Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 2/10/25

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, including a big Canucks win over the Leafs that saw an impressive performance from Elias Pettersson, they discuss Quinn Hughes not going to the 4 Nations, plus the boys talk the Thatcher Demko injury with NHL.com Canucks & In Goal Magazine's Kevin Woodley.  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Whoa. Wait a minute. Huh? Hold up. What? Oh, okay. Did we just lose the f***ing Canucks? Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da You're listening to Halford and Bruff. High slot for Vesser with a shot, he scores! It looked like we played very confident but obviously it would be nice to have Quinn back. He's in! Touchdown Eagles! For the second time, the Vince LaGuardia Trophy is handed to Philadelphia. Eagles fly in Super Bowl 59! Good morning, Vancouver 601 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It is Halford at his broth, it is Sportsnet 650. We are coming live from the Kintec Studios, the beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning.

Good morning. A-Dawg, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Bruff of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler. Well, they pay the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio, Kintec footwear and orthotics, working together with you in step. That's football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football,

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football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, football, on the show today. It's because we knew coming in on a Monday with everything that happened, you guys wanted to hear uninterrupted Halford and Brough. Well, you get it. Guest list though does begin at 6.30. Nick Shook from nfl.com and is gonna join us, of course, live from New Orleans,

where he was there in the aftermath of Super Bowl 59, a 40 to 22 Eagles victory, which quite frankly, even though it was 40 to 22, it wasn't even that close. It was a blowout right from the get. The Eagles win their second Super Bowl in franchise history, second Super Bowl in seven years. We can ask Nick how the Eagles were able to harass Patrick Mahomes and do maybe the worst game of his professional career. That's coming up at 6.30. We'll do our Super Bowl recap probably just then. We'll spend the first half hour, all due respect to the Super Bowl. It was kind of a dud of a game. So we're going to push it to 6.30. Relax for those that want to hear it. We will talk Super Bowl. It'll just happen at 6.30 with Nick Shook. Our other

guest today is Kevin Woodley from nhl.com and Ingo magazine. He's going to join us at eight o'clock. It's great timing for our regularly scheduled hit with Kev. Great timing for a concerning story. Right. So we're going to go back to Saturday and talk about Thatcher Demko exiting that game against the Toronto Maple Leafs with an injury.

Of course, Kevin Lankinen taking over and playing very well in net, but a lot of questions remain about what things will look like in the crease for the Canucks when they return from the four nations face off break. So Kev's going to join us at eight o'clock to talk about that. We do have giveaways this week, everybody. Yeah, every day this week we're going to be giving away a two day general admission pass

to the HSBC rugby sevens. Yeah, the sevens is back February 21st to 23rd at BC Place. You can get tickets online, online, at VansSevens.com. But we're giving away a pair every day this week. All you gotta do is call in at 815 this morning and be caller number, appropriately, 7. Caller number 7 at 815. Phone number is 604-280-0650. That number again, 604-280-0650. Be caller number seven for the sevens at 815 this morning and

you'll get your tickets. Okay, so working in reverse on a very short guest list. Kevin Woodley at eight o'clock, Nick Shook from NFL.com at 6 30. That's what's happening on the program today. Lattie. Let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. I missed all the action because I'm 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.

The good for the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, Brock Besser broke a tie late in the third period and the Canucks held on to beat the Leafs 2-1 on Saturday at Rogers Arena. That was the good, the bad. Thatcher Demko left early, midway through the first period after making a grand total of six saves. He did stop all six. Kevin Lankton came in, made 21 saves for the victory. So a very, let's just say eventful night and

weekend for the Vancouver Canucks, Jason. Uh, yeah, there's a lot to get to, including the news that Quinn Hughes will not be attending the Four Nations tournament, but let's start with that game because the Canucks entered the Four Nations break on a 6-1 in one run. Let's go. Three points up on the Calgary Flames for that

second wild card spot. Elias Pedersen, who we talked a lot about on Friday, had a great game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. He might've had the best shift in the last, what, calendar year when he helped, helped open the scoring, uh, seven minutes into the first period.

I'm sure you've all seen it by now, but let's do the play by play from hockey night in Canada. Here's Chris Cuthbert. Oh, okay. Here's Batch with the call on Elias Pettersson giving it to Hronik for the goal but also hopefully we got Batch's call of the hit as well. Pettersson right corner, let a big reverse hit on Benoit and send it loose to

Hronik at the line. Now to Forbert left point with a wrist shot in on Wohl. Rebound chance for Dabrask in front as he was falling to the ice. And Wohl denied him on that chance too. Elias Pettersson feeds the point for Forbert. Back to Pettersson near side pass to the back door. Heronic scores! What a play. An unbelievable pass from Elias Pettersson

finds Philip Heronic streaking down the right wing and the Canucks lead one to nothing. So you heard Pedersen's name a lot and he was involved physically going after the puck and I gotta say that pass to Horonic was made with a lot more confidence than we've seen this season. He saw the opportunity, he pounced on it. And then you could just see his confidence build even more from then. It was more than one good shift for Pedersen. He hit the crossbar, made a few other sharp passes.

