Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 4/21/25

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, they break down the Canucks coach and player end-of-season comments from Friday, plus they chat about what to expect from the management side of things at today's press conference, as Canucks Central host's Satiar Shah joins the show. 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. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na The virus wins the draw, Nylander steps into the slot and scores! Billy Nylander! He will right to our field, scores! Wide open from the right circle, and now to play golf on field. The Knights have a 2-1 lead. I'd like to get an extension run, stay here. Obviously that's something that Patrick and my agent will start talking about. Good morning Vancouver 601 on a Monday.

Happy Monday everybody. Happy holiday Monday everybody. It's Halford at his rough at his Sportsnet 650. We are coming live from the Kintec studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you.

Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford at his rough of the morning is brought to you by Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halifred and Brev of the Morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help. With over 3,000 five-star reviews, visit them online at sans-trustee.com.

We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they they recycle you get paid visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver We are coming to you live from the kintex studio kintex footwear and orthotics working together with you in step Big weekend in the world of sports. We had a lot to get into on the program today. The guest list will begin at 7 o'clock this morning

That's right first hour all interrupted Halford andff. Craig Simpson's going to join us at seven. He's on the call with Chris Cuthbert for the battle of Ontario, which kicked off last night, an emphatic victory for the Leaf six two over the Ottawa senators. We'll look back on what happened in game one and preview game two, which goes tomorrow four 30 from Toronto. Craig Simpson at seven o'clock seven 30 Kevin Woodley, NHL.com, Ingole Magazine. We will discuss Friday's Canucks player and coach media availabilities, and then we'll look ahead to today's media availabilities.

10 o'clock, our time from Rogers Arena. It's the GM, Patrick Elveen. It's the president of hockey ops, Jim Rutherford. We can also look back on some of the series from this weekend, five series got underway this weekend in the National Hockey League. So we'll talk to Kev about all those as well. That's at seven 13, then at eight o'clock his final hit of the season on the Haliford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Satyar Shah is going to join us. As mentioned,

Canucks management will meet with media today, 10 AM. We'll talk to you sad about what to expect and we will also look back with him about Fridays avails. We'll ask what Rick T Rick talk it contract extensions, potentially for players. Yes, we will talk about Petey. All that's coming up at eight o'clock was set to our show. So working in reverse on the guest list, eight o'clock it's sat seven 30. It's Woodley seven o'clock. It's simmer. That's what's happening on the program. Today, laddie, 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 missed that? What happened?

What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. We'll begin with the Vancouver Canucks. Friday's media availability, lots of talking points, lots of discussions to be taken away ahead of today's meetings with Alveen and Rutherford.

Well, yeah, I guess if there was any surprising news from Friday's availability, it was that Rick Tauket was a part of it. He hasn't signed an extension yet. And while he said he wants to be back, he also said he still needs to go through the process with Jim and Patrick, talk about obviously his contract, but also the team. And I imagine one of the questions he asks is, how are you guys going to fix the center position? And the other question he's going to ask is,

how do we avoid a season like last season? Those are two good questions. Meanwhile, there are suddenly a number of job openings around the league. Yeah. What have we, who were the guys that bit the dust over the weekend? Lavie in New York, Greg Cronin in Anaheim. Cronin, Anaheim. Cronin, Greg, yeah, he's laid off.

So too is Peter Lavielette. I don't know if any of those changes are going to be coming, but I believe that puts us at two outright dismissals and then three interim takes. So five jobs across the league right now that are for grabs. Okay, so we'll see if Rutherford and Alveen have anything more to say on that. As Halford mentioned, they're scheduled to meet

with the media this morning. So maybe we'll get an update then. Tauke knows he can't wait around forever to make a decision. He's kind of joked about that, but I'm sure he wants to have an idea of what the plan is to fix the forward group and in particular, the centre position, which he rightly said is such a vital position. You know, you're not going to win a Stanley Cup without certainty and frankly, like, excellence down the middle.

And the Canucks did not have this season for numerous reasons, which brings us to Ilias Pettersson. And I don't know if you saw, I don't know if you were watching the press conference, but when Ilias Pedersen came up and I don't know if this was intentional by Rick Docket, but he kind of like covered his face with his hands and like rubbed his temples. Like he was like, Oh God, all right, let's get into this topic of Ilias Pedersen. Been there, Rick.

