Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 11/18/25

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, plus they discuss last night's 8-5 Canucks loss, albeit an entertaining one, to the Florida Panthers, as radio commentator Brendan Batchelor joins the show. 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. Mackie Samiskevich, into the Vancouver Zone, cutting to the front of the goal, shoots. What a saved by Yuri Patera. That's good. Now Miko, a left point. He's up a shot.

Score. Left circle, into the slot. Side of the goal for Reinhardt and frontly score. That's bad. They're potent offense and you can't exchange chances, but they're, you know, we were right there and made a couple mistakes at the long time. A great opportunity squandered, absolutely. A crushing blow? Yes.

Good morning, Vancouver, 601 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. It is Halford and his Broughton. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning.

Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Score a debt freedom hat trick. 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 1 is brought to 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. I'm coming to you live from the Kintech studio, Kintech, footwear and orthotics working together with you and step. You know who we're not sponsored by? Who's that? Cloud flare.

Oh, I know. Cloud flare is causing problems in the world today. Well, not so much problems. Amazing things because Twitter is down. X is down. Chat GPT, down. Several transit infrastructures globally down. Letterbox.

Down. Unbelievable. You know, some have said and warned for you. years about the potentially ugly consequences of big tech companies underpinning the world's online plumbing. I'm not one of them, though. I don't even know what underpinning means. Go big tech.

All right. We got a lot to get into on the program today. Guestless today begins at 6.30. Greg Wischinski from ESPN is going to join the program. A couple of busy nights here on the NHL calendar, six games last night, including Vancouver's wild eight five loss in Florida. eight games on the slate tonight so plenty more to look forward to. We'll talk to Greg

at 6.30 about all that. 7 o'clock Brendan Bachelor, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks is going to join us. He, of course, was on the call last night for that wild 8-5 loss to the Panthers in Florida last night. Just a ton to unpack from that one. A couple of Canucks debuts as well, lost in the

13 goals that were scored. Canucks finished a road trip getting three of a possible six points, which is very 500 of them. We'll get into all that and more with Brandon Bachelor at 7 o'clock. 8 o'clock, Mike Kelly, NHL analyst from SportsLogic and NHL Network, will further to our conversation yesterday about the current state of the NHL. Are there more mediocre teams than ever?

Is there more parity than ever? Who are the truly great teams also want to get into what guys are playing their way on and off Olympic squads? We saw a few of them last night, maybe, in Florida. We'll get into all that and more with Mike Kelly from SportsLogic and NHL Network at 8 a.m. Not even going to work in reverse on the guest list. So many things to get into on the show today. So without further ado, Lattie, 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? I missed it?

You missed that? 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 BCCCSA. Aalias Patterson scored twice. Quinn Hughes had three assists, but the Vancouver Canucks still lost 8-5

to the Florida Panthers on Monday night in Florida. It was a fun game. At one point, A-Dock texted the group. This game rocks. It was an A-Dog kind of game. There was lots of goals, maybe some, I don't know, some Sellies. Was there a Mishy scored? Yeah, no Mishies, but some Sallies.

It was entertaining. It's pretty great. It's been fun to watch. hughes pile up the points and it's been encouraging to watch Elias Pedersen find his confidence offensively The Canucks scored

14 goals on this road trip with all the injuries they've suffered including missing Connor Garland last night a one one and one road trip against Carolina, Tampa and Florida you know what that's perfectly acceptable it's fine here's the butt

which you knew was coming this Connect's team is a bad defensive team. The amount of chances that the Canucks are surrendering on a regular basis, it's not compatible with winning. Like you can't play like that and expect to win on a regular basis. No, NHL team has given up more goals. I'm sure some of it is personnel with the team missing the likes of Bluger and Forbort, but you'd be foolish not to wonder about the effect of going from Rick Talkett Hockey to whatever they're playing now under Adam Foote. This is not me advocating a return to Talkett Hockey because we all knew that particular style

had its limitations. You know who else knew? Rick Tocke it because he tried to adjust the style last season didn't work. So I'm not pining for that sort of hockey. Believe me, I'm not. But surely there's a happy medium. to be found because the Panthers at times last night seemed to toy with the Canucks. They're like, do we need a goal? Yeah, you need a goal. Okay, let's go get a goal.

Wow, we got a goal. Five on five, power play for the Panthers, whatever. You know, they buried a lot of chances. And really, this isn't just about last night either. In fact, it's mostly not about last night. That was a scheduled loss, having played the night before in Tampa. and with Yuri Patera and Nat, it was like, you know what, we've got three or four points on this road trip. Let's just do our best against Florida. This is really about the underlying defensive numbers,

whether you're talking expected goals against, which you can find out a public website like Natural Statrick, or you listen to what Kevin Woodley has been saying on the station referencing the clear site analytics numbers that show the Canucks are dead last in, things like East West below the hash mark chances, which by the way, those are

really good chances. If you think about if you're close to the net and you're making an East West pass, the goalie's kind of like, hey, those are hard to stop, Lattie, east west below the hash mark, tough stops, right? Dislocate your hip and you get your leg over there. He sounds easy to me.

