Halford & Brough in the Morning - PDO Go Brrrrrr

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

In hour two, Mike & Jason chat with CBS Sports soccer analyst Nico Cantor, who was also on the call for the Argentinian side with Futbol de Primera Radio, on last night's Canada Argentina Copa semis matchup (5:00), plus they chat with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance as they dive deep into all the off-season moves for the club thus far (27:00). 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.

701 on a Wednesday. Eurodance Wednesday. Which on more than one occasion I have incorrectly called Eurotrash Wednesdays. Won't make that mistake. Greatly offended our European listeners. Strong European downloads. They've dwindled drastically. Ever since we started doing this, we've spiked in Romania.

It's huge right now. It's huge. You are listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet. You know, I kind of like these guys. Sportsnet 650. Josh Elliott Wolfson for the remainder of the week. They only listen to the first minute of it every segment. Okay, time to turn it off.

Music over. Is that even Romanian? That guy's not Romanian. What? You ever met a Romanian person before? Yeah, I went to school with one. He's downloading our podcast right now. Yeah.

Hour One is available. Apple, Google, Spotify. Wherever Romanians get their podcasts. They're available right now. You are listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda.

Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program. Nico Cantor is going to join us in a moment here to kick off Hour 2. He's from CBS Sports, Golazo. That's their soccer channel on CBS Sports. He's also on the call last night for the Canada-Argentina match.

So we'll talk to Nico about everything from, maybe a little bit more of an Argentinian lean, too, when we talk to him. Hour 2 of this program is brought to you by Primetime Craft Beer. Meticulously brewed for quality and taste, Primetime is full flavor without compromise. You can get some, get some some at a liquor store near you, or you can visit the brewery to see how it's made.

And we're 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. That's what you're waiting for. Laddie wanted in on that one.

I was just ready. It's exciting. That's why you're a good dog. You're just there. You're all, you're at attention. I'm pairing it to the reads when you're with Bruff, right? It's true. That was way cleaner than it normally is.

Well, thank you, Greg. Nico Cantor and Josh, the guy who did the majority of the read. Nico Cantor is going to join us in a moment here. We should go back and circle back on what we're going to be doing throughout the week. A lot of Canucks superlatives, what ifs, Mount Rushmore, power rankings, hypotheticals,

anything you want to throw out there as we constantly churn Canucks content here on your home of the Canucks Sportsnet 650. The one we had prior to going to break was a Mount Rushmore of the ones that got away. Canucks players

that got away were here, went on to, I would guess, greener pastures, and had very fruitful NHL careers. The Mount Rushmore for me was Neely, Forsling, Larionov, and Vive. I also had time for

Jared McCann and a sleeper pick, RJ Umberger. I saw that one in the inbox. It was a good poll. Yeah. Drafted by the Canucks. Not really the Canucks' fault, though. Didn't he refuse to sign? He played hardball in negotiations and he played hardball with the wrong guy,

Brian Burke. And Brian Burke was not going to fold. He plays a harder ball. Yeah, that's true. The hardest ball, Brian Burke. And Brian Burke was not going to fold. He plays a harder ball. Yeah, that's true. The hardest ball, some might say. And he said, you know what, RJ Umberger? We're not going to capitulate to your wants and needs. Here's a hard ball right to the ribs.

You're going to Philly. No. They sent him to the New York Rangers in a package to get Martin Ruchinsky. The Rangers then just let him go. I don't know what happened on the Rangers side of things. I only had so much bandwidth. He played hardball. The RJ Umberger trade tree.

It struck out twice. And then he landed in Philly and went on to have a pretty good career there. And in Columbus. Until Brian Campbell came along. And then Brian Campbell absolutely ruined him, turned him into soup. I just Googled Umberger's name, and that's literally the first picture that comes up. It's him laying flat on his back after the Campbell hit. Sorry, RJ.

Do you remember that hit? Yeah. Was it before your time? How old are you again? I'm 26. Yeah, we talked about this. You're almost 20 years younger than me. I don't feel, or quite frankly, I don't think I look that old, but I am 20 years his senior.

But here we are. We have such an undeniable chemistry. Zoomer and Boomer. Zoomer and Boomer. Zoomer and Boomer just taking care of business, talking about a bunch of old Canucks trades here on Sportsnet 650. We'll get into some of these later on in the show. Again, if you want to get a hold of us at any time here,

Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. You can text in at any time from now until 9 o'clock. Get your What We Learns in as well. Hashtag them WWL. What did you learn over the last 24 hours in sports? Let us know. Do we have Nico Redian on the line now? We're going to dive back into the world of football.

