Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 10/17/24

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, the boys chat with NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh, plus they preview tonight's Canucks road tilt versus Florida with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance. 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. There's a towering drive down the line. Otani's broken through. It is gone. Crosby to the front for Morgan. Save made. Rebound scores!

Number 500 from Kenny Morgan. There's no reasonable expectation of a rush chance coming down your team's throat. Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford, it is Brough, it is Sportsnet 650. And we are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. A-Dog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddy, 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. They can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 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. Sorfy, what are you waiting for? Kintec, we got a huge show today. Huge show. It's a big sports day. We got two, count them, two MLB playoff games.

ALCS, NLCS, both going today. Maybe one of the NLCS games will actually be entertaining. Hasn't been great. Has not been great. The entertainment value has been low, but we're hoping for today. Of course, you've got the Canucks and the Panthers at 4 o'clock. Thursday night football as well, so it's a big show. There's a lot of sports ahead.

We've got a lot of guests to talk to. It begins at 6.30. Marty Walsh, Jason, is going to join the program. Head of the NHL Players Association. We'll talk to Marty about Utah. We'll talk to him about the collective bargaining agreement, expansion, everything else that's going on at the upcoming Four Nations Face-Off. Marty Walsh is going to join us for his early season check-in

as he's done for the last year. One year, anyway. Marty Walsh at 6.30. 7 o'clock, Adnan Virk, MLB Network. We will look ahead to both of today and tonight's baseball games. 7.30, Mike Tanney, our NFL insider from the two deep zone sub stack. We'll talk to Mike about tonight's game. It's the Sean Payton Bowl as the Denver Broncos go to New Orleans

to take on Sean Payton's former team, the saints, Mike Tannehill, join us at seven 30 to talk about that. We'll look ahead to the weekend in that seven 30 segment. We have two guests. Yeah. It's a five guest show today.

David Dwork from the hockey news, Florida Panthers beat writer is going to join us to preview tonight's opponent for the Vancouver Canucks, the Florida Panthers. Finally at eight o'clock. It's the Drancer, Thomas Drance, from The Athletic in Vancouver and Canucks Talk, right here on Sportsnet 650. I guess we've got to try and figure out what happened to practice yesterday

for the Vancouver Canucks, what the lines look like, when is Eric Branstrom officially going to be called up, all these things. He just got called up. Did he? They announced it now. Alvin announced today that branstrom has been recalled from ahl abbotsford and that derrick forbort has left the team for personal reasons so maybe this branstrom recall wasn't necessarily about um the play of guys like

noah juleson and David Darnay. Maybe there's something going on with, well, there obviously is something going on with Derek Forbort, and that is a left shot for left shot, Brandstrom for Forbort. Well, now we have even more to get into, so I'm not going to run through the guest list again. Just know it's a very versatile, eclectic sports guest list, and we're going to be talking to five different people today.

We got a lot to get into, so without further ado, Laddie, let'sic sports guest list. And we're going to be talking to five different people today. We got a lot to get into. So without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody 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? 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. It's very rare that we come in at 6 o'clock in the morning

and have some current up-to-date news. Usually we're recapping what happened the night before. But the Canucks have made a small flurry of roster moves. It seems it started yesterday with the motion of Atu Ratu to the AHL Abbotsford Canucks after a trio of games with the team in the big club in Vancouver. Ratu is now back with Abbotsford. Yeah, and then probably to make room for Eric Brandstrom because I imagine Derek Forboard is going to stay on the roster.

He's just left the team for personal reasons. They can't exactly just say you're off the roster, Forbert, because they would have to put him on waivers, and that's not going to happen. So Brandstrom comes up and Ratu goes down because he is not eligible for waivers, so they can send him down right away. I don't think Ratu played badly. I don't think he stood out in a super positive way, but who has stood out in a super positive way

for the Vancouver Canucks so far? And tonight in Florida, they're going to go for their first win, and they're going to go against a shorthanded Florida team that is going to be without two of its best players, Barkov and Matthew Kachuk. Barkov, obviously one of the best two-way centers in the NHL, if not the best two-way center in the NHL,

and Matthew Kachuk, you know, occasionally been called like the heartbeat of the Florida Panthers, very talented forward. So this is a real opportunity for the Canucks to get their first win of the season, even though it is on the road against the Stanley Cup champs, which is weird. The Canucks did have a practice yesterday.

Unfortunately, we don't know if there were any changes made to the lines. Like, we have no idea. It was funny because the Canucks practiced yesterday. There was no non-team media there. Right. Um, you know, the, the media landscape is continuing to change. It's the world we live in now.

And, uh, an early season road trip, especially all the way to Florida. Um, you're not going to get a lot of organizations sending out a rep for that. So the only person that was available was the team reporter and none of the line combinations got tweeted out. Murph and Shorty, they're going to call the game tonight, but they don't travel on the charter anymore.

