Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 3/11/26

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, plus they discuss the latest hockey news with Victory+ NHL insider Frank Seravalli. 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. Tried to get it down low. Picked up by Darling, Andy Skoll. Bigger goal. Vancouver, 601 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Halford, it is Brough.

It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Bam. At a bio. Good morning. Adon, good morning to you.

Good morning. And Ladi, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brub of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates can cut your debt by up 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands. That's trustee.com.

We are in hour one of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's Premier Metal Recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle you get paid. Visit them at 1175. Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintech Studio. Step Strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintech.

Lots of a new shiny read you got there, Jason. Yeah, I was supposed to read it yesterday, but A-Dog screwed up. Okay, we got to do the Duick Morning Drive. We have to do the Duick Morning Drive. It's our morning guest list brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 6.30. David Amber, Hockeyn and Canada SportsNet host. It's going to join the program.

Busy night last night in the NAC. NHL 13 games, not so much tonight, just two games in the NHL for Scotia Bank Wednesday at hockey. David is going to join us at 6.30 to talk about last night and tonight as well. 7 o'clock, Frank Sarah Valley, our NHN insider from Victory Plus, lots of post-deadline chatter to get into with Frank, especially regarding those teams that didn't make any noise of significance on Friday. Frank is going to join us at 7 o'clock to talk about all that. 730, Eric Engels is going to join the program, Montreal Canadiens reporter for Sportsnet.

Speaking of teams that didn't make any noise at the deadline, what happened to the HABs? Didn't seem to affect them any. They beat the Leafs last night. They got the Sends tonight and a back-to-back. Eric Engels is going to join us at 7.30. I think the Canucks could beat the Leafs right now. Possibly.

William Neelander is still doing interviews with his shirt off. I feel like that's only for winners. You can't do that when you've dropped eight in a row. Yeah. Put a shirt on, Willie. A Vander Cain's a shirtless interview guy. There's a handful of them. Both, oddly enough, on losing teams this year.

8 o'clock, Brandon Batchelor, play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks is going to join us here. Canucks are back in action tomorrow night against the Nashville Predators, who, by the way, are firmly in a fight for their playoff lives at the moment. Got a huge win over Seattle last night in Seattle. The Canucks, meanwhile, are not fighting for their playoff lives. Batch is going to join us at 8 a.m. to talk about tomorrow's game and practice, which is an interesting topic we'll get into in a minute. Finally, we are doing another giveaway this fine Wednesday every day this week. A $250 gift card to Golf Town. Mom, Dad, can we go to Golf Town? We sure can for the trade-in day's event, which is on now. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m. gets the gift card. As mentioned, we're doing this every day this week. 604-280-650 is. the number, call on number five at 8 a.m. $250 gift card to

golf town. That is what's happening on the program today. We got a lot to get into. So 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? Miss it? You miss that? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies to best in tools resources and safety training visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. Despite everything that's going on

in the world of sports right now, we are going to start with the local hockey squadron, your Vancouver Canucks, who apparently returned to practice yesterday, Jason. Yeah, I would say apparently as well because I'm not sure any independent media were there to cover it.

Batch, who will chat with later, is usually there for us, SportsNet 650, but he's been a little under the weather and he spent yesterday resting his voice. I watched a bit of Adam Foote's scrum on social media, and it was only team reporters that were asking questions. According to Patrick Johnston,

Monday's game against Ottawa was one of the thinnest media turnouts of the season, and Pige wrote, just what is there left to ask? And hey, fair enough. Ballad. The Canucks do have seven games left on this eight-game homestand, and I honestly think one of the more interesting stories

of the remaining season will be the attendance at Rogers Arena or at the very least if all the seats are full how low the secondary ticket market gets it's that and how the young guys play right? Are those the two storylines that you can think of? Is there anything else?

No. What else is there? They're in no danger of moving out of dead last they pretty much got 30 second logged up. I suppose if they go on a run, that would be interesting. And unless you want to keep monitoring Elias Pedersen and Brock Besser in every little blip in their game for signs of life,

I'm struggling to find any storylines we can really sink our teeth into. You know, we all want to know how ownership is going to handle this rebuild, both from a hockey ops perspective and a business one. And the latter could affect the former. If fans keep coming out to watch a young

bad team in other words if revenue doesn't dip too significantly then there can be patience if not though then maybe ownership gets a little antsy

and tries to speed things up maybe I I oh that's it's just a huge question that's the fear though that's the fear yeah there's a huge question of how ownership is going to handle this rebuild,

and you have to imagine that some of the things they're going to be considering is the business side of the team. You know, they must be absolutely praying that they win the draft lottery and can take Gavin McKenna. I know they'll get a good player regardless, but from a marketing perspective, McKenna is marketable in a way that Stenberg or whoever else just isn't. Yep.

