Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 10/10/24

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they talk yesterday's season opening loss to the Flames with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance, plus the boys tell us what they learned. 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 the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Zeri, high slot, makes a move to the back end of the forehand, he scores! A beautiful goal by Connor Sari. What the hell was that? It's really not much for me to rip on those guys. They know what happened tonight, and we've got to move on. We have to embrace the hardness.

Lindor, George White, center field. This one is back! It is gone! Grand slam! Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford.

It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios, the beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Hey, dawg. Good morning to you.

Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts.

We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio.

Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews, sore feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec, we got so much to get into on today's show. For those of you morning, waking up this morning, morning because the Canucks lost a hockey game, fear not. Sports is going to get you through today. We got a very, very nice sports day on the horizon. There are nine hockey games.

There are two playoff baseball games and Thursday night football. When whatever is left of the Seattle Seahawks defense is going to take on the San Francisco 49ers. So that's nice. Nature is healing. They got some injuries still? They got a lot of injuries on defense, yeah. It's like, I think maybe you and I are going to be starting at safety.

Let's go get them tonight, bud. I think people still want to talk about the Canucks game last night, with all due respect to, let's put it behind us and watch the Seahawks. No, no. Not put it behind us. Just understand. We have so many texts into the Dunbar Lumber text line.

650, 650. I almost don't want to share that number. Don't do it. Too many numbers. Too late. Text in on the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome. Details

at DunbarLumber.com. We've got the whole first hour to talk about last night's game. An entire hour. So we'll share our thoughts. We'll share some audio from Rick Talkett and maybe some of the players, but we'll also read your text. Adnan's

going to join us at 7, talk a little baseball. Nick Shook at 7.30. We talk about the Seahawks game tonight against the 49ers and also what happened with Aaron Rodgers. Well, he said he didn't have anything to do with it. And I believe him. Robert Sala. I never know how to say his name.

Sala? Sala? Sala? Salad? He's gone. He's not the head coach of the New York Jets anymore. It's Robert. You don't work here anymore.

And then Thomas Drance will join us at 8 o'clock. I just did the guest rundown, and now we're going to do What Happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training.

Visit them online at bccsa.ca. For 20 minutes, everything was going great for the Vancouver Canucks yesterday in their season opener against the Calgary Flames. But then the second and third periods in overtime happened. And in overtime, it was Conor Zari. You can only hope to contain Conor Zari. 133 into overtime. He's a good little player.

Not bad. No, he is a good little player. Conor Zari scored with just 90 seconds gone in overtime. Calgary storms back from deficits of 3-0 and 4-1 to win 6-5 in their season opener in Vancouver on Wednesday night at Rogers Arena. Yeah, like you were saying, it looked great after 20 minutes. We were all crowing about the Alberta teams getting crushed. Well, the Winnipeg Jets kept up their end of the bargain

and did crush the Edmonton Oilers. I think it was 6-0 the final. The Canucks were leading 4-1 at the end of the first period and had outshot the Flames 15-5. It looked like the Flames were more interested in getting back at JT Miller than they were at playing hockey. And the Canucks took advantage. But then the Canucks took their foot off the gas. The Flames got their fight out of JT Miller and the Flames started playing hockey. Four straight goals later and it was five to four.

Was Seeloff's good? Some of you may ask. He was not. Was it all his fault? It was not. It was a team effort where they just stopped playing hockey. Rick Tockett said it looked like

a year and a half ago hockey. That is the type of hockey where they blew a bunch of leads. To their credit, I suppose the Canucks did tie it late and forced overtime. As mentioned, that's when Connor Zeri undressed Philip Hronik and slipped

it past Seelovs for the win. Let's just go through a list of players that we need to discuss. And I think it starts with the goalie, Archer Seelovs. I mean, the guy allowed, what, six goals on 25 shots. That's not good.

The worst one was Wieger's point shot that tied it at four. We are obviously going to see Kevin Lankanen on Friday when the Canucks host the Philadelphia Flyers, but that was a concerning performance by Seelovs. Now, before anyone texts in and says, yeah, but the Canucks weren't very good in front of them, in front of them, no, they weren't. On the fifth goal, there's like two flames in the crease and nobody pushing any of the flames out of the way.

You know, Soucy did not battle Huberto hard enough. Nope. And in the crease, in those areas, didn't box out. And boxing out is one of the things that the Canucks were working on. Soucy just more or less allows Huberto to gain position right on top of Seelov's, and he bangs it home. I'm not going to put that on Seelov's.

I'm going to put that on the guys in front of him. But Seelov's, the things that concerned us about him, uh, in the playoffs last year, despite the fact that we were all very impressed with him in the playoffs last year, the long point shots, there is clearly a book on Seelovs and that is, I don't know, shoot from far away on him. I don't, I don't know. Shoot from distance. The one that Wieger beat him on was, I mean, it was crazy because it wasn't even like a big-time screen or anything. Like he just, I don't know. He just, I don't know if he lost his net on it. The further away the flames shoot, the more worried he gets.