Yeah. I don't know where to start with this because there are so many angles. There are so many things, but I think it's safe to suggest that Pedersen took up a lot of talk its time and energy this season. Friend, that's a fair assessment and a fair suggestion. Whether it was trying to mend Pedersen's relationship with JT Miller, failed. Or just convincing Pedersen that he needs to move his feet more, failed. Did he mention that? There were a lot of meetings, according to Tocket,

and IMAQ wrote that Tocket, quote, had his highest paid player in his office numerous times for Frank and sometimes emotional discussions about his play. Um, we're going to play one bit of audio from the presser and this is Rick Tocket saying something that we've heard over and over and over and over and over and over again, whether it's from Tocket or whether it's from management. PD needs to prepare himself better. He needs to practice better. I think people understand like, Elias wants to be a great player, right? And we're here

to try to help them to become that great player. So obviously there's some things that I got to be careful what I say because you guys hang on. If I say reprogram, you guys take it to a different level. No, I just think, I think he'll tell you this, that his preparation has to get better. There's no secret. If you wanna be a great player, you have to prepare. Almost an obsessive type of preparation. And I think he got behind the eight ball early,

then the expectations come, and then there's a little bit of struggle with the team, and then he could never gain traction, right? You know, he has to, we've talked about that, move his feet, shoot the puck, you know, change angles. You know, and you know me, I'm an honest. He's got to practice better. You have to practice better. And I thought those things that he's learning, and do I think he will do those things? I do. I really do. I think I can bank on him taking this information, going away

for four months, and make sure that he has a plan and the plan has to change. I'm not sure he can train the same way or the team. I don't know who he's training. I do kind of know, but I don't. To be honest with you, that's got to change. That's my follow-up. You can't force him to train how he trains. We talked last week about USA hockey and the Quinn Hughes gang and the influence, how much

Quinn has improved his shot, his strength. A lot of what Elias has to do is strength related So how much influence you think you can have in that regard? Well, I think you know, I think he listen You know, he takes some of my information, but he's also got teammates too that he's got to inspire to that that are doing stuff, too You know, you know a Tyler Myers, Tyler Myers, he trains really hard. He had a great year for us. You know, Quinn Hughes, what are they doing? Like I think the inspiration of those guys can help him. You know, Kiefer Sherwood, shooting a million pucks

this summer has a career high because of those little things. I think, can he use his teammates as inspiration? So when Tauket says he thinks he can bank on Pedersen going back and doing all this training and putting a plan together, do you believe him? Do you think he truly thinks? Sorry, do I believe Tuckett believes it? Or, okay, yes, good question.

Do I believe Pedersen? I don't know, I think he's very hopeful. I think he's very hopeful. I don't know. I think he's very hopeful. I think he's very hopeful. I don't know if it's naive optimism hopeful or genuine I think this might happen hopeful. But as someone once said, hope is not a plan. I really have to wonder if the Canucks are still trying to figure out how to get on the same page with Patterson. It doesn't sound like the message is truly getting through. it doesn't sound like the message is truly getting through. That's to me personally, because talking at another point, another time in the interview is like, you know,

is he listening? Or, you know, he said something like, I know the next obvious question is why hasn't he done it yet? And he's like, I think he's listening to some of it. Mm-hmm. Right? I just feel like, and it sounds like there's no certainty that Pedersen is actually gonna do this. Like you say hopeful, right? I agree with that. It's more hope as opposed to certainty.

I mean, the word hope and hopeful came up multiple times during Friday's media availability, right? In various different ways, but it all sort of centered around what they were hoping would happen with number 40 this off season and then the next season. So here's the quote, I've talked to him all year about certain stuff. And I know the next question, well, how come he hasn't listened yet? I think he has listened to certain parts. I just don't know. I think he has listened to certain parts. I just don't know.

I think he's evolving as a person, as a player to that stature he wants to be. Hopefully he's going to evolve even more. Hopefully he's going to evolve even more. Hopefully. There's the hopefully. You know, Pedersen had an availability yesterday or on Friday as well. And, um, I wasn't particularly encouraged

by the way he went about it. I know it's just a media availability. I know he's kind of a shy guy. I know he likes to keep his cards close to his vest, but, um, I was really struck by his answer, or should I call it a non-answer, about why his speed and shot velocity had decreased. It wasn't just that he didn't have a good answer, it's that he didn't seem particularly curious or disappointed by the fact that his shot velocity and his skating velocity had decreased.

Let's play that back and forth because it was a question by Harmon Dial of The Athletic and it went a little like this. There are some numbers that show that compared to two years ago, your skating speed has fallen off a decent bit as well as the velocity of your shot. Do you maybe have some theories about why that's been the case? Not exactly, I guess. But, yeah, no, I'm not sure. But definitely gonna work on it. That is not encouraging, guys.

That's not encouraging. You'd hope he'd have some ideas, Halford. You'd hope he'd be curious enough to wonder about these sorts of things. You'd hope he'd be excited about having an off season to turn his game around. I don't know unless the answer is I'm getting slower and weaker. And that was right.

And that's not something you're going to admit to. And that's not something you're going to say out loud. Yeah, it is. You can just say I need to get stronger. You need to. I wasn't trying as hard this year. I need to get stronger. I need to get stronger. I don't just say that. I don't think you heard the part that I was talking about is what happens if in the two years he's genuinely

Physically gotten slower and gotten weaker. It's not like I'm gonna get faster and I'm gonna get stronger It's I'm that those things are decreasing. I mean, that's a very very legitimate thing that might be happening to the player For what reason? Yeah, he's hurt He's not I mean no one gets faster and better and stronger as they get older. Maybe he's peaked. All those things are in the way. He's 26. You haven't seen guys peak at an early age and then fall off?

