Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 4/23/26

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, plus they discuss the possibility of the Canucks adding Shane Doan to the front office staff with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. This puck to the right of Connor Ingram. Here's Ristowice. Ristowice. Wyatt Johnston. I'm so excited to play home court tomorrow because I feel like it's going to even give you more of a boost. What a freaking boost.

Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming you live for the kid. studios in beautiful Mount Pleasant

in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adaw, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you. Hello, hello. And intern Jordan. Good morning to you as well. Good morning. Nice job, everybody. Halford in Brumph of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. They're open seven days a week and open late

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Here's a funny anecdote about the Dunbar Lumber tech message in Vasket. When I came in this morning, whoever had worked last night failed to clean up the flag text area, you know, where you put the text

that you want to read on the air. Yeah. What were some of the flagged text? Well, there was only one. Just one singular flag text. And it read, um, movie theater popcorn,

overrated or underrated. Or underrated. So it was obviously an exact question. We all need to know. Make sure you hit that one. It's going to be tough. It's a big dog. However yesterday's show went, obviously it's going to be a tough one to match.

But we will try here. Are we going to get to that later in the show? I don't know. I took it out of the flagged area. Yeah. And I put it in the will not talk about area. I actually do have some comments on movie theater popcorn. Oh, there we go.

Okay. I think it's both overrated and underrated. How can be both? Explain it. Does that not defied the laws of overrated and underrated? I love. the first part of movie theater popcorn, especially when you're,

you're hungry and you're in the mood for it, and you've got the fresh butter on top of it. And then the last half of it is a real, I don't know, it's an ordeal. It's a blog. It's a challenge. I don't have to finish it. I know, but like,

yeah, you do. If there's food in front of you, you have to finish it. What are you talking about? You've spent $27 on this medium popcorn. I'm going to eat it. So is that what their show does? I've got a spoiler for you, by the way,

as we're completely wasting time off the top. But it's fine, it's our show. I'll run it into the ground if I want. You know it's not actually butter on movie theater popcorn? Well, you can ask for real butter. Yeah, but do you know what it is? If you have a few bucks in your pocket. Salt water.

You're getting up to 35 bucks. What is it? It is butter flavored coconut oil and something called flavicle. You can actually buy it. I've seen it. Give me some of that flavorical. Yeah. It sounds great for you.

Yeah, flavorical does not look good when it comes out of the container. Look at what you've done now. What? You are wasting time. Yeah, I know. But if movie theater popcorn is overrated and underrated, would that not just make it rated? Yeah, see, I've wondered about that. If it's both and then it's just perfectly rated, it is exactly what you expect.

Like in the Halcyon days where Sat and Dan were really getting into overrated and underrated. Did it ever just come to a conclusion that it was just rated? I love how you made fun of the fact that this was flagged and how ridiculous the fact that it was, now we spend 10 minutes talking about. Just four. Leave texting and it is overrated. Okay, thank you. Excellent. We're going to have to bump Craig Morgan to get more to this.

Oh, yeah, Craig Morgan, the Duick Morning Drive. Our morning guest list brought you by the Duick Auto Group. It is going to begin at 630. And it is going to start with Craig Morgan. Now, you might be asking Craig Morgan, what's going on? The coyotes coming back? Noted Arizona Hockey Insider, former coyote's beat writer Craig Morgan is going to join us to talk about Shane Don.

For those that missed it, the Canucks have asked the Maple Leafs. for permission to speak with Shane Donne about joining their front office. We don't know in what capacity. We don't know in what role. But we're going to talk to Craig Morgan about a very interesting character in Shane Donne. He does have a fairly extensive history as an executive in both Arizona and Toronto. So we'll talk to Craig Morgan about that at 630. 7 o'clock at Nandberg's going to join the program from MLB Network.

