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

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss the reports that the Canucks are making their veteran players available for trade, plus the boys go to the text message inbox and answer listener questions about the possibility of a rebuild for the 'Nucks.  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. Another blitz coming, young looking over the middle, throws, and it's picked off my brown. No, not brown, brown, brown. He's some brown an awful lot. Ingram puts it on the death. Flies and to end and slam by the notorious B-God-free.

It could be in Russia in a basement, having cigarettes, cashews. Good morning, Vancouver, 6 o'clock on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning.

Oh, good morning to you. Good morning. Lattie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford in breath of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal could get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. Visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com. We are an hour one of the program.

Hour 1 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 the 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. we are coming to you live from the kintech studio now's the time to maximize the benefits of custom orthotics before the year runs out visit kintech dot net ah new read day i think what they've done there is now's the time to maximize the benefits yeah benefits if you've got benefits and if they cover orthotics because then it says before the year runs out

Hey, man. Which reminds me, I've got to get three massages. That's right. Eight pairs of orthotics. Hey, man. It's November 25th. We're just a month away from Christmas now. This year, give her Kintech footwear and orthotics.

Kintech, you can't eat that. We got a lot to get to on the program today. It's a good bit, hey dog. It's a good bit. It's going to get you fired, but it's funny. That's okay. We got a lot to get into on the program today. Three guests.

First guess is at six. this morning. Greg Wischinski's going to join the program. Our ESPN NHL Insider, lots to get into with Wish after a busy Monday night around the league. Seven games last night, just won tonight. Edmonton and Dallas. Greg's going to join us at 6.30 for all that. 7.30. Sasha Clestion is going to join the program. He is a studio analyst for MLS season pass

on Apple TV. The MLS Western Conference finalist set, Jason. Your Vancouver Whitecaps will head to San Diego this Saturday, November 29th, after San Diego beat Minnesota last night. Kickoff 615 on Saturday from Snapdragon Stadium. We'll break all this down with Sasha at 7.30. 8.10 this morning

Landon Ferraro is going to join the program. Sportsnet Canucks analyst if you missed it and it's okay if you did because the news broke late overnight and it leaked into this morning. Major news on the Vancouver Canucks front as it's being reported that in an effort to get younger,

that Canucks are willing to listen to offers on veteran players. That news was first broken by Elliot Freedman, since followed up by Thomas Drance. We got a lot to get into on that front. Landon will join us at 8-10 to talk about all that. Real quick, Guns and Roses tickets this morning, 8 a.m., caller number 5, 604, 2800-650. I'll remind you again at some point during the show. At 7.30 this morning, another call for another contest, $250 gift card to Golf Town.

Again, caller number 5 at 7.30, the number, as always here, 604, 28. 0-0-0-650. That number again, 604-280-0-6-50. Welcome to the retirement community. Please control the volume of your voice. Because they're old now. Guns and or roses. Okay, we got a lot more to get to on the program. That's what's happening on the program today. Greg, 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? Miss that? 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 BCCSA.ca.ca. If you missed it last night, at approximately 944 Pacific Standard Time, Elliot Friedman dropped a frege bomb on the market,

wherein he announced courtesysportsnet.com that, according to several of his sources, The Vancouver Canucks have let it know league-wide that in an effort to get younger, they are willing to listen to trade offers on veteran players. Yeah, Drance is reporting similar in the athletic. He just dropped an article and... A trance ball. And he writes that it seems that the Canucks management's top priority now

is gearing up to gauge the market for its older players with an apparent focus on considering players, player trades in which NHL talent will flow outward in pursuit of younger players and perhaps even draft picks. I love that part. And perhaps even draft picks. So do you want to address the obvious right off the hop? A lot of people will say veteran players.

Does that mean Quinn Hughes, according to Fridge and Rance? Right now, no. Not at this time. And that goes for Philip Hironick as well, I might add, according to Friege at the very least. Yeah, and all this was very interesting because there have been rumblings about guys like Garland, Patrick Johnston, threw that out there. But nobody knows for sure what the Canucks are targeting. You know, Fridge reports it's to get younger, and so does Drance. But Dollywall said yesterday they were trying to find a second line center. And, okay, we're going to

play a clip from Donnie and Dolly and Rick is doing his usual thing where he gets confused about life. But amidst all that reporting or all that confusion, there is some reporting about what Jim Rutherford was trying to do. Maybe with a guy like Connor Garland, I'm not saying this is the same for someone like Vander Cain or even Kiefer Sherwood. This is Dolly. you know what Connor Garland's name is out there Patrick Johnson Donnie the province he said over the weekend that Connor Garland's name out there

I did some digging into this and someone told me like this is like Jimmy Rutherford Don playing whackamole I've never played whackamore you said you have How is that possible? I had to Google Wackable Was it at the P&E? Ryan used to be able to play it but apparently not anymore Okay anyways forget about Wackamol

where are the Canucks loaded, Don, on the right side? Basser, Garland, Sherwood. You got a young kid, Le Caramackie. The brusks is a play. La Caramacki. Their strength is on the right side. They don't want to trade a... You have a strength?

