Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 2/12/26

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, plus they discuss Elias Pettersson's play at the Olympics yesterday versus Italy 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 Halford and Brough. Leonard, down the left, right elbow jumper for the lead, puts it in with two seconds left. I've only won one Super Bowl, and that was my quarterback. So do I love my quarterback? Yeah, but is he a good person? No? And you got anything to say by the city of Seattle?

I got two words for you. Good morning Vancouver 6-1 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sports 9650. We are coming live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adol, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brother of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. DIF CRA debt, if you do,

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New Year, New Opportunity for Comfort with Orthotics from Kintech. Got a lot to get into you on the program today. The guest list this morning, the Duick Morning Drive. Brought you by the Duick Auto Group begins at 630. Sean Reynolds is going to join us from Milan, SportsNet Reporter, and, host on Hockey Night Canada. Sean is in the line obviously covering the men's and women's Olympic hockey.

The women are underway right now. No spoilers yet. We'll save it for later in the show. The men take on, check you at 7.40 our time this morning. So we will talk to Sean roughly one hour prior to puck drop and get all the latest news, notes, lineup stuff, what have you. Sean is going to join us at 6.30. 7 o'clock.

Here's an interesting one. Stephen Hauschka is going to join the program. Remember him? long time Seattle Seahawks kicker, Super Bowl champion with Seattle in 2013. He was part of this year's Super Bowl run as well, only in a, what I'm going to call a culture consultant position to Mike McDonald, a culture consultant. Okay, so that's relevant to both talking about the Seahawks and maybe, maybe, maybe our local hockey team. Do they have a culture problem? I think they do.

Patrick, do you have a culture problem that needs to be fixed? Minor correction. My apologies. He's at 7.30. 7.30. Stephen Houske is going to join the program. We talked about culture with the former Seattle Seahawks kicker. And then at 8 o'clock this morning, Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk is going to join the program. Lots of Olympic hockey to dive into with Drancer, including Elias Pedersen and Sweden, avoiding the upset yesterday against Italy. And the Canada game will be on while we talk to Drance.

We'll also go through everything else that's happened last night and this morning, as the Olympic tournament is now fully underway. We are giving away a $250 gift card to Golf Town as well today. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m. is going to win a $250 gift card to Golf Town. 604-280650. That number again, 604-280-0-650. You want me to do the Golf Town bit, don't you? Take the kids to Golf Town.

Mom, Dad, can we go to Golf Town? Sure we can. Now that we have a $250 gift card, caller number 5 at 8 a.m. is going to win that one. We've got a lot to get into on the program today. Not even going to work in reverse on the guest list. Without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? I missed that? You missed that? What happened is brought you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance.

Making safety simpler by giving construction companies invest in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.com.ca. The highly anticipated men's Olympic hockey tournament got underway yesterday. It started while we were on the air. It went well into the afternoon. Very quickly, Slovakia, who came into yesterday's game as a plus 325 underdog against the Finns scored an impressive win thanks to a two-gold performance from Yerai Slavkovsky. And in the second and final game of the day, Sweden got a major scare, but avoided the upset by

putting away Italy 5-2, despite the game going deep into the second period tied to two. Where do you want to start, Jason? Well, I think all eyes in Vancouver were on. Elias Pedersen for Sweden. Peterson, like his teammates, weren't all that effective through the first two periods. And then the third period, they looked a lot better as I think Italy started to wear out a little bit. They had a goaltending injury that was caused by Elias Pedersen, not intentionally, but deeked the Italian goalie out. And the Italian goalie went, well, that hurts.

Yep. You know, and I think Pedersen had a good third period. he hit a post as drancer tweeted out he had a post had that short-handed breakaway on which the italian goalie was injured and on zabanajad's was that the winning goal or the fourth goal i think it was the fourth goal so it was kind of the insurance goal he had a good screen of the new italian goalie um he was good and um you know these things are always tough to um tough to analyze because you know you're you get some people say like, great, he was good, period. I hope he does well, and others be like, pia, against Italy.

In 13 minutes and 22 seconds of ice time, second lowest among all forwards. Sorry, third lowest, because you have to put Philip Forsberg in there. We'll get to him in a second. Yeah. But here's the one. So I think, I think basically the Pedersen performance was like a typical Canucks performance where his fans are like, look at all the good things he did. And then his detractors are, like,

like, yeah, you know, like against Italy. You know, they'll always, it's, it always depends on how, in some ways, how you want to look at the performance. And then the neutrals will be like, it was fine. The neutrals were like, Italy, Sweden. I, I didn't, I wasn't watching that. Yeah. So the line of Patterson, Zabinajad, and Raquel was deployed,

at least in terms of time on ice, as a fourth line. Their top line was Ericksonac between Kempe and Nylander. But if you look at the I, ice times, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot differentiating line one from four. The top line guys were in around 16 and a half, 17 minutes, and the fourth line guys were in around 13 and a half. Yeah, Sam Lam rolled his lines, except for you Forsberg. Well, that was probably one of the reasons why he said.