The Jays had their modest three-game win streak and last night. And how about the Mets snapping their miserable 12? game losing streak with the win last night over the twins. Lots of baseball stuff to get into with Adnan at 7 o'clock. 7.30 Jason Quick is going to join the program. That's not Jonathan Quick. He definitely wouldn't be doing media. Jason Quick, senior writer for the athletic,

based out of Portland, has been covering Tom Dundon's ownership takeover of the Blazers, which we talked about yesterday. He's the author of a recent athletic article titled Blazers owner Tom Dundin doesn't care that others say he's cheap.

We'll join, Jason Quick will join us, sorry, at 7.30 to talk about that. And then at 8 o'clock, it's the Drancer. Thomas Dranx from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk. He has been putting in the work lately in these early days of the Canucks off season, all over the expansive interview process that they're using to hire a GM. And maybe possibly Jim Rutherford's replacement as well, we'll talk to Dranser about all that at 8 o'clock. So we got a big guest list.

We got a lot to get into. Not going to run it in reverse. Without further ado, Laddie, letty. to tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened?

I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened is brought you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies, and tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.ca.

Since we were already talking about Shane, don't, I guess we should begin then. And you actually asked me, while we were playing little intro music there, did Shane Donne work in the Coyotes front office? Very briefly, he worked in the hockey operations department for two years with the Coyotes. Okay.

Before being hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs, of course, the team that the Connax had asked permission to speak with Shane Done, a special advisor to the GM in Toronto, and now an interview candidate for the Canucks. That was mentioned and, of course, reported by Elliot Friedman yesterday.

He was special advisor to Bradshaw Living. Now he's just special advising, I guess nobody there. He's just advising. Yeah, yesterday first came there the report from Elliot Freeman about that seeking permission.

I think the permission has been granted. And then there was this additional tidbit from Ian McIntyre who put on social media regarding Friege's report on Shane Done. I guess it's IMAC reporting this. Jim Rutherford has left open

the possibility he, could leave as president soon after hiring a new GM. The Canucks may be looking beyond the GM role as the interview candidates. So this is kind of what, I mean, we might be wrong about this, but this is kind of what we came to the conclusion of yesterday during our show, where we worked through the process of like, why do they have multiple lists of candidates? and some are experience and some aren't experienced. Like, what's going on here?

And then we thought, thanks to some of the help from the textiers, well, maybe the Canucks are hiring a general manager, and that general manager is going to be like a fresh face, got some new ideas kind of guy. Sure. But they're also going to have, whether it's a president of hockey ops, I don't know, but more like a senior executive that is going to bring some experience to the game

or in the case of Shane Donne experience and maybe some PR help because like the Don't hire could in theory be similar to the Trevor Lyndon hire save for the fact that Don't ever played for the Canucks but I mean I do like the idea of a popular high character

and likable guy to speak on behalf of a franchise that needs to be a lot more high character and likable. Sure. You can't get, you can't, you know,

you can't let it get all the attention, this high character and likable. I mean, it kind of reminds me of, you know, you can make a mistake sometimes when you overly focus on one area.

And I'm reminded of when, when Gillis, was fired and then they're like well what did Gillis not do well well he didn't draft well they need a guy that knows how to draft course correction so they bring in Jim Benning and they're like oh he doesn't know

how to do anything else though that's the problem now people will also obviously point out that the Lyndon hire didn't work which is fair enough everyone has to be aligned and you know that's

that's just true of any front front office if Don't does end up getting hired by the Canucks, it will be interesting to see in what capacity. Maybe it's not the president's job. Maybe it's not because the thing with Lyndon was like, he was the president of hockey ops, which meant that Benning reported to him.

And I always thought, that's a little bit odd. Like Lyndon's been out of the game for a while and Benning hasn't. So are you going to give the guy that's been out of the game for a while the final say on hockey decisions? and we all know how the Lyndon thing ended. Maybe it's something else for Donne, like the special advisor role he had in Toronto.

I just think overall, I was excited to hear this news without knowing what capacity Shane Donne could work for the Conucks in, just because I think it's always good to get quality people working for your organization. Yeah, I like having a guy, with that much experience and I've, you know, dealt.

