Halford & Brough in the Morning - Shane Doan Is The Man

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss the possibility of the Canucks adding Shane Doan to the front office staff (3:00), plus they speak with Arizona Hockey insider Craig Morgan (27:25) about what to expect from Doan in a leadership role.  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. Spock to the right of Connor Ingram. Here's Ristovina. Risto shoots. He's tough. Risk shot, take it, fended off. They score. Wyatt Johnston.

I'm so excited to play homeboard tomorrow because I feel like you're going to even give you more of a boost. What a freaking boost. Good morning, Vancouver. 6 o'clock on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650.

We are coming you live for the Kintech Studios. In beautiful Mount Pleasant. in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you. Hello, hello. And intern Jordan. Good morning to you as well. Good morning. Nice job, everybody. Halford and Brumph of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates.

They're open seven days a week and open late to help you get debt free. With no judgment or upfront fees, visit them today at sands dash trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on screen. scrap metal. North Star Metal recycling. They recycle you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are broadcasting live from the Kintech

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across Metro Vancouver for generations. Find them at three convenient locations or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. Here's a funny anecdote about the Dunbar Lumber tech message in Vasket. When I came in this morning, whoever had worked last night

failed to clean up the flag text area, you know, where you put the text that you want to read on the air. Yeah, what were some of the flagged text? Well, there was only one. Just one singular flag text. And it read, movie theater popcorn,

overrated or underrated. So it was obviously an exciting question. That was a big one. Make sure you hit that one. It's a big dog. However yesterday's show went, obviously it's going to be a tough one to match, but we will try here. Are we going to get to that later in the show? I don't know.

I took it out of the flagged area. And I put it in the will not talk about area. I actually do have some comments on movie theater popcorn. Okay. I think it's both overrated and underrated. How can we both explain you? Does that not defied the laws of overrated and underrated? I love the first part of movie theater.

popcorn, especially when you're, you're hungry and you're in the mood for it and you've get the fresh butter on top of it. And then the last half of it is a real, I don't know, it's an ordeal. It's a slog. It's a challenge. You don't have to finish it. I know, but like, you do. If there's food in front of you, you have to finish it.

What are you talking about? You've spent $27 on this medium popcorn. I'm going to eat it. So is that what their show does? I've got a spoiler for you, by the way, as we're completely wasting time off the top. But it's fine, it's our show. I'll run it into the ground if I want. You know, it's not actually butter on movie theater popcorn?

Well, you can ask for real butter. Yeah, but do you know what it is? If you have a few bucks in your pocket. Salt water. You're getting up to 35 bucks. What is it? It is butter flavored coconut oil and something called flavicle. You can actually buy it.

I've seen it. Give me some of that flavorical. Doesn't sound great for you. Yeah. Flavicle does not look good when it comes. comes out of the container. Look at what you've done now. What?

You are wasting time. Yeah, I know. But if movie theater popcorn is overrated and underrated, would that not just make it rated? Yeah, see, I've wondered about that. If it's both and then it's just perfectly rated, it is exactly what you expect. Like in the Halcyon days where Sat and Dan were really getting into overrated and underrated, did it ever just come to a conclusion that it was just rated? I love how you made fun of the fact that this was flagged and how ridiculous the fact that

it was and now we spent 10 minutes talking about. Leave texting it is overrated. Okay, thank you. we're going to have to bump Craig Morgan to get more to this. Yeah, Craig Morgan, the Duke morning drive. Our morning guest list brought you by the Duke Auto Group. It is going to begin at 630. And it is going to start with Craig Morgan.

Now you might be asking Craig Morgan, what's going on with the coyotes coming back? Noted Arizona Hockey Insider, former coyotes beat writer Craig Morgan is going to join us to talk about Shane Done. For those that missed it, the Canucks have asked the Maple Leafs for permission to speak with Shane Done. about joining their front office. We don't know in what capacity. We don't know in what role. But we're going to talk to Craig Morgan about a very interesting character in Shane Donne.

He does have a fairly extensive history as an executive in both Arizona and Toronto. So we'll talk to Craig Morgan about that at 6.30. 7 o'clock, Edna Mvirk's going to join the program from MLB Network. The Js had their modest three-game win streak and last night. And how about the Mets

snapping their miserable 12-game losing streak with a win last night over the twins, lots of baseball stuff to get into with Adnan at 7 o'clock. 7.30, Jason Quick is going to join the program. That's not Jonathan Quick. He definitely wouldn't be doing media. Jason Quick, senior writer for the athletic, based out of Portland, has been covering Tom Dundon's ownership takeover of the Blazers, which we talked about yesterday. He's the author of a recent athletic article titled Blazers owner Tom Dundon doesn't care that others say he's cheap. we'll join, Jason Quick will join us, sorry, at 7.30 to talk about that.

And then at 8 o'clock, it's the Drancer. Thomas Dranx from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk. He has been putting in the work lately in these early days of the Canucks off season, all over the expansive interview process that they're using to hire a GM. And maybe possibly Jim Rutherford's replacement as well, we'll talk to Dranser about all that at 8 o'clock. So we got a big guest list. We got a lot to get into. Not going to run it in reverse.