They don't have... Well, apparently it's on the right side. They don't want to trade a first or Le Caramackie or Coots or... Who's the other... Willander? Could Garland get you... So the Connox's thinking, could Garland get you that second line center? Oh, my gosh.

You never know. Don! It's whack-a-mole. It's think about everything outside the box. You put Sherwood and Garland out there and see if you can get a center. They just extended Garland. His no move does not kick until next year. So as usual, when reports like this come out,

nobody's exactly sure what's going on. This might have been some sort of memo that the Canucks sent out to the NHL because it all kind of, you know, like there was, I don't think that this was supposed to be kept secret or anything. And there's another consideration, right? We have seen NHL general managers let it be known that players are available. And while it may be true that those players are available, it also serves as a, hey, let's go guys.

Chris Jury did it last season with the New York Rangers, specifically with Chris Kreider. Right. And Kreider was event. eventually traded though, right? That's correct. It took a while, but it got done. And so, and was trouba part of that, or he already done that?

He'd already been gone. Okay. Now, let's name the players that could be moved. Garland and Sherwood are the names we've already heard. Garland does have a contract extension, but as Dolly Wall, reference there, along with being confused by Wackamol and life in general, Garland's no move clause does not kick in until this off-season when his actual contract extension kicks in.

Sherwood is a pending UFA. I guess they could throw Evander Cain's name out there too. He's a pending UFA. I think he does have some trade protection, but I don't even know if he's movable at this point. Bluger as well, since he's a pending UFA, although he's not healthy right now. You know, DeBrusk, he has a full no-move clause.

So does Besser, so does Petey. so do veteran D-Men like Tyler Myers and Marcus Pedersen. That doesn't mean they can't be traded, but it does complicate things and potentially affect any return in a negative way. Big picture. Big picture. What does it mean that the Canucks are willing to listen on veteran players? Dranx reports that the Canucks are not waving the white towel on the season.

My God, we're having a fire sale. See, I don't know if we've gotten to that point yet. Are they just trying to fix the center issues like Dolly Wall suggests? Is it the prelude to a rebuild? Or maybe they're trying to get younger and show Hughes a brighter future down the line? I don't know. I'm not sure what the plan is. Trading veterans for picks and prospects kind of sound like.

Sounds like a rebuild to me. Even if they're not calling it as such, I think that's kind of what a rebuild is. Not really. You're trying to get veterans from picks and prospects? You're trying to have a brighter. Maybe you're trying to show. That's not a rebuild.

You can't call that a rebuild. The start of a rebuild. Maybe. But I think everyone, including myself and you clearly, A dog, everyone, or there's a lot of people that are like,

could this be the start of a rebuild? Could it? Could it? And we might be getting ahead of ourselves here because there's still a lot of the season left. And Halford, you might as well jump in here because you're always the one who's like, I'll believe it when I see it.

Yeah, and it's funny that you mentioned that right off the hop. We didn't even plan this, but I was thinking, do I go with my usual course of action, which is until something is actually consummated in terms of a trade, do I still have some skepticism here? I do still. I wonder if this is going to be a lot of smoke with no fire if only because two reasons one we've seen this move played out from other GMs in the past right

and as you astutely pointed out at the beginning of the show it is to announce to the other 31 general managers that you're willing to do business but it's also a shot across the bow of your own team and it's a bit of a shake-up in the room and we know the rutherford's an old school executive and this is something that he will do the other one is i'm not sure the guy has his fastball anymore i know that back in the day but we're almost talking a decade ago when he was moving and shaking pieces in and out of Pittsburgh to build a contender, it just feels like the landscape might have changed. And it's for some reason or another, and you can count to them, rising cap, people not wanting to part with their assets. Maybe you don't have as good of assets as you thought

that you did bring into the table. Just seems like he's not able to make deals as successfully as he used. I'm talking about Rutherford at this point. Yeah. And also, is he going to be looking two or three years, four or five years down the line for the Canucks? A great question. You know, Is that part of his thinking at all? If I had to parse it down to one particular takeaway that I'm pretty confident in, it's that the leadership group, and that's Alveen and Rutherford,

and maybe Adam Foote, although he's not saying it publicly, they're concerned, dare I say skeptical, that the group is currently comprised, can get it done. Like I know Adam Foote, and we've got the audio from yesterday. Well, Adam Foote talks like he's coaching

