus the boys discuss the latest NHL news with ESPN Hockey's Greg Wyshynski (27:58). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to Halford and Brough. Coover falls tonight on home ice by a final score of 6 to 1. We've got to find a way, like, we can't just fall down and die, you know? Well, would it be all right with you if I just laid down in the street and died? Yes, that would be acceptable. Marchaco holding, shooting! And he's scored! Words for you!

Cruish. Good morning, Vancouver, 601 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. It is Halford and his Brough. It is Sportsnet, 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning.

Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford, and Brup in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees.

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Okay, let's get into the show today. It is our Deweck Morning Drive, our guestless rundown brought to you by the Doick. group. It begins at 6.30 this morning. Greg Wyshinsky is going to join the program, our NHL insider from ESPN. We are now just three days away from the NHL trade deadline. Can't quite say that things are heating up. They're getting warmer. We are getting some moves and a lot of chatter across the league. Wish will join us at 630 to discuss all that. 7.30. Mark Specter's going to join the program. Oilers reporter from SportsNet. Speaking of trades, the Oilers did make one yesterday, acquiring Connor Murphy from Chicago. Is that a

enough to fix Edmonton? Are there more moves on the horizon? Also, the Oilers host the Sends tonight in a big, big, all-Canadian matchup. Huge playoff ramifications for both clubs. Speck is going to join us at 7.30 this morning. At 8.10, Landon Ferraro is going to join the program. Canucks analyst from Sportsnet. Landon was on the panel last night. So the Canucks got drubbed at home 6-1 by the Dallas stars. Another tough outing for the Canucks on what was a pretty tough day overall for the Canucks, including one particular Canucks, Elias Pedersen. Landon is going to join us at 8-10 this morning to talk about the current state of the

Canucks, and we'll do some Pedersen talk as well. That's it for the guest list. It's a three-guester today. Without further ado, Laddy, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened?

I missed all the action because I was. How busy your life can be. What happened? Is it? You missed that? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. Leon Bischel, fish please, had his first two-gold game in the National Hockey League.

Dallas won their ninth game in a row. Canucks lose 6-1 on Monday night at Rogers Arena. I don't know how many more times the Canucks can embarrass themselves in front of their own fans. To you? I mean, they've got 12 more home games to go, so maybe it's 12 times. That's the math. 12 times they can embarrass themselves in front of their own fans. They are now 6, 18, and 5 at home.

Their play in the first was fine. Their play in the second was bad. their play in the third period was some of the worst hockey I've seen this team, this franchise play ever. It's like they were, hey, we all know we're in 32nd place and we're tanking.

Let's try and move into 33rd place in the league. And then people would tell them well, there's only 32 teams so you can only finish 32nd and they said that's what winners say. We are losers and we are the greatest losers

of all time and we are going to find a way to finish in 33rd place. Undeterred. That's just that's just the type of tankers they are. They've seen others in the past

and they've said not only do we want to finish 32nd, we want to be the worst 30 second place team ever. You know what? They're getting there. Guys. And by the worst, it really is the best. Guys, I'm being a little facetious.

No, you're not. I just want to tell you, I'm being a little facetious. Now, people will say, well, they are tanking, and it's, look, it's true, the results are a good thing. But, you know, I watch that game last night, and we'll get to Pedersen. But, like, you've got Marcus Pedersen on the ice, Philip Peronik, Connor Garland, Brock Besser. Like, you got veterans out there on the ice. Is it not mortifying for these guys?

I mean, there's losing games because you're not good enough, right? And, you know, as a kid, I watched the 80s Canucks, and they would play the 80s Oilers, and it would be like, well, they're not going to win this game. But then there's losing games because you play with no discipline or cohesiveness or structure. And you know what they lacked last night? Zip. No zip.

Not a lot of zip. Zipless. No zing or pap either. This team can deny it all they want, but they have a major, major culture problem. And, you know, I am concerned for the young players in the organization. We spoke with Braden Coots yesterday and do we want Braden Coots next season to be part of this group if some of this

if you know some or even most of the veterans that are under contract long term are still on this team? If this rebuild is going to be successful, there have to be leaders, there has to be pride in the logo, there has to be structure and non-negotiable,

and accountability and zip. There has to be much more zip out there. Just a little, like just much more. The zip per 60 again, low. It's a problem. It's a problem. Okay, okay.

