Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 11/10/25

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Halford & guest host Jamie Dodd look back at a busy weekend in sports, plus they talk a Canucks win and an OT loss with NHL.com & In Goal Magazine's Kevin Woodley. 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. Might we see Thatcher Dempco tomorrow? I guess it's a possibility. The light of tick the test determined, that was a lot. Got a shot, stopped by Lankin, and trying to clear the rules. Rebaugh and Pridley scored. He followed up and rolled it between Lankan's legs and into the net.

Ball bounces. Are you kidding me? It goes to D.O.G. Another touchdown. Seahawks. Holy catfish. Good morning, Maker. 6 o'clock on a Monday.

Happy Monday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. Oh, no, wait. It's Jamie Dodd. Good morning. Good morning, Jamie Dodd. We'll go over to Addo.

Addo, good morning to you. Good morning. And Lattie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough or Dodd in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Scoray, Debt Freedom Hatrick, one, no more interest, two, much lower payments and three, financial peace of mind. Visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal.

North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle. You get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. And, of course, we are broadcasting live from the kids. Kintech studio, Kintech footwear, and orthotics working together with you in step. We're both wearing gray. For those of you watching on the stream, it's true. It's another monochromatic day here on the Halford. Gray and baseball hats, the official outfit of Sportsnet 650 hosts.

Who's giving up? These two guys. We got a lot to get into on a Monday show. Big show ahead. As mentioned and as you've already figured out, Jamie Dodd is in for the vacationing Jason Bruff this week. It's very nice to have you back on the program, Jamie. Thank you.

I'm glad to be here. We have a lot to get into on the program today. first hour, because we're so excited to have Jamie here, an entire uninterrupted hour of Halford and Dodd before we get into the guest list. 7 o'clock is our first guest. J.P. Acosta is going to join us today. NFL analysts from CBS Sports. Our regular Monday morning quarterback, Mike Tanier, was one of the unfortunate people that got stuck without a flight in the United States of America due to the government shutdown. I believe he's stuck in New Orleans. Yeah. So I didn't realize I was following him on social and

saw his odyssey. He's like, oh, now I'm in a bus station in rural Alabama. I was like, I wonder what Mike's up to. And now I understand. It makes a lot more sense when you put it that way. And we're like, we'll still come on the show. And he's like, but I cannot. We're like, okay, fine. So JP Acosta is going to join us at 7 o'clock this morning, NFL analyst from CBS Sports. We're going to go through everything in a busy Sunday yesterday in the NFL. Biggest news, locally at least, is that the Seahawks finished a weekend at top the NFC standings with a blow, went over the cards. Could change tonight on Monday night football when the Eagles take on the Packers. But we'll talk to

JP about all that at 7 a.m. this morning. At 7.30, we go from JP to J.C. Abbott is going to join the program at 730. BC Lions reporter, 3-down Nation, an absolutely heartbreaking loss for your BC Lions on Saturday in the Western Final in Saskatchewan. Trevor Harris T.D. passed with 11 seconds left. That was the difference as the Lions failed to advance to their first Grey Cup since 2011. We will talk to J.C. Abbott about the game, the fallout. Was it a catch?

We'll ask J.C. at 7.30. We'll also put a bow on a BC lion season that was shaky at the start, very uplifting at the end, but ultimately fell short of their goal. J.C. Abbott at 7.30. 8 o'clock, Kevin Woodley's going to join the program from NHL.com and In-Gole magazine. Busy weekend for the Vancouver Canucks

who gained three of a possible four points in their back-to-back games. Saturday was a 4-3 win over the jackets. Last night, for those that missed it, a 5-4 Oatsy loss against the abs. A very entertaining contest. There was also some significant goaly news on the Vancouver Canucks front over the weekend. We're going to get into all that with Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Ingoal magazine at 8 o'clock.

So working in reverse on that guest list, 8 o'clock, it's Kevin Woodley. 7.30 J.C. Abbott, 7 o'clock J.P. Acosta, that's what's happening on the program today. Laddie. Lett. Let's tell everybody what happened? Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was...

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 invest in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.c.a. For the purposes of the what happened part of the program, I will run through this very quickly.

Sunday night at Rogers Arena and Nathan McKinnon scored twice, had three assists. For you athletes out there, that's five points. Avs beat the Vancouver Canucks 5'4 in overtime on a Wilford, Wilford Brimley, no, Gavin Brinley, O.T winner. You're right, it was Wilford Brimley. That's his name. That was on Sunday night. Saturday night, a win for the Vancouver Canucks for three over again, the visiting

Columbus Blue Jackets. So three out of four points, a win and an overtime loss against a very good Colorado team. And a lot to get into, Jamie, so much so that you put together. a thorough list of the three biggest Kinex takeaways from the weekend. Yeah, I think it's fair to say there's three major stories or at least talking points, topics coming out of the weekend. And we'll start with

the results of the two games. As you said, they get three out of a possible four at Rogers Arena and especially when you consider, I think, the opponents and the style of play that both teams are capable of, obviously Colorado much better than Columbus, but both teams, dangerous off the rush, lots of skilled players. You come

away of three out of four points. You're feeling pretty good, especially last night, Right. Nathan McKinnon scores twice in the first 10 minutes. They're coming off a 9-1 win in Edmonton, and you're kind of thinking, uh-oh, this could get ugly. Kevin Lankin is playing the second half of a back-to-back. More on that in a moment. You're thinking, where is this going?