Don't underestimate that part of it. That's why I'm almost certain they'll pick McKenna if they win the lottery. I'd be shocked if they didn't. Even if they do have Stenberg rated higher, would they dare pass on McKenna? So that's the Kinnock story. They're back in action tomorrow against the Nashville Predators, right? Right? Yes. And why don't we start with that? Because the Nashville Predators got a big win yesterday in the NHL. And it came at the expense of the Seattle Cracken. That's a bad loss for them because they had a lead in this one and they blew it.

Don't look right now, but the playoff chase in the West actually pretty compelling right now. The Seattle Cracken are still holding the second and final wildcard spot in the West. But you mentioned that loss last night where they had a 2-0 lead on the visiting, and this happened on home ice for the Cracken, the visiting Nashville Predators, they had a 2-0 lead, they outshot the Predators by a pretty considerable margin,

but they couldn't get the job done offensively and find the back of the net when they needed to. And as a result, Nashville gets a win, which puts them just one point back of the Cracken. Now, the crazy part for the Preds is that they still trail two teams just to get into that playoff spot, because right now, San Jose sits ahead of them on the tiebreaker, and the Los Angeles Kings have to 67 points, won more than the Preds.

So the Kings are tied with the Cracken on 67 points, but the Cracken have won fewer game played, so they hold that second Wildcard spot. So in other words, it's a four-team race for one spot between the Cracken, the Kings, the Sharks, and the Preds. Unless the Vegas Golden Knights continue to crater. Now, the Vegas Golden Knights right now, are five points clear of that group,

but they've lost six of seven, including another loss last night, and they are going in the exact wrong direction that you need to be going in, going into the playoffs. Here's the part of the reason why I say, if you weren't paying attention, and maybe we should start paying attention to it,

is it's hard to call this a race right now in the West. It's got real turtle derby vibes to it because the Cracken have lost three in a row. The Kings are, three, six, and one in their last 10. The sharks are three, five, and two in their last 10. The hottest team of all of them is the aforementioned natural predators, and they have a grand total of four wins in their last 10.

Can I just say that I want the Cracken to miss in heartbreaking fashion and not... Sorry, Brummer. And not, yeah, not because, not because I have a particular disdain for the Cracken. You kind of do. But I just think if anything's going to really spruce. them to do something big this off season, that would be it. You know, all the reports out there that they were interested in Panarin and bringing in some sort of star talent.

I know, this season started out pretty well for them, right? It looked like they were playing pretty good hockey, or at least, you know, partway through the season, it's like, yeah, they're going to make the playoffs. And if they fall out and they still haven't, you know, they don't have that star power yet, and there's word that the Sonics are coming back, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to feel the need, I think, to do something significant. Now, you can't force something significant, but you can sure be motivated more than other times. I mean, the knock on that team for the longest time, and you brought this up a million times on the show,

is that they lack that star power you're talking about. And a guy like Panera and an offensive star and an offensive driver, look at their goals for. I mean, they are, they're the only team in the playoff picture right now, sub 200, and they're way below 200. They're 179. Like, they just don't score enough. Well, neither does L.A. No, I mean, I don't want to see, honestly, I don't want to see Seattle or L.A. in the playoffs. The Cracken, the Cracken kind of came with a, like, a Rick Tocket plan this year.

I think they were like, we got a, we got to tighten up. I don't know if they were leading their marketing campaigns with structure, but, you know, I think that that was just something that they felt they had to do in order to become more competitive. And it's worked. But it's not made them more. entertaining to watch. And if they missed the playoffs again. Anyway, there was much more that happened in the NHL last night. Where do you want to go?

Yeah, well, if we're going to talk about more entertaining, we got to talk about the Oilers' abs game. The late night game last night in which the Oilers, the resurgent Oilers have now ripped off consecutive victories against the Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche, a 4-3 win. They call those statement wins. Statement wins.

