Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 3/16/26

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, they discuss Saturday's Canucks home loss to the Kraken, plus they discuss what's next for the club with NHL.com & In Goal Magazine's Kevin Woodley.  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Alone in front of the net beach, Tola Peeleau, between the wickets, and it's 5-1, Seattle. We had the hard push in the beginning and the first period, second period. The second period, they got caught. Tonight on Rock Bottom. Good morning, Vancouver, 601 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody.

This Halford, it is Brough, at his Sportsnet 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello.

Halford, and Brough, in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have payday loan debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands-Trustee.com. We are an hour one of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Banker's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle you get paid.

This is the Middle 1170 Pall Street in Vancouver. We're coming to you live from the Kintech Studio. Step Strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintech. And when we have guests on the Halford & Brough Show, they call in on the ABLE Auctions hotline email sales at A, B,LE, auctions. Dot CA to get your business assets sold and your building cleared. Speaking of the guest list,

that is our Duick Morning Drive, brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 630 this morning. John Marosi from MLNB Network is going to join the program. He joins us live from Miami at the World Baseball Classic, where the Americans punched their ticket to the final last night with a 2-1 win over the Dominican Republic. Tonight, it's Italy against Venezuela to see who will face the U.S.

and what should be an electric semifinal and an electric final. I'm cheering for Venezuela. Their crowd at their last game was so... Sorry, was that you being offended as an Italian? We're doing so good here, hey? All right, fine. John Marosi won't like it either. He's going to join us at 6.30.

7 o'clock, Sean Gentilly is going to join the program, NHL writer from The Athletic. He's got a new article out there, quote, as Gavin McKenna's odd season nears its end, NHL scouts aren't concerned with his off-issues. So this article, they went to college station at Penn State, talked to Guy Godowski. they talked to four different

NHL scouts, the co-authored here between Gentilly and Scott Wheeler. I believe Gentile was boots on the ground at College Station. He's going to join us at 7 o'clock to talk about Gavin McKenna because that's what we do here now

on the Halford and Brough shows. We're going to talk about the draft and everything involves because the Vancouver Canucks are going to be prominently featured, I would say, at the top end of that draft. Gavin McKenna is a pretty interesting story.

I mean, this year for him has probably not gone exactly as he hoped for, although it sounds like he's playing better hockey now. 8 o'clock Kevin Woodley, NHL.com, and Ingole magazine is going to join the program. Another weekend, another Canucks loss at home. This time, a 5-2 defeat at Rogers Arena

to the Seattle Cracken on Saturday night. Canucks are back in action on Tuesday as this homestand continues against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. We will talk to Kevin Woodley about all that at 8 a.m. Finally, also at 8 a.m. Get this, everybody. Every day this week,

we're giving away a four pack of tickets to see Monster Jam, Monster Jam. Oh, the monsters are back. The monsters are back in truck form at the Pacific Coliseum. See all your favorites. Classroom Crusher, grave digger. Watch out for Sarah Nurse.

El Toro Loco. They're all there. Saturday, March 28th at 7 p.m. Watch out Sarah Nurse. Caller number 5 at 8 a.m. We'll get this four pack of tickets. Four tickets, Jason. We're giving away 20 tickets to see the

Monster Jam. You can barely get your hands on these things. 604-280-0-650. That number again. 604-280-0-650. Monster Jam tickets at 8 a.m. Not going to work in reverse on the guest list. Got a lot to get into. Without further ado, Laddy, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Miss that? You missed that? What happened is brought to you by the BBC. Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools,

resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. Well, I got the assignment to watch the Canucks this weekend on Saturday. They fell to 721 and 5 at home with a 5-2 loss to Seattle. Seven wins at home. Rob the hockey guy put out on social media that they had a opportunity to win consecutive games at Rogers Arena for the first time in 372 days. That's classic Rob the Hockey guy. But that is unbelievable. It is bad. It is un they haven't won consecutive games at Rogers Arena for over a year now. I almost like I had I didn't I didn't double check it but I probably should have because that's so crazy but I mean it makes sense they've been terrible at

home for the last two years on Saturday. The Cracken took advantage of some shaky goaltending by Nikita Tolopilo and at least one ridiculously bad line change on their way to the win. It was a big win for the Cracken who were in a playoff race. It was 5-1 for the Cracken before Marco Rossi got gifted one with 20 seconds left in the game. Vander Cain scored the other goal on a breakaway for his 12th of the season. Really nice move on the breakaway too. I'm still chuckling at the line change on the Cracken's third goal by Jamie Alexiak.

Wasn't great. The Cracken had the puck at their own blue line. So they were in full possession of the puck at their own blue line. And I think it was Ogren and Sasson that would be a good time for a change. And it's at the far bench. Because it's in, yeah, it was at the far bench, for them at least.