an already rebuilt, like a young team. Mm-hmm. I know the Canucks do have some young players. You know, they got a couple of young defensemen in Willander and DPD and Adam Foote certainly spends a lot of time on Tom Vlander, although a lot of people will be saying, well, you know, Myers and Pedersen, not exactly knocking it out of the park right now. And I know he spends a lot of time saying,

well, I got to teach guys like Max Sassin and Atu Ratu the finer details of defending in the NHL and playing in your own zone and they're both centers. so they have big defensive responsibilities. But like, I don't look at the Canucks and think like, wow, like super, super young team. No, there's a bunch of guys that have been in the league for a long, long time. We'll get into foot's deflections off the major issues with this team in a moment. But I think that it's fair to say that, and if we want to use that Chris Jury, New York Rangers comp,

I'll say, remember when he sent out that memo and really tried to shake things up. but I think it was true though like they I mean they you know what I mean like what was true well that those guys were available yeah no they were eventually traded I think everyone's available here too yeah I think the thing is is it's a

whatever color flag thrown up by management off white but it's a signal off white towel the egg shell towel I think it's I think the one thing again that I can definitively state is it's an announcement from the executive

that the team is currently comprised ain't going to get it done. They can say that it's injuries and they can say that it's youth and they can say that there are better times on the horizon but I think this announcement, this proclamation, this memo or telefax or whatever Jim Rutherford sent out

is a clear mark across the league that they don't think that this current group can get it done and go where they want it to go. Yeah, I don't know if this is a related story at all but Adam Foote was asked about how Philippeel is doing and he was kind of like yeah you know I heard he's skating

and you know that's good because you have to go out there and deal with the lights and you know the ice is sure can be you know white and quite bright on your eyes doesn't sound like a guy that's you know anywhere close to

returning right it's saving the season and saving the season yeah yeah yeah and you know there's a lot of takeaways from it Dunbar over text message the gym basket is slammed right now. Get your thoughts in because this was news that broke overnight, and we will be discussing it a lot throughout the show today. Don Barlamour text line is 650, 650, get them in,

weigh in on what you think might happen and might be on the horizon. But do you want to play the foot audio from yesterday now? We may as well do that because it was another kind of bizarre media availability from the Vancouver Canucks head coach where I guess you can call it a deflection. I don't know if he genuinely believes the answers that he's putting forth or if he's just trying to protect his guys, which is the job of an NHL head coach. But I'll just let the audio play itself.

This is Adam Foote talking about his team's defensive efforts, his team's continual bleeding of scoring chances. And maybe some of the numbers that have been thrown out at him when it comes to the Vancouver Canucks and their defensive play. There's a ton of things, everyone thinks I'm just positive, but there's a ton of things I'm real happy about. I mean, but, you know, I'm more happy with wins, but I'm not going to blow up a kid or something being overanalyzed by no disrespect. People that really don't know, but they're just looking at numbers from people that could be in Russia in a basement having cigarettes, cashews, telling their scoring chances. So we're going to depend on our guys, you know, and really recognize what we believe has to be fixed and what doesn't.

But to answer your guys really good questions, you're right bang on about, we got again guys faster sooner and close it. So according to Russian website, Natural Statrick, classic bot farm. The Vancouver Canucks are giving up scoring chances at the second worst rate. in the NHL at 5 on 5. Yeah, I almost feel bad. I know he said it, so he has to own it. I'm talking about Adam Foote here. Yeah.

But I almost feel bad, like, using the comment. Like, everyone was punching those comments yesterday. We're not going to, it's kind of played out a little bit at this point. Yeah, at this point, like, everyone knows that he's, he's got a job to do. And very clearly that job is to protect the guys that he's coaching. Because he has not been critical at all from game one to game 20, they're out right now. He actually said, like, he actually acknowledged, like, we have conversations behind the scenes, those aren't going to come out here. Yeah. And I don't blame them. And some

coaches, some coaches are willing to use the media to fire up their players. Adam Foote clearly is not. And I get it in a lot of ways because, although some of his comments kind of put the focus on the players, because he really focuses on the young players. Yep. You know, like, he really, he really, and I, and even in his comments about, like, mistakes that happen after the game, I'm like, oh, that's about V-Lander. Yeah, and it's funny. That's about Max Sasson right there, because Max Sasson defensively was not very good in the Calgary game. No. And V-Lander's made some key mistakes at times, but I think where people sometimes push back is Adam Foote makes it seem like the veterans are all fine.