And it was kind of a statement win for the Oilers yesterday. A 4-3 win in Colorado against Colorado. But the story here honestly wasn't really about, the Edmonton Oilers victory. It was the massive, massive collision that saw Nathan McKinnon in the second period drive the Oilers blue paint and knock Connor Ingram out of the game, receiving a five-minute major, the rare five-minute major for goalie interference in the process. So Ingram got knocked out of the game. McKinnon got thrown out of the game. And then everything after that almost felt like a shadow because that conversation about McKinnon getting tossed really took over.

the entire evening. Is Laddie here? I can't see him behind the glass. Hey, buddy, how you doing? I need to get your thoughts on what happened between Connor McDavid and Connor Ingram. Yes, Connor McKinnon, sorry.

Nathan McKinnon. Wow, there you go. Wow. We all know what you're talking about. There's a Connor Ingram in there, so it confuses everything. You see where I went wrong, right? Listeners, everyone understands that.

Connor McKinnon. Don't do that. I'm going to call him Connor McGregor again at some point. I call him CEMAC. Stop it. Don't put things in my. brain. I don't need it. Nathan McKinnon, Connor Ingram, the collision. What were your thoughts? The net drives are one of the scariest things as a goalie, honestly. And at this level, at the

NHL level, the guy with McKinnon's size and speed coming at you, it is a terrifying proposition to try to stop him and the puck from entering the net. And I think the league has been trying to crack down on a number of those types of dangerous drives to the net and have told players, you still need to be control of your momentum when you head to the net. And even though you're touched, even though you're pushed going in, you still need to be able to, you can't just blow through the crease and do what he did to a goaltender. So I agree he was, there was some contact, he was pushed towards the goaltender. Some. But he still, more than that, I mean, he still needs to be in control of what he's doing. I think he would have been in control of what

he was doing if he hadn't, hadn't hit him. Like, he's a pretty good skater. It's the risk you take when you make a net drive now. You might be pulled in and you will be kicked out of the game. Yeah, I mean, it was an aggressive net drive. Jake Fertan was like, I've never even seen one of those in my life. You can do that? And then the rest are like, you can't. You're not supposed to do that, you know? Yeah, you're supposed to go around behind the net and then skate all the way to the point.

Why is he skating to the goalie? Yeah. Weird. So, okay, there was a lot. We got long memories here. There's a lot to unpack. Go to the net, Jake. There's a lot to unpack here.

First off, one of the most violent goalie collisions increase that I've ever seen. Ever. And I mean that. This isn't hyperbolic. It was huge. Also, kudos to sports. a fine company with great technology. They had the net cam while Ingram was struggling to regain himself.

And they actually got the droplets of blood from his forehead leaking through his mask onto the white ice. It was, I mean, tough to watch, but an amazing visual because it was right there. Now, Jared Bednar understandably pissed off in the post game. I don't have the audio in front of me, but he said, the goal he hurt. it's five. But I don't really give a crap if the goalies hurt. That's on their D-Man,

not our guy, which is what you were talking about with Darnell Nurse. So I saw it, and I watched a replay about five or six times. The crazy part is that Michael's in DeBrusk

on the Edmonton call, which is our SportsNet call out of Edmonton, they were saying that this is going to get dialed back to a two-minute minor after watching the replay. So they initially called the five because that allows you a chance

to go, watch it on the monitor. And the Edmonton guys were saying this should probably be a two. And then, of course, they make the announcement that they're sticking with their original call. So Nate McKinnon gets the boot. It was a wild game, but good on the Oilers. Tristan Jari came in, in relief, made 11 saves, managed to get them the win. And now the Oilers got a little bit of momentum as they go to second in the Pacific Division. Yeah, still only second, though, because Anaheim keeps winning. Anaheim's got 75 points The Oilers and Vegas are tied

72 points each 65 games played So we're getting down to it now You know I know there was talk for example That maybe Winnipeg could make a run And they lost last night And now you're looking at them

They played 63 games And they're five points out With a bunch of teams to leap in order to catch the aforementioned Seattle Cracken. So the races are pretty solid in both the West and the East and the East, thanks to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who continue to pick up points. And by the way, Connor Garland, who was traded to Columbus by the Vancouver Canucks,

has had two straight games with two goals. So four goals in his last two games for, Connor Garland and the Blue Jackets are just two points back of Boston for the second wildcard spot in the East. Both teams have played 64 games and I looked at the schedule. Both the Bruins play the Blue Jackets twice down the stretch. Yeah, I saw that too. It's going to be great. And if Connor Garland keeps going the way that he's going, he's going to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 goals by the end of the season. The first time he has recorded consecutive multi-goal games in the NHL in his entire career.