A little more footy talk. CBS Sports Galazo. Nico Cantor joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Nico. How are you? Hey, Nico. How are you? Hey, guys. How you doing? We are great. Thanks for taking the time to do this. We really appreciate it. So you were there

front and center last night on the call. Canada, Argentina, Copa America semifinal. Just a big picture question to start. Wanted to get your thoughts on the match, the way Canada performed, but ultimately the class of Argentina shining through in the end. Yeah, I think that's exactly what happened. You hit the nail on the head there.

I like where Jesse Marsh's head was at. It was a good game plan. It wasn't hanging on to the crossbar, parking the bus type of football. That mid-block, which he put out in the first game against Argentina. You expected it to be a little bit sharper this time, a little bit more incisive when they had their opportunities once or twice through Schaffelberg, and then in the second half, Kyle Lahren.

Canada grew with their subs in the second half, but it just wasn't enough, and the difference was Argentina's quality and class that they're able to finish off a game like this, find the tightest of spaces. But at the end of the day, big picture, it was a valiant Copa America, very honorable from Canada. Unexpectedly so.

Who would have thought Canada was going to be in a semifinal? Maybe you guys. That Canada was going to be in a semifinal? Maybe you guys. That Canada was going to be in a semifinal of Copa America and not Brazil, for example. So to go out this way against the World Cup champions is pretty significant from what we see here across the board in the United States for the history of Canadian football? When we were previewing the tournament, the expectations at the highest level for us anyway were Canada advances out of the group stage. That would have been a victory. We understood that the tournament was going to open

in a grand spectacle against Argentina. I don't think any of us predicted there would be a rematch weeks later. When Canada got to that spot, there was a sense of, hey, you're playing with house money. There's a moral victory that's already been won here. Whatever happens against Argentina happens.

And I think part of that explanation needs a further dive into just how good this crop of Argentinians is. Like, I think the casual fan here, especially in Vancouver, will understand that Lionel Messi plays and he's the greatest player to ever play the game and they won the World Cup. But this is a team that knows how to win in a lot of different styles. Just two losses in their last 62 competitive matches speaks to not just an ability to win, but to win with regularity. And it means you've got a depth of squad and incredible talent and more than just Messi.

So for the listeners that might not understand all of that about this current Argentinian team, can you lay out exactly what makes them so good and why this is really a modern footballing dynasty? Yeah, beyond Messi being the greatest player of all time, this team has versatility and it's how they employ that versatility. And that's all credit to manager Lionel Scaloni. He thought out the game against Canada thoroughly. He respects every rival. And there are managers that say, all right, we have our team and we're going to play our way no matter who comes in for us.

Because I believe that our way of playing is superior. Manchester City has their identity, and we know what they're going to play. Most teams sit back against them. Pep has a couple of options off the bench to change teams, but they are so much better than mostly everybody else that they can play their football and impose their football. For national teams, it's a little bit different. And Argentina obviously doesn't have the quality for Manchester City.

So there are adjustments here and there, tiny tweaks that Scaloni makes from game to game. And the way that he analyzes his opposition is very profound. So yesterday, to kind of shore up that right-hand side where Schaffelberg was so effective against Venezuela, pair that with a fullback that launches forward like Alphonso Davies, he decided to go for Gonzalo Montiel. And that worked really well. I thought defensively he was pretty good, save for a couple of opportunities. Schaffelberg's a good player.

He's going to get a look. But for the most part, he really frustrated Canada. And then add Enzo Fernandez into the mix. He hadn't been playing. Scaloni used him in the midfield, and he was breaking up plays, but also really good on distribution. Then add Angel Di Maria that helps you in that verticality. Kind of go toe-to-toe with Alfonso Davies

to keep him at the left-back position, to not allow him to venture forward so much. He had his hands full with Di Maria for the most part. And then the big nod for Julian Alvarez. It was Lautaro Martinez who has four goals in the Copa America, was starting most games, and it seemed like the informed striker to go with was him. But with Messi not at a hundred

percent fit you need somebody to run to work like a horse and that's Julián Alvarez at the end of the day and not only did he give you so much off the ball he ends up scoring the goal that opens up the game so that's just a window into the world of how good this Argentina team is. And it stems from the coach. Ironically enough, a coach that took charge of this team with absolutely zero experience coaching top-flight professional football and then ends up winning three trophies for Argentina. Scaloni's counterpart, Jesse Marsh, comes on the job late, gets this Canadian team just a handful of matches before Copa America,

and then pulls this off. What did you think of the job that Marsh did? And I know the tournament's not over. There's still the third-place match on Saturday. Yeah, it's unbelievable what he's been able to do in seven games. He's given Canada a little bit more structure. They've always been, I think, under Herdman,

a very versatile team. Herdman, though, often changed formation, system. You would see a Herdman lineup and it could look three different ways. With Jesse,

it's been routine, right we knew we were gonna get going into the argentina game and i think he's gotten a lot out of players i don't know we expected shuffleboard to have such a strong tournament like he did um there's a couple of question marks that i have but regardless he got most, he got a lot of personality out of these players, and he likes to play a certain way, Jesse, but he's shown adaptability. I actually got to speak to him after the game because for a week, we worked together with CB Sports at the CONCACAF Nations League Final Four, and he was happy with the performance of Canada.