He just, the coach wanted to, wanted to roll lines, and there has to be a 13th forward. I thought it might have been Pontus Holmberg. But he was a big minute man, relatively speaking. So here's the thing about when these guys go to the Olympics and any international competition really. There is an element of, especially with certain coaches of, I've noticed some of the European countries, there's almost a real concerted effort about checking your ego at the door to the point where I often wonder, and this is just me pontificating, but I often wonder if sometimes

they do it to more higher profile guys to say, hey, look, if this guy can do it, anybody can do it because on the blue line, Oliver Ekman Larson was the seventh eventman, and he sat there on the bench, the entire game and played zero minutes, zero seconds. That's embarrassing. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't really, you know, I know you're supposed to check your ego,

but this is one of the issues with the dressing of 20 skaters. Yep. So you can go, you can go 12 forwards and four pairs and then roll the pairs if you want, but most teams, and I think they do this for,

injury insurance purposes. They'll go 13 forwards and 7D men. So you're going to get a guy like Philip Forsberg who doesn't have a line and then OEL who didn't have a pair. And they just sit there. And it's shocking to see.

Especially in the case of Forrestberg. Forsberg is a mustache. An incredibly decorated NHLer and just sitting there basically open and closing the door. But this is how this tournament will work. And I would not be surprised if in another game Forzsburg works his way into one of those spots

And it's another guy By the way, I do love Google Translate So I went last night And looked on Expressin Which is one of the big Swedish news outlets And the headline is Philip Forsberg on the poking Of course it is difficult

I later realized that I don't think scratching Like a healthy scratch translates that well And I'm pretty sure that's what it ended up being a poking A poking Yeah, he got poked all the way down to But he didn't Wasn't technically a full poke He only got poked once to go over the bench

Yeah, he's like, go now, you get a minute to play. So that was the Swedish story. The Italians did throw a pretty good scare into the Swedes. I'm not sure if Sweden ever actually felt it because the shot totals were so one-sided. It was interesting listening to a bunch of the Swedish players when they came off the ice yesterday. Because they were like, yeah, it was closer than we thought it was going to be.

But we also outshot Italy 60 to 22. So you can't say that they didn't generate chances. It was an all-timer performance from, the Swedish goalie, Damien Clara, and Laddie, you're familiar with this guy because he's actually a fairly high draft pick in the Anaheim organization. Yeah, he was a guy I heavily scouted a lot, and I really liked him. He's super raw because he came up in Italy, right?

He didn't have a great foundation until he... He's a tall, he's got the size, and he's actually a pretty decent skater for a guy who's 6'6 or whatever he is. So usually those bigger guys kind of struggle in that regard, but he's super calm. You saw the extension that he got on that save that he made up Pedersen where he got hurt. insane splits, right?

He's so good at covering the lower portion of the net. That's what happened there. He went too far. So I was super bummed when he got pulled from the game. It was a great save. He had to do it. But man, it was quite the run he was on. Lucas Raymond with the understatement of the tournament so far. Usually 60 shots is enough, he says. Well, thank Lucas Raymond for pointing that out.

Well, it was pretty cool to see East Vancouver's Matt Bradley score for Italy. And our friend Patrick Johnston, actually wrote a feature on Matt Bradley playing for Italy in the Vancouver province. And it's a good piece. I recommend you can search it out if you want to look at it. Matt Bradley, he started playing for Vancouver Minor, which is kind of East Van. And then his family moved to White Rock, where he kept playing for Samiamu. He played for the Surrey Eagles The medicine hat tigers

He played a lot of hockey And then I think he was in the HABs organization And then didn't make the HABs Went over to Europe At any rate he's now representing Italy For the Olympics Well how is he doing that Well his grandpa is from Italy

His nono His no no And some people have been Misc quoting on because he's done all sorts of shoutouts to his no-no. And people were saying that it's his no-na, but it's his no-no. No-no is his grandfather.

No-no is his grandmother. It's his grandfather. And the best quote I got was, or Pige got that I read, he was asked what it's like playing in Italy. And he said, well, there's little things, just the way guys talk to each other and the screaming matches. and the talking with your hands,

little things like that reminds me of home. So nice. Hey, it's nice. You know what I miss about home? The screaming matches. The yelling and the hands and the screaming and the hands. And the emotions. Heartwarming.

So that was... The touching of the faces, the constant touching of the faces. Right, right. Always caressing. Just gently caressing. So there was... It's aggressive. There was...