And there were a lot of former Canucks that got on the sheet last night. Bo Horvatt found the back of the net. Kiefer Sherwood for the Sharks found the back of the net. Connor Garland did it twice for the second time, as you mentioned, in two games. Is Detroit going to blow it too? I mean, I mentioned that Columbus's two points back of Boston,

but I think Boston's a better team than Detroit. Agreed. And Detroit only has one more point than Boston. and they've played one more game than Boston. So actually on points percentage, Boston is slightly ahead. And Detroit had a bad loss yesterday. So we talked about...

Really bad loss. We talked about the Seattle Cracken having a gut punch loss for their playoff lives. The Detroit Red Wings had maybe as equally as big of a gut punch because Carter Verhagie scored twice in the final 90 seconds of regulation from where the Red Wings looked like

they were going to secure both points in this game to where they thought they were at least going to get it to overtime to where they didn't get anything out of it. Here's for Hagee's game winner with 15 seconds left in regulation to make sure that Detroit got no points out of last night. Let's play it now, Laddie. So the noise you heard there was obviously because the game was played in Florida. That was also the Detroit Red Wing's soul leaving their bodies

after that game because Patrick Kane and Tom McClellan both spoke at length about how big of a gut punch that was and how much it stung. If they end up missing in Detroit and continue this playoff drought, you might look at that game in particular as the one where things fell apart because there is no reason

against the Florida team that, yes, a very talented team, but is way out of the playoff chase. There's no way you can't see that thing through to at least get a single point out of it. Huge loss for Detroit last night. What's going on with Dylan Larkin right now? He's heard.

Yeah. He's out. Yeah. Do they have a timeline on him? They are taking it. They said it was dated. day. But when he initially got hurt, he went down with a non-contact, twisted his knee, didn't look good, but McClellan said afterwards, like, he's out day-to-day.

Andrew Cops out, too? They should have got a center. They should have done something other than get Justin Falk. I'm just saying, like, maybe that wasn't the answer to the problems in Detroit. I want to put this out there. If they miss, and that playoff drought continues, I wonder if the first got to walk in the offseason is Steve Eisen. No, I don't think so. I wonder. But I get why you're wondering. I don't think. I don't think it'll happen, but I do understand why you're wondering. Okay, the Buffalo Sabres also continued their red hot play. They took care of the San Jose sharks, Jack Quinn with the hat trick.

But there's a couple other stories I do want to get to in what happened. Sure. First of all, the World Baseball Classic, Canada, with an impressive win over Puerto Rico, but really the important game is today against Cuba. and wouldn't it be very Canada at the World Baseball Classic, if they beat Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico, and then they need to beat Cuba, which is going to be tough. Like, it's not like, and then, and now we need to beat, like, I don't know,

Curacao. Like, Cuba's a good baseball country, but they need to win in order to advance to the quarterfinals. The situation for Canada baseball right now is so classically Canadian baseball. They can either do something where they will exceed all expectations. If they win today against Cuba, they win the group. And a very difficult group of that because they will finish the top Puerto Rico and Cuba if they win. But as you mentioned, Jason, if they lose, their world baseball classic is over.

And wouldn't it be, and I hate putting this out into the world and to the universe, but wouldn't it be so apropos of this team who is often kind of puked on itself at this tournament if they do the business against Puerto Rico in what was a very impressive victory? and then fail to follow it up with a win against Cuba. Now, I'll say this, that stupid loss against Panama is looming so large because they would have had business taken care of now already if they had just gotten that done.

I hope to God that they will not have a replica. Would they, though? They'd be 3 and 0. Okay. Right? And with the win over Puerto Rico. Oh, they'd be through over Puerto Rico. Yeah.

But I think Puerto Rico might have gone about that game a little bit different. Granted, butterfly effect. Like Puerto Rico might have put a more strong lineup up there yesterday. Well, the Americans are in a bit of trouble too, because they got beaten. And at one point yesterday, it looked like they were going to get merced by Italy. They came back to make it interesting at least, but they still lost to Italy. Great game, by the way. One of the biggest upsets in the 20-year history of the World Baseball Classic, Italy beating the U.S. 8.6.

Great drama, great theater. The Americans are, their fate depends on the results. of Italy and Mexico's game tonight, should Italy win, the United States would advance. If Mexico wins though, by a certain amount. It would finish at three and one along with Italy and the US. In that case, the tiebreaker that would determine which two teams advance to the quarterfinals considers runs allowed per out recorded.

against teams that you've played in the tiebreaker. If the Italy-Mexico game goes nine innings, okay, everyone listening now, if the Italy-Mexico game goes nine innings and Mexico wins and scores five or more runs, the U.S. and Mexico would advance. Should Mexico win while scoring four or fewer, it would advance alongside Italy.

