Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 3/30/26

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, plus they preview tonight's Canucks matchup versus Vegas 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. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Hello, Dwayne driving Uber. What up, Dwayne? Thanks for tuning in. And sorry you had to deal with Thomas Drans today. That is a tough Saturday.

Good morning, makeover 6-1 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. it is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello.

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Morning Drive brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 630. Gareth Wheeler is going to join the program. Lead commentator from one soccer, Canada's men's national team, busy in action over the weekend, drawing 2-2 with Iceland and they got a game again tomorrow against Tunisia. Defending was an issue over the weekend. So too was discipline yet again. Gareth is going to join us at 630 to talk about all that. 7 o'clock Dan Rosen, senior writer from NHL.com. By God. Is that John Tortarillo's music?

It is. Huge news out of Vegas yesterday. Bruce Cassidy out as head coach. John Tortorella is in. We'll talk to Dan about that. We'll also talk to Dan about the crazy intense Eastern Conference playoff chase. That's going to happen at 7 o'clock this morning. 7.30, Brody Miller's going to join the program.

Golf writer for the athletic. Author of the new article, we don't need to quit Tiger Woods, but we must ask less of him. well that was another rough i don't know night in jail for tiger woods yeah another rough weekend another DUI for tiger another vehicle accident for tiger over the weekend made massive headlines in the golf world and beyond he's racking up the mug shots yeah telling that much uh brodie who wrote about this for the athletic is going to join the program at 730 to discuss further 8 o'clock kevin woodley

n hl dot com and annual magazine is going to join the program the canucks played again this past weekend they lost again this past weekend. This time a 7-3 defeat to Calgary. Nikita Tolapila was thrown into action after pretty lengthy time off and it showed. And then he was thrown out. Yeah, thrown out of action. Kevin Woodley's going to join us at 8 o'clock. So working in reverse on that guest list, 8 o'clock, it's Woodley. 7.30 Brody Miller, 7 o'clock Dan Rosen, 630.

Gareth Wheeler, we got a lot to get into on the program. So without further ado, Laddy, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Missed it?

You miss that? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.ca. With all due respect to the Vancouver Canucks and everything else that happened in the world of sports over the weekend, we got to begin with what happened in Vegas. yesterday in news that caught almost everybody off guard except probably John Tortorella.

The Vegas Golden Knights fired Bruce Cassidy and replaced him with torts a move that they are hoping can spark a playoff chase and run with just eight games left in the regular season. God, I love this. Honestly, I love it. Talk about adding yet another layer to a potential first round matchup between Vegas and Edmonton.

Come on. Anaheim, you got to be a lot. win the division now. Please give us a Golden Knights, Oilers, first round series. But first, the Vegas Golden Knights will host none other than your Vancouver Canucks. The timing

of this is just perfect. Tomorrow night, also be a Vander Kaine's 1000th game in the NHL. The Vegas Golden Knights have not played well lately. Frankly, they haven't played well this season. And I was reading some analysis of

the situation in Vegas last night. Jesse Granger had a good article up on the athletic and he went through all their issues and man there's a lot of issues. It's like forward group, defensive group, the goal tending, Aidan Hill, not good. And of course they traded away Logan Thompson and he has been good for his new team in Washington. The one thing that that I was, you know, I was always my opinion, like this was going to be hard to to replace Alex Petrangelo. And it's funny because the Blues couldn't survive the loss

of Alex Petrangelo. And I think the Vegas Gold Knights have struggled with it too. You also mentioned that Mitch Marner has been fine, but not incredible. And still isn't really found a spot with them. He's been playing center.

He never played center for Toronto. Maybe a few times here and there, but he was a winger there. And he had a spot. And usually it was with Austin Matthews. and it just hasn't been the right fit for them, and they're getting older. Now, this torts situation is amazing.

I like to refer to Tortorella as the defibrillator of the NHL when a team gets too sleepy and needs a shock to the system. Clear. They call in torts. It doesn't always work, but it's usually not boring. It's like a good medical drama. What's interesting about this situation is how late,

in the season, he'll be joining a team that came into the season with Stanley Cup aspirations. Vegas only has eight games left in the regular season. I was actually, I read something, this isn't torts related, but the New Jersey Devils when they fired Robbie Fetourke and hired Big Bird, Larry Robinson, it was eight games left and they went on to win the Stanley Cup. So it can work, but eight games. left in the regular season isn't a ton of time to make significant changes. Torts has been a mid-season replacement before, but not this late.