So this is the reality of the media landscape. It was funny because Petey did media yesterday. Like he did. I was laughing so hard because he's like, oh, here's Petey. Not getting asked one single question about his play. It was just like, how did practice go? And he was like, it was good. It was good practice. It was good. He was like, how many reporters are out there? was like, it was good. It was good practice.

It was good. He was like, how many reporters are out there? One, and they work for the team. I will do media today. Yeah, it was like a media day. Sweet, I don't have to do that for a couple weeks because I just did it. At any rate, that's all we have, frankly, to report from Canucks practice is that they had a practice and they worked on some stuff.

Here's what they worked on, courtesy of the head coach, Rick Tockett, who in a minute and a half, we'll play about 30 seconds of a minute and a half media availability yesterday following practice. Here's what Tockett said they worked on without revealing any of the line changes

or potential lineup changes. Rick Tockett from yesterday's practice in Florida. More two-on-two, three-on-three stuff battling. I think play without the puck was something that I think we have to get to another level. If you ask me the last three games what I would want, it's the same thing last year. We demanded from the players a lot of winning more battles. I thought Tampa, especially the first half, they got

the puck with every time they wanted so you got to eliminate people um and extended box outs we call it um if we do that then we'll spend less time in our end okay so let's circle back really quickly on what the roster will look like at least in terms of who's on it going into tonight's game four o'clock from Florida Atu Ratu gone I actually wouldn't necessarily expect to see him anytime soon. I don't think the first three games, while you said he didn't stand out in a good or bad way, I don't think it was very great for his development that he was playing eight or nine minutes a night. And it seemed like Taka was trying to find spots to play him in, to be perfectly honest. And they've got centers, right?

They've got Miller. They've got Pedersen. They've got Bluger. They've got Suter. Nils Zeman was a healthy scratch against Tampa Bay, so they could bring him in if they want Suter on the wing. So they've got enough centers, and he might just have to go down to Abbotsford

and wait a little bit, wait for injuries, wait for something else to happen. So the Bronstrom thing. There was word yesterday, Irfan Ghaffar, and then later followed up by Rick Dollywell, that this recall was in the works, we assume it got announced today for salary cap purposes, and maybe it was potentially tied

to whatever sort of decision the club had to make on Derek Forbort, who, by the way, in case you missed it right off the top, has left the team due to personal reasons. Braunstrom comes up after a handful of games with Abbotsford in the American Hockey League. We've talked about him a couple times on the show. We actually had Kyle Bukowskis on from the 32 Thoughts podcast,

asked him about it because he is based out of Ottawa, and he saw Brandstrom play a lot in Ottawa over the last few years where he played close to 300 NHL games. So it's not like a guy that hasn't played at this level before. He appeared in 78 of them for the Senators last year. A very weird career arc for a guy that at one point was a very highly embellished prospect and was a central part of the Mark Stone trade. Yeah, drafted 15th overall in 2017.

As you just mentioned, that was the big piece that Ottawa was excited about when they sent Mark Stone to Las Vegas or Vegas, the golden Knights, um, where he won a Stanley cup. Um, but it didn't work out for Brandstrom in Ottawa. And I believe what happened was they just walked away from him,

uh, because they were worried about the arbitration. It was like a Ben Hutton situation. They said, you played so much that we think you're probably going to get an arbitration award that we don't want to pay you. So you're now a free agent. He goes to Colorado, signs a one-year deal, and then does not, I guess, impress in training camp in the preseason. And then the Canucks pick him up in a trade in a salary cup.

So I truly have no idea what went on in Colorado aside from the bare bones facts which was he signed a one-year $900,000 deal he appeared in three postseason games at or sorry preseason games and then they made the decision to part ways and they did it with a blue line that I'm gonna be dead honest I watched the Avs play last night like that that entire roster is thinned out. Like your third pair right now in Colorado is Calvin DeHaan and a guy named Sam Malinsky. So I don't know why or how Braunstrom couldn't crack that top six or why Colorado made the, I would say, unusual decision to sign a guy in July and then trade him in September. Well, I want to know if he's actually going to play tonight because Erica texts in,

what does it mean Forbert left the team? Like, is he gone for the season or is he in some kind of private situation and he'll be gone for a little bit? I'm just a bit confused. Probably the latter, right? He's in some kind of private situation, family reason that he has to deal with. Okay? But we don't know.

We don't know. We don't know. But I didn't read it as he's gone for the season, okay? He hasn't left the team. I don't want to be part of this. He's left the team, but he hasn't left the team. So I imagine he'll play tonight, but they could dress both Julsen and Desjardins in theory

and have Branstrom as a healthy scratch in theory. The thing with Branstrom and what we've heard, even after a couple games in Abbotsford, is that this guy is nothing like – imagine, imagine Noah Juleson and then go, what's the opposite type of player? What's Joe Anulson? Yeah. That would be Eric Brandstrom.