One pass up, the ice left. Seattle with a four on two rush and Alexi hack out all the time in the world to beat Tolopilo from right in the slot. I think it was Velander and Bouyum out there. They were like, uh, little help guys, anything? And they're backing up, backing up, backing up. And Alexia is like, this is the greatest moment of my life

right here in the slot. Ripped a pass Tolopilo. You know, if the Canucks were on their way to the playoffs and they were trying to dial in their game, we'd be losing our minds. That's such a bad change. We're wondering how the heck that could happen. But the Canucks are obviously not on their way to the playoffs.

So, you know, whatever. Just shrug. Yeah, bad change. Yeah, get them next time, hey? They're young, they're learning. Or don't get them next time. The vibes are up, so that's good. That's a learning lesson.

I'm actually glad that happened. Yeah. Because then now they know, you know, when the other team has the possession, you know, and it's at their own blue lines, and practically in the neutral zone, not a good time for a change. Not a good time for two guys to go off the ice to make it a five on three for the other team.

Should we be writing this down? That's not... That's not something you would have learned coming up in the game, right? And through the H.L. Or anything, that's only a lesson that you can learn at the NHL level. There are still five games left

on this eight-game homestand. Florida is the opponent Tuesday, Tampa Bay on Thursday and the red hot St. Louis Blues come to town on Saturday. P.D., yeah, he still hasn't scored a goal. NHL goal since January. He got a couple of the Olympics. But he did show, he actually did show some signs of life and emotion when his helmet got knocked off by Adam Larson in a post-wistle scrum.

I haven't seen him that angry ever. Big cross-check to Adam Larson. Maybe that's the way to get him going. going, knock his helmet off. Nils Holglander was scratched again, two games in a row for him in the press box, and then Trevor Linden was on after hours,

and he got asked about the rebuild. We can play some audio from that, Linden, but any thoughts from the game, Halford? No, pretty good there, boss. Let's go to Trevor Linden as we move along here. I'm not joking. They lost. They're going to try again on Tuesday,

and chances are they're probably going to lose that one. And then there's another game right after that. That is my full. Wow. And that guy, it just keeps going. Yeah. I just checked the schedule. It keeps going.

Yeah. I'm not going to start looking for more signs of life from Liam Ogren. Good on Mark O'Rossi for scoring at the end. It made it 5'2 instead of 5'1. So there's something. But I think, honestly, I was monitoring a bunch of different things this weekend. You mentioned you got the assignment of the Canucks. I got the assignment of not the Canucks.

So I was actually trying to pay more attention. to see if the Trevor Linden interview on After Hours was going to get more buzz than the actual Canucks game that preceded that interview. And it turned out that neither of them got any buzz. No, but Lyndon's a little bit. Yep, a little bit. People like seeing Trevor. People don't like seeing this team.

I just think on... There's a difference. The Saturday game against the Cracket. I mean, it's Hockey Inn Canada. It is. And online on social media, nothing. No. Nothing.

Like, there's just, you know, What else is there to say about the team this year? That's what I'm saying. I did see some feedback on the Lyndon interview. We procured one particular clip and guess what it was about the potential of a rebuild. Another sort of bit of history and storytelling with Trevor going all the way back to his time in the Kinnock's front office alongside Jim Benning. And while the story has been told numerous times, I think now maybe a retelling is more relevant and important than ever because the Kinnocks are finally embracing this full-blown rebuild. that Trevor said he wanted to do all the way back in 2014.

By the way, it is hilarious how now it is just the actual reasons for his departure are now just said. Like, he doesn't pretend that it was anything except a philosophical divide. You don't hear amicable departure at all. No, no, no, no. And before it was kind of just like, well, no, no, no, we just, you know, we just left. And it wasn't, I mean, it was reported, obviously, that there was a, philosophical divide and ownership ultimately went with Jim Benning's thoughts on the matter.

And Trevor Linden wanted a full rebuild, just like Mike Gillis did back in, you know, 2014. And ownership went with the guy that said, you don't need a rebuild. I can fix this. I can fix this. Me alone, I can fix this. I am the person to do this. And now fix it. And now it's just Trevor openly says like, yeah, you know, like I thought,

one way. Jim thought the other, that was Jim Benning. And, uh, they went with Jim's idea. So let's hear now from Trevor Linden. This is with Scott Oak on after our Saturday night. Let's hear it. Trevor Linden. In 2018, it was clear that you wanted a rebuild for the Canucks. So is there any part of you now that, uh, with the Canucks in a massive rebuild, looks at the situation and says, if you guys have listened to me in 2018, you might be playing for the Stanley Cup right now. Well, you know, as I think in 2014 when I came in, I knew it was a tough spot to come into. There wasn't a lot to work with there. We had a great group of guys, you know, Henrik Daniel, Kevin, Alex Burroughs, you know.

But it was a, they were on the on the back nine, if you will. And we've all been as athletes. And so it was a tough spot. And so, yeah, I mean, my vision of how things would go was different than, ownership or Jim and so I was the odd man out. I got to say, I mean, I'm, I think the situation they're in today, I think Patrick is, is doing the right things. I think that, you know, it's a bit surprising given the history.