He also was given the assignment by head coach Rick Tauket to shut down the Matthews versus with Marner line and he won that matchup at five on five. Yes, it's only one game people will say, but hopefully this is what I hope. I hope we've seen rock bottom 2.0 from PD. The first was three years ago against Carolina. Uh, this year, hopefully it's the San Jose game that was suffered through that we all suffered through on Thursday, even though the Canucks won. So maybe, so it's so rock bottom in San Jose would be rock bottom 2.0. Right.

in San Jose would be rock bottom 2.0. Right. Um, like I was, I was reading back to, uh, three years ago when Pedersen went through that rock bottom 1.0. Yes. Right. And then, um, you know, part of that was maybe, uh, the whole team went through a bit of rock

bottom that season, Travis Green was fired and then Bruce, there it is, was hired and he had the game in Washington that followed rock bottom in Carolina and he had a couple of goals in that. And then he just kind of took off from that and Bruce Boudreaux after that Washington game was saying, you know, we don't have a lot of natural scorers on our team.

So him scoring or starting to score, hopefully it's not an anomaly and a one-off and he can continue to do this and that'll make it an awful lot easier on us. And then a couple of months later, I was doing some research and Pedersen was saying, you know, I have confidence in what I'm doing now. Confidence, confidence, confidence. Yeah, yeah. I'm making plays. I'm not feeling stressed.

I'm just feeling like myself again, having fun out there. I'm just playing with confidence, which is the big difference. Which brings us back to Friday's show where we talked about his confidence and whether or not he had the yips and whether you want to call it the yips, you know, if it was like the golf yips or the baseball yips. Like I think it was a confidence thing. And I think it was really interesting to hear from not only the people that were watching it, including head coach Rick Tocket, who we'll hear from a little bit, but, um, Patrick Johnston in the province wrote after the game, not only did Pederson play a strong, confident game,

but his post game demeanor spoke volumes. This was a night and day shift from the deeply unhappy, deeply oppositional figure we'd been dealing with over the past 12 months. I'm not saying this to get like, Oh, pull the poor media. People are mean to, I'm just saying like this was the observations. Peej went on to write the cloud that was hanging over him disappeared on Saturday night. Not only did he do a scrum with the TV cameras post game, but he also happily spoke with multiple reporters one-on-one taking at

least another five minutes beyond the scrum to answer any and all questions thrown his way in the moment. He also did an interview, what the heck, why not, with NHL Europe after the game where I read a translation of it because it was in Swedish, but he was saying that he was happy how he played versus Toronto and admitted that he'd been overthinking his game a bit too much. And this is another thing, that the team as a whole had been energized by the new guys, including fellow Swede Marcus Pedersen, and possibly energized

by the, frankly, the fact that the JT Miller drama was over. Wow, I was gonna say, how did all these new guys manage to come to Vancouver? Oh, right. All right. Yeah. So.

Now we're saying the quiet part out loud. So Pedersen is on his way to the four nations to play for Sweden and hopefully he's able to build, well, not against Canada, but hopefully he's able to build on that confidence and have a good tournament for Sweden and then return to the Canucks and have a good stretch drive and into the playoffs. This is what Rick Tauket said about Pedersen and what he wants to see from Pedersen at the Four Nations. I just want him to have fun. I know it's a serious tournament.

Everybody wants to win it serious. I want him to go represent his country and go have fun with his countrymen. Let's just have fun. Try stuff and you know, I mean, yeah, everybody wants to win this tournament, but it was three, four games, four games. I just wanted to go out there and have some fun and come back. Hopefully that tournament, hang out with his buddies and rejuvenate, rejuvenate his, uh, his, uh, whole demeanor. And I like today, I thought he just was, I don't know, he, he, like, he had some fun, um, and I think he's got to understand that, uh, pressure is fun sometimes. Just try stuff. The most open ended invite from an NHL coach ever heard.

Just go and have a good time. I wonder if talkaukit would prefer, just based on the play of Pedersen, that maybe the NHL regular losers season would continue instead of going to the four nations face off. Because one of the things about rock bottom 1.0 was that after Pedersen hit it, he was able to come back from said rock bottom

and play in a bunch of NHL games. And that's where he started to rack up the points. And it was almost immediate, right? It was the Carolina game bad, Washington game good. Yeah. Then we had San Jose game in modern times, 2.0, San Jose game bad. Toronto people are like,

you're ruining our draft position. Right. Yeah, Toronto game very good. Unfortunately, the Canucks don't play another regular season game now until Saturday, February the 22nd because of the Four Nations faceoff. Okay, here's my thoughts on this.

I want to believe. I do, I really do. I wanna buy in and I want this to be the turning point. Rock bottom 2.0. I would love for this to be it. It's like the the George Bush Bush quotes. I fool me three times We don't get fooled again Like I do wonder if we're gonna need to see more

Than the one game turn around and I appreciate course we are but I appreciate where you're going I wonder if we're gonna need to see more than one game for better So I think we might be to to keep To stop kind of doing this part of it, where it's like, I was almost joking, I'm like, the poll question, they should be like, is Petey back, yes or no? And then I'm like, I feel like we've done this poll question before.