And I think what are we? A quarter of the way through the season, right? Remember a lot of people where we're like, I'll let you know what I think about the Connox after 20 games. 20 game mark. Well, what do you think? And some of those people will bail on that

that we're like, well, there've been so many injuries. Let's go. Let's kick the can down to the 40 game mark. I'm going to wait until American Thanksgiving. I'm still trying to answer the question because Adam Foote doesn't give us a lot. What are the connects trying to be? You know, like what's their identity?

I'm not advocating a return to talk at hockey, but we knew what they were trying to be. you know they even had like an advertising you know like they had their advertising built around the word structure right even their advertising was structured back in the day sure you know why it had structure all over it um if i'm being honest i and and and you know i'm trying to figure out like what is this what did this management group try to put together along with the coaching staff i think it all probably starts with having good goaltending which is why so much was riding on Demko staying healthy.

A healthy Demko means you can get the defense involved more in the rush because the risk of giving up an odd man rush the other way, well, you got Demko back there. A healthy Demko means you can blow the zone when you see a potential rush chance because if you happen to turn it over on that attempt, well, you know, you got Demko back there. A healthy Demko means your backup is Kevin Lankinen

and not Yuri Patera. Now, having said all this, I still don't think any of this excuses some of the defending that we've seen from veterans like Tyler Myers and Marcus Pedersen. But I do remember in the preseason when we were talking about the new style

under Adam Foote. And it seemed like the coaching staff was going to give the players a bit more freedom to use their instincts and just play hockey. And certainly that's what a lot of people wanted for a guy like Elias Pedersen, and I think that's maybe helped Elias Pedersen a little bit. Although, you know, a lot of his good stuff has been in the defensive zone. He might be their best defensemen so far, not named Quinn Hughes.

All that sounds great in theory, like more freedom. That's what people said about Bruce Boudreau. Remember Kevin Biaxa went in and talked to the group, and he said, you should appreciate playing for Bruce. You have unlimited freedom. He gives you the freedom to just go out and play. And then you remember that some players need less freedom, not more. Some players thrive in a structured environment where they're just saying, like, here's what you do.

Yep. This is what you do. I think Tyler Myers is one of those guys. You know, in a system like that, you don't have to cover for others as much because those players have those players have jobs to do, non-negotiables, right? They're going to be standing right there and you can trust that they're going to be there making a play.

Everyone just does their jobs. Foot has actually mentioned this. It was early in this season, he was saying that the Canucks have been trying to help out their teammates too much, which sounds noble helping out your teammates. You want to help out your teammates. But what it looks like in reality

is a lot of running around in your own end. Yeah, you look and feel and sound like you're chasing the entire game. Yes, and that's what the Canucks do. That's where good teams will absolutely pick you apart. You get running around, seams open up, passing lanes open up, and good teams will go boom, boom, boom, behind your goalie, whoever it is. That happened seven times last night, eight if you're counting the empty netter.

So let's hear more from the Canucks head coach right now. This is Adam Foote yesterday. And we'll start with the actual question off the top as well from one of the reporters. I think it might have been Dan Murphy, but I'm not 100% sure. Regardless, let's hear now from Adam Foote following an 8-5 loss to Florida when asked about Vancouver Canucks team defense. Do you think it was just a couple of eight-downs, or what do you think of defensively of the team effort tonight?

We try. I mean, we tried. There was a couple, you know, we weren't under a stick at one, and the tip went in, and then, you know, we went out wide on the rush for a 10 seconds off the period, which is not what we usually do. But, you know, back-to-back, maybe there's some fatigue that's in as well. But, you know, I thought Pedersen and Huggie and, you know,

Peronic and came that, like, our older veteran players were going, they were humming. You know, a couple of mistakes at the wrong time with a team like that, their experience, they're going to make you pay. And, you know, but we have to find a way to take some of the good stuff that happened out of that, too. So Foote's been leaning on the couple of mistakes

or small mistakes or just a couple tweaks, just a couple errors. You've done it a lot over the last few games. Just a couple here and there. Just a couple in an 8-5 loss where you got out shot by nearly 30. But I think when you talk about trying to figure out what the Canucks are trying to be, we're trying to figure out what the Canucks are trying to be. I do think that you hit the nail in the head and you said a lot of it was predicated on

having really good goal tending. And if you remember going into this season, there was a lot of talk, perhaps more than any other facet of the team about what the dynamic deal, of Thatcher Dempco and Kevin Lankin was going to bring to this team. It was going to bring stability. It was going to bring solid goaltending on a nightly basis

because they had confidence in both guys. But it was understood that Demko was the 1A and Lankan was the 1B. Dempco might not play as many games as he had in the past. But when he played, he was potentially,

and here's where I think the whole thing came together, he was maybe going to cover up some of those mistakes that Adam Foot talks about. You know those couple of mistakes that you make every game? If you've got an all-world goalie, sometimes he cleans them up.