When he replaced Tom Rennie in New York, the Rangers still had 21 games left. I do wonder how Torts is going to handle the goaltending situation. Like, is he, for lack of a better way to ask the question, is he going to be really mean to Aiden Hill? Or is he going to be supportive? of. It's also hilarious to me to think that Mitch Barnard left Toronto for this. It's like not even a season.

I was like, who's my coach? John Tortorella. Crap. Torts is 67 years old, making him the second oldest coach in the NHL. Rick Bonas is 71. He's doing pretty well with Columbus.

Torts is a few months older than John Quinville and I think a year older than Lindy Roth. So there are some older coaches in the NHL, but none that require the energy that John Tortor-Torrella requires to be John Tortorella. Where do you want to start? Well, let's go now to some audio that we've got from Elliot Friedman yesterday. Just talking about how shocking a move this was.

Frege is probably the preeminent insider in the National Hockey League right now. Even he was caught off guard at John Tortorella getting this job seemingly out of nowhere. It's a desperation move. Frege classifies it as such. Here is Elliot Friedman from yesterday attacking with SportsSat Central's Martine Geyard about just how shocking this hire was. John Tortorella in Vegas. I'll ask the second one first, Martin, it's a desperation move. There's no question about it.

I think it just shows how much pressure there is on the Vegas Golden Knights to win this year and how they can't let this happen and they don't want this season to go south. But, you know, I'll say, all I'll say is this. I didn't see Tortarella coming. I got the sense Cassidy was in trouble You know It's just that we've all been kind of fixating on Peter DuBOR The guy who might come in

As a replacement But it wouldn't be in Vegas Because he's already coached there, right? So I just didn't see Torrella coming I thought Cassidy was in trouble But I missed, I guess, the obvious successor I think the thing it says Most of all though is the desperation on Vegas to win

And they're not throwing away this season. They need it. It's an unbelievable move from an entertainment standpoint. I just don't see how it works. Even if John Tortorale can come in and give them the defibrillator boost that you're talking about, none of it is going to solve the goaltending, which

if I'm not mistaken, is the freaking boost. Dead last in the National Hockey League in terms of say percentage of five on five at sub 880. And you can have the greatest Rob Ross Beach. You can have the greatest motivator behind the bench all, but they have not had good goaltending all year. It's part of the reason why,

Bruce Cassidy was done undone there. Although, and we won't even bother playing the clip, I can kind of paraphrase it. Frege went on to say that the the fishers and the fractions in this team really started last year in the playoffs when he had a very terse meeting with a lot of the team's leaders during

that opening round, or the playoff loss to Edmonton, in which he said that it started to show that Bruce Cassidy, who's a demanding guy and who is a taskmaster in terms of being a head coach, started to grind away at the players and the message wasn't being heard. Like you did in Boston? Yeah, he's got a shelf life of three or four years, mostly,

in a lot of these places, which is the same as honestly most coaches in the NHL. And probably less than torts. It seems like a crazy move to bring in another high energy demanding coach, but they're desperate. It is on brand for Vegas in the sense that it's a big, bold move. It caught a lot of people off guard. And it's a signal to the rest of the NHL that, you know, this is Vegas. We make these big moves and this is how we want to go about our business. But, and I will say this, in the first game at least, they set towards up for success because you could not have a better first game than going up against Vancouver Canucks who were dead last in the national hockey league.

How much, I want to get to the Canucks soon too as well, but I want to ask you, how much does this add to the potential first round matchup between the Oilers and Vegas? If it happens, if Anaheim holds on to the top spot in the division, I looked at their schedule, it's not that difficult. So hopefully Anaheim can do it. I know Edmonton beat Anaheim over the weekend, so that got them a little close to first place.

But just, I mean, there was already going to be a ton of hype for, even if they don't meet up, just just those two teams in the playoffs out of this division that came in with such high expectations. And frankly, over the season at least, have underachieved. Right now of all the first round playoff matchups, the potential ones that you can actually foresee, that one is the most engaging in terms of storylines, content, The torturella thing just absolutely put it over the top.