I don't know. That's just as viable an explanation as anything else. The ageing curve is getting earlier. And it's not a good one. It's not a good one. I'm not proud to be like, I think I might have solved it. I don't buy that. and here's the thing. We're still in this position of like everyone's got a theory Yeah, there's still people online that are just like he's injured. He's injured. He's injured. He's injured

He told you a neat and when I injured when I heard that clip the most worrisome thing for me was that he knows exactly what's going on and and that was the I I'm not going to say the quiet part out loud, because if you take it on face value, if he is indeed not as fast as he used to be, and not as strong as he used to be, the decline actually kind of makes sense. The lack of production kind of starts to check out. And that's the most worrisome thing of the entire ecosystem and landscape is that they've committed a bunch of money to a guy that might be going in the wrong direction trajectory wise.

Might be, he is right now. I did think it was really interesting when Tauket said something along the lines of, you know, we have all these meetings and I wish he 'd disagree with me sometimes. You know, that makes a lot of sense because. Fight back, fight back. At least it would be a two way discussion

then as opposed to a lecture. And I think he's been lectured a lot this season, whether it's management or the coaching staff lectured, lectured and talking to saying like, Hey, do you want to be part of this conversation? Do you want to push back on something here? For a coach to sit there and say, I wish you'd disagree with me sometimes. I think that says a lot about how those talks have gone.

They've been the Canucks saying like, how do we get through to you, man? Like, can we get some passion out of you? Please push back. You know, don't just take it. Like, cause you need to be part of this process. You need to be part of this process. You need to be part of this process. God, I hear it.

I'm so tired of hearing, well, maybe this guy can help him. Maybe this guy can help him. Maybe that guy can help him. How about you help yourself? How about you get inspired? Well, maybe, you know, training with Tyler Myers, that can inspire him or Quinn Hughes, you know, or, you know, like they've tried everything. At the end of the day, it always comes down to the player having to do it himself.

Now feels like probably a good time to bring up the Quinn Hughes angle and element to all this. Because Hughes did speak about Pedersen as well. But I think now, whereas in seasons past, Petey's foil was always kind of like JT Miller, and that was because of the rift and the personal relationship. In a very different way now, Hughes is going to be the foil, not in terms of like an adversary, but Hughes is gonna be like the, if you have two kids and it's the older brother

that's like the all-American football player and the class valedictorian, and then there's the younger brother that always has to look up that. Hughes embodies all the elements that they want out of a hockey player, right? Leadership, dedication, on ice production, accountability, responsibility.

And because Pedersen's the highest paid player on the team, making more than Quinn Hughes, I'll remind you, there's gonna be that, I think that's gonna be the new dynamic moving forward is it's gonna be like, you know, why can't you be more like your older brother, Quinn? That kind of thing. I do wonder if that's where this sort of next phase of the narrative goes,

that instead of it being them going head to head, like you saw with the Pettersson Miller situation, that it becomes more of this thing where it's like, look, you have the perfect example of everything that we want from a hockey player, and he's in the room and he's your buddy. Yeah, they want more leadership, he brought more leadership. They want their leaders to obsessively work on their games.

Hughes has done that too, but here's the thing. Hughes like is going to work on his game obsessively anyway, because that's who he is. Let's hear from Quinn Hughes. He was asked if there's anything he can do to help train Elias Pettersson, because we're all looking for people to help Petey when in reality we should be looking at Petey. But here's what Quinn Hughes had to say and frankly Quinn Hughes agrees with me. Is there a role you can play in helping

him find his way? I mean, I don't think so. I think that every guy, you get in what you put out, every guy has to train the way they want to train, do what they want to do. I've always been a big believer in PD. I'll just leave would say that. So the, the party line from talk it and a lot from the team has been about his last off season and preparation and practicing better. If this was just a season by itself where he struggled, I'd actually be less worried. But this actually goes back further and it goes back to, um, and the reason I'd actually be less worried, but this actually goes back further and it goes back to, and the

reason I'd be less worried is just be like, okay, we'll work out more, have a better off season and then we'll see you in the fall. But this goes back to the previous season where he looked amazing. What, for four or five months of the season, then the all star break hit and the team started to pressure him to sign a contract and his game

fell off and maybe some knee tendonitis then. Possibly. Right. And I hope, I hope management gets asked about that because there's still a lot of people out there, a lot of Canucks fans are like, he's injured and you guys aren't listening to him. And that could possibly be an explanation or at

least a part explanation for why he fell off so badly halfway through the season. Because you can't chalk that up to his off season before then because he looks so good before, right? And a lot of the times when I hear this, he's just got to get stronger. He's got to get stronger. I mean, a few people were saying that,

but when he was putting up 100 point seasons, it wasn't like, oh, he's got to change his off season preparation, right? Or he's too skinny. Petey the other day was like, oh yeah, my genetics. He was kind of joking around It's like I didn't get the best genetics. So, you know, I don't I don't put on weight or I don't you know get stronger easily Like that's the video Pederson blames it on his jeans. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I do that all the time with mine

Like that's true. That's why I never made the NHL right easy out jeans, but we've seen him We've seen him be an elite dominant player in the NHL before. I know this isn't a guy that's never proven it, right? But the guy like you love, he's like, dude, you're getting in his shape, man. Look at you. Right? Cause we never saw it.