And credit to the Canucks, they showed Adam Foote's favorite word, resilience. A lot of resilience. He loves resilience. Especially the young guys in the lineup, a lot of resilience to battle back, tie that game, tie it late again and with a power play goal, find a way to get the point, despite losing in overtime.

So I think there's a lot to like from that performance from the Canucks. They hung tough. You know, I think Colorado was the more dangerous team, but it wasn't by a huge margin in that one. As you know, Adam Foote, hey, 18, 18 scoring chances either way. Yeah. After the game, there was a lot to like from that game. I'll throw this out to the listeners as we just talk about the results from the two games in total.

what was the most encouraging thing from the weekend for the Canucks? And on the flip side, because they did lose in overtime. So, you know, we have to let a little bit of darkness in here to the show. God forbid, we do that. What's the most concerning thing from the weekend for the Canucks for you? And I'll start with the encouraging part for me. Okay. And that was the scoring.

And it wasn't just that they got, you know, eight goals across the two games, which is a good number. And especially for some of the struggles we've seen them have, putting the puck in the net this year. That's really encouraging. You also look at where it was coming from. Debrusk scores twice. He's starting to heat up, which we've seen before. We know how streaky he is. O'Connor stayed hot. He scored twice over the weekend. Besser, Garland, Sherwood, Linus Carlson with his first of the season on a really nifty finish to open the scoring for the Canucks in that game against Colorado. So you look at it and you have your best forwards, with one notable exception, but your best forwards mostly putting the puck in the net, and, depth contributing reliably and it starts to feel a little bit like the theory of this team up front and how they were going to get it done is coming together like okay hey besser and de brusk are capable of getting hot they're capable of either hitting 30 goals or surpassing it that's a good start to your goal scoring Connor garland we know how effective he can be key for sure would drew o'connor there is

depth on the wings as much as we talk about the struggles down the middle and i feel like you started to see that this weekend and at least what it could look like when everything's clicking. It's a good point to bring up because there was a stretch there and it was at the tail end of the road trip at the end of October where they managed to muster a grand total vote. I think it was two goals over two games and the losses to Nashville and Pittsburgh. And then that was followed up with a couple of games against Edmonton and Montreal where the goal scoring didn't seem like a problem. But then I think the low point, I think everyone will agree with this was that Tuesday night home game against the Rangers where they got shut up.

on home ice and you kind of started to wonder at that point how many issues this team was going to have putting the puck in the back of the net you remember at that point it was while all of a sudden we're looking at a van der kane's lack of goals the secondary guys with rotu and carlson everyone else and de brusk was off to a really slow start and all of these things yeah yeah and then the guy so to kind of put the micro on your uh the thing that you were most optimistic for the weekend the most encouraging sign for me it was drew o'connor yeah so it's funny uh when bruff and i were kind of going through this bit with O'Connor, we fell back on the office space. What would you say you do around here? Drew, what is it exactly?

Because at the start of the year, you'll remember, I kind of likened it to, you know, a man without a country. He was a player without a line. He was just kind of floating up and down the lineup and almost felt like a plug-and-play guy, someone that you would throw in. We're like, well, we don't have a spot or he'll be fine there. But in a way, that's a positive thing to say about a player, too, or it can be, right? he's doing something. Yeah, you're a solution to a lot of potential problems.

Yeah. And now he is that. I mean, what does he do here? A little bit of everything for Drew O'Connor right now. And I think once he kind of figured out what it was that he did around here, two goals and three points over the weekend, and to your larger point,

they are absolutely going to need depth scoring with regularity this season. If this team is going to be successful, if the blueprint is going to be orchestrated properly, you know, as Jim Rutherford likes to say, a lot of things need to go right for this particular team. And one of them was, with the lack of high-end scoring that we have, it's going to need to be all hands on deck

and the cumulative effect of everyone's scoring. And you saw it over the course of the weekend, eight goals on Saturday and Sunday combined. O'Connor, Chips in A-chipped and on special teams as well, scoring a short-handed goal. So a lot of encouragement, a lot of positives, and I think that's a fair thing to say after you collect three of a possible four points.

Let's turn our attention to something that we love, doing here, and that's poking holes and whatever happened on the weekend. Yeah. And this one might even feel unfair to some people, but for me and I know, you know, we're talking about what's the most concerning thing from the weekend. We're going to get a lot of text in about Thatcher Demko. Don't worry, we'll

talk about Thatcher Demko. I just can't escape that. Okay, we're coming out, hey, three out of four points. That's great. You hang with Colorado. That's awesome. You know what their points percentages right now? It's 500. 500, eh? They have been within a game either way of 500 for like almost a month now there seems to be this inescapable gravity to that number for that team and they've got a really tough stretch of games

coming up starting with Winnipeg tomorrow is this going to be the moment where they escape that gravity and pull away from 500 because you do have to do that eventually and as much as we can talk about hey they're so they've dealt with a lot of injuries and you know the travel and the condensed schedule and all of those things and there's reasons why you can say, well, it's actually not that bad to still be at 500 at this point in the NHL season. That's all fair. You know, the next five games against really good teams, okay, hey, you find a way to stay 500 in that stretch. And again, we'll say, okay, well, that's pretty good. But at that point, we'll be more of a quarter into the season. That's a long time to be

simply treading water. Eventually, you have to, you got to swim somewhere. You got to find a shore or a dock or something to swim to rather than just treading water in the middle of the ocean. That's not going to get it done and the long maybe yeah maybe hey whatever and as the longer you are just stuck at 500 the hotter you have to get over the balance of the season to make a real playoff push and that's my question it's just when are we going to start to see not just hanging on not hey you know when you consider it that's actually a pretty good result when are we actually going to start to see oh wow this team's hot this team has gone seven one and two in their last 10 they're going to need at least a couple stretches like that to be around the playoffs at the end of the season.