Actually, I think I interviewed Don't once. I like a guy that's well spoken, very well thought of in NHL circles and has a pretty robust resume. I like that he is a very decorated former player. I like the fact that he's worked in a lot of different roles with different organizations. He's got a network of former teammates and guys that he's played against throughout the National Hockey League. I do think there's something to be said

for putting together a collective of individuals that could maybe work in tandem. Now, some will bristle against that notion and say, hey, you need to have a clear designation of who's on top, who works underneath. Yeah. The order of command, all of it.

But I would push back and say, sometimes when you have that, that can get convoluted too. And we saw it with Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alvin and that there was never really cleared definement of roles and we saw a lot of stepping into each other's lane, taking stuff off each other's plates. Maybe this is the way to go.

By the way, just an additional tidbit is that Frege did say, whatever the potential role that Canucks have for Donne pre-interview is unclear, he's never expressed the desire to be a full-time GM. Okay. So there's, but I mean, that could change. But we're just going on what we know already.

And then Frege did say, Don't could definitely be part of a group, which is where I got that collective idea from. Right. I'm going to throw this out to the listeners. What do you think about a triumvirate of Shane Donne, Ryan Johnson, and Manny Malhotra? Ryan Johnson would be the GM. Manny would be the coach, Shane Done, some executive role. I mean, you throw the Siddines into that.

mix and that's an all-world group of good good guys you know yep and I know I know there will be people who will roll their eyes at this line of thinking but consider all the young players the Canucks are going to be bringing into the organization over the next few seasons I think having a group of former players like that all high character good guys would be really valuable to this rebuild. Yeah, I do too. I think some goodwill, maybe even more than that,

would go a long way. I don't know how good those guys would throw a party. Like, I don't know, I don't know if they'd be really good at, like, it's hilarious. A very wholesome party.

It's hilarious that Shane Done doesn't swear and rarely drinks, not just because of that, but do you know how much discipline and confidence in yourself it would take to play professional hockey for years and years and not drink or swear.

I think the swearing thing would be. The swearing thing's crazy. It's like a bigger deal. Mark Schifley also famously does not swear. Mark Schifley doesn't? Yeah. Gosh darn it. Oh, sorry, guys.

Well, Donne says fudge. Yeah. He says fudge. And I actually watched he did one of those barstool going out for play golf with Witt and pissing at. And I think he was, he might have been playing with Ray Whitney. actually. Oh, okay.

I can't remember who he was playing with, but he missed a putt and he was like, ah, fudge it. Right? It's like, I was like, are the Knecks going to have Ned Flanders

as their president of hockey ups? That would be incredible for this show. If we had the Ned Flanders of the NHL as like peanut butter cups in his office. Right? Player gets that up there when they're in trouble. Yeah. And Landers is a boring old bitty.

Ned. that was Shane Donne when he had that one drink that one time. Yeah, it was more monster than man. It was his first and last, Blackberry Schnapps. Anyway, this has to happen now. I have no idea where this is going to go. It sounds like the search is very expansive, but that news yesterday,

it was outside the box from what the names that we had previously heard. And it was intriguing because of the history that Don't has. We'll talk more about this with Craig Morgan coming up at 630, but we should probably... There's a lot of people texting in that love that idea. Graham from Hardy talking about the three guys on top that Jason just talked about

and yes, inject it in my veins. There's a lot of people texting in. They'd be like, yeah, let's do it. Logan from Langley. Don, RJ, Manny, do it. Someone also said that would make a fantastic third line. Well, if they... Yeah.

Worst case scenario. There's some injuries. It would be all right. Okay, let's get to some of the action from last night in the National Hockey League. only three playoff games on the slate. And again, for those of you that went to bed early, Quinn Hughes of the Minnesota Wild,

after getting out to a commanding lead in that series, have now fallen behind two to one. But I want to start with what's going on in the Pittsburgh Philly series. Trevor Zegris, a goal and an assist for the Flyers, who took a commanding 3-0 series lead against Pittsburgh with a 5-2 winning game three at Xfinity Mobile Arena. You know how Zegris loves playing at Xfinity on Wednesday night.