That was the second of the two games yesterday. The first game, Slovakia and Finland was underway while we were on the air, and we got to see Yer Slafkofsky open the scoring. He went on to add a second goal as Slovakia upset Finland 4-1 in the first game of this, you know, much Ballyhoo tournament with the return of NHLers to Olympic competition. I forgot that Slavkovsky was the Olympic MVP in 2022 the last time it was without NHLers, and he sort of picked up right where he left off. But another goal-tending question for you, Laddie.

and I know you don't know a ton of a lot about the guy, but Samuel Halavai stopping 39 of 40 shots faced against the Finns. This is a guy who is split time this season between the American League and the ECHL in the Minnesota Wild Organization. And one of the guys that is working with him and kind of unearthed him as a prospect is none other than former Canucks folk legend, Richard Bachman, who is now a goalie consultant

for the Minnesota Wild Organization. That performance, by the way, was for Elliot Friedman because I heard Friege breaking down the Slovak's chances in this tournament. And he was like, yeah, I mean, I don't know about their goaltending. I mean, he wasn't wrong to question the goaltending. He's got an 880 in the H.L. Yeah, here's a guy that's like not, you know,

he's not in the NHL and his numbers aren't great in the HAL. By all accounts, the ECHL stint was because he was performing so poorly in the American League as well. Did you know anything about? this guy. And I'm asking you in particular because you know more about goalies than anybody I know. And this guy appeared like, there were some people I was listening to some coverage yesterday and they're like, just full on admitted. They're like, I have no idea, had no idea who Samuel Halavai was going into this tournament. Yeah, he's not, he was never like super high on any of my

lists. He was, he came out of the Quebec league. He played a couple of years with Sherbrook. Good numbers. He's got the size, which is obviously if you have the size, it kind of puts you ahead of the pack just automatically. So he's always kind of in the mix. His name's always kind of been around, but he's never been seen as like a top tier prospect or a big, even big name in the goalie world, right? So the fact that he went out there and did that,

a guy who's, you know, struggled by the numbers this year in the HL to do that at the Olympic level. That's what the Olympics is all about. You're rising to the occasion, right? It's awesome. I was just going to say that. This is what we see in the Olympics, often from the goaltending position,

because there are some mispiscences. matches on the ice. As for Finland, it was always going to be tough without Barkoff. Just asked the Florida Panthers this season. So we'll see how they bounce back. They're going to have to play Sweden soon. Quick note about the format. If you're just wondering, you know, Canada, the men are playing their first game today. So a lot of people are like, well, it's the format anyway. So there's 12 teams. They're split into three groups. The top team of each group and the best second rank team, I imagine they do that based on, I don't know,

points are goal differential. They advance to the quarterfinals. So there's four teams that automatically advance out of the group stage into the quarter finals. All the other teams play in a qualification round. So in other words, you cannot be eliminated in the group stage. But if you're one on the top teams,

you do want to avoid a qualification game if you can. Finland, For example, probably going to need to beat Sweden tomorrow to avoid that fate. So it was the same format back in 2014 the last time the NHLers played. That year, Canada won its group, but they needed overtime to beat Finland in the group stage. So Canada was actually the third seed heading into the playoffs behind Sweden and the U.S. Canada ended up playing the winner of Switzerland and Latvia.

That was Latvia, which very nearly pulled a massive upset in the quarterfinals. But Canada escaped that, thanks to it, Shea Weber. They beat the U.S. in the semis and then Sweden in the final. Well, if you go all the way back to 2010, Canada actually found itself in the qualification round because they were the sixth seed coming out of the group. Because you'll remember, in addition to the loss to the U.S. in the group, stage, which was Marty Bauder's last game, where Loongo took over. They also went to a shootout against Switzerland and won in the shootout. So they finished six and they had to play Germany.

And not many people remember that game because it was an absolute blowout. It was 8-2. But the Canadians had to play an extra game. And it actually, in a very weird round about way, and I know we'll talk about this later, gave Luongo an extra game to kind of find his footing before they had to go up against Russia, Slovakia, and then of course a rematch against the U.S. in the finals. Yeah, the Russians were the higher seeded team when the Canada blasted them. Yeah, the Russians kind of coasted

through the group. And, you know, I remember there was some conversation at the time that going into that qualification around for Canada might not have been the worst thing because it gave them an extra game to play. There was very little chance they were going to lose because the other teams in the qualification

at that point were like Belarus, Norway and Slovakia. There were some minnows in there for sure. But getting through it and winning that game and giving everybody an extra chance to skate together, ended up proving to be a good thing. By the way, a couple notes. On the rink and the ice,

I wanted to try and get some information on this. I was reading and listening to a few things yesterday. Brian Boucher reportedly on the NBC broadcast noted that the building was rather warm, and there was a ton of snow accumulation on the ice, especially by the second game, and that it really started to play with the quality of play. And I guess Cassie Campbell-Paskel, on our panel up here

said that the ice going in to the dashboards and the kickboards, it's not flush to the boards. It actually kind of dips in. So there's a bunch of weird, when people are like rimming pucks and everything, there's a bunch of really weird bounces and all the puck battles along the boards.

That seems safe. Yeah, it doesn't sound great for safety, but it also like, for example, if you're going to watch Biddington come out of his net today, pay attention to how aggressive he is coming out because apparently pucks that are going around the boards and going around the rims are taking all kinds of, of crazy

bounces. And Bennington is expected to start in goal. We don't know for sure, but that's the expectation.