On this note, before we move on to the Pedersen stuff, so I put out there a couple weeks ago and tried to draw the parallels between the last vestiges of the Bruce Boudreau era and what's going on with Adam Foote right now. And I tried to compare them in the context of what was the management group thinking at the time. Because when the Canucks

at the last days of Bruce Boudre were floundering and looked like they had no structure, it was of the utmost importance to get Rick talking in the door to teach the team all of these non-negotiables and the structure and everything that the team needed, just the bare basic

minimums to be an NHL team. Right, but the management has clearly accepted this season that there's going to be losing and they don't really care about structure. That being said, I think that's a dangerous way to go about your business. when you've got young players that are trying to learn their craft and understand not just what it is to be an NHLer,

but here's the important part, what it is to be a Vancouver Canuck and what the organization stands for and what you stand for as a team. It's hard to snap your fingers in this league and change everything at the start of another season. It's like it's going to be different this year. Because when the guys have the habits and the repetitions and the practice where, and we've said this a number of times,

they don't look like they know what they're doing on a number of occasions and some of the turnovers last night especially in the third period we're egregious by any standard horrendous egregious by I don't know what you would be doing on a Tuesday night

at 11 o'clock at night and a really bad puck drop time at eight rinks or whatever yeah no I agree you know what I mean yeah it was horrific and now people are going to push back and they're going to be like shut up Alford this is all part of the plan

this is how you tank this is how you get to the bottom. And you do it again next year so you can get land in the pond. Folks, they are at the bottom. There's no getting out. I don't think that with the greatest structural improvement in the world that this group has the talent enough to climb itself out of the basement. 32nd, as you kind of facetiously slash, not facetiously put it, is locked in.

If there was a lower spot, they would have it. There are ways to go about this. and I know that the organization had a hard pivot midseason when the Hughes trade was consummated that they were going to go full nuke mode and that meant doing it with a lot of the aforementioned veteran skaters that you have and they're probably not happy with their position and yeah, some of them are mailing it in.

But I feel like every day that goes by and every game that gets played where there's an effort like that, and that's all it is. The score doesn't matter. The result at the end of the night doesn't matter. But the effort and the way you're going about it. I think it does. If you go back and you look at a lot of...

The effort in the end, I think like that includes your mental effort. You know, we talk about you know, how hard are they skating and that sort of thing. But also, how hard are you locking in mentally? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Because last night, like I was, I was

think, you know, like, you know, it's really obvious when an NHL player quits and we've seen it a few times. We saw it with J.T. Miller right before he left and we saw it with Quinn I saw with Los Angeles Kings last week and that A1 lost to Edmonton. Their coach was fired 48 hours later. Yeah.

Like, you can see it. I wouldn't put last night as a like a physical quit. I put it as a mental quit. You know, like just checking out or just trying to do it all yourself, you know. I mean, the Marcus Pedersen turnover was egregious. Don't get me wrong. If you don't have anyone to pass to, just put it hard off the glass and, and get it out or eat it or something.

Just don't throw it up the ice. But, like, I'm also sitting there going, and they showed a view from what Marcus Pedersen was looking at. And, like, Besser's got his back turned to him. Yep. Yep. Like, who's he supposed to pass to in that situation? There was no one available.

So, like, where was Bester going? What was he doing? He was like, what, pass it into the back of my skates? That's usually good. Don't worry, I'll just kick it up to my stick. And it was pretty good. Are you guys unhappy with the way that? they're playing right now?

No, I love it. I love it. I love it when you're trailing by multiple goals in the third period and you're still somehow shot 50 to 3. This is tanking though, man. You got to embrace this. And hopefully do it for another year. But it's not. It's not.

This it is. No, it's not. Losing is tanking. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you want them to lose, but still try hard. Yeah, Andy. I would like to see some of the players show one motor development.

Did you not? That's risky though. Did you not hear the part where I said there's loose. losing because you're not good enough. And then there's losing because, you know, you've lost all semblance of discipline and cohesiveness and camaraderie. I think these, I think this is a worthwhile exercise because you're reflecting a lot of what the people in the... But it's because, like, those things are the, I mean, to me, like, the way I look, see it is it's the same thing.

Like, this is just, this is just a result of how bad they are. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. You go over to the Olympics? and you see some of those teams that ultimately lost but brought an effort and had a game plan

and they tried to they tried to exert the game plan but there were teams like the Canadians and the Americans and their talent level was just so good that those teams broke through right and they ultimately met in the gold medal game that's the type of losing you should be doing

when your talent just isn't there And the Canucks talent very much isn't there. But you can tell when a team is checking out. Is lacking talent and also has no pride. Like my concern. You know, like the versus the way, you know, some of the teams that didn't have the talent, not even close to the talent of the Canadians or the Americans of the Swedes.

The guys weren't even in the NHL. But they still had pride. And they still went out on the ice. Yeah, sure. And they still... Well, it's the Olympics too. I mean, it's part of it. I know.