The physical embodiment of a 500 team right now. Alternating wins and losses with military grade precision. I think they've been doing it since the Montreal game, right? At the end of October, they've gone, lost win, loss, win, loss. Or if you want to be positive, win, loss, win loss. But whatever the case, they are very 500. Very, like, they're incredibly 500. It's very impressive.

Which is, it's kind of a theme in the NHL this year. I think there's seven teams that are exactly 500 in the NHL right now and then there's another bunch of teams that are within a point of being 500. So it's a good point to bring up because I think when we, and I know a lot of us are guilty of this

of being very myopic on our view of the one NHL team and it's the local one and not looking around the rest of the league and it's important to know that there are teams that are off too significantly worse starts than the Vancouver connects

in a disappointing fashion. Some teams were designed to be bad and congratulations. they are. But there's other ones that had higher aspirations and they've gotten off to slow starts. But there is a lot, a lot of mid-level teams in the league right now for a multitude of reasons.

And if you go into the Pacific Division, it's chock full of them, right? So in that regard, what the Canucks have done to start the season is, I would classify as fine. They've managed to keep their heads above water. And I will say this. The team has a workman-like

approach. And as Adam Foote said, on a number of occasions, a resiliency that at times I do not think they had on display last year, especially on Home Ice. For example, if you had taken last night's performance and plopped it in last year, it would have been one of the best games they had at home last year. I'm not joking. A 5-4 overtime loss, that game probably would have been one of the best performances they had on Home Ice last year because Home Ice was a dog's breakfast last year.

It was embarrassing. And there were too many really egregious bad lopsided losses where the team didn't show any heart, didn't show any fight and when they got down kind of folded the tents multiple comebacks last night was impressive and I think now's a decent time to throw to Adam Foote who talked about a lot of the characteristics

in the makeup of his team and what he likes about it now here's Adam Foote following last night's 5-4 OT loss to the Colorado Avalanche capping off a weekend in which it connects gained three of a possible four points. Yeah I think you're right. I mean when you look at the way Colorado's been playing what they did last night

you don't want to look too far into it I guess with some some of those games happen to teams it runs away sometimes from a team that can happen but they're they're at a high level and again I like the way we didn't we didn't like the start but we were resilient I'm not a huge talking about chances but I think what we have to take out of it is you know with our group where we were even our guys had us 18 18 5 and 5 chance against 5 and 5 I mean 10 to 10 to 4 special teams. I mean, what we're trying to get the players to believe in is it's working. What we're doing is working and we have a lot of young guys.

We've got seven guys in that lineup right now, you know, that are playing bigger minutes than probably they anticipated and they're doing a hell of a job and they've been really resilient. And that's the positives we're going to take out of it and we'll get through this. So he mentioned there, Adam Foote mentioned there, that they only surrendered four chances while killing penalties. That's pretty good. The bad is it two of those

went in the back of the net? And it was another two power play goals conceded. So when we talk about most concerning things from the weekend, I have two, and I think they might be related, but one is Lankinen,

who right now, through eight starts this year, if I'm not mistaken, has given up four or more goals and half of his starts. That's a problem. And then I think something that probably plays into that

is the penalty kill, which, can't kill for its life right now. It is hovering after, I think they killed the first nine penalties of the year in those back-to-back games against the Alberta teams. And then since then, the penalty kill has been operating at around 63%. And again, for a team where everything needs to go right, you cannot have a bottom three penalty kill in the NHL

and expect to make the playoffs. I think that's pretty cut and dry. I think it's pretty obvious. And yesterday, there were a multitude of problems. It was interesting because when Adam Foote was explaining it, and I won't bother playing the audio, but he called them small mistakes. Minor mistakes, just tiny little things that they need to tweak. And that's fine.

But they're going to need to get tweaked relatively soon because if this team is going to break out of this 500 pattern or if you want to call it a funk where they can't string together wins and you're going to need to do it, a big part of that is going to be the penalty. Yeah, they're going to have to find a way to lock that down. And, you know, slight mistakes, as Adam Foote said. Colorado is really good at turning those into big breakdowns. And we saw that last night.

Beyond the results, another big talking point from the weekend, Patrick Alvin was on after hours on Saturday. So after the Columbus game, but obviously before the Colorado game yesterday, it was Scott Oak and our varian McIntyre asking Alvin questions. And I got to hand it to Scott Oak because it was pretty funny. You know, he always puts out the tweet, right? Hey, we've got this guy coming up on after hours.

What do you want us to ask them? And a lot of time, it's the player. and it's like, ask him about this funny gif he's in or whatever, right? Like, he's like light-hearted questions for the players. Not the case so much for Patrick Alvin when Scott Oak let it know that the Canucks general manager would be on the show. And as he told Alvin something like 75% of the questions they got on Twitter involved the word rebuild.