According to Elliot Friedman, Darcy Kemper, defenseman, Travis, Sanheim, and forward Seth Jarvis

skated this morning, indicating they will not dress this afternoon. So no Kemper, no Sanheim, no Seth Jarvis, which brings me,

brings us to the biggest question mark for Canada. think, and that's in goal. It's crazy to me that if Canada makes the gold medal game, we have no idea which of the three goalies will be the starter. Now, I think today's news that Darcy Kemper won't dress

probably puts him in the very unlikely category to be the starter because it's very unusual for a Canadian team to go through. It's like trying to first goal, it doesn't work, second goal he doesn't work. you know, then you go to a third goalie. If you see all three goalies in this tournament, it means the tournament's not going well for Canada. Yeah. In 2014, since we're going back,

it was easy. Carrie Price was the guy. He only allowed three goals, the entire tournament, and finished with a save percentage of, get this, laddie, 972. It's not bad.

It's good. Pretty good. Shut out the Americans in the semifinal, shut out Sweden in the final. No issues with goaltending that year. in 2010, a bit more complicated. That year, you might remember a guy by the name of Roberto Luongo, helping Canada to gold.

He didn't start the tournament as the number one in most people's mind. He started the first game, but it wasn't, I think it was against Germany. He only replaced Marty Breder, or Norway or something like that. He only replaced Marty Breder after Breder lost to the United States in the final group stage. game. Now, you may recall that Luongo had a bit of a reputation of being a great regular season goalie, but not so much when the games really mattered. Did anyone remember that? Yeah, a little bit of that in Vancouver. I've locked it out of my money. I don't remember it. Couple series against the Chicago Blackhawks that didn't go so well for Lou. Bennington's almost the opposite. He's known as

the big game goalie, and he has a Stanley Cup to prove it. and he won the Four Nations. But his regular season this year has been horrendous. Not good. Not good at all. And, you know, there's a lot of comps to be made here between what Luongo did in 2010. And I think we should, you mentioned Kerry Price in 2014, almost being like the greatest scenario you could have is you had a number one.

It was easy for him, though. He was easy. Sure. It was Babcock's style and the way the team played defensively. But here's the thing. Kerry Price was just like, he was falling asleep. Here's the thing, he didn't let in any softies. And that's what Luongo did in 2010.

And if we're going to be perfectly honest, that's what Binnington did in the Four Nations that had a lot of people concerned. You got to remember before clamping down in the final, Bittington gave up three third period goals to Finland in a game that looked like it was comfortable and then suddenly wasn't. And if you want to sort of put a synopsis on his entire tournament

before beating the Americans in the final, every game had at least one goal that people thought Bennington would want back. They were counted as three soft goals over the course of three games and it was made kind of a little bit more alarming because all the games were really close, right?

Every game was decided by one or two goals. Well, there's no minnows in that tournament. That's the thing. When Luongo went, and I remember this distinctly, when he regained the net, and he did regain the net, because you're right,

he did start the tournament. But what Canada did there is they didn't even dress broder in the first game. Luongo started, and Mark Andre Fleury got his only game, and he dressed as a backup. Bordor came in and then played the two games. And after they lost 5-3 to the U.S., Luongo went back in, played against Germany, they won 82. He was okay there. The two goals against were sort of like whatever.

He led in a not-great goal in the 7-3 win over Russia. I think it was a point shot from Gonchar. And then in the Slovakia game in the semifinal, that was the one that got everybody's like nerves ratcheted. up because Luongo gave up a really bad goal to Louvomero Vizanovsky that he said after the game he wished he had had back that it was a 3-0 game for Canada. It kind of allowed the Slovaks back into the game and that ended up being a 3-2 game and that was really close, way closer than everybody expected. So going into the final, there was a very similar vibe with Binnington at the Four Nations where it's like, yes, we've won. This guy has back stopped us to the wins that we needed to get to

this level, but it hasn't been picturesque. With Luongo in the final, I mean, we were talking about this last night, Bruff and I trading notes. Even in the final, there was a goal of the Kessler tip where like Babcock called out Luongo for it. Yeah. After they had won gold,

he's like, ah, Lou probably wanted that one back. I remember James, I still remember James Myrtle with a tweet. I think it was that game. Could have been a Canucks game, but it was like,

it was a typical Lewango, like he made the save and Myrtle tweeted out, awkward, save Luongo, like kind of a play on Jim Houston. Yeah. You know? And that's what it was.

But he got the job done. We were so spoiled with Carrie Price, by the way. I just pulled up his numbers here for Canada. Since the World Junior onward in his career, you played for Canada three times. He was 16 and 0. Not bad. He played an Olympic Games, a World Juniors, and a World Cup of Hockey. I want to test this out.

I want to test this out before we go to break. Can we play our Olympic Spoiler Stinger, please, right now? It's Olympic spoiler time. Turn those radios off. We're a little behind here, but I would. will say that Canada is up one-nothing on the fins and the women's side of the things here. Jennifer Gardner scored with just about five minutes remaining in the first period. The big news here, two of them actually.

