Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 12/11/25

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss the possibility of the Whitecaps getting a new stadium announced today, plus they preview tonight's 'Nucks matchup vs. the Sabres with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Everly leaving it for Tollman and one-timer. Scars! It's done! Eight over time. Sam Reinhardt sends you, George. They score. Lundell tipped it in with 50 seconds to go, the Panthers.

We're still looking at it bad. We're talking with Bo. We've met with Tucker. We love to have Bo back. Who's Bobos, sir? Booboo. Good morning, Vancouver, 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It's Alfred. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming here live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adda, good morning to you. Lattie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello.

Halper and 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 in 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 Day recycle you get paid. Visit them at 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.net. Big show ahead. The guest list today. It is the Duick Morning Drive brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 630. Jim Toth. Jets at noon on C.J.O.B.

Radio in Winnipeg is going to join the program. We've mentioned a lot lately how the jets are struggling and we're not talking about it enough. So today we remedy that. How bad are the jets? They're just four points ahead of the Canucks. Jim Toth will join us at 6.30 to talk about Winnipeg. 7 o'clock Adnan Verk joins the program from MLB Network. He joins us having just wrapped coverage on the recently ended baseball winter meetings in Orlando.

Some huge deals went down, including one or a couple actually for the Toronto Blue Jays. We'll talk to Adnan about all that at 7 o'clock. What do they talk about at the winter meetings do you think? We'll talk to them about it. Do they still like, should we still do three strikes? I think that, did they go over the robot umpires that are coming into effect? Oh, probably. They went over a lot of things because it was right at the very end, Alonzo signed.

They finally got some news at the very tail end of the winter meeting. The AL East just keeps getting better and better, eh? Don't even get me started. That's at 7 o'clock at Nanverk. 730, Brady Henderson. Remember when the Js lost that game? That was tough. Remember when they lost the World Series?

It was tough, man. I was sad. It was tough because they were in the World Series. Do you think they talked about that at the winter meetings? They were just like, that was. pretty crazy. Like, the Jays definitely should have won that game. They had multiple chances.

Multiple, multiple chances to win the World Series. They went up to John Schneider and they're like, well, have a good winter. Yeah. That was tough, though. Brady Henderson's going to join us at 7.30. He's our ESPN Seahawks insider. Here's something I did not have on my bingo card at the beginning of the NFL season. That going into week 15, the Seahawks would be 10 and 3 and 14 point favorites against the Indianapolis Colts and their new

quarterback Philip Rivers did not predict that that is exactly what's happening they're going to let them start seems dangerous let is a very interesting word to use there but that's kind of what everyone's thinking is this legal can they do this I found some audio for members even his kids were asking him dad are you sure you could do this could this be construed is elder abuse we will find out on Sunday Brady Henderson's going to join us at 730 to talk about all that 8 o'clock Thomas Drance from the athletic Vancouver and connect stock Canucks are in action tonight, 7 o'clock from Rogers Arena against the Sabres. There's also been another big development on the trade to Quinn Hughes front, this time courtesy Gary Mason.

Drancer's going to join us at 8 to talk about all that. 12 days of Halford and Brough Christmas goes today at 8 a.m. Caller number 5, 604, 280, 0650. That's not the only giveaway we're doing today. At 7.30, we are giving away tickets to see the Vancouver Giants take on the Victoria Royals this Saturday. December 13th at the Langley Events Center. Again, caller number 5 this time at 7.30.

So it's 7.30 and 8 o'clock this morning. We're doing our giveaways. I'll do my best to remind everybody to call in and win the prizes. That's what's happening on the program today. That is the Duick Morning Drive brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. Without further ado, Laddie, to tell everybody what happened.

Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. 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 or resources and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. There's a press conference today. There's a press conference today. That's City Hall. Oh, it won't be with Jim Rutherford or Patrick Alvin. It won't be Canucks-related at all, actually. Nope.

This morning, It's City Hall, the mayor of Vancouver, who lives there. That's where he lives. Yep. It's his house. He lives in the attic. City Hall will be holding a joint press conference with Whitecaps sporting director, Axel Schuster, and it's about a new stadium.

That's what it sounds like. According to Halbro's sources, the two parties are going to announce an exclusive negotiation period to explore a new stadium and entertainment district. at Hastings Park. This comes right after the weekend report from Patrick Johnson, who reported that his sources were saying the same, that this does give the White Caps after a wildly successful season and a pretty good bit of negotiating from MLS Commissioner Don Garber,

an exclusive window to assemble the project. It sounds as though the official announcement will be this morning at City Hall. Yeah, it should be exciting for sports fans in the city, and we can all dream a little bit more about a new outdoor stage, but we should also be cautious in our optimism. It's all well and good for the caps and the mayor to announce that they'd like to get something done. It's quite another to actually, you know, get it done. One rather large question that needs to be asked is,

who's going to pay for the new stadium? Patrick Johnson reported that a proposed agreement will be presented to Vancouver Council that will allow the white caps to bring aboard other partners for additional development on the site. So this is, I don't know if this is an invitation. for those partners. I'm sure they've got some partners in mind, but they might need to find some more. So again, who are those partners?