You know, like, he's almost like a rover type of defenseman, although Noah Juleson does some wandering. But he's a puck mover, and he is, honestly, he was developed as more of a Quinn Hughes type of player. That's how he was going to be – that's why Otto was so excited about him. He wasn't going to be some stay-at-home, big, tough defenseman. He was an offensive defenseman. He was a puck mover. And when the Canucks picked him up, I think a lot of us were like,

well, that's good because the Canucks might need some more puck moving in their bottom four. Because the way they've built their team is they've got the Hughes and Hronick pair that does great at puck moving. They're a good pair. And then they've got the,

what you want to call like the four trees on defense. And they're big dudes, not necessarily the most mobile, not necessarily the most adept at moving the puck, but in zone, they'll be physical, they'll block shots. You can send them out there to kill penalties.

And that's how a lot of teams are built. So if you add Brandstrom to that mix, all of a sudden it's a different mix. But I think that's a good thing because I think sometimes you need that. For example, when the Oilers were in the playoffs last season, they had De'Aaron A playing and he wasn't doing a very good job moving the puck.

So they bring in Broberg and replace day rna with broberg and all of a sudden they bring some puck moving ability so i actually i liked that option yeah for the canucks because sometimes you just need a little bit more of something else um i'm a touch surprised that they made this move so early in the year, but that being said, it does fit with everything I've talked about over the last 42 to 78 hours about, uh, there's a real lack of patience wrinkle for sure. I would have said that if it was a straight swap that Ratu comes off the roster and Bronstrom comes on, there's probably a 0% chance that Bronstrom plays tonight because he hasn't practiced with the team. And they've got other guys that they can put in, especially DeJarne.

And I don't think Forbort's been bad. Right. And now with Forbort's departure, it really does kind of throw a curveball because you've got less defensemen to choose from, plain and simple. Yeah, I think Branstrom's probably going to play, and he's probably going to play with, well, it's going to be Juleson or Darnay, right?

Yep. And it's coach's decision on who goes in. I thought that Juleson had a really rough outing in Tampa Bay. Did not play well, did not look comfortable. So this is an opportunity to get De'Arne back in the lineup. Now, will the coaches trust a pair of Brandstrom, who they don't really know, with De'Arne, who they're working with? I don't know.

This is a very banged up Panthers team, by the way. No Barkoff, no Kthers team, by the way. No Barkov, no Kachuk, as Jason mentioned. No Thomas Nosek. And the only reason I'm bringing that up is because even when you lose a sort of familiar name like Nosek, it really whittles you down. Their top line tonight is going to be Lundell centering Luster-Reinen and Reinhardt.

Now, Reinhardt's obviously a borderline 50-60 goal scorer from last year, so there's some potential there. Their second line might actually be more dynamic than their first, because that's the one that's got Verhage and Bennett on it. But if you even look at their blue line right now, like former Vancouver Canuck Nate Schmidt, not just Gustav Forsling, two Vancouver, ex-Vancouver Canucks, manning the blue line

for the Panthers. So the results early in the season have been a lot of energy in that first game, which I watched where they played Boston and had a very good outing against a team that they got a simmering rivalry with. I'll get to Boston in a second because Boston had a really eventful game against Colorado last night. But Florida has had a lot of injuries. They've obviously been affected by the storms that have hit the Florida area.

And they go into tonight's game still the Stanley Cup champs, right? Like, you're not going to take that away from them. They're still the core of this team that was so very impressive winning the title last year, but is whittled away because of injuries. And I would say they're two best players, all due respect to the guys that are in the lineup, with Barkov and Kachuk on the shot. Well, they don't have Brandon Montour either. Well, yeah, he's gone, gone.

He left the team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's with the Kraken now. So, you know, it's not going to be the same team. This is an opportunity for the Canucks to get a win. And we all know they would love to get a win. I don't know if we're in the stage where, you know, it's four games into the season.

I don't know if we're at the stage where they desperately need a win. They would just really like one. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. To the phone lines we go. NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Marty. How are you?

Good, guys. How are you? Sorry, if you hear background noise i'm at the fort lauderdale airport so there's a i can't get to a quiet place here so i apologize all good i can hear a little bit of noise in the background but it sounds otherwise fine regardless of the sound in the background thanks for taking the time to do this today we do appreciate it so year one as the nhlpa boss in the books uh some things obviously arose during the year there was the the mike babcock situation right at the beginning ofPA boss in the books. Some things obviously arose during the year. There was the Mike Babcock situation

right at the beginning of the year. Obviously, the issues with Arizona that are now resolved. Going into, or now that we're into, year two and Marty Walsh on the job, what's keeping you busy? What are your priorities? What are you working on right now for year two?