Yeah. That is why the break is fortuitous for some players on the team, and maybe not so much for him. I will say this, the biggest difference with this iteration of The Rock Bottom, in a very weird way, it's almost not even Pedersen,

but it's all the things around Pedersen. All these other instances of saying like, is he back? The situation and the environment and the landscape was the same, it's really different now. Do you know what the funniest part of? Talk it's postgame was when he was asked like hey you like you guys are playing really well, you know You know six one and one seems to be a new energy with the team You're probably frustrated that you've got this two-week break and he's like I do think this team needs a little bit of a reset Just get away. I think we just need some guys to get away from hockey.

And you know, Taka was like, also me. I need to be at a blackjack table for 10 straight days and just forget about this team. Can we wrap this up? I got to get to Vegas. Although, no, actually, you know what? He's got to go to the Four Nations. He's on the bench for Canada.

But you know what I mean? He was kind of like, yeah, I see. He gave the question, you know, it's respect. He's like, part of me does want to keep it going. Sure. But I think he knows that there's a lot of guys that just, even like the ones that aren't

involved in the four nations. Think about the, some of the guys that just came to the team as well, even though they have helped to energize the team, they probably need to figure out their lives a little bit. Sure. Right? Like.

I mean, how many practices have the new, like Heidel and Pedersen and O'Connor had? Yeah. One or two maybe. I mean, they haven't had a lot of them. They got thrown right into the fire. So. You know, what'll be interesting though is how

much business gets done over this two week break. I wonder, um, like you're allowed to make trades and, and, and do that stuff, but like, well, best sir have any conversations with the Canucks? I mean, if they don't, right? Like I think that that speaks volumes. It's a great question because if you go around the national hockey league right now, you're

getting senses from a lot of different markets that the general managers in those markets are going to use this break to basically get ahead of the trade deadline. I know Danny Breyer has been very vocal about his activity that what he wants to do in Philadelphia. March 7th, less than a month away, that's the trade deadline. Right. The Islanders and Lou Lamarello, they've been all over social media with little whispers coming out here and there about what they might want to do given that they're at a very strange spot.

And keep Brock Nelson again and trade Dobson. Right. And so there's a lot going on out there and you've got to kind of throw whatever the Vancouver Canucks are going to do in that mix as well, because they're one of those teams where they've made a lot of moves thus far. You still get the sense that there's a lot on the table, given Brock Besser's very uncertain contract future. And now the Canucks have an additional wrinkle to this entire equation. That, of course, is the health of Thatcher Demko. And that was the other big story from the weekend, aside from Elias Pedersen's very strong game.

And the win over the Leafs was Thatcher Demko exiting six saves and about 10 minutes into the game against Toronto. So the quick play byby-play on it was, in the moment Demko skated over to the bench during a stoppage and with the cameras picked up, sort of the kiss of death for, and when the head coach puts the coaching card over his mouth to cover up his lips so nobody can lip read what he's saying. Generally not good news. You can see a little tear coming down his eyes. There was also Brock Besser staring on the bench,

clearly hearing the back and forth and just kind of like this 10,000 yard stare into space. Oh, that might be the regular look for Brock, but regardless. So that happens. Then the Hockey Night Canada broadcast later picked up a little bit of a clip from the pregame

when Demko was doing his warmup and he was doing post to post movements, right? Just sort of pushing off and everything. And it kind of looked- Crease movement. Crease movement, thank you. Yeah, it kind of looked like he was shaking out his left leg and there might've been something there.

Now, do we have the audio at the ready here? I may as well let Rick Talkett speak for himself here because he addressed a couple of things, including the notion that Demko might have tweaked something pre-game. Here is Rick Tauket after Thatcher Demko left Saturday's game, the 2-1 win over the Leafs with what was not, and I repeat not, a knee injury. No, he wasn't hurt. It was just something that happened during the game.

I don't think it's that serious. I don't know from early reports. It's not the knee. So we don't have to have you guys speculate. But I don't know. I don't think it's that serious, but we'll see. So we're going to table most of this conversation until our chat with Kevin Woodley in the third hour, eight o'clock. But obviously even though talk had said it probably wasn't serious, let's face it, Demko seems like a wild card right now. It's hard to trust that he can get through a full game and it's a real shame because

it looked like his game was coming around. Laddie, just two minutes, quick thoughts on Demko, what you're seeing from him now, what happened on Saturday night. Well, it's a bit of a relief to hear that it's probably not the knee because it's certain that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that. Unless he's lying. Yeah.

It's potential. I don't know. You want to take him at his word. What do you think laddie? But we had noticed over the last couple of games, even though Demko has been playing fine, there's been nothing about his play that's been concerning. He just looks off still.

He looks like he's not as fluid as he normally is, if that's the best way to put it. Not getting the pushes post to post. Yeah. Not getting the strength that we normally see from him and not, just not, not on point that he normally is. And that you could chalk it up to just maybe he was off the ice for so long and he's still getting it back.