Without further ado, Laddie. Tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I'm... We know how busy your life can be.

What happened? Missed it? You missed that? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies, and tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca. Since we were already talking about Shane,

don't, I guess we should begin then. And you actually asked me while we were playing a little interest. intro music there. Did Shane Donne work in the coyotes front office? Very briefly, he worked in the hockey operations department for two years with the coyotes. Okay. Before being hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs, of course, the team that the Canucks had to ask permission to speak with Shane Donne, a special advisor to the GM in Toronto, and now an interview candidate for the Canucks that was mentioned and, of course, reported by Elliot Freibon yesterday. He was special advisor to Bradshaw Living. Now he's just special advising,

I guess nobody there. He's just advising. Yeah, yesterday first came the report from Elliot Freeman about that seeking permission. I think the permission has been granted. And then there was this additional tidbit from Ian McIntyre who put on social media regarding Friege's report on Shane Done. I guess it's IMAC reporting this. Jim Rutherford has left open the possibility he could leave. as president soon after hiring a new GM. The Canucks may be looking beyond the GM role as the interview candidates.

So this is kind of what, I mean, we might be wrong about this, but this is kind of what we came to the conclusion of yesterday during our show, where we worked through the process of like, why do they have multiple lists of candidates and some are experience and some aren't experienced. Like what's going on here? And then we thought, thanks to some of the help

from the textiers, well, maybe the Canucks are hiring a general manager, and that general manager is going to be like a fresh face, got some new ideas kind of guy. Sure. But they're also going to have whether it's a president of hockey ops, I don't know,

but more like a senior executive that is going to bring some experience to the game. or in the case of Shane Dohn experience and maybe some PR help. Because like the Done hire could in theory be similar to the Trevor Linden hire, save for the fact that Dowe never played for the Kinex. But I mean, I do like the idea of a popular, high character and likable guy to speak on behalf of a franchise that,

needs to be a lot more high character and likable. Sure. You can't get, you can't, you know, you can't let it get all the attention. This, this high character and likable. I mean, it kind of reminds me of, you know, you can make a mistake sometimes when you, when you overly focus on one area. And I'm reminded of when Gillis was fired and then they're like, well, what did Gillis not do well?

Well, he didn't draft well. They need a guy that knows how to draft. Course correction. So they bring in Jim Benning and they're like, oh, he doesn't know how to do anything else, though. That's the problem. Now, people will also obviously point out that the Lindenhire didn't work, which is fair enough.

Everyone has to be aligned. And, you know, that's just true of any front office. If Donne does end up getting hired by the Canucks, it will be interesting to see in what capacity. Maybe it's not the president's job. Maybe it's not because the thing with Lyndon was like, he was the president of hockey ops, which meant that Benning reported to him.

And I always thought, that's a little bit odd. Like, Lyndon's been out of the game for a while and Benning hasn't. Yeah. So are you going to give the guy that's been out of the game for a while the final say on hockey decisions? And we all know how the Lyndon thing ended. Maybe it's something else for Donne,

like the special advisor role he had in Toronto. I just think overall, I was excited to hear this news without knowing what capacity Shane Dohn could work for the Kucks. And just because I think it's always good to get quality people working for your organization. Yeah, I like having a guy with that much experience and I've, you know, dealt. Actually, I think I interviewed Don't once. I like a guy that's well spoken, very well thought of in NHL circles, and has a pretty robust resume.

I like that he is a very decorated former player. I like the fact that he's worked in a lot of different roles with different organizations. He's got a network of former teammates and guys that he's played against throughout the National Hockey League. I do think there's something to be said for putting together a collective. a collective of individuals that could maybe work in tandem. Now, some will bristle against that notion

and say, hey, you need to have a clear designation of who's on top, who works underneath, the order of command, all of it. But I would push back and say sometimes when you have that, that can get convoluted too. And we saw it with Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alvin and there was never really cleared definement of roles. And we saw a lot of stepping into each other's lane,

taking stuff off each other's plates. Maybe this is the way to go. By the way, just an additional tidbit is that Frege did say, whatever the potential role that Canucks have for Donne pre-interview is unclear, he's never expressed the desire to be a full-time GM. Okay. So there's, but I mean, that could change. But we're just going on what we know already.

And then Frege did say, Donn could definitely be part of a group, which is where I got that collective idea from. Right. I'm going to throw this out to the listeners. what do you think about a triumvirate of Shane Done, Ryan Johnson, and Manny Malhotra? Ryan Johnson would be the GM,

Manny would be the coach, Shane Done, some executive role. I mean, you throw the Siddins into that mix, and that's an all-world group of good guys, you know? And I know, I know, There will be people who will roll their eyes at this line of thinking. But consider all the young players the Canucks are going to be bringing into the organization over the next few seasons. I think having a group of former players like that, all high character good guys, would be really valuable to this rebuild.