There were a lot of storylines. to take from this one, but I'm going to go right to the Pittsburgh Penguins after a 5-2 loss and in a series where they've been soundly outplayed. They decided to direct their attention to the officiating and how poor they perceived it to be. There was a

comment from Brian Rust saying it felt like it was a WWE match out there. And then the head coach, Dan Mews, got up to the podium yesterday and took Umbrage. Yes, umbrage with the officiating because Cindy Crosby was called for an embellishment penalty for the first time in his

playoff career. Now, it came on a high stick in which both guys got sent off, but it was off a draw, and Crosby got dinged for embellishment. And then, and then, like, fell to the ice. Yeah. Which was probably what got him the embellishment.

I don't want, look. Did you see his reaction with the fan in the box afterwards? Oh, that was so nice. And Farby had for me to, you know, suggest that one of the greatest players of all time was taking a dive, but I know who didn't agree with the call whatsoever. That was his head coach, Dan Mews.

Here's what Dan Mews had to say about that embellishment call yesterday following a 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. Dan, first, did you get any kind of explanation on the dust up between Sid and Hathaway and as well as the melee in the middle of the second period? No, they didn't give me much on that. I mean, you know, we don't have a single embellishment all year. Sidney Crosby doesn't have an embellishment in 21 seasons. So sticks in his face.

They take both of them. I disagree on that strongly. Not one. Not one for our team. All season. And so we didn't come into this series to start now. Our guys have done a good job with that. And Sid doesn't embellish.

Coach, I mean, I don't know why we got that last part in. I do know that it really adds to it. Yeah, it definitely added something there. I don't. I think he handled it well. I think he made two very salient points there. One is like,

we have not taken embellishment penalty all year. And Sid hasn't taken one over the 21 years of his NHL career. But he did. I don't know. He did. If I was a referee, does that cause you to like crumple to the ground? The stick barely touched his face.

But I see, okay, It doesn't cause you to go down like a sack of potatoes. But I've seen that countless times and the embellishment penalty often doesn't get tacked on. Usually it's just two for high sticking. I will say that, like, whatever, we're not going to argue about this. I mean, we don't know for sure. I will say that it was fun to watch everything last night because, like, there's one market in the NHL that really hates Sidney Crosby.

You know, like most markets, especially the ones in Canada, they're like, I love Sid. Yeah, tip of the cap. You know? Sid's great. And there's obviously a bunch of American markets that have the utmost respect for Sidney Crosby. And he has respect for them. It's so different in Philly. Philly hates Crosby.

And to be honest, Crosby hates the Flyers. Yeah, he does. He does. He does. He still, he did say it. He's like, I hate those guys. And I think he still does. And, you know, it was like, going into a time machine

yesterday. You know, you go back 10, 15 years and you got flyers and penguins and that place is loud and it's nasty and there are the crybaby Crosby signs and then the game devolved into a bit

of a circus. Yep. And I have some time for that. I was watching that. I mean, I watched that thing start to finish and I got to be honest with you. You know how we came into the playoffs and we were like, yeah, the penguins, I could get on board with them. And we were trying to pick our bandwagon team.

And I said, you know, I sometimes don't know until I start watching the series who I'm rooting for. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, I'm rooting for these guys. Or wait a minute, I don't want these guys to win. I'm rooting for Philly, man. Like, I have not liked what I've seen from the penguins. I don't want to watch. I don't particularly want to watch those guys. They're old.

They're a little bit slow. And I'm liking some of the stories from the flyers. And I like the energy that they're bringing. Now, watch them blow this 3-0 lead. But, you know, I found myself cheering for the Flyers during the day. During yesterday's game, because I think I also like when Philly is relevant because they bring a lot. the fans and and and I think the team kind of feeds off that and it did it was a bit of a circus and I and I enjoyed it.

It's okay, a couple things there. I think it's really interesting that, you know, a couple weeks ago, maybe a little longer, maybe a month ago, we were having a conversation with Charlie O'Connor from PHLY sports asking if Flyers fans even wanted this team to make the playoffs because they need more high end talent via the draft than anything. And now we're talking about them being one win away, Jason, for being one of the final teams in the National Hockey League and in the Stanley Cup playoffs. So, I mean, the fans were electric.