Obviously not satisfied. He probably would have wanted to pull off an upset today. It was a tall task. Yesterday, it was a tall task. But it feels like it's trending in the right direction. And I'm not going to stand here and lecture you guys about your national team. I'm really curious to see what you guys think, because it's one of ours that's going to Canada

in seven games. At least I think he's doing good. I wonder what you guys think. Well, I love the dynamic that's at play that the American manager that very clearly wanted the American job goes into a tournament where the U.S. is playing. He takes Canada further in the tournament.

A lot of the supporters are openly looking at this and saying, Hey, wait a minute. Why is he our man? Why is he not our manager? Why is Greg Bearhalter? And as far as the job that Marsh has done, I'm a leads United supporter. So I was pretty familiar with his work prior to this. And I was one of the few that thought that he got a raw deal at leads and felt that he was actually better than maybe what his record indicated. I like his clarity

of vision. I like kind of what you said. He doesn't play the mad scientist routine and has different formations and different lineups every match. There was a sense of stability and understanding about what they wanted to do and I think in a short period of time to be able to implement that, that really speaks

to how good of a manager he is. Yeah, absolutely. I think you're spot on. And that run of play going into Copa America with France, the Netherlands, he managed to, he was pretty good against France, and then against the Netherlands, it was that loss the first half, it was good. But you could tell that their understanding and ideology, an ideology, excuse me, that Jesse wants to implement.

And then against France, it improved. And then against Argentina in that first game, it wasn't that bad. Argentina figured it out. But it took them a while. And I think if Canada can be a little bit more clinical, there were moments that Kyle Lahren was in a good position yesterday, and Jonathan David had one chance. You've got to make the most of those opportunities,

because obviously Canada playing against world powerhouses is always going to be the underdog. But at least, guys, from what I'm seeing from this perspective, this American international, non-Canadian, but at least guys, from what I'm seeing, from this perspective, this American international, non-Canadian, let's call it, non-Canadian perspective, Canada's on a good path, even with Herdman.

I think you guys have something special and credit to you guys because out of the three hosts for the next World Cup, you guys are the ones that left CONCACAF's name in high honor before 2026 and I think the world is starting a little bit like

the US in 94, I think the world is starting to evaluate Canadian football in a different light now. Well, Nico, that's very well said and I want to thank you for taking the time to do this today, we really appreciate it. Best of luck with the remainder of the tournament, love having you on, let's do this again. Yeah really appreciate it. Best of luck with the remainder of the tournament. Loved having you on. Let's do this again.

Yeah, whenever you guys want. Thanks, guys. Beautiful. Thank you. That's Nico Cantor from CBS Sports Soccer. Also on the call, Spanish language call for last night's match and then the final on Sunday, which will feature Argentina and the winner of Colombia and Uruguay. Canada will play the loser of that

match in the third place game, which I hate. How much does the third like, is there a reason they play the third place game? I don't know. I really don't. I think they're so stupid. I understand at Olympic competitions you need to have a bronze. Yeah. So you have a bronze medal match in certain ones, and I've seen them

and oftentimes it's one team takes it seriously and one team doesn't. Yeah. The team that didn't expect to be there is like, oh man, we can win a medal. And the team that didn't expect to be there is like, oh, man, we can win a medal. And the team that expected to win gold or silver is like, man, this sucks. Bruff went to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi when we were at NBC. I stayed boots on the ground in North America, and he went to Sochi to do the boots on the ground over there. And he covered that bronze medal game between the U S and Finland. And what we learned that day was that the Finns,

and I think it was partly because Europeans have a very different outlook on Olympic competition. It's that it's not gold or bust all the time that if there's a medal to be won, it means something and it's of significance. The Finns took the bronze medal match real serious and pounded the U S I think it was five nothing or five one and brough was in the front of the mix zone for media afterwards and jonathan

quick came over in his surly way and told rough that the u.s gave no effort and didn't piss a drop and just walked off sick yeah and i was i'd never really heard that phrase before so then started googling it don't google it by the way you're gonna get some unfortunate results but it is a very little used term to suggest that there's not a lot of effort going on so it was it was a it was a moment of bronze medal matches where you got the real dichotomy of teams that take it really seriously and then the u.s team is probably like let's just wrap this thing up because you don't win bronze in the U.S. You lose gold and in this case, silver.

But I don't like the matches. So what Canada is going to do on Saturday is they'll probably start like Dane St. Clair and Nett and won't start Kray Poe. A lot of those guys you saw come on at the end of the match like Chouinard and Alia Med will probably start. Jesse Marsh already said this, that he wants to give some other guys a look.