Playing for your country. I mean, it's an honor. I agree. I agree. I know what you're saying, though. That's just an example. That's an example. Like, there doesn't seem to be, there doesn't seem to be the pride in the logo.

The pride in playing for the Vancouver Canucks. And I am not scapegoating one person here because there's a lot of them that deserve this. But I think it is best. exemplified by the scrum that Elias Pedersen gave yesterday. That was even brought up in the broadcast by the likes of Landon Ferraro and Tyson Barry, who we're going to chat with Landon later in the show. You know, usually those guys will focus on the positives. They'll be like, Leonis Carlson is having a good season, right?

You know, and I think for that to be brought up on the TV broadcasts as opposed to the radio or we'll just complain about anything. It's true. You know, like, I think that was a very significant moment and good for Landon for doing it. So let's play some of the audio from Elias Pedersons, I guess sort of now infamous scrum yesterday, because it did make waves, obviously locally,

but across the National Hockey League as well as we get closer and closer to the trade deadline, and Elias Pedersen's name is further and further embroiled in trade rumors. We're going to play the last minute of the scrum, because this is when things got, Maybe a little bit more confrontational, at least in terms of a back and forth. And it started with a batch asking Elias Pedersen about the trade deadline. And the noise around the team and his name as we get closer to Friday's actual deadline.

I don't know if we have the question or not in the clip, but we'll play the whole thing. And then there's other reporters jumping in with questions back and forth. You can listen to the answers. You can hear Pedersen's tone. Draw your own conclusions about what you think. Here's Alias Pedersen talking about the trade. Trade deadline, his play, living or not living up to his contract, all of this ahead of last night's game, and of course ahead of Friday's trade deadline.

How challenging do you expect the next few days to be before the deadline with all the noise around the group, and how do you sort of manage that as a team and as an individual? No, I mean, there's always noise. And I don't read or listen to any of it, so it's nothing new. Today is the, I think, the two-year anniversary of you signed in your contract. Did you think two years later, are you surprised two years later to hear your name in trade discussions? I mean, do you see you guys who makes a trade rumor? So ask yourself. Has it made it harder just to be a player because you have that number attached, do you know?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, who wouldn't? I mean, I haven't lived up to expectations of the contract. And I'll be the first one to say it. Obviously, I wish I would be different. I've played better, a lot more points, but it is what it is. I'm trying to play a good game tonight and see what happens. And that's where it ended. So there was a lot to take away from what wasn't a lot of answer, to be perfectly honest. But I think most importantly, it is what it is.

That was a throwback. Yeah. Nice. The one line that a lot of the national... My contract sucks. That was when he said he wasn't living up to the contract, that's what a lot of people ran with nationally. And I guess you could construe it as the player admitting that he hasn't played well.

And oh, look, he said it, that sort of thing. But my biggest takeaway from that entire thing was, this is a guy that is so done with all of it. He's done with answering questions. He's done with talking about it. I think to a certain degree he's done with trying to live up to the contract. I think that this, if it isn't already, further illustrates that this is the worst single contract that the Vancouver Canucks have ever handed out in their 50 plus years of existence.

Because not only is it an anchor on the team when they're presumably trying to move him, the player is now essentially been crushed under the weight of whatever he sees that contract is and he's fully cognizant of the fact that he's not living up to it. Here's the scary part. There didn't seem to be a lot of reflection in that answer about wanting to get better or how he's going to get better or the ways in which it's going to happen and he's going to start to live up to the contract. The question very omit and the answer very ominously ended with,

yeah, I haven't lived up to it. Um, if you were to read a transcript of that article or, you know, um, if you were to read the headline on sportsnet.com, which quotes haven't lived up to expectation, uh, connects Pedersen reflects on extension. You may like, wow, you know, he's holding himself accountable and owning up to his poor play. But, um, you know, if you understand human behavior, and if you can, listen to someone and go if you have the ability to be like you know I don't know if I fully believe you

like if you have that ability as a human being you know when you watch the actual scrum and you listen to his answers he wasn't holding himself accountable he was just going through the motions and it was hard to watch

you originally texted it to the group and you said something like this is brutal just the whole thing just to jump in all of it the reporter and what I thought was doing their best to rephrase

the same line of questioning 18 times to try and elicit some interesting answer some level of accountability some actual reflection some actual reflection that went on that went beyond just like I gotta be better and he didn't want to do it

the questions were really not that difficult they certainly weren't aggressive in nature God I find it hilarious when people say that the beat guys are so hard on this team are so hard on Pedersen. Listen, actually listen to the way they ask the questions. They tiptoe around the guy.