Marie-Filié-Poulin did not play again, and Sarah Filier went down with an injury. She's back on the bench now, but it looked really bad. Yeah, it looked horrific. I'm not digging this. They're only out shooting the Finns 9 to 8. Right. This Canadian women's team needs to improve a lot. if they are first of all going to get to the gold medal game,

which they still should. But there have been upset. There have been upsets. And if they've got any chance of meeting the Americans, they better up their game. They went back to Debian, too. Yeah, they did go back to Davey and I noticed that. Yeah.

And I do wonder if they're just going to try and take this game into the gutters and the sewers and try and win ugly, because that might be the way to do it, especially against the Americans, is just win, but win ugly. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. off what we just have to call Thomas Drance erotica

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Thomas Dran's erotica 30 on a Thursday Happy Thursday everybody Halford Brough Sportsnet 650 Halford Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates

Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees visit them today at Sands that's trustee.com We are in hour three of the program Thomas Drance is going to join us in just a moment here.

Hour three is brought you by Campbell & Pound real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell and Pound. Visit them on the internet at Campbell-Dashpound.com today. We're coming to live from the Kintech studio, new year new opportunity for comfort with orthotics from Kintech. Guests on Sportsnet 650. Call in on the ABLE Auctions hotline. Email sales at abel-e-octions.ca to get your business assets sold

and your building cleared. Let's go now to that. aforementioned Abel Auctions Hotline. Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Stock joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sports 965. What up, Drancor? I'm really excited. Like, this is the best, and it's just going to be difficult for me to not do play-by-play,

but I'll do my best. I've already done that. Some warning from the IOC on my phone. Immediately like, no, I feel like. After the show, apparently I have a meeting. That's not good. This is great, though, eh? Like, it actually, the energy of just the start,

and you can sense the anticipation with the players and the way that they're getting after it and everything. Like, this has been 12 years in the making. Yeah, Kail McCar, blocking shots, Connor McDavid throwing big hits. And then you get to see just insane stuff

like McKinnon and McDavid combining on a set entry drop pass, right? So it's like, I mean, how much respect do you have to give Nathan McKinnon with a full head of steam through the neutral zone? And then once he's backed you up, the drop goes to Connor McDavid.

What a nuke. What an absolute. nuke, right? And you start just thinking about how a team could possibly prepare to defend that. Like, what's your answer there? And there can't be one because those are the two fastest skating, hockey

playing humans on the planet, and their teammates, and they're both on PowerPlay One, and they both wear Canadian colors. And you can just immediately see not just the insane skill level of this team, even against a check team that's probably the fourth or fifth best true talent side at this tournament.

but the amount that these dudes care about this, right? How much it means to them, you know, the highlight real McDavid back checks that we're getting, the hitting, the just like intensity that these guys bring immediately with the Maple Leaf on their sweater. I mean, how can you not be romantic about that? Dranscher, do you think this hockey is going to be different in terms of the style that Canada plays compared to 2014 under Mike Babcock and just where, I guess where hockey was in 2014, you know, the same percentages. And a lot of people are like, so did the goalies get worse?

No. The shooters got better. The passing got better. Maybe some of the, even the stick technologies, maybe advanced since then. It's just a different game. For sure. And let me bring up, like, one of my favorite Canadian Olympic highlights of all time was in Vancouver, actually, not in 2014. but it was when Shea Weber put the puck through the net.

Right. Right? You remember that? Literally through the net. Yeah. Yeah. Just absolute Paul Bunyan stuff from the Big D from Sam and Arm. And it was just like this moment where it was like in hockey anyway.

I mean, you go watch 2010 and watch the way they played and how much of the power play was built around setting up point shots. And then remember that like only raddish takes point shots anymore. There's no slap shots. Azanaki. Everyone's taking wristers. No one wants to be disconnected from the puck the way you have to be to launch a full slap shot, in part because of how significant rush, like, counterattacking threats are, how fast these guys are. So yeah, I mean, you're seeing just a complete evolution in terms of how teams and players assess the value of individual shots. And that's enhanced the value of individual shots and diminished save percentage. So, you know, it's not that the goalies have gotten worse at all. It's that teams have gotten smarter about how they create offense. And then I'd add that players have also gotten better in terms of their skills. I mean, 2014, right, this Huck possession-based game, we didn't have the evolutionary Austin Matthews dragshot, right?

And now not only do we have the Austin Matthews drag shot and a bunch of players who do it, but we have kids who grew up watching it obsessively on tablets. and then trying it in games, you know, with various composite sticks. And so you get like evolutionary shooters. Like Connor Bedard's dragshot is effectively a perfected version of Matthews's sort of wrister. And on and on it goes, the game's just evolving at such a rapid pace because the skill level of some of these guys is just insane.

And, you know, 20 of them play for Team Canada, which is so cool and so fun. And then I'd add this for you, gentlemen, And, like, Team Canada's men's ice hockey team is, along with, you know, the Toronto Blue Jays, like the only team I really root for is like a true partisan. You know, like I'm watching these games. I'm watching that hold or that trip on Nick Suzuki take the McKinnon puck off or the goal off the board.