I wouldn't be surprised if the guys that haven't played in this tournament, like Theo Baer, gets a look. And someone just texted, yeah, third place for Euros, third place for World Cup. They all have, I don't know why. I don't get it. No one cares about finishing third

unless it's the Olympics and you get a medal. But we'll see what Canada does on Saturday. Anyway, do you want to dive into some more of these hypotheticals and ask us anythings? Sure. Do you have one, Josh Elliott-Wolf? Do you have one that you'd like to dive into?

The one that I liked, let me see who it was from. It was from Champ. Hey, Champ. Power rankings of who's under the most pressure on the Canucks. Going into next season? Going into next season. That's a good one I mean do we just want to say non-Pettersson division and go with the rest I was gonna say number one

is Elias Pettersson yeah um yeah so the rest of them the the thing that is interesting to me about it is you kind of have you have a few guys that are on new contracts, like Philip Peronic, Dakota Joshua, you could put in there as well, and then Jake DeBrusque, obviously a big one. You have guys like Brock Besser who are looking for contracts, and then also a lot of career years last year. Yeah. And pressure to repeat that. Of the new guys, I think it's pretty obvious it's DeBrusque, right,

of the free agent signings. He'll be under's pretty obvious it's DeBrusque, right, of the free agent signings. He'll be under the most pressure. It's a big ticket, right? That's a lot of term. The AAV isn't necessarily bad. You're not blinking twice at it. But he is going to come in with all the trappings of every significant free agent that goes anywhere, right?

You were a day one signing one big money July 1 free agent that goes anywhere, right? You were a day one, signing one, big money, July one free agent target. There's already designs about who you're going to play with. There's already designs about what your production is going to be like. There's going to be targets that fans are going to expect him to hit. I think it's probably going to be, you know, we want to see him score 30 goals,

which he has yet to do in his NHL career, I'll point out, although he's been on pace a couple of times. So that'd be my choice. Yours? I was going to say DeBrusque. I'll probably go Dakota Joshua as an alternate just because you got the pay raise, and last year there was questions about the kind of shape he came into training camp with

and then ultimately into the season with, and he figured it out. We all know how good the third line was, but I think there's going to be pressure on him to have a repeat of that performance and almost be like a consistent 20-ish goal guy throughout the four years. If we talk about the traditional trappings of NHL players

that we've seen on new contracts, Dakota Joshua is the one. You were great value on your previous contract. We liked that. We liked how much production you were giving us for minimal dollars. Now you make more dollars. And this is a very easy way from going to a feel-good story to an onerous one. That is a risk.

Incredible risk from the Canucks perspective because he's on the same team. If you go to another team, there is a sense of newness, and you're going to be given a grace period because, well, he's given a chance to fit in. He's got to find line mates. He's got to get comfortable. He's got to get used to the system.

Joshua, everything remains the same for him. Probably his line mates as well. The only thing that changes is he's going to make a hell of a lot more money. And that, I mean, with jackals in the media like us that's always an issue yeah if there's a lull at any point in the season we're gonna be on him and i feel like fans are gonna be on him yeah you like referring to yourself as a jackal don't you i mean we you use it quite often we do it especially in the morning we and sometimes it's like tongue in cheek jackal them but oftentimes like especially bruv, like the cleavers come out with regularity.

Oh, he's a jackal. Right. And part of it is leaning into the fan aspect of all of it. Like I don't try to pretend like an actual reporter media member anymore. That dream is long gone. I know that it's an embodiment of the fans and the fans are very fickle in this market. And a lot of it is on a night-to-night game-to-game reaction which is totally illogical but also part of the way that fandom exists right

fickle jackals yeah so like you're saying like they'll be a lot you take your jackal them seriously yeah yeah i really delve deep into it peak jackal them but you know when you're talking about the lull right there's gonna's going to be one this year. I mean, if there's one thing, like, for example, I thought last year in the playoffs, after busting out of the gates with that great game one against Nashville, Joshua kind of went quiet. Yeah, and then he had a good game one again against Edmonton,

and then he went quiet again. And the consistency is going to be part of that. Don't count out the PDO Kings, man. PDO go brrr. What are you talking about? Fair enough. It's going to be part of that. Don't count out the PDO Kings, man. PDO go brrrr. What are you talking about? Fair enough. It's going to happen. They're going to keep going.

Going to play better than expected. And going to go further in the playoffs than they did last year. Hell, maybe even a Stanley Cup. Wow, you're really into this. What? Yeah. I have no idea what you're talking about right now. So the PDO Kings.

Mm-hmm. The Canucks had a high PDO the PDO Kings. The Canucks had a high PDO. PDO Kings. But that's a term that you've just come up with? No, it's been used on Twitter. I don't do... I've been talking about the PDO all year.