They almost apologetically ask him questions. Like Brendan Batchelor, who could not be a nicer guy. It's true. Asked him a very, very easy question right off the hop. Are there any particular areas in your game that you're looking at? And Pedersen just mumbles an answer like a few, you know, create chance. better defense. Every answer is just so short and dismissive.

Nothing he says is said with conviction. And that's by the way how you say something with conviction. You say nothing. You emphasize it. He says is said with conviction. I know it must be very, very difficult for him. And believe it or not, I do feel for the guy. But you cannot act like a moody taining.

when you're 27 years old and you've said you want the pressure that comes with the big contract. Well, this is the pressure. You can't play the victim when you're banking more every two weeks than most people earn in a decade. I got a bunch of texts from people outside the market who saw that scrum were like, wow, this is really bad. I was like, mm-hmm, it's been going on for a while now. It's the dismissiveness that gets me. where is the fight in this guy? Where is the F you all show you in him?

He doesn't make me want to root for him. And I don't know if anyone listening is like, I'm really rooting for PD. I hope he gets through this. Because from what I've seen from the text inbox, we have more and more people that say, I used to be a PD defender. You know, I hated when the media would criticize them.

I'm out now. I'm out. Get this guy. off my hockey team. Yeah, well, there's the possibility of this turning around. I mean, I've got it at nil

right now in Vancouver. In Vancouver. And it has to do with the fact that there have been countless examples although none quite this egregious in terms of a guy going in the tank, but where you just understand that it's run its course in a particular place.

And I'm actually shocked that there hasn't been more of an impotent from the front office to move on from the player given how bad this has gotten. How many more coaches can call the guy out directly or indirectly? How many more times can the player go up there and sound disinterested and then go out on the ice and act disinterested?

How many more times can the same song and dance go on before apathy sets in and never, never leaves? Well, maybe yesterday's scrum is the tipping point. There's no tipping point. I don't think I've seen anything quite like that. There's no tipping point. There's no tipping point. That's a thing.

That's a crazy part of it. Al from Nelson texts in. He said, guys, the team pretty much forced this contract on him. He desperately wanted to wait till the off season to get it done. Seriously, this entire situation falls at the feet of management and ownership. Okay, I don't think the entire situation because he always could have just said, no, I'm still not signing it. But Al from Nelson, I do agree with you that. management has to own this contract.

They did strong arm him into signing the contract. And look, I will tell you one thing. I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to say who supported it and who supported and who didn't support it. There were key figures in that organization that had an opinion, raised their hand and said, I don't think we should sign this guy long term. I'll say this.

When I say... There was not universal agreement on whether or not the organization should put all their chips in on Elias Pederset. It was a wild, wild gamble. And oftentimes when you take a huge, huge shot in the dark like that and make a huge gamble and make a huge risk, there's the possibility of it blowing up spectacularly. Safe bets are safe bats.

This was not. And it's why I say when it's the worst contract in the history of Vancouver Canucks, 50 plus years, I'm talking about everyone involved with it. I'm not talking about the player that signed it and I'm not talking about the organization that offered it. The entirety. Everyone involved with that should,

and I hopefully will wear it as a scarlet letter or a stain on their resume, that that's the worst contract that this organization has ever, ever put to paper. Because the ramifications are so deep and so varied. And it's led to the point where you're looking at one of the worst teams, worst teams in the franchise's history two years after handing out the most onerous contract

in franchise history and those two things are there's a direct line between the two of them and it's an impediment to the rebuild it's a massive one it is I mean if you don't believe that culture is a problem then fine but when the young guys come into the team and be like what's up with that guy doesn't he make a lot of money

I was like And what's going on there? It's like, well, it's just kind of the way we do things here. Yeah, culture and leadership. And, you know, whether you like it or not or whether it's fair or not, you sign that contract, that's going to be foisted upon you. You pointed this out earlier. Pedersen has said before he wants the contract and the pressure that comes with it. All of the things that come with being a highly paid, the highest paid player in a frenzied hockey market.

It'd be funny if he was like, I'd like to clarify that. I only want the good things. Yeah. Just the stuff that is fun. Like the good stuff. The fun stuff. Yeah, what happened to that? It's long gone.

Okay, we got to go to break. We got a lot more to get into on the Halford and Breft Show on SportsNet 650. We're going to talk to Greg Wschinsky coming up next. We'll go around the National Hockey League. A lot happening as we get closer and closer to a Friday's trade deadline. Mark Spector is going to join us at 730, Landon, Ferraro at 810 this morning. And a reminder, get your what we learns in hashtag him WWL. Tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports.