But, and there's no guarantee in this. I mean, we've seen Buffalo, you know, they were in the, you know, Connor McDavid sweepstakes and that that was 13 years or 12 years ago. And, you know, it's nice to see them find. finally, you know, doing what they're doing today. And there's no linear path to success. You know, it happens in different ways. And, you know, the Canucks, I mean, with that nucleus that was that was Dempco and Hughes and

and Petterson and Miller and that crew that was supposed to. And then it kind of went sideways and here we are today. There's no linear path to success. It just happens in different ways. Yeah, it's a great point. You can't just recreate someone else's rebuild. You can't look necessarily at another team and say, we're going to do it exactly like them.

Lyndon himself was asked, he got the culture question. Of course, culture was going to come up. And he was asked about the 94 team that went to the Stanley Cup final. And what made it so special? And he talked about just the collection of guys and characters on that roster. That team was put together in all sorts of different ways. Lyndon was the second overall pick, and Pavel Burray joined the team in a very unique circumstances. A lot of the other guys were picked up in trades.

And frankly, they were the kind of trades that we don't see very often in the NHL nowadays, which is a shame because those trades were a lot of fun. Like all those trades and business that the Canucks did with the St. Louis Blues leading up to 1994, everything is so much more calculated now. You know, you don't have a general manager and owner that goes like, like, trade everyone. That was a terrible effort in Buffalo last night, right? Like, you know, the salary cap is extremely restrictive. So are all the no trade and no movement clause. You can't have a temper tantrum and make a multiplayer trade nowadays.

You know, you look back to that 94 team that went to the Stanley Cup final. and you'd probably think leading up to that, oh, they did really well in the draft. No, they didn't. I mean, they did get Trevor Linden and that was a good pick, but that was an obvious pick because it was going to be, it was him and Madano that year, one or two, and that was the debate.

Who goes first, who goes second? You know, Madonna went to the stars, and the Canucks got Trevor Linden. The Canucks actually blew a lot of their first round picks in the 80s, names like Jason Hurter, Dan Woodley, Jim Sandlack, although he stayed on the team, was not as good as they hoped him to be. You go back even further now, JJ Daniel, and of course they traded away Cam Neely. For that 94 team, getting Burray was the game changer.

And that's what the Canucks need to find right now, that superstar level player that gives the franchise hope. these days, almost all those guys are first round picks. Pretty much. Like, if you think about the best late round players

in the NHL right now, you know, Mark Stone, sixth round pick, I think Hegel might have been a sixth round pick, and Yesper Brat as well. But even a guy like Kutrov, who was obviously a great pick

for Tampa Bay, he was a second rounder. It's not like, you're not finding these franchise guys in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth round pick. You look at the leading scores in the NHL today. Just go there. Go find the list. And there aren't many guys who were not selected in the first round.

There are a few exceptions, but even those are like, yeah, he's a second rounder. Yeah, I know. You know? And that's kind of why I keep harping on the need to get more first round pick. Like, it's great that they've got all these picks, but, you know, over the next two years, only three of them are in the first round. And those are the game changers, the first round picks. And most of the time, they're in the first five, ten picks. Those are the game changers.

And that's why, you know, the Kinecks have to nail their pick this year and probably stay, quote, unquote, bad for the next couple of years so they can add a few more. It's the, this, you know, goes across all sports, too. This isn't just an NHL thing. But every team seems to understand that statistically speaking, higher-end picks at the first round of the draft are going to yield the elite talent. You can, again, you can mine good talent. Like, Tampa Bay's done a great job of it. Hegel was a late pick.

Point was a third rounder. Kutrov was a second runner. So there are exceptions. However, those are more anomalies than anything else. It's the reason that all the franchise quarterbacks go in the top 10 picks. of the NFL draft almost yearly, except when it's a bad quarterback draft, and then no one gets taken, right?

It's the same reason why you're seeing tanking in the NBA right now, because everyone wants to get to the high end of this year's draft, which is supposed to be a loaded draft. Like, everyone understands the value of getting high-end, top five first-round picks, and you need more than one per year

in the National Hockey League. I'm just saying first-rounders in general. In a rebuild, you do. You just do. It's just this... We've gone over all the... the teams like Chicago and San Jose and, you know, look at what Calgary is doing, just multiple first round picks in each draft year.

The problem for the Canucks right now is you're looking at the team and going, okay, how can you yield those first round picks, which brings us to a guy like Philip Peronick. Yeah, and like I understand, and I was listening to Batchen Randipe in the booth as I was driving around on Saturday. Good podcast, download it. It is good. Yeah.

It is good. Enjoy it. They were, you know, Batch brought up a good point. He's like, this part of the rebuild could end up being methodical, the tearing down. I know that all of us wanted the knee-jerk reaction at the deadline to trade everybody. And I was yelling it from the rooftops. And by rooftops, I mean social media. I was like, just gut this thing like a fish.