What do they want to do? Sure. Do they want to just build a stadium or will there be other parts of the development that, as you mentioned, can create the kind of entertainment zone that accompanies a lot of new stadiums these days? I don't know.

Do they still do hard rock cafes? Well, do we need, we did have a hard rock cafe. It was a big deal back in the day. A rainforest cafe. You know, the air to dream. Yeah, bring it all back. What will the public think of all this? Because there's always got to be some sort of, you know, public feedback process.

And I don't know if you've heard, Halford. I know you don't do a lot of developing. No. In Vancouver. Personal or otherwise. Our city has a bit of a reputation for red tape. They call it red tape. Yeah, no, I have heard that part, especially when it comes to development.

There's a lot of hoops to jump through. It's an actual hoop. Which is... Like, you're talking literally. Like, they put out a bunch of hoops. It's just one of them. There's going to be one today. Axel has to jump through four of them.

I mean, I would go... There's got to be some non-market housing plus this hoop here. You better jump through it. Oh, you didn't get through it. What other questions do you have? Are the lines part of this? Yeah. Yep, that's a good one.

Because it's just... Might they combine horse racing and soccer together? No more horse racing, buddy. I mean, they'll be there. No, they won't. They're done. They're retiring. They're retiring.

They're going down to Palm Springs. It's true. They've got a place. So the alliance part of this, because they're not part of the presser. There's only... As far as we know, as far as we know, this is the mayor and the white caps. Is the provincial government on board? Because they're probably going to need to contribute in some fashion.

They're not part of the presser. What about First Nations? They're not part of the presser. So I think this is going to be, again, it's, nobody's trying to throw cold water on this. This is the first step. Like, this is what happens, right? This is the infancy. You throw it out there.

And then you're like, okay, what are the many, many hurdles that we need to overcome before shovels actually go in the dirt and we build a new stadium? Yeah, it's the infancy of the- Oh, we'll need to buy shovels. It's the infancy of the project, is how I would classify. But I would also classify it as an overwhelmingly positive step because the one thing that MLS Commissioner Don Garber harped on at MLSCup over the weekend in Miami wasn't necessarily that they didn't have a stadium to play. And that was the overarching theme. But it was there's been no progress. Like remember, he showed up a few weeks ago and sort of made the media rounds and met with politicians and, you know, did the bureaucratic spin.

And then I think he assumed that there would be a little bit of momentum off that. And then he, but to his dismay, there was not. So at least this is something tangible. It might seem a bit photo op-ish in the moment that they're announcing something that was kind of out there in the ether a couple days prior. But that shouldn't take away from the fact that it doesn't seem like this is all BS though. No, it seems like I said, it's the, it's the infancy in the first step, your baby's first step on the way to becoming an adult. And it's a good thing because the white caps have been able to. capitalize on what was a fantastic

season. I know there's a big divide between the on-field product and then the business and development and exploration side of things, but you've got to admit and acknowledge that momentum can do a lot of things in a positive way for you. And the white cats couldn't have any more than they've got right now.

We've talked about it being an all-time year for any sporting franchise in the city of Vancouver, never mind just soccer specific, what they were able to do this year, the amount of fans they were able to capture, the amount of success that they've had, all of it's now being parlayed

into something tangible on a new development, new stadium, which is a very good thing. Okay, let's, we had our fun and optimism and we're dreaming and it's cool. And we go back to the Canucks where I know we got everyone talking about regime change yesterday, and that seemed to be what all the shows

were talking about. I felt like right before the Iraq war, there's going to be regime change. and then Gary Mason came out and wrote another column and when Gary Mason writes about the Canucks people should pay attention to it and that article proved an effective countermeasure

to the possibility that say Brendan Shanahan could be coming to Vancouver because Gary Mason believes and this is what he wrote that Jim Rutherford has the complete support of ownership on whatever moves he ends up making. Now, if you think about it,

there's only one party that knows for sure if Rutherford's job is safe and that's ownership. I can only assume that Gary wouldn't write that he believes something to be true unless he was pretty well informed on the matter. Gary also wrote that it now seems like just a matter of time before Quinn Hughes is traded.