Right now, we're doing something that's called Fall Tour. We're going around and meeting all the teams individually so we get a chance to recap the year, talk about what we're looking at now in the second year and what the future looks like. So we're talking a lot about business development and growth of the game.

We're talking about getting some feedback from players about their desire on collective bargaining. The commissioners approached us about starting collective bargaining earlier. The contract expires in September 2026. So we're having some conversations about potentially going into negotiations next year, after the first of the year sometime. So we're talking about players, how they feel about where they are with collective bargaining, how they feel about the game at the moment,

and also growth of the game. Historically, I don't think the union's been as engaged in growth of the game, but there is an aspect that we want to grow the game of hockey beyond the cities that the teams are currently in. How do the players feel

about the CBA and the current state of relationships with the NHL? Would they paint as rosy a picture as Gary Bettman did? I mean, I don't think, I think some players probably would. I think, you know, they're all over the place. The players, when you think about the league, you have 750 players. They're anywhere from 13, 14,

15-year veterans that have seen it all to younger players that are following their dream and playing the game they love. They're a different aspect, different points in their careers. I think you get mixed reactions from different players on where they stand. But overall,

I think when you look at the game of hockey, as far as from a business standpoint, you know, sales, the ticket sales were up last year. Viewership was up last year. It's going in the right direction. Is there more that can be done? Absolutely. But it, you know, on the surface, it's going in the right direction. What's a common complaint that you get? It doesn't have to be a big thing, just a, you know, a frustration, like take us into the day-to-day of a player.

Yeah, it's quality of life, you know what I mean? It's something to do with the team, you know, the small little things that just, you know, don't necessarily race to the top of, you know, we have to have a major meeting with the NHL. It's like any workplace. When people are listening today, you think your team and your players, they perform on the ice, but leading up to that game, there's lots of little things that can go wrong or be frustrating to players and to organizations, and I think that that's what happens here. It's no different than any other workplace. So do you right now expect to sit down with the NHL in the new year

and start talks? I mean, it seems that way, but again, we're only three meetings into our fall tour of the 32 teams. So, you know, in the next few weeks, that'll be maybe a different answer to you. I just really got to – I'm not getting ahead of myself. I don't negotiate that way. And this is really driven by the players.

And we're going to wait and see what the players want to do. You know, we have 29 teams left. We're going to have five or six next week, and the week after we'll have six or seven. So we'll have a good grasp of where the players are but again like the question you asked earlier about the little gripes every team's different every team has a different mindset and they're in a different place so you know we want to really get to all 32 teams before we make any decisions like that. So Marty I know you're a lifelong hockey fan so you probably understand that a lot of hockey fans get triggered even when just hearing the letters CBA. You know, they think about lockouts, they think about lost seasons and lost games, and they think about really like being inundated with CBA stuff, which is not why they became hockey fans.

So is there an understanding on your side that like this can sometimes be a sensitive issue for hockey fans? Oh, no question about it. I mean, listen, you know, between lockouts and strikes and in hockey, but in other sports as well. I mean, fans, when the season ends, fans, the avid hockey fan is getting ready for the first game of the year. And they circle that date on the calendar. And if there's a concern that that might not happen, that will cause problems. But, you know, I've been in the labor movement for my entire career. And the way I approach negotiations is you don't negotiate,

you don't approach it with a mindset of we're going to have a strike or a lockout. If that's the thought going into negotiation, then you're already behind. And I think that when you look at negotiations in the private sector and a strike happens or a lockout happens, that conversation is broken down long before negotiations began. And that's not what I plan on doing here. We're speaking to NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. For as much as hockey fans loathe the CBA, they're very excited about international

play and the return to it. It's been a long time since we've had international best on best, and I know when the Four Nations face-off and the subsequent Olympic confirmations came through, everyone was really excited. Can you walk us through the process of what it was like working with the league

to make that happen? I was reading an interview that you had, and there was a really interesting takeaway that even within the PA, you had a lot of different people working on international hockey. So you had to streamline it from your guys' perspective first before going to the NHL and talking to Gary Bettman and Bill Daly and getting a calendar sorted out. Yes. So March of 2023, I was selected by the players to take over the PA. I went in and I

started, I should say, I was selected at the All-Star game in February. I went in and I assessed the office in different places. And one thing I heard consistently from players at that point, and I hadn't talked to them all, was that they all were very interested in being in international play, Olympics, World Cup. So when I got to the PA, I was asking what the process was inside. And there was a lot of different people working in this space, and there was really not one person kind of leading the way. So we made some changes. We put Rob Zepp in charge of international hockey. He began instantly, immediately working with the international folks at the league and talking about the Olympics and Four Nations.