And the U.S. would be out. So the worst parlay ever. If you want, right? Like, what is going on? If you want the full, so the chaos, the chaos theory here and the end game for, I think a lot of people, the Shadden Freud for us, bitter Canadians would be that the U.S. doesn't advance, right? So what you want is a Mexico victory today, somewhere in the neighborhood of four to, four, whatever. That would get the job done and see Mexico and Italy advance. And it's not out of the realm of possibility.

It's funny because you know how you were kind of tripping over the, the rule. and the tiebreakers there as you went along. So too was the American manager, Mark DeRosa. We don't have enough time to play this. I'll save it for later in the show. Maybe I'll do it for what happened. But the rules of the world baseball classic and the tiebreakers are very complex to the point where a lot of the managers aren't exactly sure how they work.

But we'll put a bow on all of the sports stories from last night. I guess we should mention for a second time that BAM had a bio of the Miami Heat scored 83 points last night in an NBA game, making it. the second highest mark in NBA history, trailing only Wilk Chamberlain, surpassing Kobe Bryant's 81 from a few years ago. And he was the guy that most of us kind of pegged as, like, if there's going to be one guy who's going to do it.

I always thought it would be bam. It's going to be Nick Dowd. That's going to do it. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. So before we get to Frank, I just want to say that sometimes it feels like as hockey, media, we are

doing some sort of Ponzi scheme of excitement because I read like everyone's like everyone's like you know like I saw an article by LeBron on the athletic and it was like the trade deadline

didn't meet expectations. Didn't quite deliver but it might have set up an off season of explosive moves and like you know if the off season doesn't, it'll be like, yeah, but just wait to the

trade deadline. This is more of a trade deadline move. It always whenever I get home, I hear like, how did the trade deadline go? And I was like, I was like, oh, it was pretty quiet. It was right. And I like, it's always quiet.

Whenever you say there's going to be something big, like nothing big really happens. I'm like, yeah, but wait till free agency. Right. Well, I know, I usually tell them, I'm like, first you have to wait for the draft. And then if the draft's a dead, you say, don't worry, though. July 1 is just around the corner.

Let's go now to the Able Auctions hotline. Frank Cerra Valley joins us now on the Halperdin Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Morning, Frank. How are you? Pretty good. I'm really glad that you mentioned. That was actually probably the perfect way to frame exactly how I feel about what just played out. And then, look, I love Pierre, like a brother.

And I know you guys do too. I just, like, I read his column yesterday and I was like, okay, did we just invoke Connor McDavid and Austin Matthews moving in the same summer? Like, what, I mean, look, I guess like a theoretical possibility for sure. But the likelihood and the dangling of that, I just, you know, it felt like a bridge too far. Yeah, it's, it is, let's start with the big picture here. We've talked about this a lot with the National Hockey League at large. It's when stacked up, especially to the other big sports in North America,

that have massive roster turnover and big splashy off seasons and these multiplayer trades or massive star players moving locales. We always dream about it for the NHL and kind of what you were alluding to, Jason, with the Ponzi scheme, but it never comes to. For example, Frank, most of the really interesting stories about the trade deadline that just passed aren't about the deals that got done, but more about the teams that didn't get anything done. So let's start there.

Which of the teams really stood out to you in terms of ones that didn't do anything at last Friday's trade deadline? There's a bunch. I mean, you'd start with the Montreal Canadians who had at least one, if not two separate transactions that were thwarted in the last handful of minutes before the deadline itself. and look let's just take general manager kent hughes at his own words in saying that we were close and it didn't happen but that's always the dangerous part about diving into the what could have happened or what might have happened game is because there's two sides and two parties to these conversations and you go to them and seek information or background and a lot of times there's two different stories on just how close a transaction really was.