Gary added that it may not happen to rush because Rutherford needs to nail this trade but if Gary's reporting last season prepared us for the eventual trade of J.T. Miller it might be a similar story now with Quinn Hughes. Now what's the one big difference between last year's Gary Mason article and this year's Gary Mason article? Well, that article that preceded the Miller trade

was an actual interview with Rutherford. nobody on the other hand was quoted in Gary's piece on Hughes maybe because the source of what Gary believes didn't want to go on the record it's possible possible possible doesn't love to do press conferences doesn't talk to the media all that much on the record

could be but I do think it's worth noting that we haven't heard much from Rutherford or Alveen for that matter for a while now Patrick Johnson quoted in a McConaughey couple weeks ago when the Canucks sent out that memo about being open for business, but there's been no media availability for a while, and certainly not since all this Quinn Hughes stuff kicked off. And, you know, if you listen to Adam Foot talking yesterday at practice, and I've got the audio here, this whole Quinn Hughes thing, you know, players can say like, I don't read

social media, and I've just got a job to do, but come on, they're human beings. And obviously, it's seeping into the locker room. They obviously hear it, like you said. I think when I've been around things like that, you're not talking about it. You're not, you know, you're trying not to think about it, but it's there. And you can feel it certain days more than others.

I can feel it certain days more than others, and these guys are human, they can feel it. It can affect, for sure, a locker room. I have to give the guys credit. they're in a tough spot hearing the noise. And they keep coming to work every day and keep doing their job. And that's their pros, that's what they're supposed to do. But I answer your question, they can hear it.

And it probably affects some players more than others. But like I said, I give them a lot of credit for the way they're handling it, coming to work, try to win hockey games and do their job. Well, the Buffalo Sabres are in town tonight to play the Canucks at Rogers. Arena amidst all the noise. Thatcher Demko is expected to start. Pedersen will not return. It doesn't sound like it.

He did skate before yesterday's practice. And Foote said that although it's unlikely he's going to play against the Sabres, Peders is expected to travel with the Canucks on their four-game road trip. That starts Sunday in New Jersey. That'll be interesting. And continues essentially until the Canucks have. a three-day Christmas break. The Canucks tried out

some new line combinations of practice. Is anyone interested in these? They are pretty depressing. You still got the four centers of David Camp. He was between Garland and Besser. I guess that's their first line. That's their best line, top line. Max Sasson was between

Carlson and DeBrusk. Drew O'Connor, still a center. He's out there with Kane and Sherwood. in theory that should be a big physical line and then you've got Atu-Ratu between Hoaglander and Baines Reichel the Extra

Yes Yeah it's a tough forward group to look at right now Because It's a tough forward group to start the season It was really right? You were like oh this is this is pretty thin up there And then it got thinner The one thing that they couldn't afford

Going into the year was Any sort of depletion from the center position I know this is not not a scorching hot take, and it's not especially new. But the fact that they're in this position right now is at equal

points, sad and comical. Like, only the Canucks this could happen to. You can't get through an NHL regular season. I mean, I guess you can. You'll lose a lot of games. But you can't get through an NHL regular season with, I mean, consider the profiles of players. Sasson for the largest part prior to this

year was an American league player. Drew O'Connor was a winger. David Komp was a 4C on a team that couldn't even use them, so they basically cut them. And Atu Ratu was also an American League guy. And now they're all playing significant contributing minutes on an NHL team. Yeah. Like the proof is in the pudding when it comes to this team. They're not good enough in way too many areas to compete on a regular basis.

But I go back to what I said yesterday. Like, Pedersen's not going to be there tonight. So the argument falls a little thin. But they are in no way, shape, or form in the work. health situation in the National Hockey League. There are teams out there right now that are ahead of them in the standings because every team's ahead of them in the

standings that are dealing with more catastrophic injuries than what the Canucks have had. The Canucks just had no room for error, especially down the middle. There was a... However, I think they're probably up there. Without Pedersen, I think they're probably up there

in terms of like, wow, this is bad. I think they're pretty like, name another team that has the injuries to their top three centers, I would say, because you've got Pedersen out, you got Heidel out, and you got Blugher out. I could have easily seen that, one, two, three. Well, that's what I was saying.

I said if Pedersen wasn't to come back tonight with Demco. Yeah, but he's not, right? Right, yeah. But the center position was weak going in, and now it's dead thin. I mean, I understand what you're saying. Missing that many centers on a team that didn't have that many to begin with, there's a reason they're bottoming out.