So as mentioned, he's going to get a chance to coach his first game of the Vegas Gold Knights tonight against the Vancouver Canucks, a team that he used to coach. The Vancouver Canucks head into Vegas tomorrow. Tomorrow, sorry, after a 7-3 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday, a game in which the Canucks got a little bit of offense, but surrendered seven goals in a really tough night for Nikita Tolapilo and Net. Four goals on 11 shots before he got the hook. Yeah, it wasn't quite as bad as Thursday's home loss to the Kings,

at least in terms of puck possession and scoring chances, but the Calgary Flames dominated the Canucks all the same on Saturday night. It was 4 to 1 for Calgary, just a few minutes into the second. Nikita Tolapilo got the hook, replaced by Kevin Lankan, who was immediately, and I mean immediately, the broadcasters were still talking about the replacement, beaten by Morgan Frost on the back end to make it 5'1 for the rebuilding flames. The Flames, as you mentioned, went on to win the game 7 to 3. The Canucks got goals from Liam Ogrin.

On a nice pass from Linus Carlson, who had received an even nicer pass from Elias Pedersen who made a solid defensive play to start the play off. Pedersen got his second point of the night when he fed Brock Besser for a one-timer on the powerplay. It was later determined that Jake DeBresk tipped the puck past Dustin Wolf. That's what DeBress does. He scores on the power play usually with tip or some sort of play around the net. What he doesn't do is score it even strength. DeBresque is 16th goal of the season,

13 of them coming on the power play. Nobody took him for the goals leader bet that we have going, right? I've got O'Connor. You've got Besser. I've got Besser. I was robbed, by the way. Why? It originally looked like it was a Besser goal.

Oh, the Desolot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And DeBrus gets a stick in there for a tip. Vancouver's third goal was by Nils Holglander, who got in on the forecheck. and laid a big hit on referee Graham Skeletor. The puck, he

hammered him. Skeletor was just like caught right up. First of all, another thing, I've never heard of referee Graham Skeletor. Not until that moment, right? Now I will never forget it. I don't know the refs anymore. I hate that. It would have been way better if he was like, and then he just

like ran over Don Koharski. The puck, anyway, eventually found its way to Victor Mancini, who made a neat pass to Hoaglander, who tipped at home for just his second goal of the season. Skeletor was not hurt on the play. Hold on her. He didn't even go over and say like, hey, are you okay? He was too busy selling.

He was just like, yes, he got in my way. The Canucks, as mentioned, played Tuesday in Vegas where Van der Kaine is set to play game number 1,000 of his career. I imagine there will be some sort of ceremony when the Canucks get home for their latest loss. DPD was a healthy scratch in Calgary. Kind of seems like foot has been trying to pair a young D with a veteran, which is why P.O. Joseph is playing over D.P.D.

I believe the pairings were Booium and Hronick, Marcus Pedersen and Willander and Mancini and Josephs. I did want to mention something about the flames. Okay. Because the flames are in a rebuild, and so are the Canucks. And the Canucks are, Connox have got a few pieces already. We'll see how big those pieces ultimately are. the flames have to be feeling pretty good about their rebuild. They've made four first round picks in the last two years,

including Zane Perak, who's a good young defenseman, played pretty well against the Canucks. Plus, they've got an extra three first round picks coming up in the next three years. So they could make 10 first round picks over five years while the Canucks make just five. 10 first round picks versus five 10 is better than five

first round picks granted that is a bit of an oversimplification of the matter easy for me to say because the Canucks picked up recent first rounders Boo-Booam and Liam Ogrin in the Quincy Hughes trades

So yeah but even then you're like okay 10 to 7 but here's another thing that the flames could be loving those picks that the flames got from Vegas could be really nice if the Golden Knights go in the tank. This year's is unprotected.

So Vegas could miss the playoffs. Vegas is four points clear of the playoff bar right now. Okay. The real good bet they've got is with next year's first round pick, which I believe is protected into the next year. But what if Vegas just tanks? Like they just, the lineup just isn't good enough. You know, teams get.

old in a hurry. And then all of a sudden you're like, yeah, they're just, I'm not that great anymore. What happens if their goal tending doesn't improve? John Tortorella completely sewers the team. There's so many things that could go wrong in Vegas. So it's possible, possible that the flames could get an unprotected first in 2008.

The way the trade is set up. Do we also want to quietly mention that the flames are only seven points out of a playoff spot with one game in hand on the second wild card in the West, the National Predators? And they're one of the hottest teams in hockey right now. I know Blake Coleman mentioned over the weekend. he felt like they were upsetting members of Team Tank in Calgary because they just continue to win games.

And I get that side of it. People are obviously upset. They want to see Calgary finish as low as humanly possible. And now they've created a three point bulge between them in Chicago and a 20 point bulge between them and the Vancouver Canucks. A heads up, boys. Vegas plays the Canucks tonight. Yeah.