And I'm just like, oh, and like, I never watch games like that. I know a lot of hockey fans watch games like that. I'm not, like, I'm, you know, studied and not doing that. I'm like, oh, I can see the play. Oh, yeah, no, that was a good call. And it was a good call, by the way, on Suzuki. But with this, I'm just like, I'm careful. It was a good call.

Like, that's ridiculous. We just got deprived of an iconic moment, right? Like, I'm just so partisan about this team specifically, which adds to it. I mean, it's not just- Your answer. I got a question for you. It matters so much to me. Yeah.

Because I do this. When Canada is playing, are we allowed to say we? It's our country. Oh. It's our country. It's our country. We're not, we're not, I know we're not on the team, but I would never say like, you know, about the Canox, like, oh, we got to do this or whatever, you know? Like, but Canada, I feel like if they're representing our country, that's, that allows me to say we.

Yeah, I, you know what? I'll have to think about it and I'll have to just like keep talking about Team Canada and see if I actually do it. I don't want to take a stand because I don't know if I actually slip into it or not. My guess is I don't. I bet you don't, but I bet you're trained to do it. do it, but, but, like, would you allow it? Because if, if I hear anyone say we about, you know, pro sports or whatever, if the Canucks are playing, I'm like, okay, come on, we?

Even sometimes on the Seahawks broadcast, I'm like, all right, it might be an ex-player set in which I guess I'll allow it if that player was on the team. But I don't know. For this sort of hockey, I kind of feel like I'm okay saying we. Yeah. You know what? I think I think the truth is that I'm not going to judge. I'm not going to judge anyone who does it. But am I going to allow it? Probably not for myself and it probably will create an eye roll for me. But I will not actually judge you. I'll just have that gut reaction because I'm so studied in that like practical discipline of separating yourself emotionally from what you're watching. An eye role is judgment by the way, just so you know. I know. But for me that's like soft judgment. You know, that's like I'm acknowledging. judging that I mildly disagree.

I'm not being a jerk about it. Hey, Janser, why is Colorado's powerplay struggling? Yeah, I don't, I mean, they also suck three on three. Right? Like they're terrible three on three. And this is in the elimination round after regulation, this tournament gets decided three on three. So, you know, it's not just the power play,

because I'm guessing you're asking me, because why is the worst in the NHL in the powerplay, sending two of the five people occupying Team Canada's PP1, right? but also McCar and McKinnon, like you're not going to go into three-on-three overtime and not have McCar and McKinman play hugely prominent roles, but they're not good at it. And, you know, for most of the season,

watching Colorado play, I've just sort of thought that maybe after regulation, this team has been rolling so heavily that they're just like, okay, whatever, pack it up. We don't care. It's just a coin flip. But in this tournament, three-on-three is going to be everything. I mean, in the elimination round,

if you get into overtime, people forget that the Crosby Golden Goal was four on four, eh? Yep, yep. Right? So, you know, that I think it's an interesting question because Canada only scored the one power play goal at the Four Nations. This is a pretty similar look. I'd say I don't love a righty in the bumper, to be honest with you,

because I don't want it to be McKinnon as the primary playmaker. I want McDavid to be the guy who is like, you know, I know the quarterback's the guy on the point, but I want McKinnon to be sort of the primary passer, the initiator of your sets. And I want you the initiator of your sets to have the one-time option in the bumper. So I prefer a lefty. That's one thing that I thought when Brayden Point bowed out. And I think Brayden Point honestly shouldn't have been on this team on merit, to be totally honest with you this season. So, you know, I didn't view it as like a tremendous loss five on five, although obviously we know what Brayden Point.

is and can do and he rocks. But so this is not to disparage him. This is, you know, I bet you something that he would say himself, just based off of his performance this year. But I did think that it was a huge loss on the power play because he's super elite and left-handed in the bumper. And I don't really like the way they're lining up. In my mind's eye, I don't like the look where you're,

you're having McDavid be sort of the primary initiator. I think it marginalizes McDavid a little too much, five on four. And I'm worried that this power play is not going to, to be as good as it should be based off of the talent level at hand. I think two options would be to put Stone in the bumper or Stone at the net front. He really is the best power play net front guy. I also kind of think that then he can be your 13th forward, kind of like a DH. Right. And then throw Sidney Crosby in the bumper. I mean, to me, that's kind of what I'd

prefer, right? You're setting up McKinnon and McCarr movements with Stone. as a screener and then you're setting up Crosby shots from McDavid as a passer while also having, you know, sort of those other options. So anyway, that's just sort of one thing that I'm curious

to see how this all works out. I obviously had to stop talking there because there was a gold mouse scramble. I'm like, oh, duh, open it home. I'll just say, like, Chequia looks very good. Very good. Very good. I think they were seven or they were nine to one coming in to today's game to win the bronze medal.