Their expected goals goes up. Like they'll be at their own red line next time and see Louse and be like, oh, my Lord. Yeah. Farsighted? I don't know. I don't know what you saw in that one, Lattie, but it was just like I didn't think he was screened.

It's not like, you know, we've been talking about how he sometimes has trouble finding the puck and looking the right way around defenders and the traffic in front of him. There was really none of that. It just beat them clean. Yeah, the stuff you're talking about is stuff that usually takes a little bit of time to develop where you're using landmarks on the ice to know where to look and when to look at certain times.

But this wasn't that. No. This was completely, it's like you just didn't track it at all. And it just went in. And it just like laser beamed past them. Yeah, just diluted them. It was not good. And then, so sometimes I think we have to take a step back

and think about what would have been best for Seelovs this season if Demko was still healthy. Now, a lot of people would have said, well, he'd be the backup to Demko. I don't know if that was entirely the plan. Maybe it was going to be Lankanen all along. Well, maybe it was going to be Patera and Silov sharing that job, or maybe they were going to bring in another guy like they brought in to

Smith last season. You know, Silov does not require waivers and he hasn't played many games in the NHL. Right. Like he just, he's not old. It's not like you're looking at his age and going, well, it's now or never for him, right? He's still a very young goalie,

and there's a, a goalie's progress is not always linear, and he still had some things to work on. As we saw in the playoffs, the Canucks ideally might have wanted to see him play a bunch of games in the AHL this season, but they aren't in the position where they can do that with Thatcher Demko being out right now, and they're not going to rush Thatcher Demko back, hopefully,

and Kevin Lankanen will hopefully provide them with something, and Seeloffs can bounce back. It's one game. The team wasn't good, but I don't think that was a very auspicious, a good word to use that. It was inauspicious. It was inauspicious. It was his 10th regular season game,

which matches the amount of playoff games that he appeared in last year, which is kind of an interesting stat. I don't know whether it says too much or not. That, to me, was the most concerning of everything that happened last night. Because I feel like you can clean up a lot of the stuff. Rick Talkett alluded to this multiple times in his post-game remarks. You can clean up a lot of the coverage and the D-Zone stuff. And worst comes to worst, you can always just fall back on being a real low-event team and

make it low-event hockey. And you can clean up. Ooh, exciting. Yeah, right. But you can clean up. Exciting. Yeah. Right. But you can clean up the X's and O's and where you want guys to be on the ice. The biggest issue with Seelov's right now is the problem that he had in the

past tracking pucks is still the problem that he has in the present tracking pucks. Like that's, I don't know if it's his Achilles heel or the book is out or it's his weakness, but it's obviously something that he's the book is out or it's his weakness, but it's obviously something that he's got problems with because he's not – I mean, if he didn't have that problem, he would have been a higher, more elite-level goalie.

Well, yeah, if he doesn't figure this out, then that severely limits what his ceiling could be as a goaltender. Or you don't figure it out, and that's just who you are as a goalie. That's what I mean. I've got a weak spot, and the weak spots are shots from 35 feet or deeper. Let's talk a little bit about jt miller he had a very busy night in a very busy first period with a big hit on uh kevin rooney that hurt kevin rooney unfortunately um he also had a bad giveaway that led directly to a flame

shorthanded goal he had a nice assist on a Brock Besser power play goal. And finally, he had a fight because of that hit on Kevin Rooney. It was textbook JT Miller, gunslinging JT Miller out there. Another textbook moment in the third when it looked like his reckless cross-ice pass would lead to a Calgary empty netter. But Quinn Hughes was there to save the day. Quinn Hughes had another incredible game. And Miller made up for his mistake with that booming slapper to tie the game at five. And the JT Miller chance rang out at Rogers Arena, this time at a good time.

Not when Kevin Rooney was hurt. That was a tough look. That was a tough look. That was a tough look. But it was, you know, it was a classic JT Miller night. He was in it. He was prominent. You know, the Flames really wanted to, they

were like mad at him right away. And rightly so. I mean, you know. He had the Flames unglued for the first time. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, Miller, there was nothing dirty about it. But, you know, that's called, honestly, that's playing through people. Yep.

And that's exactly what he did. And Kevin Rooney was in an awkward position. And I hope he's okay. And JT Miller said afterwards, he's a good guy. I hope he's okay. And JT Miller said afterwards he's a good guy. I hope he's okay. That's high-collision hockey when JT Miller's out on the ice. That's what happens.