And we were able to, not at the same time, but pretty much at the same time, negotiate, not negotiations, negotiate, work out a deal that we can get NHL players back into the Olympics. That deal is nearly finalized. It's still like some, you know, teased across an eyesore dot. But, you know, the players will be playing in the Olympics in 2026 and 2030. And then we were talking about bringing back the World Cup on a consistent basis, not every 10 or 12 or 14, 15 years, but being consistent on it.

So we started thinking about 2024. We realized that we couldn't have a full World Cup tournament in 2024. We just didn't have the time to be able to put it together because it's a massive undertaking. So we decided with the Four Nations tournament face-off, and then we're on ongoing conversations now about trying to finalize and get this World Cup on a consistent schedule so NHL fans and players will have a consistent international schedule

where every two years you'll have a tournament, meaning you'll have the Olympics in 26, I hope we'll have the World Cup in 28, the Olympics in 30, and I hope'll have the World Cup in 28, the Olympics in 30, and I hope to have the World Cup in 32, and then obviously the future Olympics and World Cups. Just so there's some consistency there.

It does a couple things. Number one, it's great as a hockey fan to have international play, have a best-on-best tournament. It's great for the sport of hockey, for people to get a chance to see that all over the world. And the players love it. The players love the fact that they can play for their country.

You have Sidney Crosby and players like Sidney. I believe the last time he wore a jersey for his country was in 2014. Some players have never done it. So we want to make sure that fans get a chance to experience that, but more that, you know, fans get a chance to experience that. But more importantly for the players, they get a chance to do that. Well, on that note, what about the players in your union from Czechia and from Russia who aren't going to be participating in the Four Nations Face-Off? I couldn't help but notice that some of the Czech players after the World Hockey Championships

weren't too pleased about not being in the Four Nations Face-Off. Yeah, you know, I talked to David Pasternak. Obviously, he's in Boston. I'm from Boston. We've had conversations. But the issue there was we didn't have the time to be able to put all the teams in there. So that's why we're very focused on the Olympics and also the World Cup, the bigger World Cup.

And the Russian players, I mean, I've talked to the Russian players. They certainly want to play and best on best competition. There's no question about it. And, you know, some of the governing rules at the IOC and the IHF right now are, you know, they haven't made the decision on 2026

as far as our Russian athletes going to be in the Olympics. So that's a whole different conversation. And it's unfair in a lot of ways to our players that play in the league that it's beyond their control, I believe. I know it's beyond their control. This upcoming Four Nations tournament, are you expecting to get full buy-in, full intensity from the players?

Are they pumped for it because you know what makes international hockey so special is the you know the feelings of nervousness on the canadians you know or the americans and the swedes and the fins and like it's it's national pride on the line but if the intensity of the games aren't there, and I really don't feel like they were in the last World Cup just because of the format, it's not the same as we've seen in international tournaments in the past. Oh, I think the intensity is here. I think that, you know, the players that I've talked to, even the players, all the players, not just the players that might play on the team, I mean, the teams haven't been chosen yet, but people are excited about it. And I think that it's a great setup for 2026.

I mean, you're getting a hockey tournament that obviously whoever wins will celebrate. Whoever loses will want to get theirs in 2026. And then on top of that, you have the teams that aren't playing in the tournament because of the timing of it, the motivation they're going to have to show people in the Olympics just to prove everyone that they're the team. So I think it's going to be exciting. And I think the key here is it's not a one-off, and we've got to make sure it's not a one-off.

You can't just have a tournament in 2024, go to the Olympics in 2026, and then have international hockey except for the Olympics drop off the map until God knows when. And I think that that's the difference here, having that map, having that schedule, having that consistency. I think that's going to even add a little more to this. Let's talk about the Utah Hockey Club. Are you happy for now with how the Arizona situation was resolved?

I mean, it's great for the players. I mean, the players have been welcomed with open arms. Utah has just simply embraced this team. The ownership has done amazing in making these players welcome and introducing professional hockey to Utah, NHL hockey to Utah. So it's a good win for the, it's been a great win for the players. It's been a great win for the league. It's been a great win for the, for the fans, I believe. And hopefully that continues on. I mean, I think that, you know, the first night was, was crazy there.

And, and, you know, it just seems like it's going in the right direction there. So we're excited about that. Future expansion. Let's talk a bit about that. Does the NHLPA have any role in that? No, we don't have any role in it. I mean, I've talked to Gary Bettman about it. He made it clear the other day that he doesn't see it as the immediate future for the league, but certainly I've talked to him about,

I've heard the rumors of different places and i've given my opinion on those places and um you know hopefully i think i think the relationship that that gary and myself have at the moment hopefully will continue on uh you know i'm not going to have any say in what city's chosen but i'd like to have an opinion on you know give our opinion on some places. What about the money? Do you guys want to share that? Of course we love that.

That'd be wonderful. Well, it's funny because we had Bill Daly on, I think last week, and we were asking him like, what would happen if the NHLPA came and asked for some of the money? He said, I think that would be a very interesting conversation or something like that. So like, is that. It really would be, Bill. Yeah. Is that part of the plan?