But if it is cropping up of another injury or hopefully not the same injury, not a good sign, not, not a good sign. Not a good moment. Okay, so just real quick, this is the second time that Lankenen's been thrown in sort of apropos of nothing right now. I know that when the back spasms happened, I think Lankenen got a bit of a head up, heads up like earlier. Demko was saying like, my back's bothering me.

I might have to come out. But still. Remember we were joking like, don't worry guys. It's not a knee injury. He's just got a bad back. I just want those pesky back injuries. Gole's don't need their backs. That's never debilitating anybody. Yeah.

Okay. So let's table that conversation until we chat with Kevin Woodley. That was Saturday. So the good, the win, the Pedersen, the bad, Thatcher Demko. On Sunday, I won't qualify this as good news or bad news, but Quinn Hughes will not be going to the four nations to represent

the United States and go play with his brother. And I'm sure that was very difficult for him. And pretty clearly the Canucks did not want him to go. They did say they left it up to him to make the right decision, but you know, we were making the, the parenting comparisons. It's like, you're a good son and I'm sure you'll make the right decision for the family, for your

family, you're the captain of this family, don't forget. So I'm sure you'll make the right decision. I am sure, I'm sure they made their point known and their point is if you go to this tournament and your injury gets worse, we are screwed. We need you to get healthy and energized and rested up for the stretch drive and Do we have the audio of Rick talk it on with Elliott Friedman before the Canucks Leafs game

This is what he had to say out about it. It's big decisions. It's hard You know, he's a USA guy gets to play with his brother. He knows cuz the Chuck Chuck brothers He's good friends with all those guys. It's a tough, and we're gonna have to make a decision here soon, but yeah, I do. It's not an easy decision, but you know, also he's got to make sure that he's got to take care of himself because, you know, we have important 29 games left for this season

and we need a healthy Quinn Hughes if we're gonna go anywhere. So I'm personally glad that Hughes made that decision and that he isn't playing because they do need him and he does need to get healthy. But I am disappointed that we won't be able to watch him and be proud of him in the tourney. There was a lot of people that wondered if, you

know, if Quinn Hughes plays really well for the Americans, does that help his heart trophy candidacy? But at the end of the day, it's about your team and you're the captain of the team. And sometimes you do have to make sacrifices for your team and, uh, IMAAC in an article that's up on sportsnet.ca got some really good quotes from, uh, Quinn Hughes' agent, Pat Bresson.

And he said, um, Bresson said, look, there's been a lot of turmoil and Quinn feels responsible as captain for what goes on in the locker room on the ice and off the ice. On top of that, he's playing 26 or 27 minutes a night for any human being that's demanding. It has been heavy these first 50 games. At this point, he just needs to put more gas back back in the tank.

Yeah. So I'm not glad that any of this happened, but I'm glad that he made the right decision. I'm glad he's not playing. Yeah. I mean, the tournament and by the way, that's what this entire week is going to be about. There are no more NHL games for the foreseeable future because on Wednesday this tournament gets underway and this has been a tournament that in the lead up has

been hit pretty hard by injury. You look at almost, I think every roster, save maybe the Swedes, has suffered at least one significant injury, taking a pretty prominent player out of the mix. And in the case of Hughes, where it was really touch and go about whether he would go or not, when you were talking about the family analogy,

I think the other thing you could say to him is like, you're the leader of this family, you're the captain of this family, you also play 27 minutes a night for this family and you're going to continue to do that on the other side. It's not as if they're going to scale his workload back given how many games are left in the regular season, where they are. It's not the most comfortable playoff position. I know they go into the break three points clear of Calgary with the same money same 27 games left in the season for both Vancouver and Calgary. So I would I would classify it as Vancouver having a leg up, maybe a significant leg up

in the race, but by no means is it a lock. It's three points over a Calgary team that's done a good job to hang around. So you're going to need Quinn Hughes to come back and play at the very least the level that he was prior to. And if you have aspirations of not just salvaging the season, but trying to turn it into something where you're like, okay, look out for us in the playoffs, you're going to need him to be at an extremely high level. Because I'll say one thing that was kind of lost in all the other news that was going on with Hughes missing a bunch of games and Demko getting hurt and all these new guys coming in is that I don't know if it's very

quietly, but the recipient of the great Elias Pettersson pass against Toronto on the weekend, Philip Horonik has played really well over the last five games. And he's done this without his regular defense partner, Quinn Hughes. He shook off the rust for missing, I believe it was 21

games with the shoulder injury. Admittedly did not look great over the first couple of games, but he has come back. Well, it's hard to return from injuries. Look at how badly Demko's struggled. But he's done a terrific job of coming back. I think he's a pointy game guy during those games where Hughes has been out of the lineup. So all of a sudden. It's crazy that the defense might actually be a strength of this team when everyone's healthy. All of a sudden you're looking at the second half,

the quote unquote second half of the season, you're like, wait a minute, Hughes, he follows Brisson's advice and puts gas in the tank and he's fresh and ready to go. And you've got Hronik playing his best hockey of the season. And then you've got the addition of the steady and consistent and reliable Marcus Pedersen. It's not just that the team has righted the ship. It's that they've righted the

ship with almost like a whole new cast of characters. Like it's a different team. That's the thing about making the trades that they made is it's not just, oh, we've saved the season. We did it with a different look. And that's gonna be really interesting moving forward. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. 803 on a Monday. Happy Monday everybody. Halford Brough, sportsnet 650.

Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service or parts. We are in hour three of the program. Kevin Woodley from nhl.com and Engole Magazine is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour three. Hour three is brought to you by Campbell and Pound, real estate appraisers.

Trust the expertise of Campbell and Pound. Visit them on the internet at Campbell-pound.com today. We are coming to you live from the Kintex studio. Kintex footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Okay, before we get to Kev, I couldn't wait. I know what we learned is coming up and we could do it then, but I was so excited because the line rushes from Canada's first practice have finally been unveiled on Twitter. This is, it's so crazy. practice have finally been unveiled on Twitter. It's so crazy. So the first line is centered by Connor McDavid.

He gets the nod as the one seed. What? I know. He will be flanked by Sam Reinhart and Mitch Marner. Now, how's this for a second line to follow up with? Talking about a matchup nightmare. The second line is Sidney Crosby as your center, flanked by Mark Stone and Nathan McKinnon.

Little bit of compete on that line. That's a good top six. That's a good top six. What do we got on the bottom six? Seth Jarvis is on a line centered by Braden Point and their winger is Brad Marchand. And finally the fourth line of Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli and Sam Bennett.

Travis Koneckni. Energy line down there. Yeah. Sam Bennett, go hit guys. Okay. Yep. Go fight guys. Do you want some pull ups?

I can do those now. Do that as well. I'm serious. Look, I'll do 20 for you right now. Right now. Travis Koneckni is the extra forward. He didn't skate due to an illness. And then the pairs, I guess, not really that surprising.

Tays and McCarr, they're going to skate together. Morrissey's with Pareko. Drew Doughty, who only recently got added to the team, jumps right into the six man defensive group. He's skating with Shay Theodore. That means Travis Sandheim is the seventh defenseman on the outside looking in. So there you go. Very exciting stuff from the first practice in Montreal for Team

Canada for the four nations. Okay to the phone lines we go. A presentation of White Rock Hyundai. Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Engel Magazine joins us now in the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. What up Woodley? How you doing bud? I'm good. So do you want to know the good news now that you've gone through this, the, the defense and the, the lines for Canada?

Do you know that there are three Canadian goaltenders in the top 10 and adjusted safe percentage? Oh, I know. And they're not on the team. I saw it. I saw the, I saw the graphic making the rounds over the weekend. It's crazy to be.

They're like, it'll be okay. I don't know if it will. I really don't. Okay, right now, if you had to pick a starter, is it just Bennington by default? I actually think it's going to be Aiden Hill. Do you? We'll see. So, Bennington

made sense. The last five years combined, top ten numbers, the same adjusted save percentage numbers that I was talking about there, top 10 in the entire NHL. I think a lot of people overlook how bad St. Louis became defensively over that time and how good he's been behind it. So he earned it. And then this year he fell off a cliff and maybe not all the way off a cliff, but below

expected for the first time in the last six years. The bad news is all three of the guys that are there are below expected since January 1st. None of them is above water So there isn't really a great answer but Statistically this season hills been the best answer and his hot streak in around December Although it cooled off here in January and into February was the best any of them's played all year Montembeau has it in him

But his hot streaks are one game to the next, and I'm not sure which guy you're getting in, and I don't know if that combined with a lack of experience on the stage is going to allow them to trust him. I think, and there's a caveat to this, if you're going to play Aiden Hill, you better have a system that takes away the middle of the ice between the tops of the face-off circles to the hash marks, because that's what Vegas did when he won a cop. Like down low low in tight, the length he has, he plays deep. He doesn't have to move much.

He goes post to post well. But if you play that way and your team gives up the middle, you get exposed to open looks and his hands can be had, uh, if you give that up. And so he was really good for Vegas when they want to cop. They did give up a lot of high danger chances. They were just all high danger chances that suited the strength of his game and so I'm presuming that if that's the way they're leaning based on the way this season has gone that that's been factored in. That the system recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of the goaltenders they're

going to start. If you want a more balanced approach it's Bennington but Hill without one caveat is probably where I'm looking right now. All right. Let's talk to talk about, uh, Thatcher Demko. Uh, I'll leave the floor to you. How concerned should Canucks fans be that he was forced to leave yet another game? Yeah.

I mean, it's a tough one. Um, we don't know, right? And, and I think a lot of people were really concerned, uh, when he left the game in Seattle and it was back spasms and he missed a couple of games and he was back. Now that seemed to slow the progress he'd made in terms of sort of finding his game and getting to where we saw him the last five games. But I think the fact he found it over this last 10 days or so means it'll be that much easier for him to get it back if this absent is short. Now, the irony is, is I was, I think I even said, you know, right before that game, that the break couldn't come at a worse time for him because he was playing so damn well, like just incredibly, Pico Powers Demko, and for the most part, it wasn't perfect, but it was,

it was, I mean, it was really good. And now you're happy to have the break because you hope when they return to practice on the 18th of February that he's on the ice. I understand the consternation that comes with this given the history, but I would point to the Seattle game in the backs. I'm not saying it's backs as I'm just saying we don't know what it is. When talk it, you know, just as he came out that night and said back spasms and everybody said, sure, sure, sure.