But I was more trying to point to the injury excuse, which look at times this season it was a mass unit there was way too many guys out they didn't have the ability to compete I think maybe the game in Florida might with a Petera game might have been the one where I was like this is it's amazing that they've got an

NHL lineup out there with the amount of guys that they've got on the ice let's read some text into the Dunbar Lumber text line because I think a lot of people want to talk about what Gary wrote about in the global mail and I'll say report it because he said I do

believe that Rutherford has the full support of Francesco Aquilini, the ownership group. Jay in the Ridge says, guys, is it not hard to believe that four years ago, all we wanted was a president of hockey ops to be the person to speak for the franchise. And then too soon after that, Rutherford comes in and puts his foot in his mouth multiple times. And now when we have this massive decision on our hands in terms of Hughes, we have nobody that's willing to speak on the state of the franchise. yeah it's not ideal

I think Canucks fans are dying for someone to come out and say like this is what's going on sometimes I wonder if the reason they don't do a press conference is number one maybe you know Rutherford press conferences

don't always tend to calm things down but number two maybe they just maybe they're still trying to figure it out maybe they don't know like timing of this is going to be crucial if

Quinn Hughes is ultimately traded. You know, whether it's before the trade deadline or in the off season, the timing of all this. I think about the timing of the last house cleaning. You know, they fired Jim Benning and Travis Green, cleared out the coaching staff, and then they were like, oh, I guess we need to hire a coach. But they didn't have a general manager to do that because they just fired Jim Benning. And Trevor Lyndon had left a while ago. so they didn't actually have a president of hockey ops.

So then ownership goes and says, okay, well, we're going to hire Bruce Boudreau. And then, you know, he does well. But Rutherford is brought in soon after that that he's hired. And then they go through the season and, you know, there's that Bruce, there it is stuff and all that. And then it turns out that Rutherford, like, he's not a fan. He's not a fan of Bruce Boudreau, right?

You're like, oh, okay, well, that's not ideal. And then there was all that noise around Bruce being fired. And that did not look good on the organization. And then ultimately they brought in Rick Tocke. But there was a timing issue there. They didn't line it up perfectly. So this is going to be a different situation here. But I just wonder, you know, if you leave Rutherford to do the Quinn Hughes trade,

what do people think of this market about Rutherford? Like is, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, so you, you, you traded the best player in franchise history. One of the best players in franchise history? Like, so your whole, your whole job, your whole job was to keep Quinn Hughes. And you said that yourself. Like, this is all about keeping Quinn. You, you failed.

I mean, even if you wanted to, even if he wasn't going to sign anyway, right? There's that possibility. I'm sure they've already kind of hinted at that, right? Yep. When Rutherford said, well, some people make decisions for different reasons, right? I don't know, man. Like, that'll be hard. But at the same time, at the same time, you know, like, are you going to hire someone

and be like, your first job here, people aren't going to like you for this. Your first job here is to do one of the most important trades in franchise history. You got to trade away. I don't know It's it is a very very difficult situation One of the One of the subplots Which is almost no longer being sub

And becoming a main plot Is I think you're starting to see The dissolution of the president of hockey ops General Manager approach With Rutherford and Alvin And I think you're seeing it just kind of Devolve in front of you Because you know what I noticed from the Gary Mason article

I went back and checked it I think there were 13 different references to Jim Rutherford in that piece. You know whose name didn't get mentioned once? Yeah. Patrick Alvin's name did not get mentioned. The general manager with the Vancouver Canucks. His name did not get mentioned once in a piece that focused almost entirely. Granted, there were some other things, but on the trading of Quinn Hughes.

It is yet again this weird divide where the president of hockey ops, who said all the things. including, you know, and Grimmison Ladner just pointed out, and if Rutherford hadn't come out last year and mentioned Queen he was leaving, this topic would not even be as close to as big of a deal. We'll never know because you can't. Yes, it was. But just let me work through this.

You can't unring the bell and you can't put the genie back in the ball, so you don't know. But it was Rutherford to put it out there. I think it's fair to ask would Alvin have if this was his shop and his show because he says nothing. What about the idea of Rutherford stays and they hire a new general manager that people can have faith in.

I mean, then you've got the issue of, like, is the person really going to have full control to do his job underneath Jim Rutherford? My first question. And is Jim Rutherford ever going to have full control under ownership? My first question would be like, we're going to have meddling from the ownership

and meddling from the president of hockey ops, but I don't know. My first question would be, what's the point? What's the point of hiring a general manager if Rutherford's still here. Well, maybe there's a good hockey mind then. Is Alvin not? I don't know.

It hasn't struck me as a genius. Okay, then why's he there? Maybe I got rid of him all right. Well, I think he was there originally to grow into the role and to do a lot of the dirty work that Rutherford didn't want to do anymore because he's getting a little bit older. Right. And that has not turned out the way.