And what we've seen is, one, Demko hasn't been healthy enough to play with regularity. Two, Lankin and hasn't been Demko. And then three, in the first quarter of the season, I don't think anyone anticipated that Yuri Patero was going to make a start, except for Greg who's waving his hand. No team in the NHL has conceded more goals than the Vancouver Canucks after last night. Yep. That's not good.

That wasn't in the plans. 23 power play goals conceded in 20. games, which is the worst mark in the National Hockey League as well. And there's a lot of... The P.K. is atrocious. Is by far the biggest problem.

And poor David Kompf was thrown in there last night, and he didn't help defensively. He was on the ice for four rules. Yeah, three at five on five. Yeah. So that's a tough night for him. But I mean, look, like he just... I mean, that's

like the second time this season the Canucks have just like thrown a new guy in there, right? With no, no practice. There was two guys made their... Lucas Reichel, like, was, you know, like, still in his Blackhawks gear when he was playing pretty much. Two Canucks made their Canucks debuts last night. It was Petera and Comph. Yeah.

Like, that's a big deal, right? They have not played with the team this year. They haven't got to see, like, do we often give up this many goals? And one of the guys, like, yes, we do. This is what we do. But they don't keep the puck out of the net with any sort of regularity. Now, that's said... He comes in, he's like, so what do we do on the PK? I was like, we were hoping you would have some ideas

because we don't know. It's like, what the hell is a PKK? That's what you hear we're for. Penalty kill. Oh, that thing. I do want to say this, though. Despite all of this, and in our ongoing efforts, some would say over the top to try and find some positivity

amidst the negativity, I went out of my way to find this clip on the Panthers website yesterday. This is a second consecutive game where the opposing coach, unprompted, has praised the Vancouver Canucks, for their resiliency and never say die attitude. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if Cooper and Maurice decided that they wanted to throw, you know, some flowers towards Adam Foot and the coaching staff,

but this is Paul Maurice after the game. Not asked about the Vancouver Canucks, by the way, going out of his way to talk about how the Vancouver Canucks are such a good comeback team and some praise for Quinn Hughes as well. Here is the Florida head coach, Paul Maurice, after an 8-5 win over the Vancouver Canucks last night. This is a really good comeback team and they've had an awful lot of success. They've got some skill and they're dangerous off the rush,

but they're really dangerous, the puck up top because of Hughes is so dynamic up there and his ability to find a stick and find a hole. They're just not out of games, and they've proved that on this road trip. Hughes has 10 points in his last three games. Pedersen has four straight two-point games. Yeah.

They've... That's good. That is good. And to add another good to the pile, they're a very resilient team. At 5-2 last night, at the end of a road trip where they got out played for the majority of it

and they had their fourth string goalie net let's not forget that if everyone is healthy Tolapila would have been in there instead of Yuri Patera. So with your fourth stringer and net down 5-2 at the end of a road trip I would have been like okay just pack her in boys make sure nobody gets hurt everyone get a nice twirl

get some stretching at the end have a beer and let's get on the plane. They fought back and they got it to 5-5. They do this with pretty decent regularity and I don't love that you have to constantly come back because it means you're conceding a lot of goals. But the team is a hundred percent

more invested in games that look like they're going to go out the window than they were last year. Last year there was way too many times that the score would go two, three goal deficit, and it would be L. Foldo. And that would be the end of the night, and it would be like, this is a brutal night at the rink. Halford is still mad about that New Jersey game. That was the one.

We were there for it was at 6-0. They scored two goals while I was in the elevator. It went from 4-0-0-0-0 while I was in the elevator. I'm like, he's got, aren't even trying it. It's Quinn Hughes' a special night. It's his special night against his brothers. And look what happened now. Anyway, I digress.

Yeah, Quinn Hughes, I mean, he's, he's, I think he was pretty far down in the list of NHL defensemen in scoring, and then they just add 10 points in the last three games. I think that was like second. Yeah, I think he's all the way up to second among defensemen in the NBA. I do want to talk about Pedersen because, as Halford mentioned, four straight two-point games. I think he's now up to 19 points in 21 games, so almost a point-of-game player.

His first goal last night came off a great pass from a Vander Cain on a 2-1. Quinn Hughes was part of that. 4A as well. Pretty easy finish for Pedersen there, and he looked confident doing it. I really liked his second goal because it started with the puck on his stick. In his own end, he protected it in his own net, in own end. He got bodied a little bit, but protected it, made a nice move to start the breakout and went off on a rush with,

I think it was Kiefer Sherwood and Tom Vlander. And Sherwood ended up getting Pedersen, the puck in the slot. Yeah, nice little pass. Really nice pass and an even nicer finish, beautiful backhand roof job pass Bobroski last night. I think Broborski stopped like 10 shots last night. He did. And he's like, go to the win.