Unsurprisingly, you're not going to believe this. Patrick Alvin did not commit to a rebuild on after hours with Scott Oak and Ian McIntyre. I ain't saying nothing. After a Canucks win. on Saturday night. But Patrick, what do you want to tell the fans? Tell them to go suck a lemon.

Pretty much. And I had this incredible sense of deja vu, not just listening to Patrick Alvin on Saturday, but really that in total with like the three or four days of Canucks-related discourse leading up to it. The entire rebuild conversation, I mean, what are we in year 11 of talking about it really?

2014. At length. 2025. That's 11 years. Yeah. I think we all. know the beats so well. And look, I'm as guilty of this

as anybody. If you've ever listened to my show, which I'm sure you haven't, Elford, but I'm sure some of your listeners have. That's not true. We've talked about it. On occasion, the idea of rebuilding and the strengths and weaknesses of the potential idea. We know what Alvin is going to

say. And it felt a bit like a kind of greatest hits from Patrick Alvin, right? It was, well, you know, we don't want to take a step back when we've got players like Hughes and Pedersen and Dempco on the roster. We've got all these young players, right? It loves to list off a bunch of young players they're excited about. Soyer Minio has added to the list, has been added to the list. Congratulations to Sawyer Minio. You know, hey, we're always looking to get better. We're always

trying to take those next steps, but we don't want to give up any of these really exciting young players necessarily. We've got to be really careful about that. So, okay, that's all fine. That's familiar. We understand that. But I was thinking about it. I think what's ultimately frustrating for me is, okay, look, you don't want to rebuild. We get that. it can be frustrating. It can be disappointing to hear. But I think we all understand that's the reality we're dealing with. Yep. But what's the strategy then to add the high end, the very necessary elite talent to the roster? I think everyone can agree when you look at this and whether it's in comparison to what the abs have with Nathan McKinnon at the top of the lineup or whether

it's in comparison to what Leo Carlson is doing with the Anaheim Ducks as a much younger elite player. there is a need at the top of the lineup for elite talent for the Canucks. What's the strategy to add that? And that's where I think it gets frustrating because it doesn't feel like Alvin has much of an answer for that, which in a way makes sense because what's he going to say? There's no magic. You can't just snap your fingers and do it. He doesn't have a magic way to do it.

Because he doesn't have an answer. There's no magic way to do it. So you're basically left hoping that someone like Ratu or Lekermacki takes this massive leap and becomes way more than we think. think they could be. And I like both players, but no one's looking at them as, oh, that's a future, you know, superstar player who's going to lead you to a cup or you're hoping that a cheap trade acquisition like Lucas Reichel breaks out for you in a way they didn't with their own team, which hasn't really happened yet. And could those things happen? Sure. But it's relying

an awful lot of hope. And I think that's where fans get frustrated with the strategy and why it feels like we're doomed to do like how many more cycles you think we have in us of a rebuild discourse as potentially infinite as those financial advisor commercials have taught me hope is not a plan that's so true i i i i you're spot on with this because i actually felt like the discourse that was inevitably going to be lobbed in alvin's direction on after hours was going to be futile because he was going to offer up the same answers that he's always offered up and it's not even a justification of the plan

it's just like this sort of hybrid strategy that they've got laying out all the things that you've laid out and then at the end of it it's like and so we hope it works and then we're like okay that's fine it kind of sounds like a plan people have poked holes in it

they've never really fundamentally addressed the why that's they've never done that and I think we all know there's like an implicit why there yeah and because they won't do it because it requires a bottoming out and let's just make this abundantly clear it requires a bottoming out and a race to the bottom that no one at the higher reaches of the organization is interested in doing none of them right so what we've actually

ended up doing and i lamented this last week is we've gone so far down the rebuild road that we actually have conversations about the conversation now the conversation now in baker's is is it even worth talking about this because it can be so futile because no one's interested in actually doing it. And that's when two things. One, it's too meta and two, you might be talking too much about hockey if you're having a conversation about the hockey conversation. I honestly think if there's either a producer here or some listener with way too much time on their hands, not that any of our listeners have way too much time on their hands. Clearly not. You could go back like two years ago, two, two and a half, three years ago and pull clips from SportsNet 650 talking about a rebuild

and clips from like an Alveen interview and mash them up and juxtapose them with clips from our shows this week and Alvin on after hours, and it would sound almost identical. Almost identical. When Alvin talked about unearthing gems from college free agency or undrafted free agents or late round picks, I was like, this is the Benning approach. That was what Benning, and I hate doing this,

because there needs to be more frame of references than the previous guy, but it's the most recent one, and it's the one that left a lot of residual scarring on the market. the amount of times that we heard about picking things off the scrap heap or finding unearthed gems and again there's that word hope hoping they turn out i get why it's frustrating for fans and i know that scott oak throwing it out there on twitter and then 75% of the 400 questions that he got asked were about a rebuild so from his perspective he's like i must ask you got to ask something yeah yeah i got my finger on the pulse of the fan base and the fan base wants to know

when the teardown begins, it's just an unfortunate exercise that is always, as you put it, the wheels are going to be spinning on it, and we're never going to get anywhere on it. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. All right, we went through two of the three big takeaways

from the Canucks weekend, and it was a busy weekend, win over Columbus, overtime loss to Colorado, and a whole bunch of other things as well. But the third, and maybe the most intriguing takeaway, from the weekend, Jamie, was what went on in between the pipes for the Vancouver Canucks over the weekend. Yeah, and it was certainly the most confusing situation

from the weekend, and this started on Friday. It would have been after your guys' show on Friday. Drance and I had a little bit of a chance to talk about it because Dempco missed the Canucks practice on Friday. Yuri Patera was called up. And of course, as soon as Rick Dollywell has

the scoop and it's out there on Twitter, that Yuri Patera, a goalie is being called up. We are so attuned. and so alert to any potential health issues with Thatcher Dempco, but there starts to be a lot of concern, maybe even panic, a lot of fears about what that could possibly mean for Thatcher Dempco. So Adam Foote's post-practice media availability, a lot of attention on it on Friday. And the answer explanation we got that it was preventative maintenance. Wow. Basically, Thatcher Dempco woke up feeling something.