There's all the phone calls for the 2C. He made them. Alvin would make them. And then Jim would be like, all right, give me the phone. And that's kind of what I'm pointing to. We got a fish on the hook here? I think at some point, the idea that they had in place went awry, which is, I think what you were talking about was Rutherford was supposed to be the outgoing overseer of everything

and allow Alvin to take this job and eventually become a true proper general manager like we see in what, 31 of 32 other markets in the National Hockey League. What we've got is something entirely different where the general manager of the team, is in no way, no way, shape or form the spokesperson of what's going on. And at times, isn't even considered a shock caller or a decision maker, right? Frank said it yesterday on our show. People around the league are like, who should I talk to? And that is not a great thing.

When you're dead last in the NHL, you've got a memo out there looking to make trades, and people are calling on your most important player. If the follow-up call to, hey, are you guys interested in trading? Quinn Hughes is, and who should we talk to about that, that is not a great way to go about your business. I'm the general manager, damn it. Who do we talk to? Which one?

And the secretary is like, I don't even know which one. I've got two numbers on the switchboard, and I don't know which one to send you to. And I think that, again, there are situations like this in the NHL, like St. Louis is going through one right now, where Doug Armstrong is slowly seating the general manager spot to Alex Steen. and then next year he's supposed to be the guy. But Doug Armstrong is still there. And you see these,

you see these plans that have been in place where the older generation wants to hand the torch to the new one. It never works, man. But it never works. I have good friends that grew up thinking, like, I'm going to take over the family business. And that's what was communicated.

Like, son, one day, you're going to run this. And then it gets to the point where, you know, you're in your 30s or whatever, and you're like ready to take over the family. family business and your mom or your dad is in their 70s and they're like, son, I ain't retired. Yeah, you're not ready yet. This is, this is all I got here. This is, this is what gives me purpose in life. And it's, I built this thing. And I'm not the type of personality that's going to give it up. So you're fired. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening

to the best of Halford and Brough. To the phone lines we go, our next guest as mentioned, from Canucks Talk and the athletic all right here on SportsNet 650. Thomas Drance joins us now on the Halford and Breff Show. What up, Drancer? Gentlemen, how are you? How excited are you for a face-off between the 29th and 32nd place teams in the National Hockey League?

Use how we've branded it, the Sad Club Showdown. Tonight, 7 o'clock, Rogers Arena. Are you excited? I'm reasonably excited. Why? I don't know. I mean, I'd rather, I'd wait rather talk about this game Well, sorry, that's not true.

I mean, it's not about what I'd rather talk about. But the, I like, Buffalo is kind of fun. I mean, they're not good. They're very, very poorly managed and are underfunded and underinvested in. I'm shocked that the league has tolerated this for as long as it has. but they've got good players like the thing about Buffaloes they've got good players

they just aren't serious right they're deeply deeply unsurious they might be more unsurious in some ways anyway than the Canucks right at least in terms of the way they're invested in the way they structure contracts right I mean it's really it's really quite appalling

but they have good players which is you know something Vancouver really doesn't have much of at the moment especially given the state of this lineup you know like I feel like Buffalo is a credible NHL general manager away from being pretty interesting

and that's a much better place to be in in some ways than where the Canucks are at what did you make of Gary Mason column yesterday report was it a column there's no one quoted on the record but I think there was some reporting in there oh there's definitely a lot of reporting in there I mean we've become accustomed over the years especially because Canucks ownership characteristically is reluctant to address the market directly especially when it comes to existential matters right we've been we've become used to reading between the lines of Gary Mason columns and

And, you know, if you've taken that logic in reading him over the years, you've done pretty well in terms of understanding how ownership is thinking about this team and what may come next. And I found it completely abjectly terrifying. And I actually think it's vital, like absolutely vital for us to unpack at length some of the assumptions that are written into, like some of the underlying assumptions that. that get you through how the Canucks are thinking about how they've arrived at this dark juncture in their franchise history. Because there's clearly an internal, like, mythos that's been built around this team that is, like, so at odds with reality. And if it's truly how this organization feels about itself, then there's no winning the

Quinn Hughes trade, right? Like, it doesn't matter if Elias Pedersen. becomes a 95 point play driving first line ace star center again it doesn't matter if Adam foot turns into the next rod Brindamore it doesn't matter if Thatcher Demco stays healthy like if this is how this organization

thinks about itself if these are the stories that they're telling themselves then this club is absolutely cooked like there's no way to move forward and win or conduct yourself like a team that has any hope for the future. Like, I have never been... Give us an example here.

What's a story that the connects are telling them themselves that is the wrong story to tell or something that terrifies you? Well, so the number one is the idea that like, oh, we were a contender level team in 2003, 2004. Who could have seen this coming, right? That is the first assumption, right? Like, who could have...

So, again, there's an incredible amount of buck passing that results from you telling yourself that story. But also, like, I don't understand how you can look at the last five, six years of this franchise's history and think that 20, 23, 24 was some incredible rise as if, like, so sorry, let me start again.