So Montreal stands out for sure in terms of not getting it over the finish line. And obviously this would have been an impactful trade for what they termed as a young, important player. I think some of the speculation that's been out there, at least based on what I can tell, is not quite accurate. And I'll leave it at that. But then there were the Carolina Hurricanes who didn't get. something done. They had tried on a bunch of players, including a couple that I think were off the

board. The Boston Bruins were in the mix on a few different things. They didn't get anything done. Like, there were a lot of teams that wanted to, Utah wanted to make more noise than just McKenzie Weeger. There were a lot of teams that were fishing for larger transactions. And I guess we could get to why that doesn't happen. But, yeah, like, doesn't mean that there was a lack of interest in trying to do something. Okay, obvious follow-up question. Why didn't it happen? Well, I mean, I think the true answer is, and there's a more holistic answer for the entire sport,

is there's a lot of really scared managers. Yeah. I mean, let's talk about how the trade deadline typically works. You're dealing with trades that for the most part can't be judged. Two teams transacting an entire. different pools. One, offloading, pending unrestricted free agents that on a team that doesn't have playoff aspirations or hopes to a team that's in contender mode that's trying to add and get better. There's like very rarely an actual transaction that exists where there's risk on both sides,

where you're dismantling one part of your team and the other team is dismantling part of theirs, and we're going to see the results play out over the next six to eight weeks and then beyond. Those almost never happen in season. It's always player for prospects or player for picks. And part of the reason for that is it's safe. You don't get called on the carpet. There's no judgment. You can't judge any of these deals for three to five years from now, for the most part.

and whether or not you got a second or a first or a second and a third you can quibble on you know hey 30 picks before or after whatever the case may be and there's a risk aversion to to really putting your team out there opening up your roster and making decisions that could have lasting impacts yeah I sometimes wonder if there's enough talent to go around in this league because the general managers just seem so terrified to trade away talent, even if it's not perfect talent.

Like, let's talk about St. Louis for a little bit, right? How long have we heard Jordan Kairu's name in trade rumors? And I would also add like Robert Thomas lately, but ultimately the blues, they made a bunch moves and I thought they did really well at the trade deadline, relatively speaking to other teams, but, you know, they still got Kyru and Thomas because the argument would be something like, why would you trade away these guys? Then you'd just be trying to draft those guys. And I mean, my counter argument to that would be like, no, you'd be trying to draft a better version of those guys because I don't know if you can win a Stanley Cup if you're building

around Robert Thomas and Jordan Cairo. Maybe just your thoughts on I mean you can talk about St. Louis or is there enough talent to go around? Why are general managers so scared in this league? Well

there's a million reasons why but one of them is what you're hitting on that I think fundamentally there is an overall lack of high end talent. There's talent all around but truly to find difference makers, but that drives home the point that we were both making at the very top of the segment, which is the reason why there's unlikely to be a monstrous summer is because there is such little talent to trade that those teams that have it hoard it.

And that's the same reason why this pre-agent class is like, no offense to Nick Schmaltz or to whoever else is at the top of the board. Alex talk, I mean, it's relatively hot garbage. There's a couple really good players, and then there's depth. That's really, I mean, not to like oversimplify it, but that's kind of what the free agent board looks like, and which is why, you know, when you do talk about Connor McDavid or you do talk about Austin Matthews,

and I mean, we're living in a world to be totally fair and balanced where Quinn Hughes did transact this season. So perhaps, you know, some of this should be a little bit more measured because we're speaking in generalities and some hyperbole. But I would say that for the most part, that's why a lot of these actual transacting periods are relatively muted. We're speaking to Frank Saravalli from Victory Plus, our NHL insider here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

I want to dial in on a couple more of these individual teams and what happened with them, Frank. We're going to see the Nashville Predators here in Vancouver tomorrow night. They had a big win last night to keep their playoff hopes alive against the Seattle Cracken. But the Preds had a really weird deadline. What happened to them in the days leading up to Friday and then on Deadline Day in Nashville? It's a great question because they started the process and they took the low hanging fruit, the easy stuff with regards to some of the players that they moved. I mean, Cole Smith and depth players further down their lineup.

But when it came time to actually moving the pieces that would generate significant returns, I mean, the fact that we're on the backside of this deadline and you didn't move Eric Hall as a pending on restricted free agent in his mid-30s. Like, it just doesn't make sense. now it's a slightly different category that rhino riley and stephen stamco's and jonathan marchesau remained as they have term on their deal but jonathan marchesau has been trying to get out of nashville for more than a calendar year now stephen stamco's my understanding is he didn't want to move and and ultimately wouldn't have approved a deal so he's in a separate class but then Ryan O'Reilly