That's what winters do. So you mentioned that the Kinecks scored 14 goals over the course of the three games on this trip. Do you know how many shots they had over the three? 50. They shot 28% over three games. Is that good? Is that sustainable? Are we supposed to be happy about this?

Maybe we got a thing here. I don't know. Maybe it's our thing is that we shoot close to 30%. Other teams waste their shots like Carolina. They waste a lot of shots. The post game show said that the Canucks actually had a ton of shot attempts last night. And it just, they missed the net with like a really high,

high degree of difficulty. It's hard to miss the net as much as they did. But they finished the final shot total was 41.15. And that is not great. You know what bothered me the most? Was that they gave up 41 shots on a night where Patera was in net. You would have thought that they would have bent over backwards and moved heaven and earth to try not to hang this guy out to dry.

Now, I know a brief word on him. he made some great saves. You played one of the great saves in the intro. That might be save of the year, the one that he had in the first period. There was also some times where you're like, that looks like a guy who hasn't played in the NHL in three years and is maybe a little slow to react to the speed of the National League. Fair enough.

You cannot hang that on them at all. And it is kind of brutal that the guys in front of them didn't do a better job of clearing the front of the net, getting in front of more pucks, doing whatever it took to try and protect a guy. that hadn't played in like three years. Like, you know what's coming. And I know that they fought tooth and nail to get back in the game and they made it 5-5

and they deserve a lot of credit for that. But you mentioned two guys in particular with Myers and Pedersen. Like those are veteran guys that even if they're having problems in the system, you still rely on them for a lot of different things. It wasn't just them. I mean, Vielander on the sixth goal,

the winning goal, that was what Foote was talking about. He didn't get under a stick. And he just let the guy tip it home. No, I know, but like Pederson was taking bad penalties. It wasn't good. And it's frustrating on a night where you look back on it and you're like, did you catch Florida on a sleepy night where maybe you could have stole something?

Yeah. Did you also hang your goalie out to dry? I'd say yes. And that's a frustrating thing. Now in the same breath, they did some things last night that were admirable. I think that might end up being the identity of this team is that they do enough things to make you not hate them,

but they're not going to be, good enough to go anywhere of significance. They're just going to kind of be hanging around this 500 mark all year long. Yeah. You know? But not to the point where you're like dreading watching the games because I'm going to be honest. It was a fun game. The road trip was entertaining. They went to overtime

in Carolina. They scored six unanswered against Tampa Bay and there's a 13 goal game on a Monday night in Florida. You'll sign up for it. With some big hits and like it wasn't, yeah, it was horrible officiating. Well, yeah, that's part of the NHL experience. Mark in White Rock text in

to the Dunbar Lumber text line he says, fans don't know what this team is. Management doesn't know what this team is. The players don't know what their identity is. Sometimes we wear black and red sweaters, sometimes blue and green. Who knows? Our pets' heads are falling off. Yeah, it is

the, it was always going to be interesting to see which style the Canucks played this season because I think they're hanging their hat on a style change. And if you go back to the off-season, there were the meetings with Adam Foote and Adam Foote talking to all his players to the point where Quinn Hughes was like, hey, man, stop calling me, I'm on vacation. And I think the obvious thing to conclude from that is that the players were going to have some input on how they were going to play. And it was going to be different than it was under Rick Tocket.

And we wondered, okay, well, you know, we'd seen enough of talk at hockey. though it did have some semblance of success. We knew that, you know, it wasn't a long-term... Like, you weren't going to win a cup, I don't think, playing Rick Talk at hockey. And the players, maybe had stopped enjoying playing Rick Talk at hockey. But, like, that looked like Bruce Boudreau hockey last night. Like, why does the pendulum have to swing so aggressively?

Like, the thing is, like... I don't think they're designed to be... What are they designed, getting up this many goals? I think they're a counterattack team, though. A little bit. But I also think that entire premise was predicated on having better goal tending or having more regular. Like, I don't think it's a good, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a good strategy or a good blueprint. They weren't so badly outshot under Rick Tocket because they were, they just weren't allowing as many shots.

Like, what were the shot totals from the road trip? It was like they were badly outshot in Carolina and badly outshot in Florida. Yeah, I think the, I think it was a lot of it was predicated on Demko's going to be here and he's going to be healthy and he's going to be that Petcher Demko. Vesna Calibir, Thatcher Demko. So they could take a few more chances?

And then when we need to rest him, which will be more than previous years, we've got Kevin Lankin and we have faith that on those nights if we pick and choose selectively, we can get it. And now, I mean, what can you say? It's Patera and Lankinen. And, I mean, there was some thought that Lankinan was going to go three and four nights.

By the way, I think that we've accurately hit the nail on the head in our analysis of the team because the text message is coming into the Dunbar Lumber text message in Baskett are polar opposites. Back to back. Like, we got one from Sam and Lake Couchin, my favorite listener. He said, negative, negative, negative, that's all you guys are. That was immediately followed by another text that said, enough and yawn with all the positivity. You see?