Yeah, I know, but I did not know that the PDO Kings... I was like, are you talking about the Los Angeles Kings? The Canucks, the PDO Kings. See, Halford is not in with the Zoomer lingo like us young kids here. And the go brr means that it's just like, it keeps going. Yeah, I didn't know what that meant. We got to explain this to him. I didn't know what go brr meant at all.

What? Is he cold? No, it's like a car. Halford furiously goes brr. Yeah, I'm like, I think Andy's sick. Do you need a blanket? This is the blank look. The most boomer moment you've ever had.

You know what? When we did this 20-year age gap, I did not expect to fall into boomerdom so fast. But it's happening right in front of my eyes. It wasn't even my fault. It was Andy. Andy set you up for failure. The Canucks talk continues on the other side of the break.

Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and the currently on pause Canucks talk show right here on Sportsnet 650. He's going to join us next. 8 o'clock, it's Dave Softy-Moller from KJS Sports Radio in Seattle. He is awake, I've confirmed, by the way. Beautiful. He's awake today. That's good. And then at 8.30, we're going to do what we learned.

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. Or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. What we just have to call Thomas Drance Erotica. Thomas Drance Erotica. Of course.

Thomas Drance Erotica Corsi Thomas Grant's Erotica Expected Goals Thomas Grant's Erotica Top Model Thomas Grant's Erotica Red Russian Thomas Grant's Erotica PDO Run Russian Thomas Duran Veronica PDO

Thomas Duran Veronica 731 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

Josh Elliott-Wolf is in for the vacationing Jason Brough for the remainder of the week. How's it been going so far, Josh? I think it's been good. I think you've been great, personally. Halford and Brough go brr.

That's all I've learned so far. I still don't know what that means. Apparently, I said it was a car. I misinterpreted it as a car. Hold on. You're responsible for all of the youth references on this show. I made a mistake. You can't screw it up.

Okay. So the phrase is go burr. Yeah. And it's in reference to what? It's a money counting machine. Like burr. Yeah. I thought it was like an engine.

It just keeps on going. That's what I thought. If it's really cold outside, you go burr. Yeah. That too. These are just definitions of burr. Yeah. Now you're making this way more confusing. I thought it was just's really cold outside, you go brrrr. Yeah, that too. These are just definitions of brr. Yeah, now you're making this way more confusing. I literally thought it was just like a generic engine sound.

So the phrase Andy used was PDO go brr. PDO Kings go brr. It's a very Reddit thing, I will say. No, it was all over Twitter. It's more of a Reddit thing. It became like a Canucks meme throughout the season as the PDO kept being a thing.

And we talked about it on the show countless times. We have never said the phrase PDO things go bird. No, no, no. PDO specifically was mentioned. Yes. I wonder if it's on you then to connect with your youthful audience and understand what go bird means. Tap into the audience.

You have no aura, my pal. I used to know what it was, but now it is weird and scary. Okay. Thomas Drance is waiting patiently on the audience. You have no aura, my Alfred. I used to know what it was, but now it is weird and scary. Okay, Thomas Drance is waiting patiently on the line. Let's take care of business. Halford and Brother 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. Thomas Drance is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour 2 is brought to you by primetime craft beer, meticulously brewed for quality and taste. Primetime is full flavor without compromise. You can get some, get some at a liquor store near you. Or what is that?

That is the most comically large water bottle I've ever seen. I've never noticed that before. I'm a tea boy over here. What is that? Put your water bottle on the screen. Okay, please go to watch.sportsnet.tv and look at Josh Elliott and his water bottle. I don't know what to tell you. You know when a team wins the Super Bowl and they dump the cooler of Gatorade on the winning coach?

Josh is drinking out of it, but not out of the spout on the Gatorade container. It's like tipping the Gatorade container in your mouth. Good God, man. Seriously, I'm going to post a video of this. I'm going to post a video of this. That water bottle is taking one quarter of his brain. You're going to get water poisoning if you drink all of that. The name emblazoned on the water bottle says Hydro Fest.

How long does it take you to fill that up? Like 20 minutes? It takes, if I'm filling it here, it's the whole commercial break. The name on the water bottle is Hydro Fest. Folks, let me tell you, it is a festival of hydration. Josh should do a bit where every day he comes back with a slightly larger water bottle. I don't think they get bigger than that. By Friday's show, it just takes up the entire screen.

I was at the Nike store the other day. There was one bigger than this, and I was like, should I do it? You feel a little jealous? Did it come with straps? I've never seen a water bottle that big before. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I felt a little self-conscious. You saw the bigger one at the store. But also just casually taking a swig of this canteen.

It's like something out of a cartoon. Sorry. Okay, Dren's is on hold, by the way. Whatever. My apologies to the primetime craft beer people. If you can make a 64-ounce beer and put it in a similar jug of Josh's, I will gladly drink it. Prime time.