If you believe that it took Jim Rutherford 18 months to build a legit contender, right, for 2023, 2024. What does that mean? Well, it means that you don't actually have to do the work of accumulating the sort of talent required to build an actual real contender

because we were able to do it in a microwave just two years ago, right? The truth is that contending team. I like that. Well, right? Like, they're trying to microwave a freaking burrito and it's going to take them preparing an eight-course meal. Like, what are we talking about?

It's so stupid. It's capricious. It's legitimately appalling. And here's the worst part about it for me, like contending teams. I'm talking your, your Florida's, your Tampa Bay, your Carolinas, your Carolados, your Dalluses, your vaguses, right? They share some common traits. And here's the two key ones.

One, they outchance and out shoot opponents consistently on a long time horizon, year over year, right? The 2023, 2024 team did it for like three months. at the end of the regular season, that's it, right? And by the way, they didn't do it the year before and they didn't do it the year after. Like, they didn't have a run that we'd associate with a contending team. Here's the other thing that contending teams tend to do. They succeed year over year.

Like, if that team was an ascending team, they would have ascended, right? Instead, I think it's way more helpful to think about that run as being kind of similar to what we saw with the Boudreau bump at the tail end of 2022. that that team ran at a hundred and four point pace for five months. It was a mirage, but it happened or the 2020 playoff bubble, right? Like it's not like 20, 23, 24 exists in complete isolation with the rest of Kinex history. Like even Benning put together teams that had those sorts of runs. And the truth is, is that this team had a really high-end core that they built by, by what, selecting in the top 10 of the draft five times and six years between 2014 and 2019,

Thank you, Jim. And that left them with a level of talent that when things ran downhill, usually because they were shooting the lights out and getting incredible goaltending, this team could look, could fool you, could fool you. Yeah. The team could fool you and look like they were at the fringes of being maybe a top five team, maybe a top 10 team for a stretch of months, for half a season, maybe even for a full season.

But they couldn't do it consistently because that high-end group was under-supported. The team was constantly bleeding value. They didn't amass or accumulate enough talent. If you're not understanding the way that when you're in the middle, when you're something like the 12th to 20th best NHL team, right, you can run hot and fool yourself for a period of a couple months, half a season, a full season,

or you can run really badly and look like an abject disaster and scapegoat Bruce Boudreau or scapegoat Travis Green. Well, they're scapegoating J.T. Miller right now too, right? They're like if the J.T. Miller had been able to keep it together, you know, you know, that's another element that you probably want to talk about. That's another part of this, right? That's the second assumption. Like if only for the personality clash between Miller and Pedersen, right,

we would still be an ascending team. This is the J.T. Miller changed. The J.T. Miller trade changed everything theory and fallacy. Let's be real. It's a fallacy. It's absolute gobbledy geek. And here's the thing about J.T. Miller. J.T. Miller's 32.

He was injured, apparently, lower body, in preseason. So this is the second consecutive year that he was hurt going into the year. He hasn't moved the needle in any discernible way, five on five for a rangers team that ranks 12th by the way in the eastern conference actually they lost last night so i probably should look that up again they might be worse than that in point percentage today they are um the he's not even playing center full time gentlemen no he's not even playing full he's not even playing center no like he's not even playing center for the rangers and he's on pace for 50 points um does that seem like the profile of a player

that could prop up what we're seeing in Vancouver right now? I mean, the quiet story when they traded J.T. was like, oh, thank God they got that contract off the bucks. Right. So the J.T. Miller trade, even with what the club is returned

with Heidel, is a massive bullet dodged. Like a huge bullet dodged. It's a great escape, you know, with the theme song and everything. Like that da-na-da-na-na-na-ha. Like very seriously, it's a great escape to look at this as a trade

that changed the trajectory of the franchise is yeah there's Tom Dick and Harry tunnels like they took the Tom Dick and Harry tunnels out of the out of a damn disaster and and here's what really concerns me about that one right

in terms of that being the narrative that you tell yourself the best part about it is you have to insist if you're the management team that shows Miller over Bo Horvett, who by the way, is moving the needle

for a different New York area team in the Eastern Conference right now. You have to tell yourself that J.T. Miller's form hasn't fallen off and that he'd be a huge difference maker for this team because to actually work your way mentally through the fact that this club misjudged the player, misjudged the risk profile on his age,

and, and this is important, one misjudged the volatility of the personality involved and how it mixed with some of their other contractual commitments would be to take some accountability for the fact that this club rather clearly if they were intent on keeping one of those centers picked the wrong one opening up a one year competitive window that only resulted in a playoff series win one playoff series win. And by the way, against a team that snuck into the playoffs and played the Canucks to a draw. Right? Like they, the National Predators and the Canucks scored the same amount of goals on aggregate in that six game series. And you guys remember

it. Did the Canucks win that commandingly? Come on, man. Like a contender, a contender team, if not for J.T. Miller. I mean, if you're thinking about the team this way, if you're telling yourself these kind of, let's be real, abject lie. about who you are as a team why you've arrived here and what that necessitates going forward you are never winning anything I have never been as hopeless

for the future of this franchise as I was when I finished reading that Gary Mason column I thought it was revealed like I'm not criticizing Gary I thought it revealed a level of capricious idiocy which is at odds with any chance of this franchise succeeding going forward Some good words today, Jans.