Crumpled in the corner with your bag skate. So there's, there's just, I know that I didn't expect all the answers to be answered on, or all the questions to be answered in that avail, but I just feel like we're still in the exact same spot now. Because we are. Because nothing's changed. Because we don't know if Taukid is going to be back.

We don't know what's going to happen with Pedersen this off season. And we don't know, like, this is what, this is what it all boils down to. You know, it sounds like the Canucks are still Like this is what it all boils down to. It sounds like the Canucks are still wondering the same thing a lot of us are still wondering. What happened to this guy? How can we motivate him?

Why do we even have to motivate him? What's the deal here, man? What's going on? Well, they have no idea. Very clearly. I mean, I don't the one of the more illuminating things that came out of the press conference on a season where everyone was tired and frustrated and exhausted and exasperated was the amount of time that talk it spent specifically dealing with

Patterson, the meetings, the one on ones, the video work, the emotional pleas, the pointing out the, the lack of game that he had in various areas and instances. And that's one, again, I've brought this up before that's one player talking also has 22 other guys that he's responsible for on a regular basis. Like it's, it didn't seem as though anything that was explained on Friday gave anyone a lot of optimism that they had unlocked the riddle or the mystery

to what's going on here. It just felt like another episode of, well, maybe a little bit more time will fix all this. All right, maybe some time away. It was the tired old fresh start narrative. The freshest start, by the way, is a true fresh start Which the connects can achieve before july 1 but until then I think that this is all just sort of like window dressing and a lot of it is speculative too

I hope I hope I hope I wonder if there's even a team out there that would take them in a trade right now Someone would buy low you'd probably lose real bad on the trade. What does that look like? They're not real bad real bad Well, probably worse than the return that they got for Miller and by by probably a pretty significant margin I don't know why they don't want to do that. I don't know Yeah, I don't know if there's a GM out there that would take his contract right now. I Real I really don't I push back on that because it's one bad year, and there's all you need is one There's 31 other general managers out there one guy might think like I'm gonna outsmart them all

I'm gonna get them back somebody Do not do why do not rose to do our own stuff though. He got traded straight up for Darcy Kemper Well the skill set is so tantalizing too. I mean when he's on his game. He's incredible So maybe one GM's like I'm the guy that can unlock this I'll figure it out I'll bring him back, and then I'll have this perennial only point guy remember when they traded Travis Hamonek for it only takes one It only takes one well as like as you said though. They would lose the trade badly Probably like that's the downside like you're well would they lose the trade badly I mean there's the thing like are you guys just holding on to a value that doesn't exist anymore?

There is the addition by subtraction narrative that you have to put into this for sure. Well, I think having a player that is a highly paid player is supposed to be a leader. And your coach and management and probably the players are wondering if this guy is working hard enough. That has a corrosive effect. That's what I'm saying. On the team and the culture. It has to. That's what I'm saying. You do gain. I mean, we saw an effect of it. I mean, you can't tell me that the Miller-Peterson rift had nothing to do with the fact that Peterson was not

playing up to the standard. And you also can't tell me that down the stretch, when they shut down Leas-Peterson, there were some signs of a team that rediscovered a lot of its blue collar, working hard roots and found a way to get, I think importantly offense, but also some results and have some resolve. And for the first time all season, be likable, at least in our eyes, but be likable down the stretch when they didn't have high priced

star players. I don't want to say dragging them down, but not providing the same kind of tenacity and work ethic and stick-to-it-iveness that we saw from a lot of other guys, right? I think that there, I'm very hesitant to take that 15 game sample size from the end of the season and put a lot of stock into it, but there was a stretch there where there was something

there where that team rallied around being down and not having certain guys in the lineup and you saw a Different team granted. It was a small stretch, but you saw a different and it's not the answer. I don't think like Don't act don't don't put you know words in our mouth by saying okay so how Alfred and brough want to build around suitor and Drill Connor and you know, yeah or suitor down the middle as your one see that's not what we're saying And, you know, or a suitor down the middle as your 1C. That's not what we're saying.

We're saying that when you have a player that's the highest paid player on your team and he's the one you're wondering about if he's got good practice habits. You're asking your captain to prop him up. That is absolutely corrosive on a team culture. You're listening to the best of Halford and Bruff. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. I mean, there are some challenging times for sure,

but I think it just comes down to it that, you know, everyone's got to be better and we have many guys that, you know, elevate their game. That's all it comes down to. So it's not about one guy or Millzie or PD. And you look at 82 games, it's, you know, 24 guys on the roster or whatever it is. It's not two guys. 803 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halper and Bruv, Sportsnet 650. Halpern and Bruv

of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 five-star reviews. Visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com. We are in hour three of the program. Satyar Shah is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour three. Hour three is brought to you by Campbell and Pound real estate appraisers trust the expertise of Campbell and Pound visit them on the internet at Campbell-pound.com today. This is EP 40's workout montage music. In the summer? Yeah. As long as he's working out. Where is he working out? Is it here? Is it in Sweden? Who knows?