My apologies. That's okay. It's okay. But yes, Vegas Canucks tonight seven o'clock from Vegas. So just to clear that one up from everyone that was listening right now. So it was a busy weekend in the National Hockey League. We've got about five minutes before we go to break and turn things over to the footy with Gareth Wheeler from one soccer. We should take a look at a very busy weekend, brackets, non-Kinux division around the National Hockey League.

Because there was a lot going on and there was a lot of teams that had some serious jockeying for playoff positioning. I don't think any team, and there were a lot of teams that had good weekends, but I don't think any team had a better weekend than Rick Talkets, Philadelphia, Flyers. Everything that I had tried to put on Rick Tocke about having a negative year and maybe losing a lot more games than winning and really having some Shadden for it, hopefully for quitting on the Vancouver Canucks. None of that has come to fruition. The Philadelphia Flyers won both games this weekend and they signed their first round pick,

highly anticipated kid from Michigan State Porter Martone. They are now just two points back of the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second and final wild card spot in the east. and that is after beating Dallas yesterday 2-1 in overtime on a Trevor Zegro's goal. Do we have the audio from this as well? Let's play the audio. This is a huge goal for Philadelphia's playoff chase. Trevor Zegris in overtime yesterday as the Philadelphia Flyers take care of Dallas in overtime.

Moons on up. Takes a look. Give him some room. Takes the shot. It's got to be the shot. I'll take the shot and he wins the game. Zegris has got to be the most valuable overtime slash shootout player in the NHL. He's very good at both, especially the shootout.

Like, it's incredible how many points he's helped deliver them this season just purely in the shootout or overtime. I will say one thing, Halford. The Flyers are still unlikely to make the playoffs. And if they just miss, their fans are not going to be happy. No, I get it. They need elite young draft picks. They don't need middle first rounders. No, no, no.

I get that. Look, I hate that. We do this all the time with the sort of mushy middle teams. And I understand how it works. And everyone's talking about with regards to the Vancouver Canucks, make sure you don't get anywhere out of 32nd place. I understand the value of getting to the bottom and getting the high-end pick. But how do you not love what's gone on in Philadelphia over the last two months? Well, you don't love it if they're a mushy middle team that doesn't get a draft pick.

And then all of a sudden, you're not significantly improved for next season. That's how you don't love it. But they've got young players in the mix who are doing the business in meaningful games in March and April, going into April right now. They've won six of their last seven. They're 12, 3 and 1 in their last 16. They are doing the things that you need to take those steps to become a playoff team. And then hopefully, eventually one day, a Stanley Cup contender. I know it's too early.

How are they going to win the Stanley Cup if they don't get? I know it's too early. How are you going to win the Stanley Cup if you don't get elite young players? Follow up question. What do you do? What's the alternative here? You can't lose games. You got to go and try and win as many as possible.

You do. You strip it down. That's what they want. So that's what, I mean, I don't know why I'm arguing with you over the facts that Philadelphia has had a similar discussion as we've had in Vancouver. And there are some people, of course, that are going to want the flyers to make the playoffs this season. And they're just going to always cheer for the team to win. And there are other players that look at it a little differently. And they say, like, look, yeah, it's nice that we've got.

You know, younger guys like Ziegress, and of course there's Mitch Koff, who, by the way, is so slow. Like, man, is he slow? He is a slow player. You know, they do have some good young players. They're going to get Porter Martone, but like, do they have a center that they love, right? No, and I'm not sure you're, I don't think you're a real goalie in the door either. Although their goal tend to be better. It's been a little better.

Anyway, Philly's an interesting story. Maybe we'll get a guest on. Philly this week. Yeah, we got Kevin Kurz coming on the show tomorrow. We've also got to talk about a couple other teams that had big weekends. The Montreal Canadians, they kept rolling as well, beat Carolina 3-1 in Sunday on Sunday in Carolina, Nashville 4-1 on Saturday. So they've won five straight. They've now jumped to third in their division. And if you look at where they're at in terms of the standings, they're just as likely to overtake Buffalo and possibly Tampa in the standings as they are looking behind them for the teams that are in the wildcard. Interesting

to note here, the Habs play Tampa, twice down the stretch, including a big one in Tampa tomorrow night. So there's a game that could have some major implications for where the Habs finished. It seems like they might be on a collision course for a first round matchup against Tampa, but there are only four points back of Buffalo for top spot. And the way that they're playing right now, the way that they're ripping off wins, they could end up being right at the top of that division. Wins all said and done.