That's fair. When I'm watching, the veterans are not all fine. No, and that's... It's not just the DPD VLander pair that's given up too many opportunities out there. And it's a fair assessment from the fans. Although that might be on Max Sasson. When Myers and Pedersen are out there together,

it's Max Sasson or Atoratu's fault. Just keep pointing to the young guys. But you can see the issue with trying to cover up all of these blemishes is that eventually they're going to come out. If you keep continually harping on how difficult it is to coach and to get the results that you need with all these young players in the lineup, everyone's going to say, well,

that must mean that your young players are playing poorly. So you can't, here's the thing. You can't defend everybody from everything and you can't insulate everyone from all the criticism because when you're not playing well, you're not playing well. There's no glossing over it.

I wanted to play another clip because this is something that got overshadowed yesterday because everyone was, focusing on cashews and cigarettes. This came later in the scrum, and Adam Foote was asked about Quinn Hughes's ice time and the fact that he's playing so much, you know, 30 minutes a game sometimes. And he was essentially asked, like, is that okay with you? Are you good with that? And Adam Foote had kind of an interesting answer to that.

We want Quinn to be out there but I want it to be different where I don't want him to get 30 minutes with 20 shifts and his desire and passion to win he just wants to keep going and doing more and trying harder and you can't knock him for that at all

so we're trying to get him to have 26 to 27 minutes with 30 shifts not 21 and listen we had to reel him in he just wants to win he wants to play and you know he's good good guy about it and he wants to do the right thing

that's what we hope to keep getting out of him is you know come off let us do the matchups we'll get you back out there and we had a great conversation today about that so they had a conversation in Adam Foote's office about that and from what I understand

this is an issue that goes back before this season as much as they love Queen Hughes and as much as they rely on Queen Hughes they want them taking shorter shifts I mean and Adam foot just I mean this isn't just me like Adam foot just confirmed that

he says he doesn't want him out there 30 minutes a night playing 20 total shifts he wants 26 or 27 minutes and way more shifts and you know the only way you conclude you can conclude what he's saying is Quinn stopped staying out there for three minutes a shift sometimes yeah right you got got to get off the ice sometimes and conserve energy that way.

And it's not good for you long term. So I'm not going to make this a thing, but I think it's a thing. I'm looking right now. And Hughes, I mean, in the Calgary game, right? I've got the Calgary sheet in front of me, by the way. Well, in the Calgary game, think about the goal he scored. The Canucks were down 5'1, and he's like, all right, I guess I'll just do this myself. Now, he did it, and none of us are blaming for blaming Quinn Hughes for being like, well, I guess I got to do this myself.

But I wonder if it does become a problem sometimes. There are times where Quinn says, all right, I'm going to do this myself. He doesn't pass to his teammates. Sometimes it happens on the power play. You know, he fires shots, and I'm really hesitant. I don't want anyone to construe. drew this as like, Queen is a selfish player or whatever. Like, I think he's in a very difficult situation.

Yeah. You know, he sees this team and he's like, he's probably embarrassed that they were down 5-1 at home to the Calgary Flames. And he thought, I was going to do something myself. I know, coast to coast and score a goal, and he did. But I think it was emblematic of this. He feels like he has to do it all themselves sometimes. Do you remember that clip at the start of the year?

Maybe it was before the year where he was like, they were talking about the season, the upcoming season. I think he said something along the lines of like, like, we're going to have a hard time scoring goals or something like that. Sure. This could be a team that's going to have a difficulty scoring goals. So, like, in his mind, he's probably thinking, like, you know, maybe we're just not very good.

And I got to really do a lot if we want to have any chance to sniff a playoff spot. So he's working way harder or doing way more than he should be. I'm a little surprised that foot went that route in explaining it. I think he was trying to be like earnest and honest that, yeah, this is how we'd like to see the middle. be deployed and maybe construe some of his shifts and everything. But it's funny because if you're going to talk about the issues that this team has this season as to why they are where they are in their standing, which, by the way,

is now only above two teams in the NHL, Calgary and Nashville, who are an absolute tire fire, you would think that Queen Hughes's shift length and overall ice time would be pretty low on the list of issues that they've had, right? Yeah, I just think there's something that goes back, this predates. And don't forget, Adam Foote was the coach of the defenseman last year. I don't want to call it a frustration. It was just like something that they were trying to get across to Hughes. But I understand what you're saying.

Yeah. I mean, you want to look at that Calvary game in particular. He had three shifts, you know, prior to the end of the game where they were chasing it. They were over two minutes in length. And then he was out there for the final 447 at the end. Like he had monster, monster shifts. And I do wonder. He is a bit of, I said this on Twitter.