We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio, Kintec footwear and orthotics, working together with you in step. Let's go straight to the phone lines here. Satyarshah, who's been kind enough to join us throughout the entire season with all the other gigs he's got going on here at Sportsnet 650.

Still finds time to talk to the morning show. He joins us now here on the Halpern & Brev Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Sat? What's going on, boys? Always guys fine to you guys. You guys know that. I appreciate that, man.

You know what? There is gonna be a dearth of Canucks news coming up because after today, things might go quiet for a little while but we still have today. I think this press conference might carry us for a couple weeks because there are so many topics. Also it's going to have to. So.

Do you think Rick Tuckett's going to be there, Seth? I don't think Rick Tuckett's going to be there today, I guess. I mean, I don't know for sure. I don't think he's going to be there today. I guess we'll find out, but I do know the negotiations with Tuckett are very much ongoing still. So, but I'm not anticipating an announcement

before 10 AM today. Um, so if you've got, if you've got an update, it's that there's still no extension? Yeah, no extension yet. Um, and from everything, um, that I've been able to gather is, and this could just be the Canucks posture in this, that they're still optimistic that they are going to be able to figure something out. They don't feel like this is an unbridgeable gap with the head coach.

And I do think Chockett was earnest when he mentioned he needs to go through his process, because I do know he left town pretty quickly after meeting with the media and do what he needed to do on Friday. And this is part of his process to gear down and really think about everything and go through his so-called process. I don't think that was lift service and I think the organization's under that assumption that he's dealing with that and he's going through his process, so to speak, to figure all this stuff out. And I do think when we look at some of the head coach contracts we've seen, and we know his friend, Craig Barube, and what he got from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And if you look at that as being a bit of a template and we do know based on Elias reporting that the Canucks have already made an offer. They feel like it's the best offer they've ever made to a head coach. I don't think we're talking about a two or three million per year gap here. I don't know exactly how much we're talking about, but the sense I get is they don't believe it is unbridgeable and that there should be some resolution here relatively quickly. This is not going to be something that drags in another two weeks. We'll see if something happens by the end of this week, but there is an expectation

that this will at least come to a head relatively soon here. Do they need to bridge the gap financially or bridge the gap on the direction of the team? My guess would be that this is strictly at the moment of financial discussion. And I don't get the sense that it's been, so one thing I was told was if things were that bad as I'm like so far apart and if things weren't going to get done, you probably would have had an answer

that Rick isn't coming back. And I think that would have already happened by now if it was more than just the money. And again, like I can't sit here with full preview to what the discussions are, but I do think this is a financial negotiation. And I think Taukett's playing his hand. Everybody that gets a chance to negotiate is going to negotiate the best they can. And I think we all know Taukett can play a little bit of poker too, and I'm sure that he's using his leverage. So I do think at the moment, financially,

it seems to be the thing that they're trying to figure out more than anything else. I mean, he does have a lot of leverage because he knows that this will not look good if he says thanks, but no thanks to the Canucks. Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, I think, I think what's been pretty

clear here is the Canucks aren't going to make him sit out this entire year. So if there is somebody somewhere, let's say he catches women, this is just me speculating here. I haven't heard any of this, but like that somebody's willing to offer him a big contract. Does that change things? Let's say, you know, if he gets to whatever dating is to get to, it's still, he willing to give him six by six. I'm just making the number up and it's something like that's out there. Does that change maybe the equation right that to your point?

It's like well, you know Do the consider can actually getting a coach a six by six contract and again just hypothetical if you could that change the equation I suppose but I don't get the sense that That's what's going on currently and that there is a furnace negotiation at the very least going on between the parties What was your main takeaway from Friday's presser? What was your main takeaway from Friday's presser? It was relatively boring, right? We didn't really get anything new, I don't think. I think even all the Pettersons stuff, it was a bit more detail on what they wanted him to do.

But we didn't hear anything we haven't heard yet as far as what the team is trying to accomplish with him and what he's trying to do. So I mean, I kind of came away from it, not really feeling any differently about anything with the team. Like I didn't hear anything new myself that I thought, okay, well, this was a big takeaway. Like we were joking about it on the show that out of a 10, I'll probably give it a six in terms of the newsworthiness of the media availability. And perhaps that's not a bad thing for a team that's had so much drama, but I know there's a lot of talk about Pedersen and then how much detail that went into it, but I didn't

get the sense we learned anything new that we didn't already know guys. Isn't that kind of a problem though? And that it still seems to be the same thing. Like to me, what I came away with is that they're still trying to get through to him and they're not a hundred percent sure that they have. Well, I think that's fair.

I think the only way you're going to know guys is him showing up to camp next year and being the shit. Because like even so he's in Vancouver right now, right? And he's working and I think the only way you're going to know guys is him showing up the camp next year and being the shape. Because like even so he's in Vancouver right now, right? And he's working and I think he's he's going to be working with the guys. He's going to be, you know, they'll see what he's going to be doing. But he is going to Sweden at some point and they're not going to be able to watch him every single second. You can give them status reports.