Get rid of everybody. And part of me understood, even though I was kind of playing it up, that yes, this will take a little bit more time just to do the tear down. You can't trade everyone in one fell swoop. But my point with Horonick was almost separate from that. where it was, if you're going to do this and you want to capitalize on every single asset you have currently employed to get those picks that you don't have, you do have to make a tough decision there.

I'm not saying it should be this layup, oh, it's so easy because the guy on talk show radio host dude says it in the morning. Like, it's difficult. You, you, you, you, Card to read good. It becomes a thing where you are weighing the value that he has, especially, and he does have some value as a good player and a guy that could foster along some of the youth.

But at the same time, they are coming at this rebuild in a position of weakness. Through their own fault, and some of it was bad luck, but they don't have the draft capital that they need, I think, to do this thing properly and to really knock it out of the park and to have high-end talent across the board. And the one place I can see them make up for it to a certain degree as trading homework. That's the extent of my thought on this, right? That's it.

No, it's simple as that. It's as simple as that. You need first round picks. Someone was yelling at me on social media over the weekend about how I'm always championing this thought that it's not a full rebuild until you trade heronic. Maybe that's not the right phrasing for it. All I'm saying here, as simple and as clear as day as I can make it, is they've got a really valuable asset.

A guy that's on a good contract is a right-hand shot defenseman. He plays high in the lineup. And he does so many things that so many teams would value that you can kind of make up for the deficit you have by trading him. That's it. End of story. End of sense. He's 28 years old. What's he going to be when this team comes out of the rebuild? Are you going to? 33. Are you going to? Hopefully. Hopefully, right? He might be older. You know, keeping him is it, is it really, really worth what you could get now for him in terms of futures if you were to keep him for five years? And then what? I mean, and then what? His value? His value.

His value is down. No, I know he's got the full no move clause as well. And by the way, his agent would hate this conversation. You know what? I'm going to give Alan Wallace a shred of credit here. I think that if he understood how we were laying it out. Yeah. We said take the individual.

Take the name plate off the back of him. If his name was Phil H, P-H, P-H, not F-I-L. And I was like, this is just a random, not your client. It's an asset. It's an asset. He is. Yeah. And it's frustrating because I can, you can,

you can see, you can't really see too far into the future, but you can definitely see this year's draft to the next year's draft with all of the options available and guys able to pick. The McKenna Stenberg draft this year and DuPont in drafts subsequent. And you want to accumulate all those guys because you're just not 100% sure how they're going to turn out at the NHL level. The one I always like to point to in this instance is Los Angeles, who did things the right way and mined a bunch of high-end first-round picks,

and it didn't work out. Yeah. You know, and Drance has been on our show before, and has astutely pointed out, even missing and whiffing on a lot of those draft picks, they still had a run of like seven consecutive playoff appearances, multiple hundred point teams because they were able to bring in talent and it allowed them to do things like the sort of ill-fated Duboisway and they still like Coppatar too, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. To a lesser extent. Yeah. Apple's to orange is to a certain degree for sure.

But the idea would be there's a, all these teams have a similar path that they all understand they have to go down. you need to get those first round picks in the door. And every time we look at the Canucks draft cupboard, we come to the same realization. Just not enough there right now for what you want to do and not to expedite this thing or get them all in 2026 or 2027. You just need volume across the board.

Keep adding. Keep adding. You get a halfway decent guy in the door, move them out for some picks and start again. Okay, we are up against it for time. We got a lot more to get into on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Coming up on the other side, we're going to do world baseball classic

this tournament is awesome I love this thing this has been great watching Canada pretty valiant effort from the Canadians on Friday I would say that's seventh inning shot themselves in the foot a few times second and third none out didn't get anyone home and your two three four hitters up at the plate yeah crazy

but however but they showed very well yeah I thought so and they showed I thought a lot of resilience in that game alone and you know it was the the Canania, that was their best performance of the world baseball classic, period. Yeah, they were two runs away from getting, you know, in an extra innings game to go to the semifinals,

which would have been a huge accomplishment. But whatever. Canada done on Friday. USA beats them on Friday. They beat the Dominican Republic again last night, 2-1. So USA punches its ticket to the finals. Again, some great stories going into tonight's game between Italy and Venezuela. Venezuela upsets Japan over the weekend in what was an electric game. And the Italians, the surprising Italian team, holds off a late chart. from Puerto Rico in their game on Saturday to set up tonight's game against Venezuela.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Halford, we got a question from Brandon from T-Town into the Dunbar Lumber Text Line, and it kind of hints at something that you wanted to talk about today. And Brandon texts in, he says, for a team that's in full rebuild and a franchise that clearly struggles with the culture in the room, talking about the van derives. Vancouver Canucks, would it not make sense to bring on board Kevin BXA as a be more like me, kind of like drill sergeant major in the room, not in a bullying way,

but in a lead by example way. All of our problems seem to come down to a poor culture and mixed locker room. Imagine just bringing in Kevin BX. You're like, what's my job? It's just kind of just tell guys how to be. What would you say you do around here, Kev? He's like, bring up the vibes. tell guys to be tougher.