And I thought that was a really interesting value bet. I also wouldn't hate taking them for the silver to be totally honest with you. Dostal is also an absolute beast. He's an upset machine, potential upset machine. He's an upset machine. And this is like the most defensive structure he's seen in years. True. You know what I mean?

That's got real defensive. Well, guys are in position? Yeah. What? You know, he's so confused by this. He's like, guys, shouldn't we be surrendering 40 shots while taking 45 of our own? Like, isn't that what hockey looks like? Hey, Dranser, what do you think of Canada's blue line?

Like, we talk about the forward group and we're, you know, drooling over the forward group and we talk about the goalies and we're a little worried about the goalies. There hasn't been as much attention. Yeah, there hasn't been as much attention on the defense because, I mean, more attention probably has been put on the American defense, which is incredible. Incredible. Yeah, and I guess that's the other thing. Like, you look at that Sochi blue line, and it was so nuts, right?

I mean, Keith and Dowdy's still at the peak of their powers. Beaumister was your sixth guy, Alex Pietrangelo. You know, it does feel like we're in this slight lull period between sort of Schaefer's emergence as a capital D dude. I mean, I think he already is. But from a national team perspective where you'd feel comfortable. playing him in really key minutes. I don't think they were going to get there with an 18-year-old at this tournament,

so I understand not bringing him. But the other part of this, I do think, is that we didn't really see a fully operational Canadian blue line at the Four Nations. And so I don't think it's as big, like I don't think it's an issue at all. I think it's going to be a very good unit,

but I also think some classic philanthropic interference slowing down McDavid. Yes. All right. Okay. The answer, we got a spoiler rule on this on this show, so just be careful. Do we?

Yeah, we got a spoiler rule on the show. Okay. I'm sorry, what's the rule? Well, here we go. Play the music. It's a Lampific spoiler time. Turn those radios off. That's what we play every time there's a spoiler.

And you kind of spoil the spoiler. However, we will tell everybody, Canada's up 1-0. And who other to open the scoring than the local boy, Macklin Celebrina on a tip from a Kale-McCarr point shot. I believe it was McDavid got the secondary assist on that one. So Celebrini from Macar and McDavid, Dostall put his hand up in the air thinking it might have been a high stick on the deflection. They say no.

Not even close. They say no. Macklin Celebrity opens the score in Canada up one-nothing right before the end of the first period from Milan. Five seconds left. Let's go. Maclin Celebrini. Oh, my God. That's amazing.

that's unbelievable. Anyway, the, what were you talking about? I was so excited about that goal. I think the blue line or something. Stuff. Right.

Oh, sorry. So we never saw Chey Theodore. He got hurt right out of the gate. We didn't see a lot of Josh Morrissey. And by the time we get to the gold medal game, we as viewers, not we as I'm part of Team Canada. Nicely done.

Nicely done. By the time we got to the gold medal game, we saw, this sort of dynamic where Canada's defenders had this sort of Sanheim-Pareco pair that the Canadian coaches actually thought did a really good job and that I was absolutely terrified to watch every shift. I thought they really struggled to hold up against the Americans forechecking excellence. And this American forward group is exceptionally fast. So, you know, I don't want to see that again. I think that to me is a terrifying

prospect. Now, at this games, the Canadian brain trust has brought the exact same defense. And I think that's mostly justifiable. The only thing I think you can really backseat drive would be Sandheim ahead of Schaefer.

But I think at the end of the day, you know, Schaefer at 18, I mean, you talk to like elite NHL defenders guys like Pronger and on and on. And they'll be like, I wouldn't have been ready at 18. When I first went to the Olympics at 22, I was like, what am I doing here?

Right? Like, I think I would have brought him, but I think it makes sense if you don't feel comfortable being like, if I'm an injury down, I'm comfortable playing this guy 25 minutes. Right? You can't just bring him to be a developmental guy. We saw the Four Nations how quickly Thomas Harley ends up in your top four, right? Like you can't bring a guy who you're going to be like worried about ramping up their role. Would you be super worried about? about him though?

I mean, defensively, I think you can see some gaps, right? I think you can see some gaps also in terms of how he responds to physical play. Sure. You know, now we saw him,

Canucks fans saw him play probably his single worst game of the year when the Canucks bludgeoned the Islanders at UBS in December after the Quinn Hughes trade. And specifically, there's a play there. Now, this happened right before the selection process too. and I'll always wonder how much it played a role. But there's a play where, and Kinex fans will remember this well,

Kiefer Sherwood basically pickpockets him on a retrieval, right? Yep, yep. And the reason that Sherwood was able to pickpocket him off the retrieval, because this is the more important thing, is that off the draw he tagged him. Off the draw, he threw a keeper Sherwood hit, right? And then when they were going back for the puck, Sherwood looked back to have a sense of how much,

or sorry, Schaefer looked back to have a sense of how much space he had to avoid the hit. And then instead of going for the body, Schaefer took the, or sorry, Sherwood took the puck. And I think that's one of those moments where that's an education, but also that's one of those moments where if you're team Canada, you're like, okay, can this guy play 25 minutes when you've got both Kachukes chasing them around, right?