Things happen when JT Miller's out on the ice. Most of them have been good. Some of them not so good. There were some loose passes, and I think loose is just the best way to describe the way the Canucks played. And I'm sure Rick Tockett is thinking, have I asked them to do too much? Have I asked them to change their game too much? Because we've talked about this, the natural progression of the Canucks under Tockett. He came in under Bruce Boudreau and he said listen we got to clean a lot of stuff up

he calls it river hockey we don't want to be playing river hockey out there so you remember that first practice he came in or one of the first practices he's moving them around like they're eight-year-olds out there who have no idea where to be on the ice blows his whistle all right make a pass okay Good. Good. Now is everyone in the right position? I mean, it was interesting to watch, but then the Canucks structure saved the day and it was a big reason why they had such success last season, but they get into the playoffs and they realize, okay, we need more than structure and we need to attack more and we need to move the puck more aggressively up the ice. So that's what they work on in training camp and the whole time we're like don't throw the baby out with the bath water

don't throw the baby out with the bath water yeah and the baby got thrown out with the bath water last night so they got to dial it back a little bit so the miller thing yeah like you pointed out a couple times that uh the turnover on the mantha goal the breakaway that made it 3-1, I actually didn't hate the idea, the pass, because the power play, I think it was the deflected pass that fell to Miller, and he was trying to get it back to Hughes so that Hughes could get a point shot through,

right? The problem was that the pass went to Anthony Mantha. Yeah, because he was coming out of the box. Right. It was a nice play, but it was a beautiful goal by Mantha. Yeah, and I didn't hate the idea of trying to get it back to Hughes because that's a good guy to get the puck to. Yeah, but you've got to be aware

of guys coming out of the box. But I think maybe... Easier said than done. It was a microcosm of the sort of loose hockey that they were playing, and they've developed new terminology. It's not river hockey anymore. Now it's summer hockey.

Oh, right, right, right. And we've got JT Miller. Summer hockey. We've got the audio from JT Miller talking about how they played too loose and how they had too much summer hockey last night. Here was a very busy individual, J, right, right. And we've got JT Miller. Summer hockey. We've got the audio from JT Miller talking about how they played too loose and how they had too much summer hockey last night. Here was a very busy individual, JT Miller, following a 6-5 overtime loss to the Flames on Wednesday.

We don't win any battles. We just play loose, like summer hockey. And this is good for us. At the end of the day, it's game one. Last year we won 8-1, and we're going to say the same thing going into the next game. We've got to turn the page. But we need to learn and raise our intensity. That's a team over there that wanted to win more than we did today.

And without the power play, they outplayed us. So I also want to focus on, when you're talking about Talk It, have we strayed too far from our principles? Have we moved too far off our landmarks and is it too loose or are we playing too much summer hockey and not enough autumn hockey? He mentioned something last night and he called it all these phrases. You mentioned it already.

He called it a year and a half ago hockey. And I thought that was very telling for a variety of reasons because one bruce is like hey that okay you know what that game last night was a boudreaux game total it was like last hole wins it was you know six five seven six whatever it also featured another staple of the boudreaux era lousy goaltending that was another part of it like i know that the canucks didn't play well last night. I know that structurally it was weak, and you're right to call out Soucy for not covering on the Hubert over goal.

And I think a lot of people rightly complained about the Forbort and Dehar name pairing. All that said, I'm not 100% sure that the Canucks in front of Sealoves were six goals against Calgary bad. Do you know what I mean? You can play poorly, but were six goals against Calgary bad. Do you know what I mean? Like you can play poorly, but letting a pretty mediocre Calgary team score six times. I just think a lot of that falls on goaltending because if you look at where

the shots were coming from, I didn't, when I was watching that game, I'm like Calgary scores, Calgary scores, Calgary scores. And then quietly to myself, because I was watching by myself,

I said, these don't feel like high danger chances. It doesn't feel like Calgary's either tilted the ice or is getting great A's or anything like that. They're kind of grinding away and they're getting pucks on that, but it wasn't, it wasn't awful. My major concern right now is the goalie position.

That's my, and I know it's one game and yes, he can bounce back, but I think maybe we were all pretty comfortable saying things are going to be fine without Demko because Silas had such a very impressive playoff. What we were saying yesterday. We barely even talked about the goaltending.

Right? And it's funny because I went back and looked at some of the stuff we were saying prior to last season. Like, what are the big differences from last season to this season? One of them was this team goes as far as Demko takes them. There's a reason that he's Vezna caliber. There's a reason that he's so good and so valuable. And I think part of it might be is that

maybe it's the saves you take for granted. And maybe it's the saves that he makes that either he makes look easy or just aren't a concern. So I, again, I don't want to overreact one game in either nobody's gonna overreact on this show how do you someone just told us to relax i'm like we are as relaxed as it gets how do you feel about the defense outside of hughes line i mean that i

think those things can be corrected i think those here's the thing goaltending for head coaches oftentimes is uh let the goalie coach figure it out. They don't know what to do, right? Chaka doesn't know what to do with Seelovs. He's got Marco Terranius there. Marco Terranius right now is probably like, pfft. I don't know, man.

But Adog, I think it's worth monitoring. The defense worries me almost as much as the goaltending, if I'm being honest. Yeah, for sure. Outside of the Hughes pairing, I don't know, pairs two and three are a little rough. Yeah, Soucy did not have a good night last night. He needs to be better.

And then the bottom pair, you can say that they're good penalty killers, Darnay and Forbert, but there was a reason Darnay was scratched out of the playoffs at times last year for the Oilers. Sometimes it gets a little fast for him. To answer your question. He's a project, though. He's a project, though, He's a project, though, but not all projects work out, right?