Because I'm, again, a triggered hockey fan when I hear CBA negotiations. I'm kind of like, okay, what could trip this thing up? And I could see see you know if if the nhlpa goes in there and we want we want half of the the expansion money and that's hockey related revenue and then i'm like oh my god we're gonna miss games again yeah no i i think that you know in the past uh the expansion fees were not part of anything the NHLPA had. Obviously, at some point when expansion, if it does come, or when it does come, we will have conversations. I think that we look at the whole picture.

I mean, 46 jobs that we're going to have for our players, two new teams potentially, new revenue. So we take all that into account. And obviously, we'll have conversations. I'm not going to get hung up on the expansion fee conversation with the league. I mean, I think it's something that, you know, the expansion fee obviously seems like it's going to grow and grow and grow. And, you know, with the players, would we like to talk about that? Absolutely.

And we'll have a conversation, probably. Yeah, I will. I mean, I'm doing it right now on the radio. But I think that, you know, you look at the whole gain here and what it means for hockey. And it gives two new areas, two markets, whatever, maybe markets or areas, opportunity to experience in NHL hockey. You look at the last two teams that have been added to the league,

the Golden Knights and the Kraken, and the success those teams have had. Utah is not a new team, but let's for the sake of this conversation, let's say it's somewhat of a new team. The success they've had very early in the season. Latest expansion has seemed

to go really well. Now we just need to make sure that as we think about moving forward that that can be replicated. We're speaking to NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. So this is the first season in a while where we've seen a significant salary cap bump, $4 million increase, and they're hopeful there'll be another one next season.

What were your impressions of this first free agency period since the cap increase? I mean, in the very beginning, there was a lot of movement early, obviously. And I think that, you know, we're projected to have another increase next year. I think we're going to be, you know, I think one of the things that we have to look at here is to make sure that the cap increases continue with the growth of the game. And I think that, you know, we saw good growth last year in revenue and ticket sales and attendance and TV audiences and things like that.

We had an amazing Stanley Cup final playoffs, quite honestly. Hockey playoffs are the best playoffs of any sport, I believe. I feel that way even before I got the job. And we had seven game series in the Stanley Cup. So I think that, you know, as we think about the salary cap and revenues, I mean, that's where the players benefit, right? And that's where we have to continue to grow this game of hockey and continue to move the salary cap.

I mean, I think, you know, if you're a fan and you have room on the salary cap, you're excited because you want, at the end of the season, because you want your team to be able to either sign the superstar or go out and get new players. I think it's great for the game of hockey, and we you want your team to be able to either sign the superstar or go out and get new players. I think it's, it's great for the game of hockey and we're going to continue to try and continue that growth. I do want to ask you about like the commercial function of the union,

because it does seem like the subsequent business opportunities that come from that, it's, it was a big priority. It seems like the marketability of players, things like the Amazon documentaries and the profile of the players and getting them more business opportunities was a big priority for you in your first season on the job.

Do you feel that you and the union are moving in the right direction on that front? Yeah, we're definitely moving in the right direction. And that's one space that the PA and the league can work with without any controversy because their business department's about growing the game. Our business department's about growing the game, our business department's about growing the game. And, you know, I empower my team to work with the league and then work aside from the league as well to grow opportunities for the players. And I think that that's where, you know, when you think about success and you think about the future, where you find those common areas where you can really do work well together and there should be

no conflict in the business is one aspect of that marty thanks for taking the time to join us today enjoy wherever you're going enjoy the fort lauderdale airport for now and we'll talk to you later all right boys thank you very much appreciate it talk to you soon thank you that's marty walsh nhlpa executive director here on the halford and brough show on sportsnet 650 thomas drance joins us now on the halford and brough show on sportsnet 650 what up drancer gentlemen good morning good morning drancer i have to admit i had a bit of a laugh yesterday listening to the station and listening to crossover with you dodd donnie and dolly and i realized that we are three

games into elias Pettersson's monster contract. And there is already a debate about whether or not that contract is tradable. Yeah, I don't even know how it like really got to that point, but you know, look, we've, we've been used to discussing struggling players with big contracts in this market over the years. And most of the time, those contracts have been immovable or next to immovable. I mean, you know, the Scott Gomez corollary always applies, which is that there is no contract that can't be moved. For the most part, I suppose the OEL deal kind of flies in the face of that. But, you know, generally speaking, contracts, no matter how bad they are, tend to tend to get moved at some point in the NHL.

But Pedersen is a different excuse me, is a different case entirely. Right. Like and sort of the example I brought up was Jack Eichel. And if you remember, Jack Eichel, you know, hadn't played in almost a year when the Buffalo Sabres traded him to Vegas. He'd just undergone a, you know, a spinal fusion procedure in his back that no hockey player ever had. Like it was a completely unprecedented surgery. I mean, the risk profile on that deal was massive.