Yeah. So. Toughen up over there. Biazza took center stage on Saturday night. Thanks to the mushroom cloud that is the Radco Gudis, Austin Matthews, knee-on-knee. What started as a knee-on-knee hit grew and grew and grew.

And, you know, I love the conversation. I love the debate, because I think there's a lot of different conversations to have about this, right? Yeah. So let's see here. There's obviously the immediate damage, which is a five-game suspension for Goudis,

in the season-ending injury for Matthews. Then there's discussion and debate about the suspension and how they go about going those suspensions. And then, of course, the added element here is that the Toronto Maple Leafs in the immediate aftermath of the hit did not stand up for their captain. So Kevin BX on Hockey Night and Canada on Saturday night

took to, I think it was the second intermission panel, to talk about courage and the lack of it that the Toronto Maple Leafs had trying to defend their captain, right? And we're going to play the audio now another different direction this conversation went in. Here's Kevin BX, talking about how he would fight anyone,

including Andre the Giant, to stand up for his guys. So why was there no, nobody coming to his aid right away? For me, it's two things. It's selfish, right? It's a selfish reason where guys were like, well, I don't want to go do something

and maybe get suspended or fine, or maybe I lose my ice time, or it's, you know, even the worst one is a lack of courage. And do we not value courage enough anymore? And courage is something like, Jump in on a guy like getting in, being a team, and everyone getting in. And in the third period, all these highlights are from the third.

But for me, the damage was already done when there was no initial response. And I just think about like when I played, like the Siddines were the untouchables. You know, prongs for you would have been like a team of Solani and Niedemeyer, Kelly. You play with Wayne Gretzky. Like if those guys got touched, I would fight Andre the Giant. I would jump on Andre the Giants back. And I would expect all four other guys on my team to do the same. thing.

So there's a conversation that's happening now. And later on in the broadcast, it sort of moved itself over to the Vancouver Canucks about team toughness and it being the talk of the town and how this is going to rip the Maple Leafs apart if they weren't ripped apart already. And then it pivoted to the Vancouver Canucks about what they're about to embark on, which is season after season of losing hockey and maybe some games getting away from you and building a team to get through those. dark times. And one of the thoughts is

make yourself as tough as humanly possible for a variety of reasons. One, inevitably, as you go through these growing times and growing pains, there's going to be some games that are pretty ugly and are going to get away from you. And the other team might be running up the score, taking some liberties or whatever. And it's nice to have a bunch of guys that are willing to, one, stand up to that. And then two,

it does have to be said getting into some fisticuffs and getting into some chaos in those moments does deflect away from the guys that are quite frankly getting their ass kicked actually playing hockey. Is that the league anymore though?

I mean when I was growing up in the 80s the connocks were terrible and they would often try it and bring in young guys into the lineup and the way the league went down you had at least one enforcer

some teams had two or three you know the Canucks when Trevor Linden was drafted for example had Garth Butcher and Ronnie Stern in the lineup and then eventually of course they found Gino Ojic and you know in in some of the years where they really struggled going forward

they had a bunch of goons in the lineup you know they brought him Bershear as well and Gino was still there like they would have two of these guys two or three of these guys in the lineup every night but the game was was different. Well, it lent itself to that. I think the idea would be,

it's an archaic notion and someone would say it was a dinosaur mentality. And BXA was alluding to Brian Burke saying, like, if you can't give him a win, give him a fight every night, sort of thing, right? Now. But Burke is very old school. I think that the idea, though,

the idea being very hard to play against, even if you're light on talent and you don't have a ton of goal scoring and you're not going to win any games, I do think it's important to be hard to play against on a nightly basis. Sure. And we've talked about this before.

In the context of the modern NHL, toughness isn't what it was in the 80s and 90s, where toughness meant bare-knuckle fights and enforcers and, like, we're going to hit harder. You can be hard to play against, and you can be toughed in a lot of different ways in the new NHL. That courage quote that Biazza had is key for me. Yep.

You just need to have the courage to do it. I mean, look, if Radco Gudis takes out your best, player and he is prepared for whatever is going to come at him, it takes courage to go and address it. You know, you might, you might, you might get punched. Courage is the right way to frame it though, too, because you have to be able to act on instinct and not worry about anything else. That's part of courage.

A little bit of his, it's blind faith to be like, I'm doing this. We're going. Yeah. And I'm, and I'm going to have a, uh, uh, uh, the belief that my other teammates are going to be with me. So I'm not going to be the only one going over to, uh, Rodko Gudis. Because I'm telling you. It was honestly, his beard could beat me up.