When you trade back and forth and say, I'm going to say something good about the team, then I'm going to say something bad, throws the listeners into a tailspin. They don't know what to make of it. But that's the team. It's very confusing team. That's on me, by the way.

I normally mute salmon lake couch and it's part of my morning routine. I just go mute for 24 hours. Yeah, now everyone that texted... Oh, by the way, we can also respond to text now, which is good. Cloudflare wiped that out earlier in the show. Okay.

I wrote back and I said, Cloudflare. I said, thank you, Sam, for listening and writing as always. You are appreciated. That's a lie, Sam. If you did not text in, my day would not be any different than it was if you did text in. Okay. I have to be better.

Yeah. We try. I mean, we tried. You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. It's his friend and Bachelor, Bachelor, Bachelor, Bachelor.

Life from Rogers Arena, Colin Canucks Games. It is Brendan Bachelor, Bachelor, Bachelor. 7.02 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Halford Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal can get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. them online at sands dash trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. Brendan Batchelor,

Play-by-Play Voice of the Vancouver Canucks is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. Hour two is brought to by Jason Homonock at Jason.orgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you.

Visit them online at jason. Dot mortgage. We are coming to live from the Kintech studio, Kintech footwear and orthotics, working together with you in step. To the phone lines we go, Brendan Batchler, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks,

joins us now on the Halford and Breff Show on SportsNet 650. Good morning, Batch. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you guys? Good. You managed to catch your breath from last night. 13 goals traded between the two teams. So a lot going on in that game, not to mention the Canucks debuts for Yuri Patera and David Komp. A lot to unpack, I imagine, in the aftermath as well, Batch. Yeah, a pretty eventful game, to say the least, with the number of goals and, you know, the lead change that we saw as well.

So, you know, not a game for the coaches, I don't think, but certainly an entertaining one for the fans. And unfortunately that the Canucks couldn't, you know, build on getting the lead early because that's something we talked about going into the game ran deep at eye on the broadcast, that Florida is really good when they start well. But if you could get a good start, let Patera settle into the game, then, you know, that would be the best way for you to have success. Unfortunately, it didn't play out that way. but ultimately with the injuries they have right now to come home with three of a possible six points from the road trip I think is still something to be proud of and we'll see how they respond on home ice

against the stars later this week and whether they get any bodies back into the lineup too. While we're talking about things that are encouraging, Quinn Hughes, 10 points in his last three games, that seems good. Elias Pedersen, eight points in his last four. games. I think we all know that Quinn Hughes is capable of doing incredible things. So let's focus on Pedersen. What are you seeing out of Pedersen that's leading him to getting these points?

Well, there's a few things. I think he's, you know, more confident and decisive with some of his decision making. It's not quite to the level of, you know, peak Elias Pedersen that we've seen in the past. But, you know, some of those things are helping them out a lot. especially on the power play right now, which has heated up here quite a bit. And that's encouraging because, you know, it's funny how Kinnock's seasons go, because we're past the quarter pole now. And it feels like yesterday that we were talking about, oh, it's going to be hard for this team to generate offense.

And, you know, they're going to need to lean on their strengths of defense and goaltending. And in the last few games, it's been, well, they're scoring with relative ease. It's just they can't keep the puck out of their own net or kill a penalty right now. but you know i think i think peterson as i said more decisive uh has helped a lot on the power play the power play trending in the right direction has helped him and i think quin hughes trending in the right direction has helped him too but um you know i talked to scott young about this on the pregame show yesterday and he said you know they they like some of the decisions he's making they still want him to shoot the puck more um but for him to score a couple of goals yesterday has

to be good for his confidence and hopefully it means um as his confidence grows, that decisiveness and that willingness to shoot the puck and take the chances that are there for him grows and he can continue to produce at the level he has over the last few games because especially when you look at everyone else that's out of the lineup, we've talked a lot here over the last few weeks about like, you know, it's great to have goals from Kiefer Sherwood and Drew O'Connor and all these guys producing down the lineup, but ultimately, you know, this team is going to go as far as their top players take them. So to have Pedersen heating up again, to have Hughes heating up, is really interesting.

encouraging for a group that, you know, as much as they hope to get healthier here in the short term, I don't know how much cavalry is coming for this group. And so they're going to need to continue to rely on those guys to be their best players night in and night out. So I noted this on social media last night. I think Pedersen was credited with four total shots on the road trip. Three of them went in. And the fourth one, I believe that was the one where Jake DeBras scored on the rebound on the power play. So of the four shots that got through to the goalie, all of them were goals for the Vancouver Canucks.

So yeah, keep shooting the puck, Elias Pedersen. Batch defensively, this team is, I mean, it's not a good defensive team. I know there's been injuries, but there's also been a system change. And I think we all wondered what it would look like under, Adam Foote, and frankly, it doesn't look good. The P.K. has been a problem. Again, personnel issues there for sure. But I think, you know, even with that known, the defensive play is not sustainable. Agree or disagree?