Get some today. Let's go to the phone lines now. Thomas Drance is joining us here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Drancer? Gentlemen, good morning. Good morning to you. Have you ever heard of the phrase, PDO kings go brr? Yeah, it's, you know, Kmad uh riot survivor on twitter had like the was like a

zamboni and he kept adding to it over the course of the season and that was the machine that went burr okay he's in touch with the youths come on half we get it together i don't have drance is more in touch than you half the words drance just said i don't even know what they are but i'm gonna i'm gonna press on here uh how you been bud i know you're on kind of like pseudo semi-vacation here so thanks for taking the time to do this yeah no worries well you know i i i'm writing at the athletic so i'm not on vacation from the athletic but i am um off of canucks talk for the summer um so yeah so it's a partial partial vacation I'm just slowly recovering and starting to enjoy a little bit more mobility and a little bit more normalcy so yeah

things have been good the the PDO go burr thing though it does remind me of the old like black adder joke right which is like I'm thinking of a word that starts with a burr right and the and the guy starts trying to guess it, and it turns out to be a motorbike, right? Because when you start it up. Well, that's what Andy thought it was. Yeah, we all thought it was a vehicular sound, but apparently we were all wrong.

Except for me, because I never had a thought of what it was in the first place. I was like, this is too far beyond me. Okay. You were too far gone. Yeah. Your latest piece in The Athletic, it connects 20-24 2024 offseason moves, where are they better?

Where are they worse? Answer both of them. Let's start with the where are they better? Yeah. So they're better on the wings. They're better on the wings. Now, interestingly, so effectively this is an annual exercise

that I run through using Dom LeCision's net rating model. And what I sort of do is build two rosters. One that assumes that the Canucks just returned literally every single unrestricted free agent that they had. So as if like the roster at the end of the season was frozen in time and just returned and then compare it with the roster as it sits on paper, sort of on July 4th or whatever, July 5th, you know, to effectively measure not like, is Vancouver better than they were entering last season,

but how much better are they as a result of the off-season moves made and the decisions made by Canucks management, right? And sort of the output or one of the most interesting outputs, is despite reallocating money or cap space from the third pair and the center ice position onto the wings, the net rating model does not consider Vancouver to be upgraded offensively.

It considers them to be upgraded defensively, right? Effectively, going from Zdorov, Cole on the third pair to Forbort and Deharne sort of modestly downgrades the club's offensive attack enough that the addition of DeBrusque, Heinen and Sherwood who are offensive upgrades or, you know, more or less. I mean, the team does lose some offense with Lindholm moving on, but certainly Heinen's an offensive upgrade over Mikheyev

and Sherwood's an offensive upgrade over Lafferty. You know, effectively, it all comes out in the wash, and the team's net rating is unchanged offensively in terms of their offseason moves. But defensively, because these wingers, you know, are a big deal. And because the third pair of defenders, both Deharnais and Forbert, are seen as actually collectively defensive upgrades, like upgrades in terms of the club's defense,

the team's modestly, very modestly improved defensively as a result of some of these offseason moves. So, you know, I think the main takeaway from that in terms of where are they better is that, yeah, this team managed to modestly improve itself as a result of, you know, what they did this offseason, which is pretty impressive, really, when you are sort of coming off of a season in which Pedersen's on a new deal that pays him $4 million more, right? Hronik's on a new deal that pays him $4 million more.

Joshua's on a new deal that pays him $2.5 million more. And so once you factor in allocating $ and a half million in raises to your own players to then be sort of dexterous enough to go into the offseason and pull off moves that the net rating model sees as improving the team even even just modestly like that that to me is the main takeaway that's that's really good work really difficult to do and sort of positions the Canucks pretty well to be one of the top teams in the Pacific Division again. That's what I was going to ask for for any team how how difficult or I guess how impressive is it that the Canucks were able to especially with

the roster turnover not only maintain the level of talent which I think probably would have been relatively impressive in and of itself, but to in fact, potentially build upon it like the Canucks did. Yeah. I mean, it's massive, especially because, you know,

all of these model, um, these like projection models, you know, Jay fresh had one that he published the other day that projected the Canucks for 110 points, right? Uh,

the, the net rating model and, and granted, we'll see sort of what it looks like once ice time adjustments happen, because that's a big part of Dom's exercise, right? Like, we're effectively using, like, the development camp model. We're not even in training camp mode yet,

so things will change. But the net rating model also has the Canucks as one of the top teams in the league. And while that could change, they'll probably remain top 10. And so a big part of this, too, isn't just that they maintained. It's that most other teams didn't. Right. And that most other teams like just look around the Pacific Division, you know, whether it's

Mark Stone or Alex Pietrangelo or some of the older Vegas players, whether it's Kopitar and Doughty from Los Angeles, whether it's a guy like Ekholm in Edmonton. You know, most of these other teams have at least a key contributor or two who are old enough that these models look at them and say, hey, at their age, they're probably not going to be able to contribute as much as they did last season. Let's downgrade their rating. And Vancouver, you know, not only were they able to more or less improve, but they have a prime age core, right? Hughes is 24 turning 25 in October, right? Pedersen's 25 turning 26 in the fall.