I mean he doesn't have no trade protection and I know at least one team that was like they viewed Ryan O'Reilly as the perfect fit they were lusting after Ryan O'Reilly so in the end are you like it's like they dip their toe in the trade deadline waters

okay Michael Bunting Nick Blankenberg Mike McCarran Cole Smith but they didn't do any of the truly heavy lifting required to reinvent the team because you're still stuck with a roster led in salary and statistics by players who are on the wrong side of 30. And now those decisions have all been left on the plate of the next guy. You would think that Barry Trots would want to at least bite the bullet, undo some of the really bad contracts that he put on the books

and get at least one or two of them off so that the next guy has a little bit more flexibility and some ammunition by virtue of picks and prospects to then be able to go tackle the next part of this. Another team that had a really weird deadline was the Los Angeles Kings. Now obviously they've been kind of thrown into arrears

with the Fiala injury. They acquire Artemey Panarin. They fire their head coach. There's a lot going on around. the deadline and then it was an odd one for them. What did you make? How did you size up the Los Angeles King's odd trade deadline? I mean, it was odd for sure. They had to use a Seinfeld reference

a little bit of Vandalay industries going on, importer, exporter of fine latex goods. They just like, okay, so we add Panarin, which I think in a vacuum makes sense, no matter where you are. If you have a player who wants to come to you and it's a relatively limited return, and he's going to sign a great contract extension.

I mean, sure. We just talked about how hard it is to acquire talent. There's a guy still well north of a point per game player, so you do that. But then moving Corey Perry, you know, you understand why that makes sense for a second, and you get through that and you go, okay, well, Fiala's out for the year.

Kuzmenko is likely done until the end of the regular season, quitting byfields bang up, this is Anzay-Copatar's last year. Like, I know statistically the Kings are in the playoff race, but it's been a pillow fight for the last seat in the Western Conference, and they don't even seem most nights like they're in it. So then you add Scott Lawton on the back end of it, and I think from an asset management standpoint,

you can wrap your head around it. This is a player transacting for a third, you know, and one year ago to Toronto went for way more than that, including a first, that you know, you say, okay, there's some value here, but just this notion of what are we? I think some teams really, going back to the first part of our conversation, I think some teams really struggled to put a stake in the ground. Are we buying or are we selling?

Or are we going to try and do half measures of both? Yeah, half measures don't work. Take it from a guy that's watched the Vancouver Connects for a while. But maybe I view it through two black, and white of a lens. Possibly. Convinced me otherwise. Well, I mean,

clearly the Kings are trying to put themselves in a position where they don't cut their legs off at the knees just to sell. I don't know. I mean, obviously making the playoffs is incredibly important to them. Yeah. You know, you mentioned the Leafs there with the Scott Lawton trade,

and I think some of our listeners might be getting tired of hearing about the Leafs, but I think they're at a pretty fascinating crossroads. You know, I think the easy thing to do is to make a coaching change and to run it back and say, with a different coach, you know, maybe we'll have more success. But what do you think about where they are right now? And how extreme could they get this offseason?

I think in the end, the measure of extreme is probably relatively limited. And maybe the only way that changes is if Austin Matthews comes to you and says, you know what, I'm just tired of this. I'm tired of the focal point being in the spotlight every single night. Every single thing I do is critiqued. And I'd like to do it somewhere else. If that's the case, you're dealing with a totally different set of parameters. But short of that, I mean, I know people have talked about this notion of should the Leafs try

and move Austin Matthews. Like I know that his play and productivity level is is way, way down from where it was. But I just don't know how you could possibly move on from Austin Matthews and even with a haul of a return, think that there's going to be any window for you to be competitive within the next five years. The only way to get there is by better surrounding Austin Matthews with a different mix and group of talent. And now that you finally have some flexibility on your roster and cap space to maneuver,

I mean, this is the year to do it. I guess then the big question is who's going to be the man at the controls doing all that. What do you think about these Doug Armstrong to Toronto rumors? I think they took a hit over the last week. I think Doug Armstrong's reputation took a hit for sure. Just with the Pareko stuff? I'm not just for aiko I mean Braden Chen was really critical

yesterday in his return saying I mean I I got the message being asked to waive my no trade for the second trade deadline in a row I'm clearly not wanted here I mean he's the captain signed to a long term extension

by the GM with no trade clause protection also offered and signed by the GM and we talked a little bit about St. Louis, but it's odd to see at least from my view, a GM

that's continually so malcontented with the team that he himself built. At the end of the day, when you construct a blue line that is not just as veteran-laden as they have been, but also all of them, their top four for years had

featured no trade protection, that, you know, you made these deals. You made all these contracts come true. Now on the other end of it, you don't like it. It's just an odd, like you go around and around in a circle and the finger pointing. Yeah, but it brings you back to the topic, or it brings me back to the topic of no-move clauses and no trade clauses. And it does feel in some ways like GMs have been forced in a lot of ways now,

to give these clauses out. Otherwise, the deal won't get done or the contract won't get signed. And, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong per se with a general manager, say, bringing in a guy saying, I think you can be part of the solution and then watching it and going, you know what, I was wrong. So I'm going to make some changes now. But it makes it a lot harder to do that where the market almost demands a number. no trade clause and a no move clause.