You know, we'll see. This might be something that the Canucks have to address with all this cap space that they're accruing. I'm sure it will be. But it's, but, you know, I do want to talk about some other players here. Brock Besser, two goals in the first,

both essentially on the power play. The power play just ran out on one of them. Well, and it's made it 50. I loved the second one, especially when he helped keep possession before heading to the net to shovel home Miller's pass. You know, keeping pucks alive

is such an underrated part on the power play because if you're not keeping pucks alive, you're going to be one and done way too many times on the power play. First one wasn't bad either because they actually worked it down low. Petey worked it down low to DeBrusque who fed Besser for the one-timer in the slot

and he finished it off. Besser had a good chance in overtime too. Could have made the hattie. Hat trick to win the game. We would have been feeling pretty different about the game this morning. Connor Garland, I absolutely loved his goal to make it 3-0.

Took a big hit to start the rush and get the puck out of the Canucks end. I think he told his D partner, not his D partner, but the D man out there. He's like, don't worry. I'm okay. It's hockey. Sometimes you get hit.

He picked himself up, got down the ice to bang home a loose puck. Terrific play. And then at that point I was like, well, it's going to be a blow out of the flames. It's three nothing. Party time. Daniel Sprong, the most interesting player in the world, according to Mike Halford.

I love Daniel Sprong. Scored the game opener. We got a real Daniel Sprong experience last night. Full Sprong. Scored the game opener with a second left in the power play. Nice little snipe, which is kind of what he does. The second unit might actually be a factor this season, but Sprong, whose line looked a little bit lost in their own end on Calgary's second goal, also got replaced by Sherwood

in the third with the Canucks protecting a one-goal lead. Yeah, Sherwood got the old double shift there. So it was kind of the full Daniel Sprong story on Wednesday where you like the fact that he can score and he's got a great shot, but Tuck doesn't trust him. Not yet. Not yet. And I think he only got three or four shifts

in the third period. A lot of text in about Petey. And believe me, I'm never loathe to talk about him. Yeah, when are you going to talk about Petey, man? I didn't think he was really close to the number one story last night. He picked up an assist. He drew a penalty, stuck up for DeBrusque. Overall, he wasn't that effective.

I'm not saying he had a good game. He didn't. He was far from dominant. I just don't look at him and be like, that game was his fault. But I understand. I just don't look at him and be like, that game was his fault. But I understand. I understand the people that were kind of hoping, okay, he's had the summer. He's healthy.

He's able to reset himself. And he's going to come firing out of the gates. He's going to be back to dominant PD. He wasn't. He didn't look that different from the PD we saw down the stretch into the playoffs. Yeah, it just wasn't the – I'm honestly not going to spend much time talking about it. Because it wasn't one of the storylines from last night, right?

He played 23 minutes. He got an assist. He's on pace for 82 points, and he was just sort of there, right? Now, again, I think the same thing applies to last season if we start seeing this over the course of five games 10 games month of October then it's like okay now like Houston we have a problem because remember he was out there with the line mates and I know that Sprong got moved off late but he was out there with the linemates. And I know that Sprong got moved off late, but he was out there in all the situations that you would expect.

And he's... Petey played a ton. Yeah, he played a ton. 23 minutes or something. Yeah, he was almost up around 24. Yeah. I think the only guy that played more was Quinn Hughes. Yeah.

I mean, he played a lot. He was out there a lot. But if you're looking for storylines from last night, there are a lot that we just put at the top of the ledger that weren't Elias Pettersson. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Steve and Steveston, which is awesome.

That's pretty good, man. Texting in, I couldn't believe my eyes watching the River Hockey last night. I was expecting to hear the Bruce, there it is, chants. So River Hockey, Summer Hockey, chants. So river hockey, summer hockey, whatever you want to call it, sloppy. It wasn't good last night. And let's be honest, if you were paying attention

at the end of last season, in the middle of the season, if you're reading about the Canucks and heading into training camp, you should have been able to surmise that this – Surmise. Surmise. Surmise.

Surmise it. You should have been able to surmise that this could happen. That this could happen. This type of game you mean? This type of game and the defensive breakdowns because Rick Tockett is trying to progress this team from being a team that was very good in its own end, but wasn't creating many rush scoring chances

into a team that is still very good in its own end, but is creating rush chances. We talked about it with Rick a couple of days ago. We both agreed that this is a natural progression for this team. When Bruce Boudreaux was coaching, the team was not playing with the type of structure that management wanted to see. Rick Tockett comes in there and he makes a bunch of simplifications to the Canucks game.