He's a bit of like a beer league ringer sometimes. Yeah. Like, get that guy out there. We need some goals. And it's kind of true. You can try now. You can try now. Don't just go out there

and make some passes. But then he does it. And you're like, see, it worked. That's why we called him. Ten minutes before the game. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. that's just that's something

it's logical right so you know I can't I can't just fire something out there to change the facts and you know we'll continue to teach and so these guys keep getting it and you know get the raption

and we'll get guys backwards so 7.03 on a Tuesday happy Tuesday everybody Halford Brough SportsNet 650 I think I think Yackety Sacks

the actually not Yakutty socks, I don't know what this is, kind of Yockety socks, yeah. Drowned out Adam Foote there, so we'll replay Adam Foote's audio coming up. Good yockety socks, though.

What a show. What a show we have here. Halford and Brub in the morning, you're listening to it. It is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Scory Debt Freedom Hatrick. One, no more interest. Two, much lower payments than three. Financial Peace of Mind.

Visit them online at Sands. That's trustee. dot com. We are now in our two of the program. Hour 2 is brought to by Jason hominock at Jason.morgia. 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

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HR today. Get them on the line. get some orthotics. I go, my feet are wonky. Need some orthotics. Some foot health. Yeah. Okay, before we get back into the Canucks conversation that we started at the beginning of the show,

quick reset on our giveaways today. We have a pair of giveaways for you, the listeners, the first working in reverse here. At 8 a.m., we are giving away a pair of tickets to see Guns and Roses, August 29th, 2026. Yeah, a year away almost at BC Place. Tickets go on sale Friday, December. 5th, we're giving away a pair of tickets every day this week.

Be caller number 5 at 8 a.m. The phone number here is 604, 280-0-650. That number again, 604-280-0-650. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m., win a pair of tickets to see G&R. Coming up at 7.30, we're giving away a $250 gift card to Golf Town. Mom, Dad, can we go to Golf Town? Sure you can with this $250 gift card. This, of course, is in conjunction.

with Golf Town's Black Friday sale. It's on now until December 3rd. Perfect time to beat the holiday rush and save on some gifts. Again, call is going to be at 7.30. Caller number 5, 604, 280, 0-650. That number again, 604-280-0-650. You guys can get something for me at Golf Town.

I would like a range finder. Thank you. Okay. I could do that. Perfect. Well, that was a rangefinder? It's to see how far you are away from. They look like binoculars.

Oh, okay. Cool. B-nows, if you will, but they're not. My shaky hands try and dial it in. It's like this shot is anywhere between 126 yards and 678 yards. You have selected Power Drive. So in case you missed it off the top of the show, big news out of the Canucks camp last night

at around quarter to 10 Pacific Standard time, Elliot Friedman broke the news, a Fridge bomb, if you will, that according to several of his sources, the Vancouver Canucks have let it be known that in an effort to get younger, they are willing to listen to trade offers on veteran players. Rebuild time, baby. This morning, Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver

had a more detailed and nuanced piece reporting the same news. Now, all this led us to an opening segment when we talked at length about what direction the Canucks might go, what this means. Who's available and who's not? Let's make it abundantly clear right off the hop. that at this time

it does not, I repeat, does not sound as though Quinn Hughes or Philip Hironic will be two of the players dangled, two of the veteran players made available for trade. But a handful of other ones, Jason. A lot of names out there, especially in the Thomas Stranz piece this morning. Well, first of all, I want to address Adog immediately

jumping to rebuild because he is doing he is doing what 80% of people are doing right now. I'd say 95% I put I posted Drance's article on X

Yep And everyone replied It was like So it's a rebuild Rebuild rebuild? Blow it up Blow it up Rebuild

And I'm not saying That it won't get To that point But Putting a van der Kaine out there And even Kiefer Sherwood And saying it Like

We're willing to listen On some veteran players But not Hughes and Hironic it's not a rebuild that's that's that's right now I don't know

but this isn't this isn't necessarily going to happen everyone wants it to happen but I I think without you know me

opining on whether or not it's going to happen or not God does it speak volumes about what this fan base wants okay so trading old trading old players for picks and prospects what would you call that then

what is that then what's the name of I think what you two are doing right now is the exact wrong thing to do, which is to get hung up on definitional labels of what's happening. Well, I just want him to hear I just want to hear him say the words. A rebuild is trading

core players. Yeah, well, a lot of your core players are veterans. And they've all got no move clauses. And your mind then, like, a rebuild is like Pettersen, Bessor, Hughes, like that's a rebuild. It starts with Hughes. And him saying, I don't want to stay if he says that, then you go down that

path. I don't think this Canucks Management Group has fully given up on that idea. Of keeping him, maybe. Of keeping them. Yeah. Oh yeah, of course they'd want to keep them. They would never give up. I would be shocked if they gave up on that idea. They'll do everything in their power to keep him. Why would you trade Quinn Hughes

unless you had to? I think what's happening right now is this is a, the only clear and obvious thing that's going on right now, at least to me, is that this is a signal from Alvin and Rutherford that whatever they've got

or whatever the current group is doing ain't getting it done, it's not good enough and they are willing to readily and freely admit that to the rest of the NHL. There's no masking over it. There's no glossing over it. There's no coming up with excuses. Even though the head coach seems to do it

on a fairly regular basis. There's no blaming this on injuries or the amount of young players that they had to bring up. I think those days are gone. I think that's the one clear definitive thing that they're saying here. Yeah, they're saying we need some changes.