Yeah, I think so. Although, you know, defensive play is an interesting conversation to have because you automatically think, like, oh, it's on the defenseman. And to a certain extent that is true with this team, but at the same time, you have to defend as a five-man unit. And with the injury crisis up front, there are so many times that I can think of lately where they're hemmed in their own zone, they have a chance to get a clear, whether it's a winger on the boards or whatever it might be, and they don't get that clear, and they get hemmed in for an extended stretch.

And, you know, either they take a penalty or they give up a great A chance or they ultimately give up a goal. And, you know, I would be really interested to see how things look defensively for this team if they were healthy, if they had more, you know, NHL regulars in their lineup, because I think, you know, it might be a different picture. And, you know, not to sit here and say that, like, Derek Forward and Teddy Bluger are going to come back and it's going to make a world of difference for your overall team defensive game. I don't think that is necessarily true. But it would make some. sort of difference. I think it's fair to say.

For a team right now that, you know, is bleeding goals on the penalty kill and bleeding goals in its own zone, any positive difference, I think, right now would make quite a big difference in terms of some of the results they're trying to get and, you know, trying to keep their head above water. But, yeah, it hasn't been great defensively. They give up a lot of goals. Obviously, a lot of them are on the penalty kill. And so that's the most concerning part. And, you know, I felt bad for David Camp because he comes into the game yesterday and he was on the ice for five goals against but you know when i uh i interviewed scott young for the pregame show about two hours before the game and asked him about david camp and he goes

oh yeah i just finished going over our systems with him a minute ago so you know this is a guy that just arrived the day before hasn't played an n hl game yet this season uh has only been in four a hl games this season and gets thrown into the fire and expected to help a penalty kill unit that's the worst in the league right away. And obviously night one didn't go very well for him. But, you know, if he can continue to grow his game and understand the systems and get to playing at the level that he has in the past, then I think he could help in some of those areas and we'll see how things go.

But, you know, yeah, it's not great for them defensively right now. They need to find a way. And, you know, I think another thing we have to talk about, too, is, yeah, they, you know, they gave up a lot of goals yesterday. Patera was in net. They give up a lot of shots and a lot of chances. Their goaltending covers up for a lot of this. Like Thatcher Demko was, I believe, right at the top in terms of goals saved above

expected in the NHL. He'd save them something in the neighborhood of 10 or 11 goals expected before he went out with injury. We know Kevin Lankin and has been holding them in there too. And I don't think you should ever apologize for good goaltending. But at the same time, if you look about long-term sustainability, they need to create a better environment for their goaltenders, regardless of who's in the crease, and unfortunately, it was Yuri Patera last night.

Yeah, I mean, we mentioned it in the intro, I did anyway. It's like, I did feel bad for Patera because if you look at the circumstances, like surrendering 41 shots, you would have thought that stylistically or strategically or blueprint, whatever, there would have been some adjustments made to try and insulate a guy who hasn't played a game in three years in the National Hockey League. And I thought actually You give up seven goals in a game You don't know of a good night

I think that's fair to say right as a goal You're not happy about it But aside from maybe a couple Where he looked a little slow Or maybe not up the speed of the NHL It was hardly egregious goaltending It's just the team sort of let him down And really didn't do a good enough job

Of like clearing the front of the net That last power play goal by Seth Jones They were just like passing it around at Will And he finally gets one right in the slot It's like he's going to score that It's one thing to do it when Lankin and Demco, Annette, I think it's another thing to do it when Yuri Patera is making his team debut. Well, yeah, and to the stylistic point, you know, you could especially lean into being more

conservative when you built a 2-0 lead in the first period. Good point. Good point. You know, I could understand, you know, wanting to maybe jump out and get the first goal and provide Patera some insulation. Well, they did that. But then ultimately, you know, I think discipline was a big issue yesterday with the number of power plays they gave the Panthers.

and, you know, unfortunately, with the way the penalty kill is going right now, you have very little, if no, margin for error in taking penalties. So that didn't help them in terms of allowing the Panthers to score a couple of times on the power play and get back in the game. But, yeah, you know, that would be my mindset too. And, you know, I understand you don't want to, like, sit back and protect a lead all the time because that's not a sustainable way to win. But in the last game of a road trip, the last game of a three and four against the defending Stanley Cup,

champions, regardless of how banged up they are, and with a guy that hasn't played an NHL game in more than 600 days in your crease, I think that maybe is a time where you can say, okay, we're going to be more conservative here, we're going to chip and chase, we're going to have guys behind the puck and try to, you know, play that defensive style of game. Ultimately, things didn't work out that way for them. And, you know, again, you know, we talk about their resilience all the time. I think they show great resilience to tie it up again early in the third period. but ultimately those defensive issues reared their head again

and until they clean things up in their own zone, both at even strength and on the penalty kill, it's going to be really hard for them to win games without scoring four or five goals every night. And although they've been doing that lately, on this road trip in particular, their shooting percentage was

incredibly high, so I don't know if that's something that's sustainable going forward. The one thing that is encouraging on that side of the pocket is the power play. And if it can keep rolling and filling the net, like it has been lately, then that's going to give them a chance on most nights. Interesting schedule continues for the Connects. Today is a travel day as they come home from Florida.