Yeah, I do too. I think some goodwill, maybe even more than that, would go a long way. I don't know how good those guys would throw a party. Like, I don't know, I don't know if they'd be really good at, like, it's hilarious. A very wholesome party. It's hilarious that Shane Donne doesn't swear and rarely drinks, not just because of that, but do you know how much discipline and confidence in yourself it would take to play professional hockey for years and years and not drink or swear? Yeah, I think the swearing thing was-

We're wearing things crazy. It's like a bigger deal. Mark Schifley also famously does not swear. Mark Schifley doesn't? Yeah. Gosh, darn it. Oh, sorry, guys. Yeah.

Well, Donne says fudge. Yeah. He says fudge. And I actually watched, he did one of those barstool going out for play golf with Witt and pissing at. And I think he was, he might have been playing with Ray Whitney, actually. Oh, okay. I can't remember who he was playing with.

But, like, he missed a pot. he was like, fudge it. Right? It's like, I was like, are the Canucks going to have Ned Flanders

as their president of hockey ops? That would be incredible for this show. If we had the Ned Flanders of the NHL as like, peanut butter cups in his office. Right?

Player gets done up there when they're in trouble. Yeah. And Landers is a boring old bitty. Ned. That was Shane Dohn when he had that one drink that one time. Yeah.

It was more monster than man. It was his first and last Blackberry Schnapps. Anyway, this has to happen now. I have no, I have no idea where this is going to go. It sounds like the search is very expansive, but that news yesterday it was outside the box from what the names

that we had previously heard and it was intriguing because of the history that Don't has. We'll talk more about this with Craig Morgan coming up at 630, but we should probably be... There's a lot of people texting in that love that idea. Graham from Hardy talking about the three guys on top that Jason just talked about. And yes,

inject it in my veins. There's a lot of people texting in. They'd be like, yeah, let's do it. Logan from Langley. Don't RJ Manny do it. Someone also said that would make a fantastic third line. Well, if they, yeah. Worst case scenario, there's some injuries.

It would be all right. Okay, let's get to you some of the action from last night in the National Hockey League. Only three playoff games on the slate. And again, for those of you that went to bed early, Quinn Hughes of the Minnesota Wild after getting out to a commanding lead in that series have now fallen behind 2 to 1. But I want to start with what's going on

in the Pittsburgh Philly series. Trevor Zegris, a goal and an assist for the Flyers who took a commanding 3-0 series lead against Pittsburgh with a 5-2 winning game 3 at Xfinity Mobile Arena. You know how Zegris loves playing at Xfinity on Wednesday night. There were a lot of storylines to take from this one,

but I'm going to go right to the Pittsburgh Penguins after a 5-2 loss. And in a series where they've been soundly outplayed, they decided to direct their attention to the officiating and how poor they perceived it to be. There was a comment from Brian Rust saying it felt like it was a WWE match out there. And then the head coach, Dan Mews, got up to the podium yesterday and took Umbridge.

Yes, umbrage with the officiating because Cindy Crosby was called for an embellishment penalty for the first time in his playoff career. Now, it came on a high stick, which both guys got sent off, but it was off a draw and Crosby got dinged for embellishment. Dan Mews. And then like fell to the ice. Yeah. Which was probably what got him the embellishment.

I don't want to look. Did you see his reaction with the fan in the box afterwards? Oh, that was so nice. And Farby had for me to, you know, suggest that one of the greatest players of all time was taking a dive. But I know who didn't agree with the call whatsoever. That was his head coach, Dan Mews. Here's what Dan Mews had to say about that embellish.

call yesterday following a 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. Dan, first, did you get any kind of explanation on the dust-up between Sid and Hathaway as well as the melee in the middle of the second period? No, they didn't give me much on that. I mean, you know, we don't have a single embellishment all year. Cindy Crosby doesn't have an embellishment in 21 seasons. So sticks in his face. They take both of them.

I disagree on that strongly. Not one. Not one for our team. All season. And so we didn't come into this series to start now. Our guys have done a good job with that. And Sid doesn't embellish. Coach,

I mean, I don't know why we got that last part in. I do know that it's... It really adds to it. Yeah, it definitely added something there. I don't... I think he handled it well. I think he made two very salient points that one is like we have not taken an embellishment penalty all year

and Sid hasn't taken one over the 21 years of his NHL career. But he did. I don't know. He did. If I was a referee, does that cause you to like crumple to the ground? The stick barely touched his face. But I see,

okay, here's the thing. It doesn't cause you to go down like a sack of potatoes. But I've seen that countless times and the embellishment penalty often doesn't get tacked on. Usually it's just two for hot stick. I will say that, like, whatever, we're not going to argue about this. I mean, we don't know for sure.

I will say that it was fun to watch everything last night because, like, there's one market in the NHL that really hates Sidney Crosby. You know, like most markets, especially the ones in Canada, they're like, I love Cid. Yeah, tip of the cap. You know? SIDS great. And there's obviously a bunch of American markets. that have the utmost respect for Sidney Crosby,

and he has respect for them. It's so different in Philly. Philly hates Crosby. And to be honest, Crosby hates the Flyers. Yeah, he does. He does. He's still, he did say it. He's like, I hate those guys. And I think he still does.