You know why? Excellent words. Since you brought up the microwave analogy and theory or whatever, I do have to say, I feel bad. This is like the- Alfred's like, I like microwave burritos. That's what I'm about to do, by the way. He set the table, which you don't need eat a microwave burrito, but... I like microwave burritos to be fair.

I was, I was super... You can win the cup with them. I was super... But look at me. I was super, I was super complicit and very much enjoyed the microwave era. Like, I loved it. I know now that it probably wasn't good for you. Yeah, you leaned into it.

It was fun to watch. That was kind of your stick for a bit. Like, I need someone now. I was like the mayor of Vancouver. You were like, I'm hungry. I'm hungry.

And sure, I'd love to have a highs dig dinner with all the fixings. And, you know, like, but you know what? Right now, I'm so hungry.

I get it. I'll take one of those burritos. I was like the mayor of Vancouver. I was Mikey good times. I just wanted to have a good time. I just wanted to support the team. And the team was doing pretty well. And I'm like,

And now we're paying for it. We're paying for that microwave burrito. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're having a tough time on the John there.

Yeah, right. That's exactly what's happening. But the, I mean, this is the problem, right? Vancouver is hungry, right? Like, it's not just you, man. And we've seen it so many times where, I mean, this is like a pretty repeated argument that I've had behind the scenes, like not in public. but with Wyatt, the stanchion, right,

where something will be happening. Canucks fans start to get excited about it. I don't believe whatsoever in the thing that's happening, like, as if it matters at all. And he'll just be like, let us have this man, right? Like, stop talking about Kuzmenko's extension being a mistake. He's fun right now, you know? And I'm like, it's not fun to me because I know how this goes.

Right? Like, I know where this is going that this is a massive error that they've, made. You know, I'm sick of getting dumped on for something that in 12 months, everyone's going to be like, oh, you know what? Yeah, that guy wasn't that good or bad, right? Like, I'm just sick of it. I'm so sick of it. And so yeah, I mean, put it this way. Hockey will fool you if you let it. This organization has too frequently allowed itself to get fooled. And this fan base, I think reluctantly allows itself to get fooled too, because what else is there, right?

And that's, and that's it. And I don't know. Do you think they'll use this, frankly, a lot of this stuff is obvious. Do you think they'll use this Quinn Hughes trade to fool themselves again? Like they'll be like, they'll get some pieces that you're like, yeah, if you squint and everyone stays healthy

and PD takes it up to another level, like, maybe. Well, every, and every new detail that's reported, you know, Kiprios had the, they don't want to wait until 2027 for draft. Graphics report, right? Greg Wischenski mentions Nico Heeshire, who's 26, right? And it's just like, guys, this is a disaster.

Let me bring up one other thing, because I have a column that's going to run soon that hasn't published, so you guys get it first. Let's go. The, like, the Rutherford angle of this was the other part of the Mason column, right? That Rutherford is in full control and we'll get to move this trade.

And what I think, if this is how this goes down, if, if Rutherford's permitted to make this trade and is replaced within 12 to 18 months, right, that's a catastrophe. Yes. A catastrophe. Like that's not something, that's a, that's Buffalo Sabres level management. Like, you cannot allow that to happen. And that's not to say that I don't trust Rutherford to make the deal, right? Like, here's the good thing. Here's the good thing about trading Quinn Hughes, and there's not much that's good about

trading Quinn Hughes, but there's one good thing about trading Quinn Hughes. 31 teams would want him on the roster, right? I trust Jim Rutherford to optimize an auction for Quinn Hughes, just from a raw value perspective. Sure. What scares me is what comes next. It's the second trade, right? Like, it's the Marcus pedd.

Again, what was the problem with the miller trade? The flipping of futures? Okay. Right. What's the problem with the Miller trade? The Marcus Pedersen trade, right? Like, that's the, that's the truth. It's not the setback that happened for the Knox or the he'd love it all, right? It's that they traded the 13th overall pick, which the Pittsburgh Penguins turned into two separate firsts for, you know, a 20, well, I guess how old is Marcus Petters? 29 and a 27-year-old death forward, right? It's like, great, you know? it's what comes next. That's what scares me. And not because I think Rutherford's not a good general manager. In fact, I think the opposite.