The production was somewhat similar, although Pedersen actually has been more productive through his first six years than the Nike was. And Vegas still was able to get like Alex Tuck, right? A first Peyton Krebs plus, you know, the truth of the matter is, is that it's one thing if you're like a 30 year old winger who's struggling, and it's another entirely when you're a 26-year-old centerman who's been a point-per-game player from the ages of 19 through 26. Like, every team in the league wants this type, this profile of guy. And truly, 25 and under star-level centerman in the NHL. Like you're talking about Jack Hughes, you're talking about Pedersen and that's kind of the end of the list. Right.

Then you're talking about guys like Clayton Keller and you know, Cooley, Logan Cooley and Maddie Beneers, like guys who could get there. Right. But in terms of that production profile, like Pedersen's one of two or three guys in the league. Every team in the league is going to, if it came to this,

and it wouldn't because the Canucks would be one of the teams that thinks this too, right? Every team in the league would be willing to swing big on a bounce back from a player of Pedersen's caliber. Every single team. And every single team, like, what are you even doing as an NHL team if you every single team, like, what are you even doing as an NHL team if you're not wired to think, hey, we can help this guy

who's been this good for this long figure it out? Like, you know, that's the business. That's what this is. Drancer, can you at least concede that this is all very unusual? Oh, it's incredibly unusual. I mean, you know, if you go read the athletic today we published a notebook i've looked at just about every player uh from the last 35 years who started their career as productively as petterson did um and and there's not a single player in on that list that

like fell off in the middle of their career right right? Like it doesn't happen. You'll find some like Eric Stahl types who peaked earlier in their career, but even Eric Stahl is like basically a 70-point guy through his 30s, right? Alexi Yashin, like I was looking at Alexi Yashin because I remembered in my head Alexi Yashin is a guy who fell off significantly, but even his fall off didn't happen until he was 30. You know, the fact is, is that if you're a point per game or,

or near point per game player for the first 400 games of your career, like, you know, the, the, the names are Stamkos, Eichel, Patrick Kane,

Jonathan Taves, you know, Theo Fleury, Mitch Marner. Like these are all superstar players, like uniformly superstar players. The only example that I could find of a guy who wasn't, you know, into his late 20s was Alex Semen. And there's a variety of external reasons, you know, defensive issues and on and on that sort of applied there that just don't apply to Pettersson. And so, yeah, I mean, this doesn't

happen typically. And if it does, you know, players do have, you know, seasons that go sideways on them, even the best of the best. You know, we saw like Nathan McKinnon's age 21 season, right? He had like 50 points and was minus 14 and people were really down on him around the league. He had a 40 point season in his second year, for example. It doesn't last for very long. And look, I personally, I sort of look at that and my takeaway is if you're as good as Pedersen's been for as long as Pedersen's been this good, especially if we've actually seen like a 40-ish game lull from you previously that was kind of injury related a few years back. I tend to just think, okay, well, you know,

we know that the great players stay great players and we know that this guy's a great player. This too probably passes. But in the moment you're watching it happen, you're watching him play, you're watching these struggles, you're engaging in the conversation and you're thinking, man, this guy just doesn't have juice right now. And, and, you know, I think that's, I think like both things are fair to sort of suggest, right? Like he's not playing well. I'm not, I'm not suggesting is, but I also do know that he's a great player because only great players accomplish what he has.

And so how do we square that? I think that's a difficult thing to navigate and talk about, but I still do believe the great player side. It's just that it's impossible to not note that the form at the moment is deeply concerning. Do you have a working theory? No, no, absolutely not. That's the thing with me. And I'm fully prepared for people to,

let's say Petey just finds it. And I said yesterday, I don't think this is going to be an incremental. If he returns to form, I think it'll be like, boom, it'll just happen. Because I think a lot of it's mental. That's my working theory. I don't know.

And I'm fully prepared. Yeah, exactly. And I'm fully prepared for people to be like, bro, if you thought the Canucks should have traded him, I've never said that. My honest thing is like, I have no idea what's going on with this guy. I don't know if he's going to return to form.

I have zero idea. All I'm saying right now is what I'm seeing is very, very unusual unusual i've never seen it before and i am grasping at straws to try and figure out how a player that we've seen play at such a high level has fallen to a level that i believe is very very concerning so the only real working theory that i've sort of got here right is is i do sort of wonder if like when you think about what petterson's game looks like when he's at his best right i do wonder if he's like a precision instrument or like a precision weapon right so it's like the the angles right the the the technique on his shot um sort of the narrow like gaps that he hits

when he's deking when you know the bro do your deke stuff i sort of wonder if if he's not 100 right if the mental side of the game's not at 100 right like if the environment's not pretty close to perfect for him um in terms of how he's feeling in terms of all of that stuff does does he maybe struggle a bit more with a b game like where you know your average superstar player gets hurt or you know takes a shot in the ankle and and they're dealing with an ankle sprain you you know, a low-grade ankle sprain, it's like they're 90% of who they are, right? Is Pedersen's B game more like 50%, right? Like, maybe he doesn't have a B game, right?