Speaking of that division, the Boston Bruins also had a very good weekend. They beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4-3 in the shootout on Sunday. That came after a 6-3 win. over Quinn Hughes and the Wild on Saturday. So now the Bruins have won three straight. They've won six of ten. And they've now opened up a four point gap for the first wild card in the East.

We'll get to the losers from the weekend coming up later in the show. But as you can kind of piece together, all these teams winning games in the East, it doesn't bode well for teams on the outside looking in like Ottawa, specifically Detroit, who keeps watching their playoff chances get thinner and thinner because all these teams in the East are winning games.

Yeah, Detroit's going to. squeezed from the top and the bottom now because the flyers are on their tail. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. 8.04 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford and Brough, Sportsnet, 650. Alfred and Brub of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates.

Do you have credit card debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands. That's trustee. We are now in hour three of the program. Hour three is brought to by the Duick Auto Group. Find out why nobody beats a Duick deal and why nobody has since 1926. Visit Duick GM on Marine Drive.

Visit them downtown. Visit them in Richmond and visit them online to duikato Group. We're coming to live from the Kintech Studio. Step strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintech. We're going to talk to Kevin Woodley now who still has his press pass, I think. Who knows? Who's to say in this crazy world we live in? We go now to the ABLE Auctions hotline.

And our next guest is a presentation of Wyrack Hyundai. It's Kevin Woodley here on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. What up, Kev? How are you guys? Great, how are you? I'm a little under the world. Sorry, I needed to just clear that out. I'm good, I'm good.

And I check my bag. Nobody's been through it. Pass is still there. We'll see if it works when they come back. Excellent. The guys, the dogs are laughing behind the glass. I think it's because you sounded like the grim reaper when you answered the phone. That voice was not.

expected whatsoever. Wow. Yeah, I apologize, guys. I thought I'd cleared all of everything that's been accumulating over the weekend, but clearly I just needed that one little and we're good to go. How are you guys? I was wondering what people were going to

say about this whole press pass thing and we were like, oh, we probably won't even have to talk about it. We've got so many texts in about it. You're going to talk about this? And if you want my take, nobody looks good in this situation. like I don't think

I think this story is blown up on the Canucks in a bad way that has just drawn more attention to it and but I also look at you know Daily Hive or Zoomer or whoever you want to call it like they they took down the story right away

they didn't they didn't they didn't really fight it and I get that maybe sometimes you don't want to call up your lawyer and pay your lawyer and go into a big legal fight over it but I don't think anyone looks picture really good right now and it's just kind of yet another

thing that has added to what's been a really disappointing season for the Canucks. I won't put you on the spot unless you want to say anything. We can just talk about Nikita Tolapila if you want Kev. I mean listen this is

this is going to sound this is going to be a little embarrassing this is why I work at sports to the toy store and I started in hard news as most people did. It's a tough place to work. It's a tougher environment. It's a lot tougher in shrinking newsrooms where you don't have the resources you used to have. Where, you know, you need to be able to do things like, you know, as we were taught in journalism school,

and that was a long time ago for me. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's more white hair on this head than blonde now. and, you know, to be able to look up a registry and see where businesses are registered and confirm who they're owned by and basically cross a lot of T's and thought a lot of eyes before you go to print with a story that is this significant, especially when it involves a group who is somewhat litigious. Yeah. You know, that's as simple as that. it was an aggregation story, right? So a story without original reporting, just sort of going off a story published by the Inlander,

which is an independent journalism site out of Washington State. And if anybody wants to see that story, like, that's still up. Right? And a lot of the facts are sort of borne out in that story. Like if you really want to know sort of the roots of where this comes from, and I don't think the reporting on our side of the border some of the stories that have actually published unpunished since don't have all those details in them

probably because they need to get independent confirmation of those things but that story's still up which which tells me that that story you know did a lot of original reporting so this is it's a tough it's a tough spot especially in an era where, you know, I don't know how many editors go through stories, right? Like that was the thing. Back in the day, working in a newsroom.

Yes. You know, you had layers and layers of people. And you're right. Probably lawyers too before you had published on some of these things. But now a lot of this is self-published. And so, you know, this is a significant story with significant, I guess, implications, not even accusations. It's just it's all laid out in that, right?

And it required a deft or touch before publishing and in terms of how it was published and how it was linked to the Canucks with photos and some of the wording, then Daily Hive gave it. And at the same time, choosing to address it this way, as you said, has just shone the spotlight brighter on, you know, that original story, which like I said, like Inlander, if you really want to know, just look it up there. Yeah. I mean, hopefully some lessons are learned from it and it all blows over.