And, you know, it was like going into a time machine yesterday. You know, you go back 10, 15 years. And you got flyers and penguins and that place. is loud and it's nasty and there are the crybaby crosbie signs and then the game devolved into a bit of a circus and i have some time for that oh yeah i was watching that i i mean i watched that thing start to finish and i got to be honest with you you know how we came into um the uh the playoffs and we were like yeah the penguins i could get on board with them and we were trying to pick our bandwagon team.

And I said, you know, I sometimes don't know until I start watching the series who I'm rooting for. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, I'm rooting for these guys. Or wait a minute, I don't want these guys to win. I'm rooting for Philly, man. Like, I have not liked what I've seen from the Penguins. I don't want to watch. I don't particularly want to watch those guys.

They're old. They're a little bit slow. And I'm liking some of the stories. from the flyers and I like the energy that that they're bringing now watch them blow this three nothing lead but but you know I I found myself cheering for the flyers during that day during yesterday's game because I think I also like when Philly is relevant because they bring a lot the fans and and and I think the team kind of feeds off that and it did it was a bit of a circus and I and I enjoyed it It's okay, a couple things there.

I think it's really interesting that, you know, a couple weeks ago, maybe a little longer, maybe a month ago, we were having a conversation with Charlie O'Connor from PHLY Sports, asking if Flyers fans even wanted this team to make the playoffs because they need more high-end talent via the draft than anything. And now we're talking about them being one win away, Jason, for being one of the final eight teams in the national hockey league and in the Stanley Cup playoffs. So, I mean, the fans were electric. The other part of this, Philly has dictated and dominated this. entire series. And they've decided how it's going to be played. And the penguins have had no

answers to that whatsoever. So consider this. The Penguins were the third highest scoring team in the NHL during the regular season, right? They were terrific offensively. They have four goals in three games. Yeah. One at even strength. Two on the power play and then one with the goalie pulled in game one when they were trailing. Like their offense has completely dried up. Not coincidentally. Dan Vladar has looked a million times better than Stuart Skinner. Also, prediction time. Artie Seelov's a starting game four for Pittsburgh. You have to do it at this point, right?

You have to do it at this point. Really? Do you think so? Down 03. Might as well. Well, he's played... I was surprised he didn't get hooked after the third goal. Skitter was not good yesterday. I mean, it was, it was...

I mean, the Ziegress goal that got it going. That was a nice shot by Zegrois. he ripped it one-timer from PD's old spot. Yeah, remember that? And then there were a couple real stinkers. You know, the Ristolining goal wasn't good. And then who's the other one? There was some D-Man from the point.

I can't remember who got the third one, actually. But your points taken, like it was- Noah Juleson set them both up. Noah Julesen has... No-Julson had a great pass to Ristolinen. Noah Julesen has more points in these playoffs in Connor McDavid? well he has two more points than Conner, David.

And Sidney because Cindy Crosby has one, I think. He got one in the first game. Actually, he might be pointless as well. Okay. Seeler was the guy from the shot from the point. Yeah. Okay, well, look, we've kind of run up against it for time, unfortunately. I do want to pass along the score

at the very least that the Anaheim Ducks got a 6-4 win over the Evanton Oilers in game two of their first round series yesterday. So Anaheim does the business after kind of blowing an opportunity to steal home ice in game one. this series now becomes even more intriguing because it's kind of followed the course that we thought it might that this was not a great stylistic matchup for Edmonton because they went up against a team that can score goals maybe not as well as they do but very well and of course the Anaheim ducks

respond with nine goals over two games including six last night this one was wild it was pretty electric the ducks have shown a pension and this is there's something they're going to have to clean up they got to figure out a way to try and hold on to some of these leads because this is the second game in a row now that they've blown a lead, especially in the third period. But shout out to Cutter Goce, who came up with a huge goal late in the third period yesterday to essentially win that one with less than five minutes remaining. Do they just, I guess they just got to stick with Ingram, right? I don't think there's another option there. I mean, if you look at Ingram. They're not winning the cup.

They can't win the cup with this goal sending. They can't. They can't. It seems impossible. Yeah. The funny thing is if you look at Ingram's numbers yesterday, pretty poor. given the shot totals that he faced and the goals he allowed. I didn't think there were any of the stew skinner variety

where you felt like he really needed to have a couple of those back, but he wasn't good. And he was the second best goalie on the ice yesterday. And I can't see them making a change unless it's super dire. And even then, look what you're going to, right? You're going to a guy that you lost total faith in during the regular season. There are different in Pittsburgh is that C-Laws played well for them during the regular season. Okay, let's talk for 10 or 15 minutes with Craig Morgan about Shane Doe.

and then we can come back to the other NHL games in the last night in the playoffs and maybe look ahead to some of them tonight. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drans. 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. It's Thursday. It's Thursday. It's terrific. It's just so aggressive. 632 on a 7th. Thursday. So aggressive. You're listening to the Halford & Brough show on Sports Night 650s.