The other part of this, Philly has dictated and dominated this entire series. And they've decided how it's going to be played. And the Penguins have had no answers to that whatsoever. So consider this. The Penguins were the third highest scoring team in the NHL during the regular season, right? They were terrific offensively. They have four goals in three games. Yeah.

one at even strength, two on the power play, and then one with the goalie pulled in game one when they were trailing. Like their offense has completely dried up. Not coincidentally, Dan Vladar has looked a million times better than Stuart Skinner. Also, prediction time. Artie Clovs is starting game four for Pittsburgh. You have to do it at this point, right? You have to do it at this point.

Really? Do you think so? Down 03. Might as well. Well, he's played. was surprised you didn't get hooked after the skitter was not good yesterday I mean it was it was I mean the Ziegress goal

that got it going that was a nice shot by Zeggris he ripped it one timer from Pedy's old spot yeah remember that and then there were a couple real stinkers you know the wrist aligning goal wasn't good

and then who's the other one there was some D man from the point I can't remember who got the third one actually but your points taken like no Joelson set them both up. Noah Juleson has... Noah Juleson had a great pass to Ristolinen. Noah Juleson has more points in these playoffs in Connor McDavid?

Well, he has two more points than Connor McDavid. And Sidney, because Sidney Crosby has one, I think. He got one on the first game. Actually, he might be pointless as well. Okay. Sealer was the guy from the shot from the point. Yeah. Okay, well, look, we've kind of run up against it for time, unfortunately. I do want to pass along the score at the very least that the Anaheim Ducks got a 6-4 win over the Edmonton Oilers in game two of their first round series yesterday.

So Anaheim does the business after kind of blowing an opportunity to steal home ice in game one, this series now becomes even more intriguing because it's kind of followed the course that we thought it might that this was not a great stylistic matchup for Edmonton because they went up against a team that can score goals, maybe not as well as they do, but very well. and of course the Anaheim Ducks respond with nine goals over two games including six last night. This one was wild. It was pretty electric. The ducks have shown a pension and this is,

there's something they're going to have to clean up. They got to figure out a way to try and hold on to some of these leads because this is the second game in a row now that they've blown a lead, especially in the third period. But shout out to Cutter Goce, who came up with a huge goal late in the third period yesterday to essentially win that one with less than five minutes remaining. Do they just, I guess they just got to stick with Ingram, right? I don't think there's another option there I mean if you look at Ingram

They're not winning the cup They can't win the cup with this goal sending They can't they can't It seems impossible Yeah like here the funny thing is If you look at Ingram's numbers yesterday Pretty poor Given the shot totals that he faced

And the goals he allowed I didn't think there were any of the stew skin of variety Where you felt like he really needed to have A couple of those back But he wasn't good And he was the second best goalie on the ice yesterday Yeah And

I can't see them making a chance change unless it's super dire. And even then, look what you're going to, right? You're going to a guy that you lost total faith in during the regular season. There are a difference in Pittsburgh is that Claws played well for them during the regular season. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. What we just have to call Thomas Drance erotica.

Thomas Grant's erotica. Course. Thomas Grant's erotica. Expect it. Goals. Thomas Grant Erotica. Thomas Grant Erotica. Rush.

Thomas Grants erotica. PEDYO. Thomas Drens erotica. 8.02 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. They're ready to give you the financial fresh start you deserve. With no judgment or upfront fees,

Visit them today at sands dash trustee.com. 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. Visit them online at the duikato group. com. We're coming to you live from the Kintech studio. Step strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintech. I already had my interview with Drance yesterday. What? On the way home from the show, he called me.

And then we had a half hour talk. I didn't really, guys. I didn't even know you guys hung out like that. That's cool. It was a conversation. Yeah. And I just, I was in my driveway talking with Trance about the Vancouver Canucks. I don't get that.