maybe slightly off. They've been very encouraging of him. Hey, say, hey, if you're not good to go today, tell us. We want to keep you healthy. So it was preventative maintenance, which, okay, maintenance. First of all, maintenance day is a thing. We know what a maintenance day is. Sure.

So I don't know if that's different than prevention of maintenance. They have one a week in the NBA. But, of course, Yuri Patero was called up under emergency conditions, which there needs to be an injury. Right. It's not just you're taking a day. There needs to be an actual injury for you to be called up under emergency. CBA is very clear on this.

You can't be all willy-nilly with your emergency conditions. And then, of course, you know, we heard, you know, he could be a possibility for one of these games over the weekend. Kevin Lankinen starts both. And shout out to Kevin Lankton gets the win on Saturday. And then back-to-back against a very good Colorado team does enough. I know he wasn't happy with the overtime goal, but he gets them a point by playing very well in that game.

So obviously you're not sitting Thatcher Dempco out and starting Kevin Lankin in back-to-back games because of maintenance. Yeah. There's obviously something going on. Now, Adam Foote yesterday said pretty good chance that he'll be ready for Tuesday against Winnipeg. So maybe who knows what this was? I don't know what we should read. What should we take differently from this than if they had said Demko's day to day with a lower body injury?

And I don't know if it's lower body or upper body. I'm just filling in the blanks here. Yeah. If they had said on Friday, Demko's day to day with a lower body injury, possible for the weekend, more likely Tuesday. day is that we have read anything differently into that than how all of this is unfolded should we read anything differently into the well preventative maintenance and hey maybe he could go but i don't know we don't know the whole thing is just confusing and i get it with demco's health so everyone is on hyper alert all the times all the time i'm not sure we should be more concerned than

we were on thursday about dempco's health maybe we should maybe we shouldn't i have no idea because we just had so few answers about what was really going on here. Like conceptually speaking, I like the idea is that when you put it out there to a player we are aware that you like to push and we are also aware that we are

in a compacted schedule. Please let us know if you feel like something's creeping up where could be on the verge of an injury. You know your body better than we do. Yep. I think it's a great idea because if there's one thing that's going to sink this season, it's going to

having Thatcher Dempco not available. Of all the other things, I think you can tape over or gloss over, but if he's out for an extended period of time, and that's just my opinion, but I honestly believe that if he's not there, and it was the biggest issue last year for me, of all the issues that they had, that one to me, it was like, it was staring everybody right in the face all year, and I know Lankinen kind of made the loss of Demko less of a sting, but big picture, he's a core part of this team, he's incredibly valuable. And what we've seen this year, like, I know Lankan

had a tough situation on the weekend, and we will get into that in a second, but there's a clear divide between the two of them that can't be understated. I think it's the way the team plays in front of them. I think it's the confidence that he gives. So if you're trying to keep Demko healthy, great. Good job on everybody. You held them out of the weekend.

And if you want to go glass half full, which we are very rare to do here on the program, they got three out of a possible four points, despite how, you know, dangerous and cataclysmic, it sounded on Friday, right? You're going to, wait, you're going to have Patera dress. You're not going to have Demko in the rank.

He's going to be sitting somewhere else. And you're going to play Lankton in back-to-backs. They did it. They got through it. If Demko comes back on Tuesday against Winnipeg, okay. Now, as for the messaging part and to, you know, satiate the jackals out there that are hanging on every want and need of the Vancouver Canucks. And especially Demko's health, I agree.

It was kind of muddled. It was very confusing. And quite frankly, there's too many people covering the team on a regular basis with knowledge of everything, CBA, and otherwise they're going to poke holes and whatever. You're trying to gloss it over. The emergency recall thing was a good point. You can't just use it willy-nilly. There has to be some kind of injury. The fact that Demko didn't dress in either game leads me to believe that maybe it's more serious.

But at the end of the day, I unfortunately have the same takeaway that you do. We don't know. I have no idea. We have no idea. It could be absolutely nothing. Honestly, I'm not saying that to be naive or anything. But just because Demko has a history of injury, it does. doesn't mean that every time he misses two games is a like a portent of doom right you're allowed

to he's allowed to still be knocked up in a normal way right that sounds wrong but you know what i mean banked up in a normal way i liked it when it was said i was already winking and then you're like wait what a second but i'm going to let him roll i don't like to jump in uh i also want to point out by the way and i know i brought this up so i'm going to follow up on it um this is some advanced goalie analysis ahead of kevin woodley joining us at 8 a.m this morning Kevin Lankin is giving up too many goals just want to put that out there

Kevin Lankinen whose sole job it is to not letting goals is letting in too many goals he's not letting them in he's letting them in they are at it's a very very very risky

proposition for a team that is not offensively inclined despite scoring eight this weekend to have a guy where half of his starts this year have been four goals against her more Half of his starts, right? That's asking a lot of the guys in front of you. Last night was, he battled.