You can talk about who he's working with. But I don't think they're going to have an answer until he shows up to camp next year. And not only the shape that he's in, but the mentality that they want to see from him. Right? And so I think Pedersen can say whatever he wants. I think he posts whatever videos he wants to post. He can stay in Vancouver for however long he wants, but I don't think anybody's going to be convinced

until we see him show up at training camp. You know, the lack of off season work and his lack of preparedness at the start of this season still doesn't explain why he fell off in February, the season before. Yeah. No, that's fair. I mean, I think, and this is, you know,

I've been trying, trying to figure this stuff out, like, and it's really, this will get into the mind of somebody else because, you know, you're trying to think for them or whatever. Totally. But so how much of Pedersen's issues this off season were actually him being, you know what, I don't care anymore.

Or he was actually dealing with a knee injury and thought the best thing possible for him was to take it easy. Maybe. And, and you're right. And listen, I do think when you're dealing with that type of knee injury, there's an element of you have to rest, but also like, how are you

resting it? What else are you doing? And you know, and I do think when, when I've asked about the knee tendonitis issue a lot, and the first thing I always hear about is, well, what type of knee tendonitis, what tendon is being involved and what's the strain? What's this? What's that? So it's very difficult for us to talk about this sort of thing. But one thing that I have for generally is that there is a level of training you can do to strengthen and rebuild your mechanics and do other things to keep you conditioning up that you can work around it.

And essentially a team didn't think he worked hard enough around it. Now I do think Pederson felt like he'd lost his power last year when his knee injury really flared up and that's why he struggled this off season. This is where, you know, fans will say it's still, he's still injured. He's not injured, but the team feels like, okay, last year, you can call the injury being the reason why your game wasn't good enough. This past year, you didn't put the work in together. So how much of this is, you know, being two different issues or just one issue

consistently carrying over from last year to this season. And I think that's what's going to be, we're going to figure out here. Cause if you have a good off season and shows up and still plays the same way, then all the talk about the physical ailments go out the window. And now we're stuck with, is there something else mentally going on? Have you found it odd that the Canucks as a team,

as an organization, haven't given much credence to this knee injury thing? Yeah. I mean, I do think from a, from a public posture standpoint, where you can kind of quiet the noise a little bit, just be like, yeah, you know, players deal with stuff. You could probably quiet it down a bit. But what I think more than anything, I think these guys in general, and you saw how the

guys responded last year after the playoffs and all the players in the team where they weren't going to use injuries as an excuse. I don't think they want any player to use it as an excuse. I think that's where it comes down to. I think they can all sympathize that. Yeah, you have an injury you're dealing with and you know, it's not going to be easy, but you can't be using these things as an excuse. You have to be able to overcome these things.

You hear talk it off oftentimes speaking about mind over matter, overcoming things. That's part of the national hockey league. I think part of it is you're trying to change the mentality of these guys to not use these as excuses. And that when you have to play through an injury, you have to have the mentality fight through it and be able to accomplish those things. And I think it's an mentality to try to instill on a lot of the guys,

especially with PD. But I do think when you look at it from a public posture standpoint, it comes off as, well, we don't care about your injury, go out there and play, like cut your leg off if you have to, but that's not really what's going on. You know what I mean? But I do think from a PR standpoint, that's what it comes off at sometimes. It definitely does.

It sounds like they don't even believe it half the time. Yeah. No, and I think that's fair, right? But I do think like earnestly that he does have an injury, but when it comes to tendonitis and things like that too, like, it's kind of like based on feel, you know, it's like if you have a muscle cramp, like

how bad is your muscle cramp? Some are worse than others. It's hard to know exactly what it is. And when you're relying on what somebody's word, how much, not to say they're not believing him, but do they think it's as bad as he makes it out to be sometimes? Again, just speculating here based on, you know, these types of things, it's as bad as he makes it out to be sometimes. Again, just speculating here based on these types of things, it's fear to wonder. We're speaking to Satya Arshah, host of Canucks Central here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650.

Big picture question here for you, Sat. Like I think almost every time you've come on the show this year, you've mentioned about, there's this, I would say an organizational mandate or ideal to quiet the noise or to lessen the outside distractions. I'm not accusing you of being unoriginal or anything you're just reporting what you've heard and it seems to me that if you've heard it that many times and you've mentioned it that many times it's a pretty big priority for the Canucks

organization. I guess my question is if you ever got an answer to why, why is that such a fundamental driving thing that the noise always needs to be quieted? Is it really that bad or is that more reflective of just something that this management group in particular prioritizes? I think it's part of the, I think this management group in general,

and this is why this year's been so funny. They're very careful with what information gets out. They try not to leak anything. They're really careful about who speaks and who doesn't speak and all these sort of things. They're really big on not having leaks. But then there's not so much reporting around the team this year. A lot of it has been very polarizing reporting, a lot of really tough subjects. I think that has driven the organization crazy. At the same time, I think the way that they've been so buttoned up on stuff and not giving any details has opened up doors for speculation more, which happens in the Canadian market as well.