And let us know via the Dunbar. bar lumber text message in basket at 650, 650. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on SportsNet 650 or wherever you get your podcast. 634 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Halford Brough, SportsNet 650.

Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Do you have credit card debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could. cut your debt by up to 80% with no up front fees. Visit them today at sands dash trustee.com. Still in hour one of the program, Greg Wyshinsky from ESPN is going to join us in just a moment here, the highlight of hour one. Hour one is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling.

Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. This is the Middle 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. To the Able Auctions Hotline we go, Greg Woshensky joins us. now on the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650. What up, Wish? So are we going to do 15 minutes on Quinn Hughes wearing ankle socks on the tonight show last night?

We're on. As a sock guy, I found that to be really offensive that he wore ankle socks on the tonight show. So, granted, it was a weird look. As someone who wears sweat-related clothing almost every day of the week, I applaud Quinn for not getting dressed up to go on network television.

I kind of nodded along with that. Like, even his brother managed to throw on, I believe it was a collared shirt. It was a polo shirt, if I'm not mistaken. It was like, yeah, he looked like an intern at a brokerage firm. Yes. You know, Jack did. Yeah. And then, you know, and then Hillary Knight comes out looking like Ziggy Stardust.

And this is kind of like, you know, I don't know what's going on. Like, don't these guys know they're on a late night talk show? For the listeners, it might not be aware. They're young. They were like, what's a late night talk show? For the listeners that might not be aware, by the way, Quinn Hughes, Jack Hughes, and Hillary Knight were all on Jimmy Fallon last night, doing the car wash having appeared on Saturday Night Live over the weekend.

Before we get into everything else that was going on, was there any notable take? I didn't watch Fallon last night, I got to admit. Was there any notable takeaway from it? Well, first of all, you got to watch Fallen Every Night Boys. You never know what's going to happen on that show. Such a wacky show. Secondly. So wacky.

Secondly, I think Luke Hughes had more lines than Quinn last night, which again, is just not something I expected. Luke was in the audience as the tag along for all of this. But no, man, like it was such an interesting week and change for these guys, obviously, for some not so great reasons, but also, you know, ending up on Saturday Night at Live and doing the bit with Connor Story and the whole thing. So it's been interesting to see the journey that all. these guys of bonds. And again, I think it's great that Quinn gets to kind of tag along. The whole brother gimmick, you know, paid off where he gets to be a part of all this thing. And it's not just, you know, the guy who scored the golden goal that gets to experience it. So good, good for the Hughes

boys. Okay. So there was obviously a lot going on last night, a lot to watch. You had Fallon. You also had, you know, the Kings with their first game under DJ Smith against the Colorado Avalanche, which they lost, by the way. In watching all of this, which did you have a chance to see what was going on here in Vancouver. Specifically, the scrum the Lius Pedersen had prior to that 6-1 blow at lost to the Dallas Stars at home.

Jimmy, you know where he was prodding the media for creating trade rumors about him? Yes, that one, yes. Yeah, I saw it. You know, it's whatever. Like, I always like him frisky, which I thought he was in that press conference, but

you know, I mean, what are we to take away from it? He's a guy whose name has been in circulation now for multiple seasons. He's a guy who's dealing with the ins and outs of the repercussions for his lack of performance in Vancouver. Do I think he's going to be traded this week? I still don't. Like, I think that that's still a move that probably comes in the off season with teams that maybe have a better sense of what their cops going to be. But, you know, it didn't strike me in any odd way.

Why is – are there even more people mad at Elias Federson for not? being better or whatever. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm one of them. I mean, I thought that... But you've been that guy, though. Like, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, and he's still here and it's annoying. You know? But if he's sassy, like, he's not going to turn anyone else again.

You think he was sassy? I don't think he was sassy. I thought he was like dismissive and just, you know, not really reflective at all. I mean, he kind of went through the motions. You know, yeah, he had that little bit of a back and forth about you guys make all the trade rumors, but like, that's the problem with him. Like, his accountability to me always seems like not real accountability. It's just like, what do you want me to say? Fine. I'll say it.

It's like, you've ever asked a kid to apologize? You're like, say you're sorry. Sorry, you know? Like, it's just, you know, and that's honestly sometimes the way he comes across, like kind of like a kid who's in trouble. What's that? But what do you want to hear from him? Well, I want to hear that he's going to work harder. And he was asked, like, are you going to work on any specific things?