Yeah. I want to make this abundantly clear. I'm not saying that he's playing poorly. I'm saying that he's allowing too many goals. I think it would be a great bit if you adopted Kevin Lankton as you're like equivalent to Bruff and Petey. No. Just every day.

Can't do that. Every day it was coming in furious about Kevin Lankin. I'm not furious though. That's the thing. But I also am acknowledging that he's letting into. many goals. Yeah, you're right. Look, we'll talk to Woodley about it, as you said. A very advanced analysis, but in order for the team to win more hockey games, when Kevin Lankton plays, he needs to let in fewer. Our next guest is a presentation of White Rock Hyundai.

It's Kevin Woodley here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Kev? Not much. If we could just leave my location at White Rock in general, I would appreciate that. So I was a little specific voice. Yeah, and I knew it in the aftermath. I'm like, is there anything else I could give away? social insurance number. Like, I'll think, like, I'd do it, but I'll probably won't. Where exactly he's headed, where he's living, how long he'll be gone for, whether everybody's looking after his house, yeah. License plate.

All we know about Kevin Woodley is he is either in White Rock or at the dealership, which I will not give away the address to for safety reasons. But go visit them online, White Rock Hyundai. Okay, Kevin, we got a lot to get into here. Vancouver Canuckswise. I think we should probably start with the goaltending. It feels like the appropriate thing to do. Walk us through what you know, what you've heard, and what to

expect from Thatcher Demko given that he sat out the entire weekend. What was the term again, Jimmy, I always... Preventative maintenance. That's the one. What I know, not much. What I've heard, it's not serious. It's just like...

Precautionary is a good word for it. It was presented in a sort of word salad that led to even more eyebrows being raised. But at the end of the day, you know, if woke up on Friday morning, not, you know, something feels off. something feels sore and it's like okay

why would we push that and I was at first I was saying like he's not going to play both on the weekend anyways so you give him the first one off and see if he's ready for the second one I actually kind of like the idea of calling out like if your number one's

not playing call up somebody else because why would you waste your number one's energy for all the work that a backup has to do which is getting his body ready getting his mind ready just in case he has to go in so like you could Like, you could have actually presented that in a progressive manner. There's three, four teams that are doing it. Now, obviously, you wouldn't do it last second recall.

You wouldn't for a team that's, you know, dying for practices, only had a couple in the last three weeks, ideally have a mortgage broker at one end of the net in one of your few NHL practices. But at the end of the day, it was the prudent thing to do if he felt something tight, tweaked, whatever, not reporting just, you know, some of the things you've heard, and he skated Saturday, Sunday was a possibility last night.

I'd heard he wanted to play last night. You can understand why you'd want to be a little cautious, like give it an extra day, especially considering the way the Colorado Avalanche make goaltenders move around the ice. At least they did in Edmonton on Saturday. And so I wouldn't be surprised, based on what Adam Foote told us yesterday pregame,

if he's ready to go on Tuesday, and probably skates today. So I understand the reaction to it. I understand the history means that, there's going to be sensitivity to it. And maybe that's why it was presented the way it was. I'm not sure. But that's kind of where we're at.

And if exercising caution on a small thing to avoid it becoming a big thing, I don't have a problem with that, even if, like I said, the way it was presented led to a whole bunch of speculation. What did you think of Kevin Lankin's play being forced into the back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday, collectively overall. Well, like, so here's the thing about back-to-backs. We avoid them in general around this league. Like, it's become this thing you don't do with goaltenders.

But the truth is oftentimes the second half of a back-to-back is a really good performance. The problem is a cumulative effect. I'd be more worried about Kevin Lanken on Tuesday night against Winnipeg than I would about his performance last night. And listen, Lankin, it's not, like he's an older goalie.

But when you talk to guys around the league, it's not how they feel in the second half. It's how they feel two, three days later. Sometimes I remember Longo towards the end of his career, and obviously there's an older goalie at the time. Like if he played back to back, he's like he was toast for a week, right? So it's more the cumulative effect

and why you don't want to do it on a regular basis, but you can actually get good performances. I know there was a study done a while back. I'd love to see it updated because we've seen some really great performances on the second end of back-to-back. And last night, I wouldn't say great, but he was really good. Like, both of those games, they didn't exactly make it easy him against Columbus. Like Columbus had 10 high danger to the Canucks 5 the night before.

They kind of got reversed goalie, to be honest with you on Saturday night. They got a bit of a gift. But last night, they matched Colorado in terms of scoring chances. And, you know, Lankton was right around, you know, right around where you'd expect to be, you know, through the end of that game based on the quality he was seeing. So, you know, Colorado, Colorado. does that to you. He made some big saves

against Columbus early, and last night, you know, made some big saves late to sort of get them that point. So it's, I have no problem with his performance at this point. It's just, there's a lot of sort of, you know, overtime, and he admitted he wants that one back. Like that rebound, you kind of just got to stay home

on it. As soon as he swipes to the stick, he opens up the space that Brindley finds. That's something he talked about postgame. But, you know, Kevin Lanken's numbers aren't great on the season relative to expected. But it's not because he's giving up bad goals. He just hasn't quite been at the level we saw last year

in terms of stopping the most difficult stuff he faces, the high danger stuff. Yeah, I was going to bring that up because we talked about it earlier in the show, Woodley, right? It's, what is it, eight goals over the weekend for Kevin Woodley, so it's not going to jump off the page, but it did look like he made. Eight goals for Kevin Woodley would be a game. Oh, sorry, excuse me, it's Kevin Lincoln, excuse me.