And it does make me wonder if something is eventually going to happen about all the no move clauses and all the no trade clauses. I, look, the league would love to limit them. There's no doubt about that. I mean, it's definitely been on the list of general manager requests for CBA negotiations. But at the same time, the proper response here is to, like, have the general manager show some sign of restraint and be more judicious and how they hand these out. And I know what you're saying.

The market demands it. Player won't sign unless he gets it. Then that's your negotiating right to say, yeah, I mean, I'm happy to give you one, but you're going to need to now take less money in order for me to give this to you. Or maybe just say like, I don't know. But then on the back end of it, you're asking the guy to wave and not give him anything. thing for it. Yeah.

So let's say, you know, let's, I mean, I think Tyler Myers is the perfect example, and I know that his situation is different than others, family wise, but he took way less than market rate to stay in Vancouver and to have that full control. And I can only tell you from talking to people really close to him that he expected at some point there to be a conversation with the way that the Canucks were turning. I don't know that he expected it to happen at this deadline. But he did get value out of that clause. He did get a sense of ownership of the situation.

I know he ultimately was traded, but he ultimately was traded to a team that he was fine going to. So there was value in that clause. In the end, it worked out pretty well for him. But I'm saying he took, if he went to market, Tyler Myers would have been making a lot more than $3 million. Agreed, but he might not have had the control then, right? And then maybe he is in Detroit right now.

Right. So, but he took less and then still was asked and not pressured, but put in a position where he had to make a decision. Yeah. And I think that's the tough part. These guys are unsure how to manage or navigate that, especially when it comes up at a time that you weren't really ready to do it. Yeah.

Timing matters too. It's an interesting topic, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more talk about it. I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it until the next CBA negotiation. I'll give you my 30-second pitch. Sure, go. Limit them by number. Per team? Instead of like the St. Louis Blues, I'm just picking a team.

Let's say they have 20 players on their roster. 13 of them have no trade clauses. That doesn't make any sense. Right. Limit them to say there's six total full no trade clauses you can hand out. out to your team. And however you want to chop those up, kind of like an NCAA scholarship, you want to give a guy 25% of a limited no trade, or you want to give a guy 50% of the league or whatever it

is, you give certain superstars, they get the full no move with no waivers. That counts as one, but you can chop them up and divide it up and allow teams to, hey, there's a limit here. There's only so many guys on our roster that can have this protection. and sorry, you don't meet the threshold of criteria in our view, in our eyes. Frank, I am intrigued by your ideas, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. We've got to get going. We're up against it for time.

Thanks a lot for doing this today, as always. We'll talk again next Wednesday. You guys, thanks. Frank Sarvalley from Victory Plus, our NHL Insider and noted pitchman here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. That was a nice little debate we had. It was good. You guys have the best debates.

Before we go to break, we need to do the one- friendly back and forth of ideas exchanged. Oh, the text message inbox is popping off. Before we go to break, we need to do the one to watch. Brought you by Limitless A.V. All I'm going to say is that we need to watch the World Baseball Classic tonight because there is so much going on. Canada's future hangs in the balance with its game against Cuba.

USA is under intense fire and scrutiny right now for the way they've handled the last 24 hours. The manager, Mark DeRosa, is getting skewered online because their fate is now in the hands. of Italy and Mexico. We don't have the time to run all the audio I want to run. We'll do it on the other side. We're going to talk to Eric Engels, but we're also going to run through what has been a wild 24 hours at the World Baseball

Classic. So tonight, you're one to watch all of the World Baseball Classic because it's going to be theater and drama tonight. It is brought to you by Limitless A.V., Vancouver's most trusted audio-visual integration experts, specializing in seamless video conferencing solutions, and hybrid workspaces.

Book your personal. personalized tour of their experience center today at limitless a.v.com. Coming up, we're going to talk to Eric Engels out of Montreal, and we're going to run through what was a wild last night at the World Baseball Classic in which Team USA might have made one of the biggest blunders in terms of understanding where they were in World Baseball Classic History, maybe sports history, given how this thing could turn out. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.