And he was like, yeah, playing better. You're like, what? I think, but I think the important thing here is that he, he doesn't want to work harder in Vancouver anymore. Like, I think we can all kind of agree on this. Maybe he should just say that then. But why would he? Okay, and now all of a sudden the entire world is like,

this guy is abandoning his team or whatever. I worked for Quinn Hughes. He's on Jimmy Fallon now. Look at him. I mean, it's gone great for him, right? You know, I think the whole world in Vancouver, 90% of the world, would be like, thank you for leaving. Yeah, all you guys need is a Bill Guerin to step up with an offer that knocks Jimmy Rutherford socks off. Who do you think might?

I mean, I'm trying to look at the center market here. And, you know, Robert Thomas and St. Louis, is he the top center potentially available? Italy. Yeah. Do you think, like, will the blues actually do it? Well, they actually like, like, I mean, you talk about how long we've been talking about Pedersen in Vancouver. You know, we've been talking about Cairo and Thomas in St. Louis and the culture in St. Louis since, you know, losing guys like Ryan O'Reilly and Petrangelo and winning the cup, of course.

Like, it's not a Canadian market, but there's some similarities there. Well, I think we've been talking about Cairo for a long time. I think the Thomas thing is a new development and an exciting one at that because I don't think a bona fide number one center like that comes available on the trade market near the deadline every year. So I was calling around on some stuff yesterday and a couple GMs are under the impression that the cost of acquisition is sort of ridiculous right now. Like it's a deep blue chip prospect has to be involved. A young roster player has to be involved. Like it's not it's not going to be easy to pry that guy away. And I think part of the issue there is that they're going to be patient.

Like I think they know that there's a there's a pretty long road ahead towards circling this franchise back to real cup contention. And it's going to take a major restructuring of the roster and trading Thomas helps to that end. But he's like a major, major chip to play. And so I think if they trade him, I still kind of think it's an offseason. play, but there's enough smoke around his availability where if somebody really wants to step up and take a swing, and there's some teams that have, like the two teams that I keep coming back to, or three teams, rather, are Utah, Detroit, and Boston. Because I think all three of those teams have the want and need for Robert Thomas.

And all three of those teams have a depth of prospect pool that I think could satisfy the blues. And so those are the three teams that kind of like keep my eye on for this potentially happening before the deadline, but ultimately I kind of think it's an offseason move. And then obviously with Utah, the other wrinkle is that Bill Armstrong, their GM, drafted Thomas, so like in St. Louis. So there's a little bit of an extra connection there. I know you threw it out on Twitter yesterday that you heard some things about how aggressive Utah might be. And if you look at the standings, they're in the first wildcard spot. Them in Edmonton are on 66 points, and it's the sharks and the Preds and the Kings all at 62 behind them.

So there's a little bit of a gap between the halves and that. have-nots, but none of those five teams are playing exemplary hockey right now. And I think Evanton's already made a move. San Jose made the Sherwood move a while ago. What are you hearing on the Utah front? Because things have been relatively quiet, but it feels like now is the opportunity for them to get in the postseason. And if they get there, I don't know if they'll be able to do something, but maybe make that push. So they're in an interesting place. So I had a source tell me yesterday that they expected them to be very active and that they had their fingers in a million pies,

which, again, is a lot of pies. A lot of pie. I don't know if there's a million pies in New York right now, for example. So they're talking to people, I think, is what we're hearing. And what's interesting about them is that they've got an incredible prospect pool that was starting to be built when they were back in Arizona. They had like a treasure trove of draft picks. They've used most of them.

They've got prospects on the roster. they've got prospects in the AHL, they've got prospects in Canadian Junior, they've got prospects everywhere, and they're all good. And so I think at some point you get to that moment as a franchise, when you are either going to be a mother hen sitting on these eggs and hoping that they hatch and become better than the players you could use them to acquire, or you get aggressive. And the example I always use, and again, these are players that are a bit further in their maturation than some of the guys Utah has, is the Los Angeles Kings under Dean Lombardi, where they acquired Mike Richards and Jeff Carter

two guys that helped bring them to Stanley Cups, but out the door went like Braden Shend and Wayne Simmons. You have to give to get. And sometimes it means selling on some of your bright young stars. And I think if Utah's not there now, they're getting close. But again, like they've just got such a treasure trove. Anybody they want to acquire, they could probably throw four or five prospects at them and get them.

God wish. Remember how far Jeff Carter's stock had fallen during his time in, like his short time in Columbus? Like I remember people were like, he's untradable now in Columbus, and then he goes to L.A. And he was a very key part of that team winning a Stanley Cup. People forget about him, I think. Yeah, for sure. And Richards, too. I mean, he helped them too.