He adds a bunch of non-negotiable rules. He says, we're going to take care of our net. We're going to take care of our own. to the Canucks game. He adds a bunch of non-negotiable rules. He says, we're going to take care of our net. We're going to take care of our own, and that's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to focus on. That is going to be almost the entire focus. He successfully does it,

and the Canucks have a great season. If you can take care of your own end in hockey, you can make the playoffs. As long as you get some timely scoring and the Canucks have the players that can create that timely scoring. But the goal changed for the Canucks and I think it went from, let's turn this thing around and be a winning team

and maybe make the playoffs. Let's not be a disaster. Sure. And now last season happens and not being a disaster isn't good enough. You want to get past that second round. You want to actually compete for a Stanley Cup. And we had it into this season and it was like,

wow, I mean, we're kind of almost like quietly whispering it, but if this all comes together, the Canucks, you know, they might be able to do it. Sure. Probably not, but there's a chance, right? There's an actual legitimate shot for the Canucks, but they needed to take their game to a different level. They needed to be very good in their defensive end, but also be a very strong attacking team.

And that's the type of team that wins the cup. You're good defensively, but you're also very dangerous offensively. Can beat you in any type of game. You can play a high scoring game if you want to. You can play a low scoring game. You're comfortable in any position. You're just a good team. You're good at everything that you do.

Yeah. And the challenge is going to be telling these guys, yeah, we want you to have a more aggressive mindset. Go out and make some plays. Try and beat a guy. You know, get the puck up the ice quick. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. And it looked good in the first period. And then it was a combination, I think, of just letting their foot off the gas and getting too comfortable against a team that they thought they should beat. But also, I think the mindset is going to take a while to find the right balance for this group

and to figure out how exactly they're going to play. You forgot a third factor there, though, too. And the goaltending needs to be better. Halford didn't even listen to any of that. I listened to it. He's like, C-Loves. Is he getting to C-Lo's got to make this happen.

Is he getting to C-Love's? But you're absolutely right. If you hand someone a 4-1 lead, and I do think this was part of the trust and the presence of Demko, you hand someone a 4-1 lead and you're like, can you get us a win over the next 40 minutes? Demko more often than not would answer that with like a yes, sometimes a resounding yes. I mean, here's the thing. In the modern NHL, blowing a three-goal lead is not that uncommon.

No. Right? It's not that uncommon. You see it more and more. Right? The key is, can you keep up, can the skaters keep up their end of the bargain? And for a lot of the final 40 minutes yesterday, no, the Canucks didn't.

But sometimes it's like, also, can your goalie slam the door shut? Is he good enough to do it? And that was one of the things that you loved about Demko is he would give you big saves in big moments. You know, I mean, I look at the game last night, and the Canucks scored five, and I didn't think Vladar had a bad night allowing five didn't have a great night but he wasn't the reason but i looked at the chances the connects were getting and the goals on the power play i

give them no shot at those like we're talking like tap-ins three feet in front of the net right no goalie stopping no goalie stopping that the miller slapper that's a good shot. That was a hell of a shot. Hell of a shot. I caught him by surprise a little bit. You don't see that very often, but it happened. That must have felt good to bury that. Right. I would say that the Canucks had a lot of great A's and they converted on them and then Calgary

was like, we're going to start putting pucks on net. Well, we'll feel better, bro. And let's see what happens. Hitting a 400-foot home run to deep center or what Miller did. Ooh. I think the homer. You think so? Yeah.

That'd be incredible. Well, the hockey goal, you're beating a goalie. I know, I know. No, no, no, I know. I think contacts matter, so right? I'll never know. Yeah. I'm not going to do either.

I'll never know. By the way, that Lindor's jack yesterday, now that we get back into baseball. Avert your ears. That is the second Grand Slam in the entire history of the New York Mets postseason. Baseball exists. I have a what we learned about that home run.

Can we actually just play the audio? The audio is amazing. Howie Rose's call is amazing. Because the call is incredible. And I'm not on the Mets bandwagon. But if the Padres lose Friday and the Padres are then out I might climb onto the Mets bandwagon because they're kind of fun and then the Mets would lose right that's how that's how it works all right uh here is the uh

grand slam home run from Lindor two and one to to Lindor. Now the pitch. Swing and a drive towards the gap in right center. It's pretty deep. It's back near the wall. It's gone. It's gone. Francisco Lindor. He may have just outdone himself. He has hit a grand slam into the

Phillies' bullpen in right center field. The Mets are leading by a score of 4-1. They were famished for the big hit all night. And Francisco Lindor just provided a feast. Mets 4, Phillies 1 here in the sixth inning. Now that's a call. Howie Rose is so good, man.

He's so good. So energized. That's the reason we're carving out the movie. Bob Costas did not have an equally good game. So they need to alter that. Whatever's going on there. They need to. Can you pivot mid-series and just bring in a different crew?

Can we play the clip that everyone's talking about? The hit? That wasn't a hit? Well, yeah. I called it a hit. Okay, so let me set the table. This is from the Yankees-Royals game. And it's Costas and Darling doing the game together, right?

And Costas is obviously a renowned broadcaster. I would say if there's maybe a weakness to his game, it's that he isn't a really like sports-specific guy. He does everything, right? You've heard him call countless games across countless sports. He does the Olympics. He does it all. I think of him more as an Olympic host. He's a good broadcaster.