And maybe there's a sort of learning curve or something that he can do to raise that floor. Like, what if he's a little bit more volatile because of how he succeeds, how he wins, because it's how he wins because it's so precise because it's so um yeah specific in terms of how he succeeds that that's sort of been a working theory of mine i guess dating back to last year even that that maybe there's a maybe there's like a b game element that that he lacks in his game um and that's why we sort of see it either on or off um and and have across the last three four years that would be my only theory um but yeah i mean you know we've we've

debated the wingers right like we've debated the tendinitis we've we've heard about the distractions um you know and and at this point like tonight's going to be game 35 since he last scored five on five, right? Like it's completely mystifying given his quality. Okay. Let's move on to some of the other stuff with the Canucks lineup because I thought Noah Juleson

had a bit of a rough game in Tampa Bay and I wondered if David Darnay might get in, get back in tonight. And then the news breaks that Derek Forbort has left the team for personal reasons, so he's not available tonight. And Eric Brandstrom has been called up. How do you think the Canucks defense will look tonight? Yeah, I wonder if branstrom comes in on the left uh and plays with dana i mean dana didn't have a great outing in his first game uh him and his pair with uh derrick forbert struggled uh in that opening night tilt against the flames but you know signed this guy for two years uh two million uh the club definitely was looking at it as more like a player development

bet something of a gamble. I don't think you abandon that gamble after one game. And so I wouldn't be shocked if we saw it work that way. Like if we saw the recently called up lefty play with De'Arne on the third pair, that would make sense to me. I wouldn't be shocked either if the club sort of mixed up their second pair too. Meyer's pretty amazing that he didn't miss a game after what looked like a severe knee injury over the weekend. For him to come back and play against Tampa Bay was pretty incredible,

a testament to his professionalism and sort of toughness, which is going to result, hopefully, in him playing, you know, knock on wood, his 1,000th career game, you know, this upcoming weekend in Philadelphia. But that second pair has been, you know, I think we've been talking so much about, like, Desjardins and then Juleson's struggle against Tampa, and it sort of caused us, I think,

or it's caused us to not focus perhaps on the second pair where Susie and Myers have had a rough go as a duo and Susie in particular because Susie's issues really extended you know into that third game that Myers left early we know what Carson Susie is like he's super reliable right Like he was this team's third best defenseman last season, um, a monster in the playoffs. Um, just like a steady stay at home guy.

But to this point, like, it's not that the Canucks third pair has been an issue, although it has, it's, it's that the bottom four has been a really big issue. Um, you know,

teams getting massively outshot whenever Quinn Hughes isn't on the ice. So, you know, uh getting massively outshot whenever Quentin Hughes isn't on the ice. So, you know, like, we talk about the Canucks defense, we talk about that third pair, what they should do, but I do think if the Canucks are going to get back on track here, right, if they're going to leave the group of four teams

that remain winless a week plus into the NHL season, you know, they're going to need more from their second pair as well. And that to me is going to be interesting. Like, do they consider tweaking that? My guess would be no, but I think it's something that you have to consider if,

if that sort of trend isn't rather promptly arrested here because it's hurting them. Shorty just texted me to say that I've been calling him David Darnay. I've done that too. I've done that too. I just got it. I'm having some trouble here. It just rolls off the tongue.

I'm getting old, man. Vincent, Vincent, Vinnie Darnay. Vincent Darnay is also about two feet taller than David Darnay. Okay. Brandstrom. What do the Canucks have in Eric Branstrom?

What can we expect to see if he does draw in? Yeah, I mean, I like Eric Branstrom a fair bit as a player, to be totally honest with you. Mobile, I mean, those two games he went down to Abbotsford, like he could do whatever he wanted down at the AHL level. He's too good for that level. The problem is his defensive reliability, and i think the club knows this right like i think they acquired him and had their eyes wide open in terms of this right this was not like this was a brandstorm was acquired uh for cap reasons right

like for contractual reasons i don't think the club would have been fussed if he'd been claimed off of waivers when they placed him on waivers. Right. But Branstrom's a pretty dynamic skater. You know, he falls into this sort of group that that's notable in my view, where he's an extraordinarily talented puck moving defenseman. But he's not at the Quinn Hughes level as an offensive defenseman, like a pure attacking, play-driving defender. And so if you're undersized, right, you're not like a PP1 stud superstar-level offensive guy, right,

and your defensive game's, you know, not great, well, that severely limits your ceiling in the NHL. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.