But I don't think the, I think like you're saying, the story's not as one-sided and such a slam dunk as some people are suggesting. Okay, let us talk about Nikita Tolopilo, because he sat out for a while. People kept wondering what's going on. Why isn't he playing? Is it bad that that I'd rather like, is it bad that's almost as hard to talk about right now? In what way is it hard? Well, I mean, it shouldn't be this hot button topic.

He struggled the last two starts, absolutely. The idea that he needs to start more down the stretch here so that they can figure out what they have, what they really have, is not about any definitive statements about him being better than Kevin Likinen. It's about a season that matters very little in terms of winning and losing except for the confidence of young players and that's important

and maybe they feel more confident with Kevin Likiner in front of them. But it's about figuring out what you have here. And by the way, for the record, Nikita Tolapila on the season remains despite the last two starts, which have been terrible, and his number since the Olympics

rank 66 out of 69 goalies to play since we came back from the games. It's been a struggle and exacerbated by the last two. But on the season as a whole, he remains the only Vancouver Canucks goalie, the only who has outperformed his environment and is in the positive side of expected say percentage. The only one.

So there's a there there with him. And other people around the league recognize it. I've had this conversation with other goalie people that have kind of had eyebrows raised and started to ask questions about Nikita's whole appeal. There's a there there. And sitting on that for two weeks because of one performance probably doesn't help the other night.

And if you've decided, perhaps they've decided that they know what they have there. And they're not confident in it and they're not willing to play it. and that carries over to next season. But from where I sit, that would probably be a mistake. This is an opportunity to get him reps. Even if the struggles continue, identifying the why, getting comfortable in the environment and figuring out, like figuring out how to bounce back is a part of goaltending.

And I understand that Kevin Lanken, like, listen, I have nothing but great things to say about Kevin Lankin and even in a tough season. Like, he's looked a lot better up late. Um, you know, his, his number since the Olympics, uh, you know, are, but they're 57th out of 69. It's not like, then this is adjusted accounting for this horrendous environment they play behind. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like he, it's not like he's leading the Vesna charge. You know, even, even in that time, you need to, you need to play the other guy. You need for him to learn how to bounce back off a bad game. And I would suggest sitting on it

for two weeks isn't the way to go. So, um, I, I, I, I, I understand. it becomes a bigger story than it is. And yet I literally had like another director of goaltending with another team asked me like, what the hell? Like seriously, what are they doing? And so that, you know, if they raise eyebrows and they make decisions like Kevin Lankton for five in a row. It looks like a team that was chasing a whole nice win.

Kev, I had one of our textbook yelling matches with Rick Dollywell on Friday about Kevin Lankton and his point. which he yelled was that Kevin Lankton has a full no move clause and said he wants to be in Vancouver. So, you know, there's no sense in talking about a trade market for him. And my point was just because he's got a no move clause doesn't mean that players are necessarily going to use that no move clause to say, no, I won't leave. Sometimes it's just about or sometimes it's more about just controlling the situation. And if the team wants to trade them, they're at least in control of where they go.

Taking everything into account, do you expect Kevin Lankinen to be discussed as a possible trade target this offseason or is it going to be a non-starter? Oh, well, the truth is I don't know, right? Like the truth is I don't know. I'm not sure where they're going with this, right? And I would assume, I would hope they have more information than the rest of us about where Demko is at in terms of his recovered from the hip surgery. and what the likelihood of him being ready to start the season because that's where the decision sort of lie. And really the reality of where they are likely to land going into next season.

I know Durantz has talked about this. You're worried about, oh, like you could lose Nikita Tolapilo off waivers. And that is absolutely possible. I don't think it's definitive, yes, but I do know, like I said, he's raised some eyebrows around the league for potential. We're looking at a year where actually the best thing for him to maybe not get claimed is the wheels coming off for Brandon Bussie in Carolina. Because for most of the season, people are looking at like, hey, where's the next Brandon Bussie? Right.

And they see a massive goaltender with athleticism and they think maybe he could be that guy. Dennis Hilda would be in Toronto is another guy who's going to have a tough time going through waivers next year. So there's other guys in the same boat. But they could carry three. Like they're not going to be up against the cap next year. They could carry three goalies if they're worried about losing him off waivers. is not ideal to not play. They might need two other guys to get through the beginning of the season

while Demko works his way back. I don't know. In terms of Lankinen and the trade market, as much as I don't know, whether they will approach it, whether he would consider it, I can say somewhat definitively, based on conversations around the league, that'll be a tough contract to move without eating. That's just the reality.