Legendary broadcaster, but it's tough when you're doing sports specific stuff because you need to know certain things like what's a hit and what's not. And in this instance, Bob didn't know. We'll just let the tape play for itself. Line drive, base hit the center field it was smothered out there i don't know if it was caught it was caught oh my gosh oh my gosh guy it was caught that was ron darling he's like it was caught

so it's a dumb poor guy i couldn't buy theder, too, not like by the outfielder. Yeah, it was a catch. Did it even get out of the infield? No, no. You heard the crowd drop, right? They were like, ah! Oh. So they knew.

He just got ahead of himself. Yeah, I should. Sounded like a sharp base hit. He sounded a little incredulous, though, like, oh. Oh, my gosh. Yes, it was. He did a whoopsie doodle. And then they went to break, and that was it.

Okay, speaking of going to break, we've got to go to break now. Stupid shift. Why was that guy there? He just smothered it. And now he throws it to Jared. To the phone lines we go. Thomas Drance from The Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk right here on Sportsnet 650. What up, Drancer?

Gentlemen, good morning. Good morning. So you asked the question that got the line of the night from Rick Talkett last night. You asked him about the first 20 minutes being good and the next 40 being not so good. And then he classified it as year and a half ago hockey. And I was like, that's a good one. I haven't heard that one yet. Somewhere Bruce Boudreaux was like, why am I catching strays here?

But it did have a lot of the signatures of a year and a half ago hockey. There was a bloated scoreline, 6-5. There was leaky defensive play. There was sus goaltending. It had all the hallmarks of a year and a half ago hockey, which was good for energy. Sus, no cap. No cap.

No cap. No cap whatsoever. So good job on eliciting that response from the Suss, no cap. No cap. No cap. No cap whatsoever. So good job on getting that, eliciting that response from the head coach, Drancer. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, the hockey they played was very Sigma. Look, you know, this team's trying to evolve, right? And they're trying to evolve right and they're trying to evolve into something more

dynamic as a hockey team right than the then then then and it's not that they were limited last year it's that they played a very specific brand and the the brand that they played was so controlled and so disciplined that it worked you know some of the personnel would change for example like definitely in the first half of the season because menko wasn't getting shifts late if they were leading but um for the most part this team was able to play the exact same way well if you start to try and open it up right and then you have a 4-1 lead or a 4-2 lead and it's the second half of the game there is a question of do you keep pushing right like i i do think that's part of it too right

there's this element to which the way that the canucks played and focused on dominating possession and were built on you know disciplined conservative puck management decisions that to a man everyone bought into, grinding out games, not worrying about generating scoring chances really, right? Like really relying on point shots and second stick opportunities, because even if those fail, you've got three guys back, right? Like everything they did was calibrated to make sure that they didn't give up rush chances. And one way you never give up rush chances and one way you never give up rush chances is if you don't take many yourself and and look it worked i mean this team had an astounding level of success it was one of the great year-over-year defensive turnarounds we've

ever seen but also you get to the playoffs and if you don't have that fastball um you end up in a spot where you're really relying on like circus performances from your best players to pull out you know wins uh you know the comebacks the remarkable stuff we saw this Canucks team do yet you know again credit to them right like this team showed us they have balls there are dogs in that locker room we We don't doubt that. But teams that actually win, that actually end up in the conference final and Stanley Cup final, they can manufacture offense. They a little bit. I was worried that this might happen a little bit. I do think we sort of saw that dichotomy because it wasn't just that they were good for 20 minutes, right? It was that they were unbelievably good for 20 minutes. And it wasn't just that they were bad for 40 minutes. It's that they were unbelievably bad for 40 minutes and against a team that I really do expect to be one of the worst teams in the league. So,

you know, I don't think coming out of one game, we should overreact too emotionally to the loss. I know fans will, but analytically thinking about this team, I don't think we should overreact too much to the loss and sort of filing things away. I do think we have to wait what was good, just as much as we have to wait what was bad, disappointing, painful from a pretty dramatic opening night. It's funny sometimes because everything you say makes sense and I agree with it. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, they also could have used some saves. Do you know what I mean? You can't see me right now, but I'm nodding.

The point shot, was it the Uyghur goal? The point shot, I mean, I don't even think there was much traffic. You just kind of blew it. Yeah. Look, Archer, she loves to have a bad night. I mean, there's no question about that. But, you know, I've been pretty worried about their goaltending. I've been beating that drum um she loves in particular is a goalie that i find very fascinating from the perspective of

we've seen him be electric in big games we've seen him develop precociously uh the organization's exceedingly high on him goalie people seem to be pretty high on him. And yet, you know, one thing like I asked Woodley about on air a week and a half ago was, hey, if you look at Shilov's track record across the OHL, the AHL, and his 19 AHL games, like this is a guy who's never really stopped pucks at an above average rate consistently. Like at some point, doesn't that matter? And, you know, I worry that it does, right? Like I worry that if you're actually a really good puck stopper, like you should probably be stopping pucks in an above average clip. Um, at some point, at some point, um, in your, in your hockey path and your hockey development, uh, Lankanen's good. I think Lankanen's a solid, average, depth NHL-level goaltender.