And, you know, for the most part, that King's team was fairly homegrown in a lot of ways. But then, you know, Carter, Richards, I think Gabrick played a role on one of those teams, too. And so it's, you got to push your chips in at some point unless you're convinced that all your guys are going to hit. And the team that people always bring up to me in this era that has done that better than anybody is Vegas. Yep. Like Vegas is just, like, ruthless with their prospects, you know, and it's resulted in them getting really high-end talent. and it's resulted in them winning, you know, one Stanley Cup and counting. What do you think the L.A. Kings do over the next three days?

As I mentioned, there are four points back of a playoff spot. They did not get the new coach bump yesterday with their first game under DJ Smith, losing three to Colorado. There's three days left for Ken Holland to try and do something. And lest we forget, this is still Anzee Kopitar's farewell season. So there's a lot going on in L.A. What do you expect them to do by Friday, if anything? Well, I'll push back on the coach bump thing

because I thought that they played pretty well last night. Like I thought they showed a little fire. I thought they played well. It's not their fault. They were playing, you know, the avalanche. I mean, okay, hold on. I was watching the broadcast. I think Daryl Evans came on afterwards

and they were, you know, collectively patting the team on the back for putting in a good effort. But they still lost 4-2 and they still got outshot rather egregious. I think it was 39-21 shots in favor of Colorado. Like, I get that you're looking. Not you.

I get that you, the collective view, are looking for something to say, well, they look better. But it was by no means like a great effort in the first game under DJ Smith. No. I didn't think anyway. No, I mean, it wasn't a great effort. But again, like, it's not like they're playing Latvia. Like, it's just like they're playing the best team in hockey. Sure.

And then trying to find their footing in that environment. I'll tell you where Ken Holland screwed up royally. Like, I cannot believe this happened with this situation. How do you possibly not fire your coach before the Olympic break? That's a great question. How do you possibly not do that? Even if it's a back of your mind thought, how do you not do that? And then give DJ King a chance to have a full month to kind of like figure out stuff,

connect with the players that aren't in the Olympics. Then you get like a week of what's basically a mini training camp before the Olympians come back. And so then you hit the ground running instead of, you know, becoming the interim coach in a shocking turn of events like two games after the break. It's one of the most idiotic things timing-wise I've ever seen in this league. Like it doesn't make any sense

to have done it the way that they did it. The crazy part was when he was explaining it in the aftermath of firing Hiller, Holland said, well, you know, I thought that giving him this opportunity to have a little mini training camp would really help us. And I was like, that's when you bring in the new guy.

Like to do those exact things. Yeah, it was a really bizarre, Sorry, I'll let you go here in a second, but it's a really bizarre set of circumstances when that firing happened and when, you know, DJ Smith came aboard. And the explanation left a lot of people, like almost mouths a gate trying to figure out

how you didn't apply this logic to what makes sense for a new coach, not the existing one. Yeah. It's so dumb. And then I don't think he necessarily lost the room. You could look to New Jersey for an example of that. But I do think that, I do think they didn't,

have any confidence in Hiller. And so once that starts to happen and once that becomes a parent, you know what to do. Everyone outside of the organization that this guy had to go if they had any chance of trying to do anything in Copacar's last season. And so, yeah, it was a debacle of timing. I just don't understand at all trying to keep squeezing the stone to see if you can get some juice out of it and, you know, wasting your time and hurting the other guy's chances of getting his feet under him. Okay, Wish. Out of 10, with one being boring and 10 being very exciting, how is this week's trade deadline?

What's your prediction for a ranking out of 10? I think it's going to be a seven. Because I was talking to some people last night, and I do think that we're going to see a lot of activity. Now, it might be a bunch of guys that are making $1.5 million and less, but I think we're going to see a lot of activity because I do think the teams have cab space and want to tweak. there are a couple of things, and I'm going to write a story about this on ESPN soon, that are at play.

One being the springing of the postseason salary cap stuff on these teams in September, really monkeyed with some processes. Like it's really a thing the teams are still trying to wrap their brains around it, and it's prohibiting them from taking the big swings they would have otherwise taken. And I'm not talking about using LTIR or anything. just like knowing what kind of salary they can have on their cap and then knowing what they're going to have to do in the playoffs to offset that. So that's one thing.

And then, you know, first, it doesn't necessarily impact this deadline in the same way it did the previous one. But the lack of double retention is going to be an issue for maybe two or three trades that would have been big, big, you know, names moving that otherwise won't. There's only one guy who's a pending USA that's got the kind of contract we'd want double retention and that Sergey Vibrovsky if he moved. Right.