Yeah, like two thirds of the Leafs. His beard could have taken all of them out. But they should have tried. They should have tried because what's happening right now is a public skewering of that group. And here's the interesting thing. There were already major, major questions about the intestinal fortitude of that team. And about how soft they were. and it went into how unlikable they were

and how they couldn't ever do. Anytime they were put to the test, it felt like they always failed. And that test could be a toughness test, a courage test, the playoff test. Every time the going got tough, that team and that group

always fell short. And this is another example of that, but this one's different because this is a more primal thing, right? You see one of your best buddies and captain leader get hurt. You would think that part of the courage part it would be like, fight or flight.

Like, I'm just jumping in, I'm taking care of this right now, and to hell with the consequences. And they don't have that. And it got a huge spotlight on it. And now we're still talking about it. It's a Monday. It's probably five, six days since.

I was kind of playing devil's advocate there with the whole, you know, is the league like this anymore? Because while it might not be the 70s, 80s, and 90s, there is still something to be said for a team coming together when it decides to start sticking up for each other.

Ask the Tampa Bay Lightning. they've won Stanley Cup since they decided to do that. And now they're, you know, if you're, if you were to say, who's the roughest and toughest team in the NHL, you'd probably say Tampa Bay, Buffalo. Buffalo's a big example right now. Buffalo had an issue with it. And they decided that's not going to happen to us anymore. And, you know, combined with the talent that they've amassed, you can see what they're doing now.

Mark in White Rock texts in and he says, in regards to talk about. Who cares if it's not what the league does anymore? Make it what you do as a team. Separate yourself somehow. At least it would be entertaining while losing every game. I agree with that. I mean, the Canucks have this opportunity now to reset what they are all about. Yeah. They have this, it's right in front of them. You know, it might, it's going to take a little bit of luck and it's definitely, going to take some time for the Canucks to re-inject this team with talent, but they can change the narrative on this team. And the narrative on this team right now is that it's been a broken room. Yeah. And, you know, the guys that were supposed to be their core have, they disintegrated. They fell apart. You know, whether it's J.T. Miller and his fight with Elias Pedersen or Quinn Hughes eventually just. saying like, I want out and really not looking all that good on his way out the door, you have an opportunity to reset everything now with regards to your team. And at first, it doesn't have to be winning. It just has to be, as you say, I mean, it's such a cliche, but hard to play against. Don't give anyone, don't give anyone a free night at Rogers Arena where they're like,

this is easy. Like it was too easy for the Cracken on Saturday night. Way too easy. You know, I mean, the Canucks had bad line changes. I mean, the goaltending was a little bit shaky. And then you look at the game and you're like, wow, how did the Cracken feel after that game? Probably pretty good because they were able to go back home and pump the Florida Panthers the very next night. You know, like they didn't, you didn't really do anything to the Cracken.

You just gave them some exercise. and that has to change going forward. Yeah. Like it's funny because you know, you look at Curtis Douglas, who they picked up off waivers. Like he's top 10 in the NHL in penalty minutes and he's designed to make life harder on opponents.

And it's not because he's got blazing speed or this elite skill set that's going to drive guys nuts on a nightly basis. It's because he's 690s physically imposing. You can, you have a weird opportunity in front of you when you hit the bottom of the barrel like this where all of a sudden, everything is open to you in terms of opportunities.

There's a world of opportunity open to you in terms of where you want to go from here. You can't get any lower. You can't be any worse. And you are an identityless organization right now. If you were to ask the casual NHL fan what they thought the identity or what do you think of the Vancouver Canucks,

all it would be right now is losing. Dysfunction. Basically, that's it. And those things are not necessarily like characteristics or traits. They're the current state of the team. You know, like it's eventually you get out of dysfunctioning. You hope to anyway. So they do have an opportunity here to really reinvent what they are and what they want to be.

And I think they should reach out to Kevin BXA by the way. I think they should as well. Yeah. I mean, I understand that there are some archaic notions here. And some of the stuff, quite frankly, you just can't pull off. But I think it's core, the genesis, the idea of it, be tougher to play. against. That would be hilarious though if they just went full goon show.

We're bringing them back. We're going to have an 80s goon show out there. Try it for one year. Our next guest joins us courtesy of the Able Auctions hotline and he's a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. It's Kevin Woodley here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Morning, Kev, how are you?

I'm good. You know, not only did they keep the naming rights, I believe they kept the floor. I think it's actually somewhere in the basement of climate. Really? Someone told me that the first time I went down there. Now, so I checked the hell out of me because I really don't know,

but I remember going, I had to go down, the first time I went there was down through the bowels, like, um, where the trucks drive in, where the TV trucks drive in.

And actually, that entrance is actually like a full block away. And you, and it's all underground and there's this huge area down there. And one of the people that guided me through to my first ever, I can't remember.

Wasn't actually the, wasn't actually the cracking because they were at their practice facility. It was the visiting team I was going to see and just, I hadn't been there before. So that was the entrance I was sent to. And now they explain to me that the floor that the stomach choose to play on is all put away neatly in storage down there somewhere. By the way, I went to climate pledge over the last, I remember when I was.