I think Shelovs can probably be, given his athleticism and how advanced he is positionally. But man, you can see it. Once the first period ended and the Flames stopped seeing red and got back to their game plan, they were filtering all of their offense from the point, right? Like, they absolutely thought that they could get one by, like, float one by Shelov's from, like, through-layered traffic

and then that might change the game, and it did in a key moment. I'd add this. I think it got in the Canucks' heads a little bit. Like, I think when you look at the the 5-4 goal and and why susie was left alone defending two vancouver uh sorry two calgary flames in the blue paint basically down low um you'll see a couple players um being a little too aggressive trying to cut off the top right like you will see players cheating up high and like i think it got into the connect's head a little bit in that moment um the fact that they've been beaten from distance so frequently so you know that's

something to monitor here something to watch for especially given that we don't know when thatcher demko is going to come back and even when he does come back we don't know if there's going to be a performance dip associated with his recovery we don't know what sort of re-injury risk um you know this unprecedented in unprecedented injury will carry with it and we don't know what sort of re-injury risk, you know, this unprecedented injury will carry with it. And we don't know what sort of workload that he can hold down. So the performance of Vancouver's depth goaltenders is going to be a story to watch closely all season. And, you know, obviously the fact that it started with us having sort of this one major concern, and I'd say multiple multiple like small c concerns

that we had about this team going into the season you know the mobility of the back end without hughes and haronic on the ice and vancouver's depth goaltending um you know i think they were both major factors in what we saw on opening night when it confirms your priors right that's going to make you go like oh but we've seen C loves play well, right? We've seen C loves play well. Um, we saw moments where Vancouver's defense looked good. It's just that, you know, over 60 minutes, it wasn't sustained. And here we are hoping for bounce backs from them. So the Canucks are going to practice today at noon out at UBC. Um, what will you be looking for? Well, I'll be on air. So unfortunately when they practice at Rogers arena, I can be there. Okay. Um, when, uh, when they practiced out at UBC at noon, I can't. So,

uh, I will be looking for reports from Brendan bachelor on lineup in it mostly, but the, you know, thing I'll be curious to see is do we see see lineup changes? Or is this a flush-it game? That's always the first thing I watch for after a stunning or big loss. Does the coach do the, we played pretty well, we just have to stick with it, message to the team in which you change absolutely nothing? Or does Rick Talk uh actually send some sort of message and and change things up um try and get a different look um you know maybe pick a couple guys that struggled and bump them down the lineup i mean that's that to me is going to

be like the number one thing after a loss like that um when you go to a practice day it's it's just like you'll learn so much from sort of how the coach assembles their lineup on the whiteboard in the locker room and how it filters out to what we see on the ice at a practice and so to me that's going to be question number one is what message precisely does Tocket send and how do we interpret it. How do you think Daniel Sprong performed last night was that the kind of the full Sprong experience where he gets the goal, it's a nice snipe, and then in the third period when the Canucks are protecting a lead, he's not trusted? Yeah, he also needs to shoot that shot, right,

that he sent to Petey and then Petey tried to send to DeBrusque. That was like very much a 4-1 pass. And man, a goal there would have been a huge, you know, like in retrospect, a goal there would have been a huge moment in that game, even if at the time it felt like they were playing with their food and that was probably going to be fine on that night. Yeah, I think that was the full daniel sprung experience i mean that shot on the first goal was just absolutely brilliant and and you know the connects had gotten bogged down connects pp2 had gotten bogged down in the neutral zone and he hit garland with a really

clever little bra i think it's a set entry to to get the connecting clean um when their first entry attempt fails but that's a brilliant bit of skill and Canucks in clean when their first entry attempt fails. But that's a brilliant bit of skill. And that's the sort of play that we haven't seen a Canucks second power play unit execute in years. I mean, this Canucks second power play unit scored six goals all of last season and got the Canucks on the board pretty quickly, pretty efficiently last night. So that's, you know, that's a major development, right? That's something where if the Canucks can get 10 or 12 second power play unit goals

and get similar production to what they got last year from their first power play unit, I mean, they're going to score 65 to 70 power play goals. Like that's Tampa Bay Lightning territory. That's best in the league territory if you can manage it. Having a more robust second unit would be great. The shot that he gets off, just like the positioning of his hands, the way he's square to the net,

the release on it, I mean, incredibly difficult to do. And to hit that shot the way he did. I mean, he's an unbelievable offensive piece. And I thought there was a lot to like about his game. Not just in terms of the offensive side either, but I thought he was after it on the forecheck. You know, he sort of forces the partial turnover

that led to Pettersson drawing the penalty that led to Vancouver's second goal. I mean, I thought he was, honestly, aside from the fact that his minutes got cut down a bit as the Canucks were holding the lead, you know, and I don't know if I saw the defensive gaps that caused it, but Talk, it's got a more global view of it, having worked with this player in practice and on and on