But it doesn't mean you need to immediately jump to oh they're thinking rebuild right they're thinking rebuild to me that remember these are the guys that just signed a lot of these guys to contract extensions and to me what i talked about not just because i said it but what i talked about i think is more interesting because it's a sign that after watching what they built and i'll use that term loosely but what they built after watching it for 20 some odd games they're like we didn't do a very good job of this. This isn't very good. We took some really big gambles on guys that had health concerns and those failed. We took a really big gamble on Evander Kane and that hasn't worked out. And we ran it back

with a bunch of guys and maybe we're not 100% certain we should have done that. And in those guys, I'm talking about Garland and Bessor. And we talked up our young players and our guys down in Abbotsford and now our coach seems to be blaming them for everything. Right. So this is what I think is going on right now. I always like to use the instructive pass to predict the future or at least give us an idea of where it's going to go. And I know comparing the Rangers of a year ago to the current Canucks, it's apples and oranges in a lot of way. But when you talk about a general manager that needs to shake things up, even a guy like

Jim Rutherford, who's a Hall of Fame builder and has done this a lot, he's only got so many things in his arsenal like every other general manager of president of hockey ops. And you just got to know he's dying to do something. Like he wants to make a trade. He wants to find a 2C, and so does Patrick Alvin. They've been working the phones. I don't know if you heard that. But they can't find it.

So imagine you're in that position. Just put yourself in the position of being management right now. Yeah. You want to make a trade, but you can't find something that makes sense. So what do you do? Right? You want to try something, something, anything. You go to the playbook, and this is one of the plays.

Yeah. You can't fire a coach because you just hired him. Right. I mean, that's the thing with Trotson. Nashville, like he's got that card to play. Can't you though? You can't, but it's not going to have the effect. Well, wouldn't that be the first and most obvious and easiest move to do? I don't think it would have the effect.

I think that would make management look like, well, worse than they look right now. And I want to read this text. It's unsigned, but it came into the Dunbar Lumber text line. I think the reason Rutherford and Alvin would be in no hurry to trade Hughes, where I could see them dragging it out to the bitter end, is that they know that by having to trade this generational player would be grounds for firing. The noise coming from the media and fans

would be too loud for ownership to ignore. I don't even know if I'm Jim Rutherford, I don't want to do that. If Quinn Hughes comes to me and says, I'm not willing to commit to this team long term. I'm not going to sign. I'm going to leave that with you to deal with. If I'm Jim Rutherford, I'm like,

is this how I want to go out? Do I want, like, I don't even think, like, isn't it just grounds for like, okay, well, I haven't done a good enough job here, someone else should do that. I think, I think if they have to trade Quinn Hughes, someone else should do that. Right. In management, because, look, I'm going to read, I'm going to read a tweet from Gary Mason at the Globe and Mail. And, you know, for people that don't know, Gary Mason used to work at the Vancouver Sun. He was the sports writer that I read growing up, and he did that interview with Jim Rutherford

last season that And now he just sales in every now and again Yeah, every once in a while. Yeah, I mean, he writes about politics generally. Gary Mason says, When the trading of Quinn Hughes happens and right now it seems inevitable, it will mark the lowest point

in the franchise's history. Again, this is a guy that used to cover the Canucks for a living. Yeah. Giving up a generational talent in his prime cannot be viewed any other way. So let's say that happens. Is this the management group that's going to do it?

The ones that you would look and say, okay, so you used to have Horvatt, he's gone now, used to have J.T. Miller, he's gone now. You did try to trade Elias Pedersen, but he's still here, and now you're trading Queen Hughes. Might be time. It might be time to bring in a fresh set eyes.

I mean, just someone who can chart a path. Yeah. Because the path that was charted by this management, look, you can blame it on the players if you want. You can blame it on Pedersen and Miller for not being able to, I'm sure that if I was management, I'd be like so mad. You know, I'd be like, but then I would also be like, well, that was also the one that gave them those contracts.

And I knew there was a history there and I wasn't able to figure it out. I think it's going to be very, if it gets to this point. And if it gets to the points. But, I mean, I'm kind of with Gary right now. It seems inevitable. To me, things can change. And, but right now, it does seem that way. You just look at, you know, Quinn Hughes.