Um, when he says it's not the knee, I think we take them at his word. Um, they've been really vague on injuries as a team, as a group. Uh, I still don't think Quinn Hughes, even though the reports of oblique is even labeled upper or lower, I guess it's mid, um, and they, and they don't even put labels on a lot of these things, upper or lower, it's just undisclosed. So the fact he came out so adamantly and said it wasn't the knee, you know, I think you take him at his word there and you hope that it's just like, there's a lot of little tweaks that can happen in a season to go to NHL goaltender,

especially one that's missed as much time as Thatcher is and plays with as much pace as he does. And you hope it's one of those short-term things that he took the precaution and come out of the game and would be back when they're back on the ice. Kev, was it the Edmonton game where you thought you saw something that like Thatcher Demko, even though he had allowed six goals in the game or something like that, you thought you saw something

good from him that later in the game, you thought he had kind of like rediscovered his form and ever since then he's been pretty good, except for maybe you could say that Dallas game where he allowed three goals on 14 shots, but you know, overall his play went up. Like, what did you see in that game? And the funny thing is, yes, it was.

And the funny thing is that, like he said a couple of nights later after the first shut out that, you know, he knew where his game was at and even if people on the outside couldn't see it, he felt it was coming even before the results came. And so it's quite possible that what I thought I saw in the second period was actually there in the first when they gave up three goals. Maybe it was there the game before. And I think the way that everything she started, you wouldn't have been able to tell because they were so bad in front of him

at the, in the beginning. But what I saw was a guy that was leading with vision. And I know that sounds like a really like over simplistic thing, but I just felt like a lot of the movements were sort of body-based and body-first. Like he was trying to, almost like he was trying to hold his form as he moved as opposed to just locating visually and going. He plays with such pace when he's at his best and it looked like some of that pace just wasn't at that same high level. And listen, like that's the hard

part. It is a high level like an exceptionally high level and so to get back to that isn't going to be easy and I probably was amongst the worst in terms of naively assuming he would do it faster than he has given how much time he's missed but I just felt like he was leading with vision. There's a couple of bang bang plays across the middle where instead of reaching with limbs and opening up and then having to catch up the backside of the body, it was eyes first rotation, go explosive hands over pads, smothering pucks, cutting off angles.

And then we saw in the Colorado game, a couple of, you know, backdoor saves where I think a lot of goalies are coming across in a slide or maybe even a spread, but they're just trying to get a pad on it. And he comes across and there's that vision there and there's that visual attachment and he's making active glove saves out of fully extended reaches and sprawls. And so I just saw that pace return in the movement.

And to me, that's when the movements led with vision. I think it's a core of what the goalie coach here used to teach and the goalie coach here now probably still teaches and it just for whatever reason had gone missing a little bit. Even on the post play stuff, I mean just sticking a leg out and reaching rather than rotating and pushing subtle little things that were causing him goals in tight that we weren't used to seeing. And even though the post play still not perfect, it's such a small detail. Everything else looks so much crisper cleaner.

And I think regardless of why it happens and the mechanics behind it, and I associate it with vision first, it looks faster, right? The pace is faster than what we were seeing up until that point. If you're holding your form, would that introduce tension into your game that could slow you down?

I mean, it doesn't have to. Um, I don't know that, uh, I understand what you're saying. And certainly some guys can play with little tension and tension is the enemy of goaltending, as Ian Clark always used to say. I didn't necessarily see tension in his game. I just, well, actually maybe a little rigidity, but it doesn't have to. It's a tough one to explain.

It's almost like you're just trying to make every movement perfect and rotate your body and move it all in one piece and that's ideal. Like that's the ideal, that's what we want. But if you lead with your body rather than leading with your head and leading with vision, everything else is behind and there's a tendency to reach and open rather than to rotate and push. What are you thinking just in generally about the Canucks goal-tensing situation at present, but also into the future because they've got to make some pretty darn big decisions over the next few months, really.

Um, whether or not they try really hard to bring Lankton in back, whether or not they, let's be honest, trade Thatcher-Damko. I don't think it would happen before the deadline, but I think it's possible. I suppose it could happen in the off season. Um, whether or not they give him a contract extension, that seems very unlikely that they do

it this off season, maybe down the line they'll figure about what, just what are your thoughts besides it seems uncertain? Yeah. And I kind of agree with that and I don't have the answer to how they're going to proceed. So uncertain for me as well. Um, you know, my, my original thoughts is Demko

was heating up and I'm looking so much like his old self, uh, was, Hey, you're going to have two number one goaltenders down the stretch. And that's a good thing for a team that's chasing a little bit and has some catching up to do. To know you have a chance every night. You know what, like we saw against Toronto that that's redemption comes out of a game

and you've got this guy in the bench who's just played so well for you and is capable of making saves like the one he did on Matthews with two minutes left and the power play. And that's kind of where I was focused. And I guess the, what happened in the power play. Um, and that's kind of where I was focused. And I guess the, what happened in the game probably reinforces the need for a guy like