You know, JT Miller's the only guy, you know, on the other side of 30 among Vancouver's sort of seven, six most important players. And he's still early enough in his 30s that the model still projects elite performance and isn't looking for an imminent fall off. So when you look at sort of relative strength,

right, all of these projection models are going to be pretty high on Vancouver, not just because of their offseason moves, but also because relative to the rest of the league, relative to the rest of their divisional opponents, they have a prime age core which should buoy them, which should strengthen their relative position across other NHL teams because where these models see sort of signs of decline from some of the other core groups in the West and in the Pacific,

that's absent in Vancouver's case in a positive way. So offensive rating stays the same, defensive rating goes up. Is every game just going to be 2-1 this year? What do you think of their offensive upside? Yeah, and that's sort of one of the main takeaways, right? It's like, you know, I bought all season Vancouver's defensive game, right? That I think is legitimately robust. I think the way that they play systematically,

even the way that they play systematically the even the way that they possess the puck right like even the way vancouver holds the puck in the offensive zone feels like it's in service of preventing rush chances in service of effectively doing the old sadine thing and leveraging like quinn hughes's puck dominance to sort of prevent goals uh with as opposed to and yeah they score them too but um as opposed to sort of driving scoring chances and creating quality looks you see that with how conservative and disciplined vancouver is about sort of avoiding like home run passes right the the way that they're comfortable playing the puck up high as opposed to trying to force low percentage passes into higher danger scoring areas.

I mean, that's a trademark of how Rick Tockett's team played last year. And I think it's a key reason why Vancouver was able to limit goals against to such an extent. Now, this team led the league in shooting percentage last year right and it was you know by a fair bit like 10.7 um we don't really see teams sustain that level of conversion efficiency we sometimes see a team like boston bro the boston burns did a year over year uh in 2022-23 and then again last season or they were the st. Louis Blues the prior collective seasons. We occasionally see a team sustain an elevated shooting clip,

but 10.7%? That's very, very rare. And in fact, while the Canucks finished the year with the highest shooting efficiency 5 on five in the league. You know, if you divide it at the all-star break, right, they were 11.8% beforehand, which is ridiculous in the first 50 games of the year.

And it was a major reason why they amassed this 33, 11 and five record, obviously in combination with Thatcher Demko's excellence and Vancouver's sort of emergence as this elite defensive side and in the second half of the year right from sort of the all-star break on they were shooting 8.8 percent right and guess what the record 17 12 and 4 so we saw this team hit some regression in season last year and not just some regression like a significant amount of it right three percent um off of their shooting clip in the first 50 versus the last 33 uh sort of continuing through that national series and then obviously they were able to get hot again

as as a shooting team uh mostly mostly in chasing stuart skinner before it cooled off in games six and seven. So against the Oilers. So, you know, the fact that this team's not improved structurally from an offensive standpoint to me is actually something of a concern. Not like a capital C concern, but just something to watch for because it's going to be very difficult regardless of like this team could have improved significantly offensively. And it's going to still be pretty difficult to score as many goals as they did last year. So much, so much went their way. Their percentages were so high in a way that's, you know, very unlikely to be sustained, that this team could have improved offensively and still taken a massive step back

from the seventh most prolific goal-scoring team in the NHL. It's going to be pretty hard to be average even unless they find a way to generate a far higher volume of quality looks, rush chances, some of those things that Rick Taukett himself has openly talked about looking at. So I think that's sort of one of the key conclusions from this piece of analysis in general, which is this team probably did modestly improve.

And yet with everything that went well for them last season, right, all the health that they enjoyed, the bounces in their favor at both ends of the rink. You know, they can be better and still not be a 109-point team or a 50-win team or a Pacific Division winner, right? Like, they're already at a level

where their results last season were at such a high ebb that even if they've managed to improve and even if they've managed to strengthen relative to the rest of the league, they can be materially better and still not get such dizzying results next season. It is Halford and Brough on Sportsnet 650, joined by Thomas Trantz of The Athletic. So with all of that, it kind of stands to reason that the Canucks may have to find ways

to create more offensively this season. But how do they – I guess, like, what's the best version of this team? Like, how do they balance finding ways to create more offensively with leaning into the defensive style they seem to want to play and with all the pickups they made in free agency seem to want to continue to play moving forward you know it's going to be interesting i think the like i i do think upgrading their ability to generate or or move the puck uh effectively like i think a lot of it's going to be about what they're able to do on the back end in terms of generating scoring chances, because I look up and down their forward ranks and it's like Jake DeBrusque is a pretty good bet to give you 25 to 30 goals, right? Brock Besser is a very good bet to give you 30. JT Miller is a good bet to give you 30, maybe more, right? Pettersson, likewise. You know,