And so a GM pointed out to me last night, now if you take on Bob, now it's $5 million, last year it would have been $2.5 million. And that is a huge difference insofar as cost of acquisition and the ability to add him to your team. So like he's the only guy that's really impacted,

but there is going to probably be like maybe two or three moves that don't happen because the teams can't use that double retention thing anymore. We've had a lot of conversation on this show over the last week or two about not that this is anything new, but the amount of no trade clauses that are gumming up the pipes on this stuff.

I mean, it's here in Vancouver, and I know that your beloved New Jersey Devils, I think every member of the New Jersey Devils has some form of no trade or no movement clause. The NBA has two of them. It's Damien Lillard and LeBron James, and that's it. That's all the no trade clauses in the NBA.

I came up with an idea last week where not unlike when the NHL got those one-time-only amnesty buyouts, where you could just wipe Wade Redden's contract off the books. You should be allowed to do it with one player's no trade or no movement clause every year and just point to him and be like, remember that protection that you had gone. Yeah, we know your kids are in school and everything and like they love it, but, you know, this is this is the rules now.

One NTC amnesty. That's my proposal. I know it's got zero chance of getting past the NHLPA. PA might push back on that. But that's my theory. Well, as apparently the only pro-labor guys, guy on this show. Yeah, yeah.

Keep them under our thumb, guys. I prefer Jeff Merrick's solution. What's that? Which is that you have a financial trigger where you can buy someone's no movement or no trade clause out. Oh, okay. Yeah, and that and it's, it's, it's,

it's, it's, the, the wrinkle there would obviously be like, how do you compute that against the cap? Is that circumvention? Like, it's a very good question. I mean, you probably have a handshake deal with a guy on a two-year deal with a trade clause who has a $10 million trigger to buy out the trade protection and be like, yeah. The money goes directly to his wife. Yeah, the money goes like, right, exactly.

Or like, maybe the way you get around it is that if it goes into escrow for his children or something. Like, I like that idea a lot better in the sense that, you know, you are, you were, you know, it's negotiated. And so you're going to have to find a way. to compensate the player for giving up that protection, that protection that probably, you know, enticed him to sign there to begin with. And so I think there's probably ways to do it, but I don't quite know how to compute it under the cap. But honestly, boys, like more so than trade protection, the biggest issue is sort of the general teams keeping their players.

And every GM I talk to says the same thing. I think they learned a lot from free agency last summer. where if you look around the league right now, you know, it's probably like 10, 15 guys that otherwise would be available at the trade deadline that aren't because they just stayed because teams have money to pay them. There's no more inflection point

and there's no more like, you know, pressure point of teams feeling they have to move off of guys because of pending unrestricted free agency when the player wants to stay, they now have extra cap room to keep them in these days. It is really quite, It is really quite remarkable what's happened to free agency in the National Hockey League. Because, I mean, it wasn't that, I know Bruff and I are old now, but I remember it wasn't that long ago that people used to look forward to July 1. Remember, they used to call it the frenzy.

I mean, it was supposed to be a big, important day on the calendar. And it has been whittled away into nothingness now. I mean, you're not even getting a difference maker in free agents anymore. You're getting periphery, tertiary pieces. What are you talking about? Nick Schmaltz is. he might not even get to market the schmalt sweepstakes might not even happen you might have to sign his brother or something I think I think I think I think both networks trade trade center shows

or free agency frenzy shows are just going to be six hours going over possibilities for heated rivalry season two I don't think they're going to even have anything to talk about with regards to free agency well seriously it might end up being that way okay we're up against it for time wish thank you very much for doing this today we really appreciate it

as always enjoy the rest of the week and the trade deadline. We'll do this again next week. Anytime, boys. See, buddy. Greg Wischinski from ESPN here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet, 650. Okay, we've got to go to break. We have an open segment coming up on the other side. We can dive into some of the stories from around the National Hockey League last night

and looking ahead to Friday's trade deadline. 7.30 Mark Spector is going to join us from Edmonton. Edmonton made a trade yesterday. They got Connor Murphy from Chicago in the door. They have a game tonight, an all-Canadian matchup against Ottawa, big game for both teams in terms of their playoff jocke. So we'll talk to spec about that at 7.30. 810 Landon Ferraro is going to join the program.

We'll talk about last night's Canucks debacle? Can I call that a 6-1 loss at home where you were out shot and out played that egregiously? Just call it the latest debacle. Correction. The latest debacle for the Vancouver Canucks at home with 6-1 loss to the Dallas stars. Then, of course, at 830, we're going to do what we learned. A reminder to get them in. Dunbarlam or text line is 650-6-6-50.

Hashtag it W-WL and tell us what you learned over the last. the last 24 hours in sports. This is the worst day of my life. The worst day of your life so far. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, life is a Canucks fan. You're listening to The Halford Inbrough show on Sportsnet,