It was a while ago, but I had never been there before. It is. I still haven't been there. It is extremely nice. It is a really cool facility. I mean, I remember it as, you know, key arena. I've been there a million times. Is there anything about the old arena?

The roof is still the same, isn't it? Yeah, it's. But they dug down because. because the roof is low. Okay, so having been to both, you can still kind of see the structure of Key Arena. Right. Because I remember it.

It's got a very distinct sort of look to it, but it is, it's fundamentally different inside. It's a very cool arena. I know we're way off topic here, Kev, but curious to get your thoughts. I know. Hey, listen, I remember going down to Key Arena with my dad in high school to watch Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bowl. So definitely been to both.

And you're right. There's touches and taste of it. but like Ki Arena felt small and like this, there's nothing small about climate pledge arena. It is massive the way they've dug down there. It's a really neat building. If you haven't been, folks, head down and hey, wait a little bit. Maybe you get to head down for some playoff hockey. I'll never forget covering their first playoff series.

And there's only been the one. That city lights up for anything sports when it comes to playoff time. So it's definitely a good experience. Well, the Cracken are going to have more competition now in a few years. So it'll be interesting to see if they are successful in their pursuit for a superstar player, someone that can sell some tickets, but also score some goals. I mean, we all know that they were in on Panarin, made a strong bid for Panarin. And Panarin himself was the one who ultimately chose the L.A. Kings.

Do you think the Cracken can find a way to get that star player that they need for not only their team, but I just think for the entertainment value. Well, I tell you, the millionaire tax that they're adding in Washington State probably is going to help that venture. There's now going to be income tax. Like, yeah, it's about to get more expensive to be a professional athlete in Seattle. That's probably a check against them. I mean, interesting, I don't know if this says anything about their feelings on the Sonics

and what's coming or their ability. But it sure was interesting to note that despite a decent season, I mean, they're not, they still got a chance at making the playoffs again this year. Ticket prices going down significantly per season ticket holders for a second straight year already announced to them in Seattle. So clearly trying to make sure they build the loyalty amongst the fan base that has started with them, rather than trying to, you know, take every dollar out of them because they see what's coming in the Sonics.

Okay, let's talk a little goal to. Nikita Tolopilo had a bit of a rough outing against those cracking on Saturday. Overall, though, what have you seen from Tolopilo? Is he an NHL goalie? Yeah, I think so. Although, you know, you've got to be careful not to jump to, I thought Levi Merri-Lan was an NHL goalie for the Ottawa Senators last year. Like, he had really good numbers.

And almost single-handedly torpedoed their season at the beginning this year because he just wasn't ready. So expectations change. There's so many things beyond just how a goalie moves, how a goalie plays that can affect their ability from one year to the next. Mentally, the pressures, the expectations, as I mentioned. So it's funny because you can look at the technical and the tactical, and there are some things there that still need to improve. You can look at the size and the reaction. Like there's a lot of really good elements.

And right now, like his numbers are top 10 in the National Hockey League adjusted say percentage, even after, nights like last night because as much as there was a goal that you light back in there, you know, four of them are on high danger chances. And you should probably stop more than half the high danger chances you face, for sure. But for the most part, you know, he's held water. And when it comes to, you know, adjusted save percentage on this season, so just because he's got such a small sample, I go to that one, you know, he's still hanging in there near the top of the league, even after a couple of rough starts.

So, like, that's the caveat. lots of other things outside of the obvious eye test can change. But the eye test says that there's an NHL goalie there, size, movement, all those things. It also says that there's an element of his game, and I don't want to spend too much time harvey on this because I already have a lot. But there's one element of his game, kind of like Archer Shilovs and screens, that still needs to be figured out. if you take a look at how Seattle attacked you know four of the five or three of the five goals are off

plays from behind the net pop passes it'd be nice to defend the spot on pop passes too but you know your goaltender has to figure out in today's national hockey league how to move in entries and exits on his posts and you know the goal that everybody cringed at late in the first period

yes that there's a net drive there that he's worried about and Bobby McMahon told us afterwards that he was trying to actually hit Shane right on that net drive. And so that distracted Tolapilo, but McMahon's not down into a dead angle space and Tolopilo is entering his post in a dead angle technique, right? And this is something that other teams have already noticed. And in high leverage games, again, all three in Asheville's goals, in high leverage games

where the other team is paying enough attention to a pre-scout to try and attack weaknesses, they're going after plays from dead angles, plays from below the goal line, pop passes out, they're trying to get him to move in and off his post because they can see that it remains a work in progress. And I've already expressed some frustration that it is a work in progress.

This is part of what I talked about a little earlier that there appears to be different things being taught at the two levels in town for the goalies. And I can see the work being done with Nikita right now to sort of get him up to speed on how they've done it here for years at the National Hockey League. I could see when I went to the American Hockey League. He was, rather than the reverse VH, he was using a lot of overlap. And there were times it worked.