Lankin and does it not. And so the question becomes, cause you know, he fits here, you know what you have in him. You know, there's a relationship with the goalie coach that has been a know, been a part of this. Is he willing to resign in a number you can afford and that that market is going up, right? It's really ironic to me. They got him cheap because nobody would give him two million and people thought he had priced himself on the free agent market and clearly he did at two million dollars. But as someone who said all along that he was probably going to be one of the best value guys in this free agent crop, a long-term deal at two million would look really good right about now. Now the Connex obviously couldn't do that, they were trying

to fit everything under the cap and then he did somebody cheap, but it's not going to be cheap anymore. I think you know the reports on Charlie Lindgren in Washington are three and a half to four million dollar range and he led the Washington capitals to the Stanley Cup playoffs last year performing much like Lankton and has this year slightly higher level statistically but over a larger sample size and so if that's if that's the market are they willing to get into that for multi years of Lankton and then anything that's multi years now you're talking about what does an extension look like

with Demco cause the second, you know, basically the first year of it is going to have both guys under contract and this is not an organization that in the past has wanted to spend heavily on goal-tenning. So lots of big decisions to come. I don't know which way they'll go. The price on Lincoln certainly hasn't gone down,

but the need for him is probably as clear as ever. Who are the top goalies available in Unrestricted Free Agency this off season, besides Kevin Lankton, I suppose? Well, I mean, the aforementioned Charlie Lindgren, if he decides he doesn't want to be Logan Thompson's 1 B in Washington, and then you start to look for guys, you know, honestly, and I haven't done this, we could call this homework assignment for another day.

But you start to look for them, you know, the next Lankton and like there were numbers that jumped out that said Kevin Lankton and was ready to pop. There's a reason I was so big on him from July 1st. Same reason I said the same thing of Charles Lindgren the year that the capital signed him, three years at 1.3 million. I said that summer we'd look back at it as the best contract of that free agent class

and here we are. You can find these guys. There's usually only one or two. The question is whether everybody else recognizes it or not. And to assume that they'll be able to do it in a bigger role, which is I think one of the questions that surrounded Lankenen, is sometimes a tough assumption to make, and you have to be able to sign and get the guy. So like knowing you're going to have the fit you have in Kevin Lankenen, you know, you

don't hit every time with these things, but you can find guys. I think there's a lot of names that are unrestricted this summer. You know some of them come with similar question marks in terms of the ability to stay healthy. Some of them are less proven. You can usually find the guy but it's like I said it's gonna be hard to find a guy who's fit as well as Kevin Liken and has here and has won the confidence of his team already right. Like legitimately played like a maybe not a top tier number one because there have been some ups and downs and some some low danger goals that have gone in Right? Like legitimately played like a, maybe not a top tier number one, because there have been some ups and downs and some, some low, low danger goals that have gone in, but at a really, really high level,

um, for very little money. So, uh, again, I'm just not sure which way they'll go here. I mean, the cap's going up, right? Yeah. So, but any contract with Demco, if you decide to bring them back, like make no mistake, people can point to what's happened injury wise, but Linus Allmark and Jeremy Swainman had neither one of them had played more than what, like 50 games in a season, just over 50 in a season. And they both hit the eight and a quarter of mark. That's the price. And so, you know, if you're bringing him back, that's what you're paying him.

How much do you want to spend on goaltending? If you've got Lankin in at three and a half to four, or maybe even more. How comfortable would you be if the Canucks just had Kevin Lanken in as their starter? Like Demko's not there anymore. They go out and find a traditional backup goalie that is fine, but Kevin Lanken in is the man.

Well, we haven't seen him in playoffs yet, but he's not a guy that looks like the pressure gets to him. What does change in playoffs? And we saw this with Archer Shilov's last year as the playoffs went on, his teams figure out what to attack. They break down your game a little bit. Now, I see Lankin as a guy who can adjust to that and make whatever adjustments are needed. He's a flexible guy. He's not rigid in the way he plays. He's made significant changes in how he plays post entries and exits, some depth management stuff, some retreat stuff since he got here. So I think all those things are manageable. I do think you'd have to make sure you found maybe not the next Kevin like anything because like I just Finished outlining. It's not easy to do at that level

But you need to find a guy like that because we have seen as he's gone into like six of seven or seven of eight You know, that's where it's fallen off a cliff a little bit statistically That's where we've had the tough outings the uncharcharacteristic low danger goals. Actually those are the games, it's at the end of those windows that have kind of soared his statistics. Statistically speaking, you know, on a sort of per shot basis so adjusted save percentage, he's actually not been as good as he was in Nashville. And yet we know how good he's being. The stats have been undermined by the performances when the games played have gone up and so you need to have a guy that can make sure you don't overplay him in the short term and you have to ask what that looks like in a Stanley Cup playoffs if you have aspirations of going on the long run.