And then tomorrow, Wednesday, I imagine they're going to practice. Thursday they host Dallas. And then they get a couple more days off. Friday and Saturday are off. They host Calgary on Sunday before they head down for a trip to California, which starts in Anaheim next Wednesday. So they should get some practice days. I'm looking at their schedule,

and can you imagine that they'd have three practices over the next week? Yeah, at least, maybe four, depending on how much they feel like they need to practice, because I expect they'll practice tomorrow, then they play the stars Thursday. There's a possibility they would practice both Friday and Saturday, too. I guess we'll see if they give them a day off in there or not. Then they play Sunday,

and then I think you'd either take Monday off and then practice Tuesday before flying or practice Monday and then just fly on Tuesday or potentially if they really feel like they need practice time they could practice both Monday and Tuesday too and you know I know this group will need some rest here after all the miles they're traveling so I don't know if I'd say every off day in the next week is going to be a practice day

but it wouldn't surprise me if they're aggressive in trying to get some of that practice time because you know to what we've spoken about, that's where you can clean up some of the details that I think are costing them in their own zone right now in terms of positioning, in terms of where your stick needs to be to close off a certain lane and things like that, where, you know, this is a team over the last few years, I think that we can say when they don't get that practice time, we see some of those details slip. So, you know, for a team that's barely practiced this year, to be perfectly honest, with the way the schedule is gone, like I think I can count on one hand the number of practices

they've had since the, you know, the start of the season, certainly the number of practices they've had at home with all the travel they've been doing. You know, this is a rare moment to come up for error in the schedule and get to work on some of those things. And yeah, they'll need their rest and I'm sure that they'll prioritize that. But, you know, to your point, I would expect at least three practices, if not more within the last next week.

And ultimately we'll see if that can benefit them in terms of their performance on the ice. And then also, if the schedule lightning here gives them a greater opportunity to get some guys back sooner if they can get guys that need to test some things into practices, whether it be in non-contact jerseys or as full contact participants to try and ramp them up towards a return to the lineup. Batch, when Patrick Galveen did his availability, did he mention anything about forboard? I know we got injury updates on a bunch of guys, but I'm not sure we got one on him. No, we didn't get one on forbert.

think we got one on Neal's Hoaglander either, although the Hoaglander return was initially projected to be eight to ten weeks. So we're looking like late November, early December at the earliest for that, because I believe he had surgery right at the end of September, like September 29th or something like that. So, you know, it would be interesting to know if Hoaglander is skating yet in his recovery, because that would give you an idea of, you know, whether it'll be late November, early December, or more like mid to late December, maybe after the Christmas break for his return. Yeah, Forbert's a strange one.

We haven't heard a whole lot about it. I don't think anybody's given a firm timeline on his return, which, you know, is not great for a guy that, unfortunately, has missed a lot of time since he became a Knoch through a variety of reasons, whether it be injury or personal circumstances. His father passed away midway through last season, and he had to miss some time. But, yeah, man, they could use him right now on the penalty. kill on the third pairing. They do really miss him, yeah. And so, you know, hopefully there's some good news there. I'm sure, you know, as the team gets home here, Adam Foote will answer

some of those questions or be asked them at the very least when they return to practice tomorrow or within the next few days. And we'll see. But, you know, we've heard about he'll all back skating. We've heard about Bluger, you know, still probably week to week, which makes me wonder if there was a set back there because he was practicing with the team before the road trip and then, you know, didn't go on the trip with them and ultimately didn't play over the last three games. But things have been quiet around Ford, and I can't imagine that's a good thing. Batch, this was great, buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do it, as always. We appreciate it.

Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again next week. Sounds good. Thanks, boys. Thank you. That's Brendan Batchelor, Play-by-Play voice of the Vancouver Canucks here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 650. Some of the other scores from last night around the National Hockey League that we might have missed. I think we mentioned this one, but another tough night in what has been a season of tough nights for the Edmonton Oilers

defeated 5-1 by the Buffalo Sabers in Buffalo on Monday night and a game where when you see the five goals hung on the board you think it might have been a goaltending issue but some debate on that one. Mark Spector writing for Sportsnet.com. You said you can't hang this one on the goalies.

Other people on social media had other things to say but spec was especially critical of another night where guys not named McDavid and Dry Cytle failed to show up and put something on the board. And Zach Hyman is back, right? Is Newchert? I don't know.

Okay. But I'm, like, you know, yeah, you can rely on Drycidal and McDavid. I don't know Roslovick has scored a few. You know, he scored last night on, what do you know, a nice pass from Leon Drycidal. But look, I'm at daily faceoff right now. And this is the way they've got the lines configured. So they don't have nudge here, which is why I wonder if you were hurt. He is.