Well, we're talking about two Kevin's, all right? Two of the best ever do it. Two of the best ever do it. Two fantastic Kevin's who know a lot about goaltending. Anyways, Kevin Lankinen allows eight goals over the weekend. And, you know, we're hearing from fans like, uh-oh, he's still making me worried. But it does look like the overall performance is probably what you should expect from Kevin Lankin and still pretty solid.

No, it is. Like that's the thing. Like, I don't have, like, even in the Columbus game, right? Like, there's a bunch of saves. I had them written down, like, the game ended up being a little more open in the third period. But, you know, as a writer, you're kind of making your nose. and, you know, in case the game goes one way, you're documenting everything. And, like, he had three really difficult saves early in that game against Columbus.

And, like I said, like, you know, the underlying numbers on that game tipped heavily in Columbus's favor. And, you know, Lincoln's flirting with a stolen win there. And you're not going to think that when he gives up three goals. But, I mean, that's the reality. They gave him a fair bit to Columbus, that Marchenko line carved them up pretty good. To be honest with you, there were a couple rushes in that game by Marchenko that, as a goalie in the press, Box is a good thing. There isn't a couch because I would have just gone down and laid on it in the fetal position. So I thought Lankton was really good on Saturday and good enough for them on

Sunday in a game where, again, early on, they got picked apart a little bit. We're speaking to Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Ingole magazine here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. You know, the classic line that goaltending doesn't exist in a vacuum and it's the situations that unfold in front of you. What have you thought? I mean, let's just break it down to this weekend in particular because, you know, one of my very big and exciting pieces of goalie analysis with, you know, Kevin Lincoln is giving up too many goals that you might be playing well, and he is making saves, but I think it's of half of his starts this year. He's given up four goals or more, and that's too many. Now, I understand

there's a lot of different variables that go into this. So from this weekend, the, um, the things that unfold in front of him is the chance creation too high from the opposition? Is he making enough saves, does he need to make more? There are some areas in his game, and this isn't like a criticism of his game. This is just there's give and take. Like everything you do in goal tending is like a yin and yang

give and take. There's sliding scales. And for Kevin, like one of the areas of exposure in his game, just because of how he plays, it also creates areas where he's really good. But one of the things that give and take is off to the sides of the net and back doors and stuff. And we've seen teams kind of

exploit go through the seams on the Canucks, especially on the penalty kill, far too easily at times. We saw the Bertuzi game where there's just two back doors where you're not blaming your goal tender. Are there times where he steps outside the lanes of his posts on the short side and gives himself a path or a longer distance to cover off to those back doors or a further path to the flanks? Yes, did they do a better job defending around the net and the side of the net last year when he had all his success than they are right now? Also true. Like I think, I think, you know, what I don't know is how much, and I kind of doubt it.

You know, it's like it's one of 82 for most of these teams. It's Colorado coming in the second half of a back-to-back. I don't know how much is this team's targeting it so much as the Canucks just giving it up more. And sometimes it's bounces on broken plays and stuff in front of the net. You know, we saw in the Montreal game where they're, you know, they're knocking down pucks in front and then immediately looking to funnel off to the flanks off to the side. And I think that's just a good offensive play. it also happens to be one that connects A,

aren't defending, and B, his positioning leaves him more exposed to than maybe another goaltender. Again, not as a criticism, but as a, hey, that positioning also gets him some other saves that other guys might not make. But there's the trade-off, and that trade-off has been costly. And these are very dangerous chances. You know, a lot of them, like, like, obviously a backdoor,

is a low-slot-line play, but a lot of them off bounces and broken plays and then passes off rebounds. It's like one of the highest chances. you can get in the NHL, like a 65% chance. And so there's been a lot of higher danger stuff that he's been exposed to. And it just seems like the types of chances specifically are tougher for him and types of chances that they were doing a better job of sort of blocking,

getting sticks on, preventing last year than they have so far this season in the defensive zone. On the offensive side of things for the Canucks, Woodley, Last time we talked to you on Canucks talk, we talked about their struggles to generate high danger chances. You used the phrase, which really delighted me that the Canucks have been feasting on mids so far this year. Did you see some signs for potential optimism going forward for the Canucks offensively over the weekend? Yeah, absolutely. And in three of the past four, I mean, the Columbus game less so, but in the two before that and then last night against Colorado, they're into double-digit high danger. you know and in three of the four before that they didn't get to three right like I think the Rangers game they got to three and they had two games where they only had one right like they've had nights like out where they create nothing in terms of high danger and I think what you're seeing eye test wise is you know and I've been I don't say critical but pointed in pointing out that like this is a team that did a pretty good job net front in years past and was the worst net front team in the league kind of heading into November But since that Minnesota game, which is another one of those, you know,

one high danger chance in the whole game nights, they're creating more. You're seeing them stack shifts. You're seeing them cycle. You're seeing them create chaos and actually get to some of those second pucks and get them on net amid that chaos in front of the opposition net, something that was completely missing for the first month of the season, or at least, I guess, not quite a full month, but through October for this team.