like Hoaglander and Dakota Joshua benefited from significant conversion efficiency, but I buy that first of all, Hoaglander is really skilled and can at least give you, you know, 10 to 15. And Joshua, I think can sustain a pretty high shooting clip because he's just shooting from high danger areas with ruthless discipline. And then I, you know, I see Garland as a guy who should be able to give you 15 to 20 and maybe more, you know, if, if the percentage has sort of been in his favor for once. So, you know, I go through that list and it's like, that's what,

there's a fair bit of offensive talent that this team has up front, but what they sort of the way that they play, right. The way that they prioritize sort of zone time, second stick opportunities, shooting from the point, you know, the way that they move the puck when Quinn Hughes and Phillip Hronick aren't on the ice. And they were hugely dependent on Hughes and Hronick to generate looks, especially once they caught up to sort of like high end two way teams in the

post season. Right. I mean, his team was generating like 16 goals or 16 shots on goal an hour in the playoffs without Hughes and Hronik on the ice, which is like nothing, like literally nothing. So when you sort of put all that together, I do think the main way that they need or the main adjustment that they can make to generate more offense would be potentially splitting Hughes and Hronik

so that they have more puck moving in more minutes or upgrading their defense, upgrading the skill level of their defense so that they have sort of more get-up-and-go, more puck-moving ability from the back end, more shot creators, or players that can at least contribute to shot creation from the back end. Because when you sort of factor in everything and the way Vancouver played, it just felt like they were terrified to give up rush chances

given the sort of speed and composition of their back end um and and likewise sort of you know avoided uh that possibility by holding the puck the way they did and being extremely conservative with puck management decisions the way they were uh throughout last season you know, what I sort of saw that in real time as I was watching the season unfold last year as sort of a conscious decision to hide the overall skill level of the blue line. And yet now they've doubled down on the composition of that, making me think that it's in fact something they want,

making me think that it has not even something they want, making me think that it has the, not even just heavily implying that that's how they want to play. And I, you know, I think it is going to be difficult to generate offense in sort of non Hughes minutes given sort of how they've built this blue line, how they clearly want to play defensively. Like I don't,

I don't really see sort of the internal solution because I don't think, given sort of how this blue line is built, that you necessarily are going to want to open it up or, like, take more risks on entries or, you know, sort of force more passes into the slot, you know, because I don't think you're going to want for Burton Deharnais and Tyler Myers and Soucy, and honestly, even Herodic, sort of defending while skating backwards

while puck carriers come at them at speed. Like, that's not a situation that the Canucks are going to want. And yet, that's sort of often a product of, like, missing the net on a quality chance or having a pass picked off down low in the zone. Like when you when you try and finishing at such a high clip that they're rarely sort of putting themselves in that disadvantage.

Drancer, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do it. We appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again soon. Cheers, boys. Thanks. Thanks.

Thomas Drance from The Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk right here on Sportsnet 650, although that show was on hiatus for the time being. Okay, we are coming up on the – Ooh, Trouble in Paradise. What's that? What's Trouble in Paradise? The show is on hiatus.

Yeah, like a – Oh, because the season's off. Yeah. It's summertime. Gotcha, gotcha. It's not like a trial separation. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Trans and Dodd are living in separate domiciles now. No, no, no. They're just on vacation. Well, Dodd was testing out this show. I thought maybe he was branching out. He's back next week too. Yeah. A and Dodd are living in separate domiciles now. No, no, no. They're just on vacation. Well, Dodd was testing out this show. I thought maybe he was branching out. He's back next week, too. Yeah. A couple days next week.

That was when I gave that long farewell to Jamie last week. Yeah. And then I was like, but I just looked at the calendar. We'll be working again in nine days. So, final hour of the Halford and Brough show with Josh Elliott-Wolf coming up. We're going to talk to Dave Softy-Moller, which will be an experience. I'm ready. Let me tell you, it'll be an experience

because Softy's got a lot of energy, and he's coming off his annual hated invasion of Seattle by Blue Jays fans and the Blue Jays themselves. Dave's going to join us. Dave? No one calls him Dave. Softy's going to join us at 8. At 8.30, we're going to do what we learned, so start getting yours in right now. Dunbar-Lumber

Tax Line is 650-650. What did you learn over the last 24 hours in sports? Let us know. We'll do some of ours as well. And finally, before we go to break, I need to tell you more about the BC Lions. The Roar is back at BC Place for the BC Lions 70th season. Get your tickets now at bclions.com.

One final hour to go. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet at 650.