We said it at the time. Good for Kevin Lankinan. He earned it with a great first half. but it was an overpay to the extent where other teams who had similar goleys were worried it was going to reset the market. And it didn't because those similar goalies signed with term,

less term, for a million and a half or more less than Lankening got. And they had similar profiles and have continued to have similar profiles. So that contract, even if both sides agree that, you know, there's a willingness to move on from it will not be an easy one to move.

Kevin Lankinen is a really good 1B with upside, the potential to play into a 1A role. He's shown it for stretches. But they paid them not much less than Joey DeCorp gets to be the one in Seattle. Yeah, I mean, I just keep coming back to the fact, though, that rebuilding teams probably shouldn't allocate $13 million in cap space to goaltending. No, I mean, that's that's a given, right? Yeah.

And you can't move the other guy either, but is there a willingness given the amount of contract left to eat money for a part of it, right? Like, again, I just think without that, you're certainly not going to move an asset to move off of it. Like you need a goalie. And I guess, I guess all of this comes back to we don't, we just don't know. We hope the best for Dr. Demko that this is the hip is the thing that solves it all. Yeah. But we just don't know.

What do people say, when you're talking to the goalie community, what do people say about this notion that the Canucks have found the issue? Almost all his issues have been because of this issue that they found, and now they're going to be able to fix this issue, hence no more issues going forward. it's treated with a little bit of skepticism just because of the year-end interviews last year that said he's got a new trainer and that's going to fix everything which sounds like was the basis for them handing out the 25 and a half million dollar contract right like they thought they had a solution last year so when you hear that and they seem so confident in it and it didn't pan out

that creates a little skepticism. Now, listen, like, I'm, like, shut out from that side, from the Demko camp, so to speak, but I know some people that are around it. And there is some optimism that this is going to be, you know, like I know the hips were an issue dating back to the year he tore his groin. Like, you know, again, I'll go back to that summer. Knee surgery comes off knee surgery, totally unsupervised as he comes back off the ice, goes a million miles an hour, and by the time he gets back to Vancouver,

everything, including the hips, hurts to the point of needing treatment and injections and regular maintenance. So this has been an issue for a while. I don't know why it wasn't identified as the issue. So often hips are when it comes to other lower body strains, but they think they've found it. And there are some people close to him that believe that's the case. And so we'll have to wait and see.

Listen, it's hard not to be skeptical, even as a guy who, always felt the next thing was going to be. I mean, I thought he'd be healthy this year, right? Like, I'm on record throughout last summer. Hey, the pattern is one season hurt, one season healthy. I thought this is the healthy season. So, you know, it's kind of a fool me once, shame on me, you know, fool me twice, shame on you kind of thing. But there is some optimism around it. And I hope he can get back to being that guy. Because it's funny, I was talking to a goalie coach from another team yesterday. And he's like, he's the only, you talk about a tank and not having $13 million in goal timing. Well, like, the other guys

are, they're not at a level where they can single-handedly win you games. They're very few in the league that can do that. Like, Ilya Sorokin is at the top of that list. And by the way, if he doesn't win the Vezna, the GM should never be allowed to vote again. Like, never. Honest to God, I mean, they probably shouldn't be anyways

because they screw the position up constantly. You don't think, I think Vassie's going to get it. But honestly, they should never, like, But other, like, it's a very short list guys that can outperform an environment, especially one as bad as this one. And then for New York, they've gotten better as the seasons gone on. But at the beginning of the year, like Sorokin was stopping bullets in his teeth. And we've seen this year that the other guys aren't that, right?

Like, for stretches, yes. Like, Demko has the, but, like, he's the one that could, you know, single-handedly screw up a rebuild. And I say that as a compliment. Like, he's the guy that could win you games. You have no right to win. and make it hard to finish at the bottom of the league and get a good. He's the guy that could play into the mushy middle,

even if your team, you know, like the Canucks, I'm looking at it, you know, since the Olympics, they've played 15 games. Eight of them, their expected goals four are below two, and they've only won the expected goal battle in four out of 15. Like, they're a bad team right now. You know, is, and he's the only guy on that depth chart right now that can sort of single-handedly win you game.