Thrash Thursday. This is what Shane Don't listens to, by the way. Just in the morning? Every day. Every day. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. They're ready to give you the financial fresh start you deserve. With no judgment or upfront fees, visit them today at sands dash trustee.com.

We're an hour one of the program. Fittingly, hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the money. highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal recycling. They recycle you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. So yesterday, Elliot Friedman, Sportsnet's very own, broke news that Vancouver has asked permission of the Toronto meat beliefs to speak to their special advisor to the GM, Shane Donne. Pretty familiar name for anyone that's watched and followed hockey for the last couple of decades. But we wanted to know more about Shane Donne. So who better to ask

then our next guest. He joins us now on the ABLE Auctions hotline. Arizona Hockey Insider, former Coyote's Beat Writer, Craig Morgan, joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Craig. How are you? I'm great. How are you guys? It's been a while. It has been a while. Remember those days where we're used to call Craig every second week for some sort of like, are they leaving? Are they leaving? Are they leaving? Are they leaving? Please recap. Not yet. Not yet. And yes. You know, the city council meetings that you'd have to cover. Anyway, this is a slightly different tone that we're going to take today because we're want to know more about Shane Don't.

So for the listeners that might not know everything about him or anything about him, quite frankly, describe Shane Donne to the listeners. I would start by saying he is an impossibly good human being. You hear so many compliments of

players, executives, coaches, when they're in a market, you wonder, okay, how much of it's true. What's the dirt behind the seats? You just can't uncover any with Shane. He's, he's just this incredible human being. And I think everybody who's worked with him, played with him, will tell you the same. Then you meet his family and you're like, okay, this is like for a movie.

They built these characters simply for a movie to exemplify what the perfect family looks like. That's who he is as a human being. I sent you guys a story, if you want to bring that up at some point. He never drinks. He never swears. He's devoted to his family. But when he was with the coyotes, He was also their captain for a very long time.

And what he did, you hear the word culture a lot, and I hate it. Actually, it's such a cliche in sports, but Shane built the culture. He brought everyone into the fold. He supported everyone. He cared about everyone. He made sure that everyone was doing all right, doing what they needed to do, of course, but also that they were doing all right from an emotional standpoint. That's who Shane Don is.

He's just an incredible caretaker, a culture guy, and perhaps someone that, Vancouver needs in that respect, given what's been going on there recently. Okay, quickly tell us that story because you say he never drinks, but that isn't quite true, is it? Well, there was that one time. I wrote a series of stories on Shane before his jersey retirement. I called it 19 Days of Dome. I literally wrote 19 stories.

One of them was the time that Shane did, in fact, get drunk. And it was when he played his 1,000th NHL game. they decided he had to have a drink to celebrate the team plane and for some reason when you talk to Shane he's confirmed this

the one alcohol that he likes is Sambuka which is it's beyond question which one. It's horrible. So he does a shot he starts with the players okay oh you got to do one with me you got to do it with me and then he works his way up to

the media section of the plane and Shane gets absolutely hammered Keith Yandel, by the way, if you have Keith Yandel as a source for a story, you don't need anybody else because he will tell you everything. He says Shane is lying in one of those, you know, the bathrooms in the airplanes with the accordion doors and his legs are sticking out. He's just on the floor. So they're literally carrying him back to his seat. And apparently basically had to carry him once they arrived at the hotel for their next stop as well. He was utterly trashed.

And when his wife, Andrea, found out about it, she was just amused more than anything. she just couldn't picture it because she had never seen something like this from Shane in her life. So he, I think this is important to clarify. He doesn't drink. He doesn't swear, but he's also not very judgmental, right? Like he's got a lot of time for different sorts of people. And, you know, you know, I did hear, I think I can't remember. It might have been Tyson Nash, who said, like, he's the last guy at the bar.

He doesn't drink, but he's out there and he's the last guy. because he wants to take care of everyone. That's it. And he's that way with, if you love this, he's that way with the media. I remember Rich Nairn, the media relations guy here at one point walking into the locker room after practicing was way too long after. And he just looked at us and he said, get a room. And honestly, it wasn't me. It's just Shane.

He just keeps talking. He keeps engaging. He does that with fans as well. They'll bring fans down and he'll be the last guy out of the arena because he's just talking to fans. It's not an act either. just genuine engagement. He shocks you with the things that he knows and the ways that he can connect with people. But yeah, that is absolutely who he is.

So do you think he, you know, the Canucks are trying to figure themselves out right now. And, you know, they need new leadership. What kind of role do you think Shane Donne could play in an organization? And I don't know if you still keep in touch with him, but I'm curious what he wants as well. Well, he had told me in the past that his goal was to sit in a GM slash president of hockey operations role at some point. Now, when you look at his experience, he worked for the league, of course, for several years, what he would call a glorified internship, but he touched just about every area of NHL operations.