Like, it was just, it was worse in the league, like with a bullet. But in this last week, or so, you're starting to see them create some of those chances and tiny sample four games. Actually, their net front offense in the last week, it's still overall on the season, you know,

I think 27th. But in the last week it's third. Like, they're starting and that matches the eye test. They're starting to create some of those loose pucks, those broken plays, those scramble, and they're starting to win the odd battle. Certainly more, a lot more than they were early

in the season to get to those pucks and then get them on that. You see Carlson last night with a pretty play between the legs. You're starting to see more of that. And I think that's important for a team that's not going to be with skill, given everything that's out of the lineup right now. It also gives it, you know, part of that is like Hughes was a magician at times in those last couple.

Like we saw more of that classic takeover game of Quinn Hughes. And when that's as it's best, as much as they want to be a rush team and get up on the ice and nobody does it as well him. As a matter of fact, sometimes he's ahead of everyone else when he leads the rush. When they get into settled five-on-five play, as much as they want to create unsettled, don't let the team get into their defensive structure. When they do, nobody turns settled into unsettled like Quinn Hughes. Like he will break down, you know, settled five-on-five defensive zone coverage like nobody else. You just have to have people that are willing to

be in front of that, taking away the eyes of the goalie so that he can use that 80-mile-an-hour sifter that finds holes and gets through traffic and gets into the top corners. And so that if it doesn't, if it hits something on the way, you're not only there, but you've got the willingness to win the battle for the second pocket. We've seen a lot more of that in the past week. And that's really encouraging for a team that, you know, obviously just doesn't have the horses right now to generate a ton of offense, wasn't generating a ton of offense. That's one way I think they can start to create more.

and we're seeing that both I test and then the underlying numbers. The penalty kill, which is problematic right now. Is this a personnel issue or is this an approach and execution issue? Again, you know what? The underlying's gotten a little better there as well. And it feels like they're, like before it was, I mean, probably personnel, right? Like, you lose Pew Sitter and you're missing Teddy Bluger, right? Like that's, and you're asking other guys to do something that even if they're capable,

for a lot of them it's not necessarily old hat. It feels like when you talk to players around the league but there's an experience factor that matters here. Faceoffs matter here, right? And that's been an area where like, I mean, look at Leas Patterson and how many draws he's taking. I think most in the league last I checked, right?

Because they're relying on him so heavily in the faceoff circle because other than him and Ratu, like they just don't have anybody that can consistently win draws. And that, you know, if you win a draw, get it out, that's, you know, 20 seconds of possession, and you don't allow the other team to set up right away. You make them work for that setup. And their down-ice pressure

seems to be a little better in terms of if they can win a draw or they do win a battle and they do get it out of the zone, not making it just a piece of kick for the other team to get right back in and set up. So I think there are signs of improvement. I do think personnel-wise, the fact so many guys have had to been moved into that role that

weren't necessarily used to that role or comfortable in that role at this level, sort of explains some of it. But the results haven't been there. I mean, the abs, that was one of the biggest anomalies. I've seen this far into a season. The fact they only had one power play

goal on the road. They've gone eight games without. They get two last night. I don't think you look at that. As much as the seams are more open than you want, still, I don't think you look at that and think, oh, man, like the penalty kills trash again. I think you look at that and be like, the abs were due to break out. When you look at the talent,

they roll over the boards when up a man. had some big moments against Columbus and obviously when it's ranked as low as it is you take those building blocks and I think they're a little you know I know Ian McIntyre asked this question of Adam Foote and he didn't necessarily

react well to the question but I think they might be closer than maybe the results suggest right now I'm going to go completely off the grid here I mean we'll talk about hockey and goaltending but if you're not going to give my gate location for my next vacation So we're all right.

Now yet, Logan Thompson, who has been brilliant this year in Washington. Should he be the Canadian goalie at the Olympics? Will he be on the team? Should he be on the team? Yes. Should he be the Canadian goalie? Like if he keeps playing like this and the guys who are going to be on the team keep playing like they're playing like.

We've got 62 goalies have seen at least, I was going to say, 70 shots. in the league this year, like just trying to filter up the guys who have only played one game. Okay, we got 66 goalies in the National Hockey League who's seen at least 50 chances this year. Jordan Binnington ranked 65th. Sam Montenboe ranks 61st in adjusted say percentage. So who's their

tough starts? Yeah, those are tough starts. Logan Thompson is third. And the only two, as a matter of fact, he's number one with a bullet of any guy that's seen 100 chances this year, like an adjusted say percentage. He's actually been better than Conor Hellebuck so far this season. So yes, he should be on this team.

form will matter saying he should be on the team on November 10th doesn't mean he should be the starter in February but right now based on form absolutely he would be last year he was exceptional right sort of through this time of year signed the contract extension fell off a little bit but I thought he had a good playoffs the numbers backed that up like them losing wasn't on him that's a big stage that's pressure he's shown he can perform under it there is no reason as long as he's healthy in February

or when they name the team in December. Like, this is two straight years, right? There's no reason he shouldn't be on the team. Like, if he's not, and they lose, you know, fire up the old Canadian goal-tending investigation. Give me a bunch of money. I'll head it up and let's go from there. Kev, this was great. As always, buddy, thanks for taking the time to do it.

We appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again next week. Appreciate it, guys. Have a good one. Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Ingoal magazine here on the Halford-enbrough show on Sportsnet 650. to the best of Halford and Brough.