When you have an information vacuum, people are going to start filling it with opinions and speculation. That happens quite a bit. I think that has led to some bigger issues. But I think more than anything else is this is when they talk a lot about a safe environment. And I think that if you talk about a safe environment for players, which means not having too many outside distractions, having a type of support systems to allow you to be able to attain your potential, to be in an environment where we're supporting you and getting the best out of you and an environment where you're not subject to rumors

and speculation consistently. Now that aspect, I think they failed that and how much of it is their fault or not, I'm not sure, but there's no way you can look at this year and say this was a safer environment for players because of all the stuff that happened. The trades eventually all the things that occurred, it wasn't one. Now how much of that falls on management? How much does that fall on the situation? And that's going to take some time to kind of figure out exactly. But I do think it's pretty clear when you hear from guys like Brock Besser and your other players, they talk about not being able to perform when there are a lot of distractions. So I think it strictly comes down to the, a lot of players in this team and perhaps across the league, when you have distractions, they're simply not

going to be able to perform as close to their potential. And we saw that this season, the distractions literally cost this team games and points. And we can assign blame, but we do know when there are things players are thinking about and using energy on, they're simply not gonna perform as well on the ice.

Right, okay, so building a safe environment, I get that. What about building a practice facility? Good luck with it though, right? I mean, they talk so much about it, but it hasn't really happened. Yeah, okay, I was gonna segue off into the practice facility, but I'm glad you circled back on it

because I think it's very much one of those things where it's like you love the passion of the market and how invested everyone is, and quite frankly, how singularly dominant the team is with regards to the sports industry. Like, they love that part of it, but when it comes to the negative side of it, which is an inevitability,

when something is covered as closely and as passionately as the Canucks are in this market, I feel like it's wildly naive to think that you can have your cake and eat it too and not think that there's gonna be some negativity and some toxicity, and on occasion some distractions that go beyond the playing surface, because that's what happens when millions of people

are heavily invested in your product. It's like anything else, right? You're gonna get some- It's one of the reasons why you've got a high franchise value too. Yeah, so I mean, I call it naive. Maybe someone else will just say, they're trying to be optimistic

and make the situation as best as possible. But I firmly believe that when it comes to playing in a market that's as frenzied as one like this, you just have to take the good with the bad. You can't keep trying to silence the bad because in the end of the day, you probably are nullifying some of the good that comes from it because passion is important.

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's one of those things, right? And I do think this is the, you know, as experience as Rutherford is and has been, this is also a new experience for him for on a Canadian market where, you know, where your word is in revere the same way it was in Pittsburgh where you won Stanley Cups or in Carolina, right? Like where there's this reverence towards everything they say and they do. And it was like, okay, fine. These guys are in charge. We're just going to listen to them

and we'll just think that they know best. And that's just not how Canadian markets operate, right? Like you can be the most accomplished GM and coach in the world. You'll still get critiqued. That's just the way it works in the Canadian market. What about the, you want to ask about the practice facility? You got anything?

I don't have anything. I'm hoping to hear anything from these guys. I mean, so I'm sure you guys hear the same thing. There's rumors here and there about this facility, that facility. How many of these have we gone through over the past five years? There's been UBC, there's been SSU, which I mean, come on, right? But then there was even Burnaby was brought up again. There was talk about, um, in the Oak Ridge area, building something every other month,

there's something new and never really materializes. So I'll believe it guys, when there's an announcement on a date and shovels hitting the ground or renovation work happening. Cause I mean, day one, Rutherford came in and that was one of his big things. And I think they realized how challenging this has truly been. I mean, people might push back and say in and that was one of his big things. And I think they realized how challenging this has truly been.

I mean, people might push back and say, ah, it's not a big deal. They can practice at UBC, but when 30 of the 32 other teams have a practice facility, you probably don't want to be one of the two that doesn't. And Calgary is the other one and they're getting a new arena. So they'll have one. No, I mean, I don't think there's any justification for not having one. And I do think that connects with trying to

get one and I think they need to get one. I think they understand that, but I'm also skeptical on the timeline. Like, so if you're building a new one, it's going to take a couple of years. Like we're still, I think to me, we're still years away from this being a reality. Cause I saw you make an announcement, shovels

going to the ground too, a building process, all these things take a lot of time. So, you know, I just don't know if there's a quick solution here. And especially the UBC thing, which was discussed, isn't going ahead. And again, we don't know for sure. But if it isn't, then we're back to square one again. If you're starting to build something from ground up, then could this even be done before Calgary gets its practice facility when their new rink is done, right?