So he got a feel for how the finances work, event planning works, things like that. he worked for the coyotes. Unfortunately, Alex Morello Jr. told him he didn't think he was qualified to be an executive, which was the height of irony coming from Alex Morello Jr. So he was more of a sort of an ambassador, a person that they used to open doors, and they needed the ability to open doors, given their ability to burn bridges while they were the ownership group here. But then the last three years with Brad Trillivine, who, you know, he knew when Brad was the assistant GM here in Arizona, he worked closely with.

Brad. And I just talked to Brad yesterday and he told me he just, she touched every area. That was, that was the idea. It was to really expose Shane to every area of hockey operations in preparation for this ultimate goal. Now, I'm not the one to sit here and evaluate whether he's ready for that. I wasn't sitting in on all those meetings. You'd have to talk to the people that were around him and try and get a clearer picture. But he has done a lot. I mean, he had the role of hockey Canada as well, I left that out of the mix. So he's had a diversity of experiences in sort of an executive role that would at least, you know, give him a significant amount of experience, whether that has prepared him,

whether he's ready for that. Again, I can't judge, but he certainly has taken a lot of steps in that direction. We're speaking to Craig Morgan, Arizona Hockey Insider, former Coyote's Beat reporter. We're talking to him about Shane Donne here on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Craig, I did want to ask, like, what's the state of hockey in? the state of Arizona now? Well, I mean, there's no NHL team, which really hurts things. Arizona State picked up a lot of that fan base.

A lot of people are still going to Mullet Arena to watch ASU play, which is great for that program. But a lot of people just miss the National Hockey League. I think there are efforts to try and bring it back. Youth hockey is still thriving here. But whether they can bring it back, especially at these prices, remains to be seen. the same issues exist that have always existed in this market.

First off, you need a legitimate ownership group, which this franchise simply hasn't had since Richard Burke sold the team way back when. And you need an arena in the right location. Those are difficult ventures to get done in this market where you need the political will that has never existed behind you. And then, as I mentioned, you know, what's the current expansion of the guys? I don't know. Is it $2 billion?

Yeah, yeah. It's getting up there. there are not a lot of people in that sort of financial class so it limits the list I know that there are people working on it I've talked to Tom Galvin of course with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is sort of spearheading this they've had a lot of people sniffing around it but thus far no there there's nothing really serious happening so if the NHL is to return to Arizona it's still going to be a while well Craig we want to thank you for taking the time to join us again It's been a while, but it was great getting caught up.

Best of luck with everything moving forward. And if this ever does come to, what is it, refruition in the desert, we'll give you a call. All right, guys. Take care. Nice catching up with you, Craig. You too, thanks. That's Craig Morgan, Arizona Hockey Insider. Former Arizona Coyote's beat writer talking a little Shane Donne here on the Halford

and Brough Show on SportsNet 650. It's remarkable the positive reaction from the listeners to the Shane Donne idea of joining the Canucks Sarah from Edmonton, Texan. heard Shane Donne in my mind. Hopefully in real life, the Canucks do too. I just think you have to make sure that everyone's slotted into the right roles and you've got all your expertise covered in a front office. I remember having questions about big questions about Trevor Lyndon. Sure. You know, like what, you know, we all love Trevor Lyndon and he was. But he was running a chain of gyms. Yeah, right. He got hired. Not plural gym spending and otherwise. Yeah, yeah.

actual, you know, where you go lift weights. And I don't know what else you do in the gym. I've never been to one. But that's what he was doing. Gimes are called. Gimes, yeah. But we joke now, but that was a legitimate point of concern when Linden got hired was, hey, he's been out of the game.

He's been doing, you know, financial business ventures on the side that aren't really day-to-day hockey ops. And now he's got a big job. Yeah. And maybe it would have been better for a different structured front office when he came aboard. Who knows? That's hindsight being 2020.

but I really like your idea of having Mani Malhotra, Ryan Johnson, Shane Donne, those three at different layers of the organization because... I just think bring in as many quality people as you possibly can. Yep. You need to have a group that's going to be able to work together and it's tough to predict

if that's going to work or not. Because sometimes you'll get two people that have been joined at the hip for forever and have great chemistry and camarader and camaraderie, but when they get into an executive and the pressure of being managerial, it changes the relationship. And sometimes you throw people together

and you hope that it works and it does, right? Everything clicks. Nothing's guaranteed when you're doing hires like this. I think what you kind of have to lean on is, as you said, get good quality people in the door. I think an important part of it is having as experienced ex-players

as these three would be and the network that they've been able to culture through that. and make sure that they're all slotted into appropriate roles with your organization so they understand what their job is and so other people can do their own jobs. There you go. I just figured out the entire hiring process. Okay. Let's return to last night. Let's start with the wild game.