I think he's a stable, competent operator. I think the last four years have represented a far better, a far better mode of operation for the Canucks than what came before it. But I think Rutherford and Alvine, like they were in Pittsburgh, are really good team builders. I think they're good at identifying depth pieces. I think they're pretty good at building a team. But this is not a team-building trade, and this is not a team-building moment. This is a value accumulation exercise, and they have to think about it that way.

And this brings me back to sort of two of the most painful trades in Canucks history that had very different outcomes. The first wasn't actually a trade. In 1986, in June of 1986, the Canucks signed Barry Patterson, right? And that was a signing that necessitated compensation. We now remember this is the Cam Neely trade, but in fact, it was the Barry Pedersen signing. And this was done by general manager Jack Gordon, who was very clearly a lame duck, right? The Canucks had been very publicly searching for what the Griffiths family ownership at the time called their hockey czar.

And that was well known. But Jack Gordon was permitted to try and replace Thomas Grudin, who was deposed. parting as like a 42-year-old free agent. That's not true. I'm just making fun of how a strict player movement was at the time. And signed Camney or signed Pedersen and that necessitated the club giving up, you know, a pair of player or a player from a certain bucket plus a first-round draft pick. And he gave up Cam Neely, who coached Tom Watt saw as like a one-dimensional fighter and didn't have a lot of time for. And obviously the trade was a massive setback for a variety of reasons. We can unpack it in eight different ways. One of them,

by the way, that doesn't get talked about is that Cam Neely immediately broke out in Boston, and he did so with Thomas Grudin as his center, who he'd never played with in Vancouver, right? Like, I mean, there's so many different layers of pain that come from this deal. Jack Gordon was replaced as the Canucks General Manager by December, like six months later, right? That's how that went. I think there's a sharp contrast between that. And what we saw in January of 1999, which was when Pavel Buray was traded to the Florida Panthers. And Burray was traded by Brian Burke, who'd been hired as Canucks General Manager in June of 1998, six months prior. Right.

So Burke gets hired as GM. Burray announces that he's going to hold out. Burke takes the heat, engages in a month's long staring contest, both with Buray's representatives, but also with his head coach Mike Keenan, who was a big Burray. guy and kept complaining publicly about the lack of offense, right? It was like very comfortable heaping pressure on Burke, since Keenan had also kind of been the GM before Burke was brought in. That included, by the way, pulling a goaltender with 12 minutes to go on a hockey night in Canada game in Toronto and then telling the press after that the Canucks was their

best chance to score because they really couldn't with some of their absences, right? Like, it was a tough time for the franchise. And guess what? The Canucks took a bath on the Bury trade. They lost the Bury trade. Dave Gagne, not just a throw-in, right? Kevin Weeks, they got a first-round pick back that became Nathan Smith. They didn't even do a good job with the first-round pick.

But they got one piece that mattered in Ed Jovenovsky. And the reason Ed Jovanowski mattered was not that he was an awesome Canucks player for the next six years, although he was, it was that they also had Matthias Olin and they also had Brian McCabe, but all three of those lefties were under the age of 25. And by June of 1999 at the NHL draft in Boston, McCabe becomes the key piece that acquires the Canucks, a second top five pick from Chicago allowing them to draft the city and twins. So they lost the trade.

They lost the trade, the Bore trade. But because it was done by a new guy, guy with a plan, right? It turned into a franchise altering win, albeit indirectly. And I just think there's such a key lesson here. The Hughes trade is going to suck if it happens. But the pain can be made to count if it's done intentionally and as part of a plan. The Hughes trade shouldn't be the end of an era.

It should be the start of a new one. right and that is so evidently apparent to anyone with an ounce of common sense and god for once I hope the Canucks are able to be that you know off team for whom this is obvious because they have an ounce of common sense I'm not holding my breath after that Gary Mason call him though woof all right drancer that was a great hit buddy and uh we'll talk to you in a bit I was Domus Trantz. I'm the Athletic End, Sportsnet, 650. And a lot of people texting into the Dunbar Lumber Text line said,

I woke up. I was feeling pretty good. You know, it's getting closer to Christmas. Pretty happy. Oh, God, I'm depressed. The Dranthes terrified me. Get you what we learned into the Dunbar Lumber Text line at 650, 650. We've got one final segment to go on the Halford and Brough show.

Let's have some laughs in the final segment of today. day show because we were terrified in the first half hour, but then that's laugh about it. You're listening to The Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. We were able to do it in a microwave just two years ago, right? The truth is that intending to... I like that. Well, right? Like, they're trying to microwave a frickin burrito.

Where's my burrito? Where's my burrito? You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.