Him and Kisbury Kappaninan will be out until December. Okay, not worried about Kappaninan, but Nuge would be a big loss. The top line, McDavid Drysidl and Hyman, right? Here's the second line, Roselvic, between Podkoulson and Matt Savoy. The third line is Adam Henrique, Trent Frederick, who has not been good, and Andrew Mangiopani. the fourth line, which barely played last night in Buffalo, Noah Philp? Yep, he's a guy.

Curtis Lazar. He's a guy. And Matthias Janmark. They don't have enough forwards. Their depth is terrible. And I don't know what they're going to do about it because they've already traded away a bunch of futures. It is a very difficult trademark.

to trade market to get anything. I mean, just ask the Vancouver Canucks. And, you know, when we're not even mentioning the, the goaltending issue, which I don't know if they're going to be able to solve. I think they're probably just going to have to roll with, you know, Skinner and Pickard. And who's the other guy that they picked up? Lattie, who was the goalie? Connor Ingram.

Connor Ingram. How's he? He's in Bakersfield. Last I checked, the numbers were not great. Baker? Okay. So the numbers weren't great for him. So, like, I, I'm looking at this team and, like, I'm happy that they're not doing well, but, you know, I think this is the reason, and everyone's saying, like, this is the reason why McDavid wouldn't commit long term, because in getting to these back-to-back Stanley Cup finals, they spent a lot of their capital and futures in doing that.

And that's what happens, right? And some of, you know, one of the things I kind of wanted to throw out there is like, you know, with all this rebuild talk and you have to remember that hockey players are perishable items, right? They get older. They get miles on on the body. You really, you know, to bring it back to to botch, like you need an army. Like you need a large core of players that are all in the right age range and then you supplement it with veterans here and there and young players here and there.

But like the one thing that the Canucks I don't think have done very well at all is like marshal their resources so that they're all coming at the same time. Right? Yep. They've had trickles of young players here and there, but not like a swarm of quality young players. Well, and that's how it's going to continue, friend, because whilst you were on vacation,

gallivanting down in Cabo, Jamie Dodd narrated almost the entirety of the Jim Rutherford interview with Ian McIntyre from last Friday. I know. And it was very much the synopsis of it, it was they still want to exist in both worlds where they continue to add good young players with the fewest amount of draft picks available to them because they're not trading for picks because they're not going to rebuild and they're going to try and continue to go forward

with this core of really good players that they've got they also aren't going to trade any of their young players because they really like them so again it's this whole stuck in two worlds kind of thing and there was a lot of frustration on Friday when we were reading a lot of the that Rutherford gave to iMac's questions and in part because there was a groundhog day effect it's like here we go again and i know you pointed out on twitter some of the similarities between what benning was saying back in 2014 to what the current regime is saying 11 years later and how it's this endless cycle but to the the point that kicked this all off with the oilers you're seeing it right now what happens when you don't have the aforementioned army there because what noblock is done and what every coach is done when the spoilers face these issues is load up McDavid and Drysidal. So last night, for example, McDavid and Drysel both played over 23 minutes

because no one else was doing anything. That fourth line that you mentioned of Philp and Yanmark and Lazzar none of them played over 10 minutes. They were all sub 10 minutes. So you can do that. But the residual effect is you have to rely on McDavid and Drysadle

who were also a year older and have more miles on the odometer. earlier and earlier every year to get you out of this hole. So when it comes time to the playoffs, they've got more wear on the tires and more. Like it's not easy to shoulder the load in the postseason, never mind all of the regular season. This is when the Savoys and the Howard's

and the Fredericks are supposed to do some of the heavy lifting. And it's not happening. And it's a real. Savoy and Howard just aren't ready. But they were supposed to be. And they're not. Yeah. Right?

And that's what happens when you're only banking on one or two young guys. to fill the void. If you had other options... The margin for error is nil. Right. You've got none. Like, if these guys don't work out, what's the option? And you never want to be in that situation, right?

If this one thing doesn't work out, what happens? And too often the Canucks have been in that situation as well. Yeah, the Oilers and Canucks aren't comparable, though, because the Oilers have been back to back. They've been so close, right? The situations aren't comparable. It's understandable for an Oilers team to be like, oh, we just, like, we spend a lot of our futures.

Like, now we're in a tough, spot some of our core players are getting a little bit older the situations are that's what happened the situations aren't meant to be comparable but the um core problem can go to a lot of different NHL teams at a lot of different stages of their evolution and one of them is when you rely on everything going right or you rely on one or two things it's a fool's errand because oftentimes things go wrong injuries happen and if you look at it this year like two-thirds of the NHL is injured right And so it becomes this thing where it's like, are you going to complain about your injuries

or are you going to say, we're better equipped to deal with this than other NHL franchises? Because, hey, Florida last night had a ton of talented guys out of the lineup and lost players during that game. Right? And they're built different.

They're built to withstand those sorts of things. You saw Tampa Bay the other night right now. They're not built to deal with it, right? They're going through some really hard time. Something's off in Tampa. Well, they got a lot of injuries. I know, but something's, something's off. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.