Dallas wins 4-3 in overtime. You know how we were talked about you start watching a series? And you may have gone into it one way, but then you start watching and you're like, wait a minute, I'm not rooting for this team. I'm rooting for the other team. I went into this rooting for the Dallas stars. And I have not changed my mind. Honestly, I don't know what it is because I'm not one of these guys that like, we should hate Quinn Hughes forever. you know and he and he was you know in hindsight he was he was a terrible captain the worst player in canucks history i'm glad he's gone you know i hear a lot of those people i'm glad he's gone well it's fun to cheer against him right now it is really fun yeah to cheer against him right now and and i love

watching him like oh it was a bit of a puck hog move a little bit of a puck hog move there too wasn't it and i mean and i'm just like i've never cheered for dallas in my life and i really wanted them to win that game last night. Series don't get decided in three, obviously, but I feel like that is a massive gut punch loss for Minnesota, and that one might hang with them more than

obviously the game two loss, which was, you know, Dallas had to battle back and get that one to even the series of 1-1. Just consider last night. The Wilder at home for the first time in these playoffs, they've got the energy of the crowd. They rally from a 2-0 deficit. They've got the game in their hands.

They went, one for seven on the power play. And that includes not one, but two power plays in overtime. And they could not get the job done. They could not close that thing out. And I look at it and I'm thinking, Dallas gets in there. I think Dallas went three for eight on the power play.

Like definitely capitalized on those opportunities. They've now wrestled back with it. A lot of power plays in overtime, eh? It was 15 power plays in total. In a game that I didn't, it was a little sloppy, right? There was a lot of like sort of sticks flailing. about and you know a couple tackles behind the net that i mean in the case of jamy ben's penalty in overtime they almost had to call it because he just kept going to the well with the

grabbing but um you got a little hansy they had it the caprisov hit the post in overtime it felt like they were on the precipice of taking a super important two one series lead and then they blew it i'm going to be really curious to see how they bounce back because you know what gulletson said after game one in this series because he's like we didn't really start the playoffs until game two like game one was such a wash for us we almost didn't show up And their mindset right now is once we locked in and we kind of buried game one, look what we've done. We've ripped off two wins in a row and we went into Minnesota and won that game very late at night, by the way. It was almost 1 o'clock in the morning local time.

So yeah, Dallas has a lot of momentum in that series right now. I think we all thought this series could go the distance. I mean, I don't know if it will, but it's been pretty close so far. Quinn Hughes did say in a very poignant and an introspective quote, the series isn't over. That was this big quote after the game yesterday. And the reporters were like, it's not? Yeah, thank you, Quinn.

Very enlightening. How worried should the Oilers be about the goaltending situation? Oilers have to be worried about the goaltending situation. Oilers have to be worried about Connor McDavid. So Connor McDavid... I think they need to be much more worried about the goaltending situation. I don't think Conner-David's 100%. So Connor McDavid has now gone pointless in consecutive games,

something that only happened. one time during the regular season, but he didn't get a point in the opener, did not get a point yesterday, 6-4 game. What's more, he left the game yesterday, spent a few minutes in the dressing room in the second period after getting tangled up with Matthias Echholm. I don't know if you watched the bench shots during the second half of that game, but they routinely panned over and McDavid was wincing and sort of grimacing in pain for whatever injury he may have suffered up the play. He still looked really fast out there. It looked fast.

And effective. I'm, okay. He also had a turnover in his own zone that led to the Ryan Paling goal to get Anaheim the four two lead. That could just be a mistake, right? Okay, you worry about McDavid. I'm not worried about McDavid, but I'm looking at this goaltending. I'm like, there's no way they're winning the cup.

There's no way. And, and, like, that's the bar. McDavid only has two more years after this. He signed a very short-term deal. And I don't know how the others are going to, get out of this. Like, if they, if they don't make it that far, I still think they're going to beat Anahe. But, you know, even if they lose in the conference finals, which I think they would be expected to lose, especially if it's against Colorado, what are they going to do this off

season? How are they going to fix the goal to end? To me, to me, I realize that sometimes, you know, when you're looking for a goalie, it's really tough to find one, right? And we've been, we've been, we've been very lucky in Vancouver over the last little while. I've been a number of quality goaltenders that have come through. And for all the issues that the Canucks have had over the last, I don't know, almost two decades now, 15 years. Goaltending is kind of like the least of them. I know there have been injuries to Thatcher Dempco, et cetera. Like, hasn't been perfect lately.

But overall, it hasn't been a big concern. But it is insane to me that, you know, last year, during the Stanley Cup final, we were like, is Calvin Pickard healthy? Do you know how crazy that is? And now, you know, they traded away Stuart Skinner,

and they took a big risk on Tristan Jari, who comes to Edmonton and almost immediately sticks his foot in his own mouth by calling out the Oilers' defensive play in front of him, doesn't play well, and now Connor Ingram, is the starting goalie for this very, very important playoff run. Connor Ingham, he seems like a nice guy, but go look at his hockey DB page. He's played for a bunch of different teams, hasn't played that much in the NHL.

He is the, he is maybe a backup in the NHL, maybe. It's got Calvin Pickard vibes. He's got Calvin Pickard vibes. And I was watching last night and I was like, man, this is he is. team that has McDavid and Drysidal, two of the best players in the world. Unbelievable talents. A bunch of other pretty good players, too. How, how?