And my guess is they ultimately settled on if push came to shove, we'd be more comfortable with Travis Sanheim ramping up, and we'd play some possum and just be like, okay, we have a reliable defensive guy. Plus he's got a ton of NHL reps playing both the left and the right side. And so as you're picking through your depth options, I think that's where you land. Now, four years from now, you're going to have Schaefer in the lineup

and things will probably look different. You've also got Land and DuPont coming and a ridiculous run of Canadian defenders. And the DuPont thing, I mean, I know we're going to discuss at ad nauseum, but like I thought he should have been on the U-20 team this year. And not, and to be so clear, not because of like the, the Quinn Hughesy stuff that he can do on Puck, but because he's the most advanced 16-year-old defensively you've ever seen, right? I mean, this is really special off-puck stuff in addition to all the other stuff that we're

going to get over the, over the court, or the NHL is going to get over the course of the next 18 months. ridiculous, right? So the I think the state of the Canadian blue line is going to, is in a sort of a cyclical lull at the moment, but I don't think it's that significant of one, and I think it's going to be solved by the time this game comes around

again. And in the meantime, I also think we're probably underrating the defense just a little bit, because we didn't see it with a fully healthy Morrissey and we didn't see it with a fully healthy Shea Theodore. And the Theodore side of this in particular, he's like, he's having the best defensive season of his career. He's really

he was always a dynamic offensive guy, but he's really become a stud with a more well-rounded profile across the last couple of years in Vegas. I think you're going to notice how underrated he is as this tournament goes along. I don't think there's any concern that Team Canada's

blue line. It's not as good as the United States is. That's fair, but I don't think there's any concern that it can't hold up, especially once you factor in the advantage that Canadians, that Team Canada's forward depth. I think I do tend to underrate guys like Theodore and Josh Morrissey in a way to peg.

You know, it's just the bar was set so high for Canada. We were so spoiled. You know, Niedermeier, Pronger, Dowdy, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber. You know, like P.K. Subant couldn't get into the game, really. Yeah, and he was a North Calibur guy. I think he just won the Norse. Yeah. I mean,

and Babcock was like, mm-mm, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, but that,

that 2014 Canadian defense, too, was the best one we've ever seen. Like, it was materially better than the Niedermeyer, Weber,

Pronger, Boyle, Keith Dowdy version that we saw in 2010. It was materially better than that. Which is crazy. Crazy. So,

my, My point being that they're, but like you look at 06, right, obviously with regear and, you know, pronger and foot and a very different game, obviously, the NHL brought, like, it was a stodgier defensive group. A little stodgier. I like that. Yeah, it was. But the, but that, and even in 98, where you have pronger and like Adam foot as the young guys, right? They're the young guys on that team because you still had Bork and, and Stephen. So it sort of was a, or even an O2, right?

In O2 it was excellent because they had Niedermeyer still. But it wasn't at the level that it got to in 10 and 14. Like I do think there's a level of sort of a cyclical thing to this. But I think the state of Canada's defensive prospects, some of the young Canadian defenders we're seeing, I still think that's enormously strong. And I think they're, I still think this is an A caliber international blue. line. You know, I don't think it's like, I don't think it's probably, it's probably not 2010 level,

but it's right there. It's right there, especially once you factor in that, you know, Boyle and Pronger were at the tail end of it. And Niedermeyer, too, right? I mean, was that Niedermeyer's last season? Like, those guys weren't prime versions of who they were that year. So I think when you really look at it sort of holistically, I don't think there's a huge gap in quality between what Canada brought to Vancouver and what Canada is bringing to this tournament. I just think what they had in 2014 was a special era of Canadian defensemen. Drancer, this was great, buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

Enjoy the rest of the game, although I don't need to tell you to do that. No, this is, this is, this feels like a gift. Honestly, the fact that, I mean, I even woke up and caught the third period of the Swiss game. Like, I can't believe we get to do this for the next 10 days. I feel blessed. and I hope your audience does too. Let's go. It's a lot of fun.

Thanks, buddy. See, Paul. Cheers. Thomas Trans from the Athletic Vancouver and Kentucky here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sports 9650. That segment was brought to by the Duick Auto Group. Find out why nobody beats a Duick deal

and why nobody has since 1926. Visit Duke GM on Marine Drive, visit them downtown, visit them or Richmond and visit them online of the Duick Auto Group.com. Okay, get you what we learns into the Dunbar-Lumber text line, but we're not going to read any potential spoiler what we learns because we don't want to have the respect for people that are recording the game and want to watch it later on.

We're doing our best, not to spoil the game. Tomorrow, no spoiler potential, because the game starts a little later. I think it's just after noon, Canada will take on Switzerland. It's honestly difficult to host this radio show while this stuff is on. We've done a couple of interviews already where I'm like, I'm not even listening. Who are you? I mean, you normally.

don't listen anyway. So that's, you're, you're dialed in. The best show ever. It's fine. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.