Well have you taken a look at the Canucks schedule coming out of the Four Nations face-off break? Because they got back-to-back and then another back-to-back. They go go, they got back to back and then another back to back. They go Saturday, Sunday in Vegas and Utah, and then Wednesday, Thursday in LA and Anaheim. So like the, the goal-tending is going to be tested right away. Like as soon as this tournament is over, you get back, you practice.

And then unless you're going to give Lankton a lot of games in a real short window, you're going to have to play both of them. So I guess we're going to get a good look right away at how Demko is doing and how much he was able to heal over the break. Yeah. And then like I said, like to me, this is, I don't have any answers there. You know, it's, it's February 18th. We got, we got eight, got eight days for, they're supposed to be back on the ice practicing. And I think we're going to learn a lot based on who's out there, including Demko and probably Quinn Hughes as well, right?

In terms of where this team's at. And to your point, if indeed, Thatcher Demko isn't there when they return, you can't roll him out for all four or even. That's a lot. Even three of the four, because don't forget, he's at the four nations. He's traveling. He's coming back at the end of it. He's not getting that practice time.

So, you're gonna have to have somebody else play, I would say both of the back-to-back games, maybe three out of four. But again, if you've lost your safety net, why would you push it with the guy you need down the stretch, not just for the first four games out of the break? Hey, since Connor Hellebuck is probably going to start the games for the Americans, what do you

think of the narrative out there that pressure gets to him because the last two playoffs have not gone particularly well for him? Well, I would normally say, so first off, I would just dismiss it, but it is interesting to hear him talk about how he's trying a different mental approach this year, in terms of how he's approaching games in the day to day and trying to be a little more water off a duck's back

in terms of his mental approach. So I wonder if in some ways that's an admission by needing to change the approach. But to me the biggest thing is teams have attacked him and let's face it the Aves had a dynamic offense last year and the Jets didn't do much to stop it and they've attacked him in ways in the playoffs that the Jets do a very good job of preventing in the regular season. Every goalie has strengths and weaknesses. Now Hellebuck has so many strengths that his weakness are all just relative. Like they're not

glaring, it's not even below expected. But when you're above expected in every other statistical category, it's a relative weakness and teams are going to go after it. And so I think it was more a combination of teams attacking those weaknesses and up until this season, interestingly enough, he's made some adjustments in his depth management and it's helping him on lateral plays but up until this season the book was East West. He's the best goalkeeper in the world in the straight lines. You attack him in straight lines and his ability to process releases, read pass or shot off

the rush is is is hashic like it's uncanny. I've sat down and done video with him and he's telling me not only whether a guy is shooting on a two on one, but where he's shooting not long after he crosses the blue line. Like, it's not his anticipation. And so teams make sure they go east west on those plays. Don't attack if the guy's the best in the world in straight lines. Don't attack him in straight lines. Now he's made an adjustment tactically this year and his

numbers on slot line plays, east-west plays are better. But that to me was one of the things the past couple of years, the Abbs scored seven of their 24 on east-west plays. The other thing, screens. And again, the Jets were one of the best teams in the league defensively last year, preventing east-west plays in the regular season. They were 16 teams in the league defensively last year, preventing East West plays in the regular season. They were 16th in the playoffs. They were one of the best teams in the regular season at preventing screen chances, especially the more dangerous ones in the playoffs. They were 16th goalie that reads the game as well as Hellebuck take away his eyes.

Now I've got all this detail in front of me cause I just finished the team USA pre-scout for four nations for, uh, for NHL.com. And so it's fresh of mind, but I think it's more that than it is any mental and yet in a best on best at this, like I think you could make the argument no pressure, no goalie has more pressure on them. A lot of people talk about Canada and whoever's in that there, but no goalie may have more pressure on them than Conor Hellebuck on this stage. And if it turns into a odd man rush fest, like if

this becomes a little fire wagonish, it's all star break, not shut it down, best on best hockey, we're used to seeing when Canada rolls out, even with the lines you guys said and how impressive they were. It'll be really interesting to see if teams start going east west on them on all those again. I got a little, uh, goalie nightmare fuel for you before we let you go. Oh, hold on.

Let me sit down. Canada just, uh, unveiled its first power play unit. So it will be four forwards, one defenseman. The four forwards are Sydney Crosby, Nathan McKinnon, Connor McDavid, Sam Reinhart, and the defenseman is Kael McCarr. Oh, guys, I have like eight more goalies to do video breakdown on today, and you just put me in the fetal position

for the rest of the morning. I got this. It's wild. You imagine if they go out there, and they're like, they can't get set up. It's very frustrating to watch. So many point shots. Taking the zone. Back to the point again.

Yeah. All right. Nobody's willing to dump it in. Kev, thanks for doing this today, bud. Good luck with the rest of the recaps. We'll do this again soon. Thanks, guys. Have a great week.

Yeah, you too. Thanks. That's Kevin Woodley from nhl.com and Ingole Magazine, a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. Visit the showroom on King George in White Rock or whiterockhunday.com. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.