How is this, how has it come down to all these years? And they're like, well, maybe Connor Ingram. Like, that seems unfair to Ingram in my mind. Yeah. And what's unfair right now is that he's not at his best. Five goals on 27 shots last night. it's now eight on 55 shots through the first two games of this series. So it's not like the shot totals are overwhelming from the ducks.

Also, a lot of special teams goals yesterday, two on the power play, one short-handed from Anaheim. Not that you hang that on Ingram, but it just goes to show that they're finding different ways to score without getting a ton of chances on net. And you can't really go to Jari right now

because he absolutely lost the faith of the team. And I think the coaching staff during the regular season, you're almost kind of saying like Connor Ingram we've thrown you in a tough spot you probably shouldn't be our number one but we don't really have another option you're going to have to figure it out or this is going to be a first round exit but how does it pass?

Sorry, go ahead. It was clearly a conscious decision by them to go this route like you said like it's just so mind-blowing that they would go so many years where that's clearly the problem and not just spend a bunch of money on a free agent goalie or make a real trade for a real goalie and not swap Skinner for Jari.

Like the fact that they went that route and it was calculated to go that route. Yep. Bizarre. Absolutely bizarre with McDavid in his prime window right now. Stan Bowman's taking a lot of heat for the moves that he's made. And the Skinner for Jari move was a step backwards. It wasn't even a lateral move. Lateral is backwards, of course.

I forgot about that. Yeah, but you know, you look at what he's done and his body of work. And you could say all other moves aside, you almost could have parked every other roster move you made and focused entirely on goaltending because if it upends you and never I mean granted Skinner and Pickard and everyone else that they ran through the last couple years

got them to two Stanley Cup finals. If it goes backwards from there where you're not even getting out of the first round like I'm not saying it's a dismissible offense but it certainly puts I would say the leash a lot shorter on Bowman moving forward if he can't figure this thing out. Do the when do the hellabuck rumor start

like right now. Yeah. We didn't really talk much about his comments about about the team and see him very unhappy. I've got them on the list. With how this season went down.

I've got it on a list of things that we haven't discussed across the NHL. Yeah, because also Seattle, because Jason Botterall met with media yesterday as well. And I was, the five Cracken fans that constitute crack in Twitter

were none too pleased. They liked the fact that he said they were going to be aggressive this off season, but they weren't happy with the fact that he kept saying like, we believe in our core, we like our group, we think we just need to add to it. Because there's a lot of people in Seattle that follow the team,

are like, the team that they have assembled is not going to get it done. No. It's not talented enough. There's too many mid players and we don't have. That's just lip service, though, isn't it? I guess. I like the guys we have here. But you think that if you really want to make a change, you could just be bold and

upfront with your remarks. If you want to be aggressive, announced to everyone that you're ready to be aggressive. And you're going to make that big splash. But we can get into all. of these who is more guaranteed to be moved this off season kent johnson or shane right kent johnson probably yeah it doesn't feel like the crackin have written off shame right where it feels like i think the blue jackets have written off ken johnson but but shame right if the crackin are going to get aggressive and make some big deals and bottle i'll acknowledge like free agency isn't

the best route so they're going to have to trade isn't he kind of the perfect trade ship to throw out there. For sure. He's a great trade chip. Everyone's going to be selling the Trevor Zegra's story, by the way. Yeah. Everyone. Well, right place so.

Yeah, for sure. Because Zegris has turned out to be a very important player for the Philadelphia Flyers. He scored some big goals. He scored a big goal yesterday. And he brings an energy to that group as well. Is he the perfect player? Absolutely not. He's not.

I'm sure there's still some things that Zegris does that drive. pocket crazy, but the good outweighs the bad. And that's what people are going to be looking for. And, you know, if you can take, I can't remember what the flyers paid for Zegras, but it wasn't very much. It was two second round picks. Yeah. So, you know, for Shane Wright or Kent Johnson, you know, that, that's the type of move that a team

would love to make just to sell that going forward. Can I throw another young player on the pile that? might not be long for the team and we saw him play last night. Mason McTavish in Anaheim, when you watch their games, you barely know that he's on the team. He's on the power play though. Great.

He plays 11, 12 minutes a night. Yeah. He is an afterthought there. Jeffrey VL and all these other guys, Tim Washie, BCHL legend Tim Washie. And I'm a Clippers. They're getting, they're getting way more minutes than Mason McTavish,

who was, I will remind you a third overall pick only five years ago and is still just 23 years old. The difference is he's kind of in the Lafranier category because he's already been paid. So you have to accept a $7 million cap hit with him.

Not the same with Kent Johnson or Shane Wright. Yeah. Okay, we got a lot more to get to on the Halford and Breff Show on Sportsnet 650. Hour one is in the books, hour two on the horizon. Adnan Burke's going to join us at 7 from MLB Network.

And then at 7.30, Jason Quick, senior writer from The Athletic, talking about this Tom Dundon's story as he has now taken over as the owner of the Portland Trailblazers, his reputation of being cheap and why he doesn't care about it. Jason wrote about that. 8 o'clock hour, it's the drancer and what we learns. We got a loaded show. We got a lot more to get into. So don't go anywhere. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.