throughout the summer. Like, I saw very little from his performance that I would have, that I would have thought was negative. So, you know, I would say no, not quite the Daniel Sprung experience, especially because I'm not used to seeing daniel sprung pass up good shooting opportunities that that the full daniel sprung experience is going to be when they have like a three-on-one and he shoots it yeah like that's the blue line that's when you'll know yeah he's finally arrived yeah we're speaking to thomas

drance from the athletic vancouver and canucks doc here on the half and a rough show on sportsnet 650 uh i drew the short straw drancer so i'm the one that gets to ask you about what you thought of Elias Pettersson's game last night. And I guess you drew the shortest straw because you have to answer it. Well, I mean, it wasn't a good night for that line. I didn't think he played poorly, though, until the Canucks did. You know what I mean? I felt like the first period was sort of interesting in that really everyone played great, first of all. But especially with Hughes and Miller on the ice, the Canucks were untouchable.

They were at such a different level than the Calgary Flames in that first period with sort of the top end of their lineup on the ice. And then you think about that and it's like, well, I don't even consider Pettersson to be their top end anymore. Right. So that, I think, speaks volumes in and of itself. The reaction from the crowd when Pettersson had the turnover at the blue line late, like three minutes to go and Pettersson sort of tries to de-equalize, loses control of the puck, and the puck flutters over the blue line,

putting the Canucks offside. It was a Bronx cheer in the building, right? Like, I'm serious. So there was a Bronx cheer at Pedersen in the building in that moment, and that perked me up. I was just like, Oh wow. Like the level of frustration in this city towards Pedersen, I think is real. I think it's building quickly.

And when, when the team started to fade a bit, you know, it was pronounced. So, you know, and, and then, and then of course it's little individual, two individual bits of brilliance. The phenomenal stop by Quinn Hughes with the net empty. Just a marvel of timing in the quick up and the brilliant shot by Miller off the slap shot to tie it 5-5. You know, it wasn't Pedersen making the difference in that moment. The Canucks needed to be Pedersen making a difference in that moment the Canucks need it to be Pettersson making a difference in that moment um you know not that other guys can't do it just that it can't always be Miller or Hughes

or this team doesn't have the same ceiling that you know I think a lot of people in this city are hoping it does right like that if this team's going to have that ceiling it needs to be Pettersson Miller and Hughes right you need three elite players two of them centers um not not just sort of two guys playing at that level at that that's a different level of talent that's a different that's a team with a different sort of level of potential so um you know a non-auspicious start but i don't know that he was like particularly poor uh there were good things in his game too. You know, I think it was pretty much an across the board thing. Like for example, after that first period, the Canucks had no shots on goal five on five until after they pulled their

goalie. Cause they got one very late, like with 15 seconds left with JT Miller on the ice, like no, no, no more shots on goal with JT Miller on the ice. And, no more shots on goal with JT Miller on the ice. And in fact, no shot attempts until late. So the whole logic of what the Canucks did dominating the first 20 minutes pertained to the top of their lineup, too. Pertained to everybody. So it's hard for me to isolate Pettersson.

I feel like that says more about built up frustration stemming from what we saw in the second half last year than it does about his individual performance. Okay. There was a real astute part of that answer there where you were talking about the anecdotal stuff, right? The,

I think I heard a Bronx cheer coming out from the crowd, right? And with regards to frustrations, because we also had a similar experience this morning when we came in anecdotally, we passed along that we had Pederson on like what fifth or sixth on the list of things to talk about from last night's game yeah wasn't high on the list come in number one don barliver text message in basket pd pd pd 11.6 pd it's just everyone right yeah and this is without any sort of of guidance or poking or prodding from Halford and Brough.

It was just there. So I do think that that's a really interesting dynamic that you pointed out. Although every PD complainer now goes directly to me. That's true. I handle the, why are we talking about baseball complaints? Brough handles the PD complaints. There, we all need our niches, boys. But it's an interesting dynamic, and it's not going away.

No, it's not. Well, not until he plays really well for a month to six weeks, which we got last season. We got this year. We got it in January of 2024. It wasn't that long ago that we were watching this guy put on an absolute show at

Madison Square Garden, right? That player is there. Like, in fact, that player has been there for far more games in his career than, you know, the player that struggles to get inside. I don't know that we saw the same like level of struggles that we saw from Pedersen in the playoffs last year. Like at least that line was doing dangerous stuff. He was drawing penalties. He was involved. He was inside opponents.

I saw a lot of stuff to like. It wasn't a dominant performance by any means. Is there maybe some burst in his game that's absent that has been in the past? Maybe. I don't even think I'm going there yet. I think really what was notable about the Pedersen stuff was he wasn't great, right? It wasn't an apex performance from him.

And shy of an apex performance from him, there is a level of mounting frustration in this market that I'm actually almost surprised by, and I probably shouldn't be. Drancer, you're great at this, bud. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this today. We appreciate it. Enjoy practice and everything else.

I'm back on the air. Canucks hockey's back. We'll do this again next Thursday. All right. Thanks, boys. Be well. Thank you. Thomas Drancer from The Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk right here

on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.