Does Quinn Hughes look like a guy that wants to commit to this team right now? Probably not. No. Would you, if you were him? I don't know if I would. Here's the thing. I am a tad concerned that what's going on here is last chance saloon for Alvin and Rutherford to

reshape what the future looks like and make it more appealing to Hughes. That's kind of where I'm going on. I'll read another text then. Just to play devil's advocate, this is also unsigned. I wonder if all the veteran players going up for sale might actually improve the odds of Quinn Sting.

At least it resembles a plan of some sort and an acknowledgement that this team has way too much dead weight. And he isn't an idiot. He knows they aren't winning with the team as currently constructed. We pointed that out earlier in the show. We go, maybe this is a way, this is some sort of signal even to Quinn, like, hey, you know, like we're going to try and bring in some younger players and show.

And if you want to relate it to another team, Connor McDavid in Edmonton only signs it to your extension. And now it's going to be up to their management to restock a little. little bit there, not rebuild, but restock and see how Matt Savoy or Isaac Howard or any other guys that they bring in can chart a path for McDavid so that when he gets it to the end of that little mini extension that he signed, maybe he'll be convinced to stay. It just seems like there was no plan, though. There was no plan. With the Canucks? Yeah. Well, yeah. But that's what I'm saying. No kidding. Do you just get here? The last decade.

But look, let me finish. It just feels like if that's where they're at 20 games into a season, then you got to look back at everything they did this summer and say, how committed were you to any of this ever? Did you really believe in the Besser extension? Did you really believe in the Garland extension? Did you really believe in acquiring Patrick Kane or Evander Kane? Yeah.

Did you believe in any of it? Because 20 games into the season, you're willing to unpack it all in the hopes of trying to, and I'll use the word appease your captain that there's brighter days on the horizon with younger players. We don't even know if that's what they're doing, though. If that's a possibility. And it is a possibility, unfortunately,

because I think with this group, the plan has always been, wait till something happens and then react to it. And if you go back to Rutherford's time, especially in Pittsburgh, he hit those out of the park with regularity. He did. Until he stopped.

until he stopped hitting them out of the park. But he did it and he won two cups because he was always able to pull the chain on a deal, whether it was to shake up the room or to rebuild his defense and it worked. And I, you know, I'll give him a ton of credit for it. 100%. Getting a guy like Kessel, rebuilding the defense. He would do these weird moves or be like, I'm trading Carl Hagelin for Tanner Pearson and then trade them back for each other just to do it.

Trading Brandon Sutter for Benino. He made moves and they worked and he was always able to do it. The landscape changed. I don't know. I can't pinpoint one particular reason why, but a bunch of things have changed. But he's always been a reactive general manager. Here's the thing.

He's always been a very good reactive general manager in the past. But things are different now. And this here, when they send out a memo that they're willing to move around some of their veteran players, there's two things you've got to ask yourself. One, what do you hope to get in return? and two, who are you dealing with right now? Who's clamoring to get some of these guys on board, honestly?

Well, I think Garland would be a good addition to any team. And who's trading? What are you doing? Are you going to a team that's got playoff aspirations? Because if you are, you're not getting any really good young roster players, I would say, because they need those in whatever quest they're going on. So you're going for picks and for prospects. Now, the picks are going to be low first.

Well, you're certainly not going to get a second line center. So your picks are going to be low first round picks because these teams, conceivably are going to be playoff bound so you're not going to get anything that's like close to the lottery, right? You would assume with a lot of your veteran guys is that it's going to be buyers and contenders that want them, right?

That's a fair assessment, I would say. And secondly, how shallow is the pool of teams that you're dealing with in season as opposed to off season? This was the plan the entire time. This is something that they could have gone after in June and July

trying to make these kind of moves. trying to move things around so that you've got a different looking future. You know what's hard for me right now? And maybe I need to go back to something that Rutherford has said a few times about being a team in transition. Because we talked about some of the things that Adam Foote said over the weekend. And we're like, that doesn't sound like you're coaching a team that thinks it should be in the playoffs. it sounds like you're coaching a super young team

that is just learning and I realize they've had some injuries okay and I realize they probably don't want to have both Max Sassin and Atu Ratu playing center third and fourth line center picked up anyone that can play second line center I mean it's crazy that David Kempf went from

like I can't get a game in Toronto to second line center yep between who's he with he's like between Besser and Garland he's there right now yep So I realize that there are issues there. And even having DPD and VLander together as a pair probably is an ideal. You'd prefer Derek Forward and then one of the other guys playing with him. But like I wish because like a team in transition isn't enough for me to know what they are. And the question would be and it would be to Adam Foot and it would be to management hopefully together because there might be a little bit of a disconnect right there.