And I think, I don't know if it's a competitive disadvantage yet, but it will be soon. And I do think that there are players that care about these things. And I'm not saying they're going to lose free agents over to play, they're going to leave the organization, but I do think there are players that care about these things. And if you want to have every competitive advantage possible, don't be the one team that doesn't have the one thing that everybody else has. Sap, this was great as always buddy.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the Alveen and Rutherford show. What gets underway in about 90 minutes here. I'm sure you guys will have lots to talk about on the show today. I know this is our last hit for now, but maybe we'll do one when we get closer to free agency

or whatever else. Oh, if there's any big news in Canucks land, but thanks again for doing everything this season, bud. We really appreciate it. Anytime guys. And hopefully we'll chat again a lot soon here. Sounds good.

Thanks dude. That's the TR Shaw from Canucks Central here on the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Do you have a what we learned? Well, I kind of ruined it earlier, and I think Leeds just scored again. Well, that was going to be your what we learned. Focus.

Come on, man. Yeah, it is a 6-0 now. Barn burner. You know what? I just, I did want to go, well, the reason I asked sat that, and this isn't necessarily what we learned, but I did want to carry that on, is I did notice from almost the start of this season to the end, every sat on bi-weekly, and we kind of trust him as a good insider and he's got

his sources and he works diligently and he has good reports. That phrase got uttered, I don't know, a hundred times this year. What phrase? Quiet the noise. Oh yeah. They want a quiet noise and they want a quiet. They created half the noise. That's the thing. Kind of, I mean, I feel like, and I know

gaslighting gets thrown around a lot and oftentimes like erroneously, but. Yeah. You are gaslighting to a certain degree when you're talking about quieting all the noise and you're creating a bunch of it. You know. And. I always go back to the article that Ian McIntyre wrote.

It was an interview with Patrick Alveen and it was actually iMac. You could tell in the article, he's like, what about the positives? And Alveen was. Let's talk about Kiefer Sherwood. Yeah. And Alveen was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all

good, but our top players need to be better. Right. Cause this team was dysfunctional this year. Totally. And the dysfunction has not been fixed. They're not functional. Like half of the issue in the Pedersen Miller Rift still exists.

It's the Pedersen part still here. And that hasn't been solved. No, it didn't cure anything. And those are all blindingly, glaringly obvious issues that everyone can see. You can't spin your way out of them. Well, some people have spun their way out of them. You can't throw a cloak over it.

It's just there and it's, everyone can understand and with their own eyes, witness and experience what's going on. There's a disconnect there. Not everyone seems to be on the same page there. With what? Everything. With Pedersen. They keep saying the same things. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking about this season, it became very apparent that there was an issue between Pedersen and Miller in particular.

Okay. Right? Yeah. But I think a lot of it was based on Pedersen not playing up to his potential. Right. And. Now you can go too far and try and hold your

teammates accountable. Right. And I think JT probably did. Yeah. He went too far, but, and that might not have been the whole story. There might've been more there, but I'm pretty confident that that was one of the main things.

I mean, when did it blow up again? Well, it blew up again when Pedersen's play went down and it blew up again after he signed that big contract. I mean, we just heard Kevin Woodley saying one of the Canucks is no longer with the team was wondering like, you know, and the guys were wondering in the room, is this guy even trying?

And it is my opinion that it shouldn't- That is again, corrosive. That is corrosive to a team culture. And it is my opinion that it shouldn't be, it shouldn't have ever been, we're choosing one over the other, one has to stay and one has to go. To me, it was very much about if two individuals in a team dynamic, in a team sport, two of your leaders both gotta go. Both have to go. And it's just the best way to start fresh. You know, keep the remnants of a rift around. I think you might be overestimating the market for Pedersen. I don't know. You can say it

all it takes. You can trade anyone. Wayne Gretzky traded once.. I don't know. You can say it all it takes is- You can trade anyone. Wayne Gretzky had traded once. No, no, no. But you can say all it takes is one team to want to buy low on Pedersen and think we can fix them. The risk of taking on that contract is immense. And I have a feeling that the Four Nations did even more damage to Pedersen's value because he went out

there in front of the hockey world and was, didn't make no impact. None. Didn't help. Didn't help his market value across the league. No. When Flute Oceans, I was writing articles about. Yeah.

What's going on with Elias Pedersen? Like, ah, they figured out in Boston now, crossed them off the list. Yeah. It was, yeah. And it also didn't help that Pedersen's play didn't improve after JT Miller was traded. And take away that excuse.

So what are you left with now? Get in shape. Well, the Canucks have a decision to make. Do they trust Pedersen to get in shape? Do they trust Pedersen to be a better player next season? If they do, great, keep them. If they don't, then man, that is a hell of a risk you're taking on. If you bring him back, and they might be forced to bring him back,

if there's no market for Pederson, they got to do it. But if you bring him back, like we've said, if you go back, okay, remember when Miller was traded and we were like, man, if PD doesn't turn around his game. We said it even before the trade. We said, one of these guys is going to get traded and what people aren't thinking about is the guy who's left and all the pressure that suddenly builds on that player even more so. So we said, well, Miller's been traded and

everyone said, well, Petey should be happy about that. Maybe, but maybe also that the pressure is going to build up even more on him now. And how is he going to handle that pressure? That's the big question. How is he going to handle all of this? Is he going to work? Is he going to meet pressure with pressure or is he going to avoid the challenge? You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.