So when you talk about a rebuilding team shouldn't have 13, million dollars tied up in goal-tending, I agree. But much like the Calgary Flames with Dustin Wolfe and Devin Cooley, you know, they're the guys that can keep you flirting. Goalies like that can keep you flirting with better than you actually are. And in the case of the flames, instead of being, you know, a true talent challenge the Canucks for the first overall pick, like they're flirting with, you know, fifth, fourth, you know, pick up there.

Like, so if there's a move to be made, the problem is, who's by, that contract either, right? Like, neither of these goaltending contracts are easy to move. And, you know, in some ways, an indictment of a lot of the decisions around goaltending that have been made since since they moved on from their former director. Kev, good news for you.

I did say that I thought Vassie was going to win, but kind of jokingly. Sorokin at a sports... You're hired too. Sorokin, I didn't say should. Soroken at the sports book I'm looking at is a minus 3.30 favorite to win the Vassia plus 210 because so the odds makers at least think that Seroquin is going to win the Vezna trophy. I have to ask you about the John Tortorella hire and what this means for the very problematic Vegas goalies.

They have been a problem, right? Like they've underperformed a really good environment. And so, and this is, I had a piece at NHL.com this week about this trend towards lower shots. and we're seeing it around the league. And they're one of those teams, right? Like, their underlying numbers are fantastic on both sides of the puck. They generate, but they generate and they don't score. And then they don't give up much.

Their goalies are underperforming the environment by significant margin. Aiden Hill is just underwater this year. Carter Hart had a great start, started to flounder, then got hurt, and Akirishman did the same way. When all three guys are that far sort of below their expected, what the numbers say they should be saving, you start to wonder a little bit if there's something in the water.

And it may be as simple as not every polly's comfortable not being busy. And we see this around the league a little bit. Like Carolina's got it the worst, their goalies hardly see any shots, but they see a ton of quality percentage-wise. Like the Carolina Hurricanes,

everybody talks about them as this, you know, great possession team. And yet their goalies have three of the 10 lowest-expected save percentage. So three, by shot quality, three of the ten toughest environments in the league. Vegas doesn't have it by a shot quality perspective. Like they're all well above league average,

but they don't see a lot of shots. And they're just, they seem to struggle when they're not busy. And that's a, that's a tougher one to diagnose. It's a tougher one to sort of scout for and find the right fit. You know, I always go back to the Curtis Joseph example, put him in Edmonton where he needs to make 70 plus saves in the playoff games, and he's going to keep you in that game. and, you know, dive around and make incredible saves

and end up with, you know, stopping 60 plus, you know, up near 70. Put them in Detroit where he only needs to make 20 saves the night behind the hockey hall of fame lineup that was expected to win, and he struggled mightily. And he was sort of the poster child for that. There's a lot of goalies that struggle in these low-shot environments. The bad news for Vegas is they would appear to have at least two of them. And, you know, it's funny because...

John, like, they signed, and this is where the contracts come in. Like, it's almost like teams are like, ah, well, like, we know this guy. The devil, we know. Let's lock in on that. And you see a lot of that around the league, right? Because there's so few guys even get the free agency. But when it comes to Vegas and goaltending, I know they were in on John Gibson last year. And they didn't pull the trigger on extending Hill until that fell through.

And so you see that and you're like, huh, like it was kind of like a plan B. You know what I mean? Plan B is not working right now for the Vegas gold nights. What I don't know, because the systems all look great, and the execution and the numbers, I don't know what torts changes. Like, is he going to start packing the house defensive? He's going to change how they defend?

I guess if it's not working for the goaltenders, that could help them, but does it help in terms of, like, everything on paper says they should have better results than they have. So I'm curious to see whether this is just firing brimstone and a little more effort takes them to another level. Like the shots you give up are, yeah, everybody gives up high danger chances. It's about where and when and what kind.

Maybe there's a little more intensity on the back check and there's a stick on that guy next time. Maybe at the other end of the ice they're willing to try and create the dirty goals instead of the pretty goals. I don't know, but I'm fascinated to see how much he actually changes with eight games left other than just a different voice and a different message, is there actually an execution change coming? And to me, that's the most fascinating part of this. Well, we're going to get a look at it tonight. 7 o'clock. Remind her you can hear the pre-the-post and the actual game

all right here on SportsNet 650. It's the Canucks in Vegas to take on John Tortorella and the Golden Knights. Kev, thanks for doing this today, bud. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Have a good one. Kevin Woodley on SportsNet 650, a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. Visit the showroom on King George in White Rock,

or whiterock hunday.com. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.