I'm like, what are you guys right now? What, what, what is this? Right. Because a team in transition, that's a very broad term. Yeah. What does that mean? Well, I think they became a team in transition after he failed to get a 2C. If we want to go to the-

No, they became a team in transition after they failed, after they traded J.T. Miller. That, that was something that he said. But the other thing that he said, the one that stands out for me, and we'll stand out until he's probably gone here, is it was more expensive. to not get a 2C than to get a 2C. That to me, and that was probably going to end up

being the death knell for the team because if you watch the chronology after that, it was how do we pivot off not being able to get one? We'll convince everyone that Philip Hedel's our guy and he was always our guy.

And then when he got hurt, what was the party line? Oh, too many injuries. They had too many injuries, right? Not discounting the fact that you failed to land a 2C and then you manually inputted a guy with a history of concussion problems,

into a role that he had never been able to fill with regularity at the NHL level. Those messages are coming from two different places, right? The injury excuse, if you want to put it that way, is coming from foot, right? Well. And the other stuff is coming from management. Yeah, but I think it all adds up to a team

that doesn't know what they are and what they want to do. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Like, I don't, me too. The reason that I'm running through all of these different messages is to give everyone an idea. What are you guys? What are you trying to be?

They don't know. Because they've signed all these veterans to contract extensions. Think about all the money in term they've handed out in the last year. They've given it to Garland. They've given it to Besser. They've given it to Marcus Pedersen. They've got all these guys. So team in transition, okay, to find a 2C.

But otherwise, you look pretty locked in a lot of places. The goaltending is, I mean, in theory, locked in. You've got Demko and Lankinen signed. You got a bunch of, you got Elias Pedersen signed long term. You've got Philopronic signed long term. Yeah. Are they trying to convince us that, well, if they had a legit 2C, they'd be good to go?

No, I don't think they're trying to, I don't think they're trying to convince us of. I don't think they're trying to convince anybody of anything other than the latest plan or the latest idea. I mean, you brought up the Besser contract, but I come back to that a lot. I come back to that a lot thinking about I mean on both sides Brock Besser you know getting strung along

essentially he was over in Europe getting strung along and you know not really knowing where he was going to go but remember at the end of the season it seemed like he was gone and I think he thought he was gone and then the Canucks couldn't really do anything they let Souter walk

they were trying to target guys like Dushan and even Dvorak who ended up going to Philly and then wasn't it like a minute into free agency they signed Besser and they just brought them back and they're like it was almost like

the players that they ended up signing were the only ones that were willing to come to Vancouver I wouldn't have called it like a masterful gambit of negotiating or whatever I don't think that's how it went down I think that they thought it was going to go one way and then guess what and fans were generally happy when they re-signed Besser because you know why people like Brock Besser

Yeah. They like him. They like him as a person. I was happy for Brock. And he's a decent player. But I remember thinking like, okay, so we're running this thing back? Yeah. And I think that snapshot was indicative of kind of what we're talking about here.

It's like you think you're going one way. You think you might have an idea, but then it goes the other way. And there's never really a plan. I understand that you need to be flexible in management. You need to be able to react. You need to be able to think on your toes. But you also need to have some idea of who you are and where you want to. to go and what you want to be.

And I think far too often this organization exists where they want to exist at every world. They want to have their cake and eat it too, right? And also have that hot dog over there. Right. We've joked about it. They want to be young and building and growing and keep their young players and assets. But they also want to be competitive and go for it and be in the playoffs.

And we've got tickets to sell, right? And those two things don't often exist in the same plane. It's a difficult time, but we'll work our way through it. Better times on the horizon for the bank. They say that you should try and be everything to everyone. Oh, wait a minute. They say you shouldn't do that. Is that an Everclear song?

I don't know. Okay. We got to reset here real quick. Coming up on the other side of the break, we're going to talk some white caps. Sasha Kleston's going to join us on the other side, MLS, Apple TV, Seasons Pass, analyst. We now know who the Vancouver whitecaps are going to play. It will be San Diego in San Diego on Saturday in the Western Final. So we'll talk to Sasha coming up on the U.S.

other side about that and preview what is going to be a pretty epic Western Conference final. Also, before we go to break, I need to do tonight's one to watch, brought to you by Limitless AV Vancouver's most trusted audiovisual integration experts. There's only one game in the National Hockey League tonight. I'm going to turn our attention to Dallas and Edmonton. And with Miko Randen out of the lineup, I'm going to turn our attention to Jason Robertson, who has been on fire in his last five games, 11 points in his last five games. Some of those came against your Vancouver Canucks. So, So Jason Robertson, who's on a heater?

He is tonight's one to watch. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.