And there were other times I watched a game in the American Hockey League where the LaValle Rocket literally got him to his knees and deeped below the goal line and tucked it in around behind him on several occasions. He needs to find a way between those two systems. And boy, would it be nice that they weren't teaching two different ones. he needs to find a way to find one that he's comfortable with and works. I thought as that game went on last night or two nights ago, you could actually see him going back in between the two. So he looks a little stuck and it's really, it is, I believe, in the way they do it up here, but I'm biased towards that.

That's sort of the in-Clark system. And for years, I watched them not give up those goals. Okay, hold on a sec, hold on a sec. Yeah. So you're telling me that the connects are teaching their goalies different, things in Abbotsford versus Vancouver? To a degree, yes. That seems to be the case.

I heard that last year from some goaltenders. I heard it through development camp. And I see it in Tolapila. Sorry, like it's just, it's hard to ignore. Like I said, I've talked about it since the summer. It just, it's not a great sign. It really isn't. And you can see it in Nikita's game right now, for sure.

There's, like, there's no question. And these are small detail stuff. Like, this isn't. it's a difference between do you overlap do you square up on a shooter coming down the wing and play outside of your post or do you tuck inside in a reverse VH but if you're caught in between the two like you can see it you know what you're looking for plain as day in that game the other night by the time it ended he was caught in between the two you can see him working to get comfortable in the new one and listen maybe maybe at six foot six maybe like I look at six foot six and I'm like I want that I want as much of that frame in between the post as possible. Like when I watched that, and hey, it was just the one game

in the American League where I watched it get exploited when he was playing outside the post. But, you know, it stuck out like a sore thumb to everyone, including the opposition goalie coaches

talking to them afterwards. And then up here, you know, it's like they're having to reteach it when he gets here. And so I'm kind of curious to see, like I don't know, I don't know why.

There's two different thought processes or two different things. I don't know if this is some kind of behind the scenes, you know, like they've moved Dean Clark out of the director role. So he's no longer calling the shots on what's taught at both levels. Marco Tournius clearly learned his system, was taught his system and still teaches his system when they get here. But in an organization where everyone's on the same page that has a director of goaltending, you're probably not having to, learn something new again every time you come back up and that that's pretty clearly what's going on when you when you watch the work being done and when you watch the lack of

insistency of execution um in the the style that that's taught up here and again that's where the frustration for me lies and the confusion because that was one of the things that it's literally goalies would sign here to come learn is that system right and it would get In great, like we saw this with other guys with Spencer Martin, with Colin Delia, and to varying success. They'd have success at times. Sometimes it didn't stick. Sometimes it wasn't because of that specific technique. But entries and actually, it's such a, like, you have to be able to move in and off your post.

We're seeing it. So many of the goals that he's given up. Like, everything else looks great. But that's an area where he is bleeding goals right now and other teams are targeting it. For sure, the Seattle crack in one after it the other night. Like think back to how much they attacked from below the goal line. And again, it was a – talk to a couple of them postgame, and it was a defensive system structure thing, too.

They felt like that high slot gets left open a lot when they get the puck below the net by the Kinnock's defenders. But they were clearly going after it. And so, you know, again, like, it's very fixable. And I think you fix it. And you had all the other things I talked about, both statistically and the eye test. And, yeah, you have an NHO goalie there. But this one – this one leads me scratching my head about the lack of direction. I think it's why you have a director of goaltending as opposed to thinking,

hey, you know, we've got somebody else in management that used to be a goal and we'll be fine. We don't need that. But not having them on the same page. Yeah, if you know what you're looking for, it's pretty obvious. And it's other people around the league have noticed it. I pointed it out to me, to which I've nodded. And so here I am again. And instead I wouldn't do this, but it's frustrating to watch.

And frankly, it should be unacceptable. Well, we'll add it to the list of things that may need or should get addressed this off season, and we'll see. That's the thing I don't know. Like, I wonder if, I genuinely don't know. I don't know why, right? Like, I haven't talked to Justin Pogi. I've heard great things about the work he's done.

There's other things he's done with Nikita Tolapilo in terms of getting him to tighten up. Where he plays in the crease outside of dead angles when he's in an overlap. Like his positioning's better. He's not chasing plays. He's closing on plays because he's not. so far out. Like there's a lot of positives there. So I just don't understand.

I don't know if it's at the top, hey, like we want to change how things are being taught in terms of postplay. So we're going to start from the bottom up and we'll just let them figure. It makes no sense unless part of this is, you know, continued removal of the things that Ian taught.

And I don't know why you do that. But as I've said throughout, I'm biased towards him. I learn the game from him. but I'd also be cautious about tossing it aside because there's a reason it works and guess what? Guys like Nikita Tolapido literally told me in his first year here that's why he signed with the Kudoxa head of other offers.

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