You should have heard the things he said. Well, I consummated a fantasy football trade. I don't know why I'm bragging. But I. Yeah, yesterday as well. But it wasn't as in depth as your conversation. Did you sell your first round picks again? No.

I traded him the corpse of Tony Pollard for a couple mid-round picks. Joining us now. New owner of Tony Pollard. Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver Connect Stock joins us now on the Halford and Brough show on Sports 966. What up, Drancer? Hey, man, you can't tell people that I'm trading draft picks for a 28-year-old running back. Yeah, yeah. Completely soar my brand.

That's okay. No one listens to the show. So you're fine. It's fine. What were you? Well, I got to know. What were you guys talking about yesterday? Well, a number of things.

But I'm going to ask Dranser, the same question. I asked him in the more. morning and I wonder if his answer is the same or different. Drancer, is it possible or do you think the Canucks are going to hire more than one executive, more than one top executive for the front office? Right. And I don't remember how I answered it when you asked me that yesterday, but I think my general lean has been, my gut is that they're searching for a GM here.

Right? That's what I said last time too. Yes. Yes. Your answer was essentially no. And then... I think they're hiring one guy. Yeah. The only reason I asked is like,

IMAC had a report that was building on Frege's report that the Kinex had asked permission to talk to Shane Done. And IMAX said Rutherford has left open the possibility of leaving after the GM hiring. And I had always wondered about that as well. And whether or not they would hire essentially a replacement. for Rutherford. Maybe it's not the president of hockey ops, but someone to work alongside the new GM. I'll just let you go now. I just think it's muddled, man. If Rutherford does end up leaving in the summer, I suppose I could see a replacement being brought in. I mean, you lose Alvine, you lose Rutherford. In the event that you don't hire Ryan Johnson, I think the clock starts on when you'll lose him. and so yeah, I mean, we could see more than one hire in Canucks Hockey Operations.

Is it a replacement president? Is it a replacement GM? How exactly do they build out this front office? I think there's a, like on a long enough time horizon, I don't feel very confident in sort of assessing this. But in terms of what this process, what I expect out of this process, I expect there to be a GM hire. And, you know, like one of the things that with like, for, example, the three list reports and some of the murky reporting around this and messaging from the club that stands out to me, right?

Is that it feels like there's this assumption because Rutherford mentioned the possibility of leaving, right? Now there's this assumption that he will leave that seems to be very popular in the market, right? Like in August or in July. Right. After the draft. The draft, there will be like, so that implies that we're effectively seeing like,

all-sale regime change in slow motion, right? Which is what you said after Rutherford's Presser, I listened to that segment and thought you made a lot of sense for once. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was a fair read. And yet, while a lot of the reporting has sort of backed up that impression, I also don't think we can take it to the bank, right? This may be regime change in slow motion,

and it may be a general manager hire with Rutherford remaining on for at least another season as president of hockey operations. The one thing I'd note is Rutherford didn't sound sure. He sounded like he was considering it, right? And so I think when I consider names or candidates or all of the stuff, it just feels to me like either the Canucks

are allowing Rutherford to contribute to a process to outright hire his successor, despite the fact that this team did so poorly that the general manager needed to be fired and the coach is left twisting in the wind, right? Or we're effectively seeing like an administrative knife fight play out in public where there's competing agendas, right? And potentially like a head of hockey operations

who's contributing to the search, but who's, you know, on his way out and yet sort of being given at least some measure of influence in terms of protecting sort of his own power base internally, even as it still would appear as if he were vulnerable from the perspective of what his future looks like with the connects. And either way, gentlemen, it's very New York Jetsy. Like I don't want either way I don't like it, right? Like either way that process to me sounds odd. But, you know, if you need an interim general manager to get you through the three weeks to a month that you probably need to bring in new leadership, you know, at the very least, I think we can agree, Ryan Johnson's capable of that, right?

Like, if you need someone to just man the phones for a month and, you know, lead a scouting meeting, like, man, he can absolutely do that while you conduct a more fulsome search from scratch, the sort of. of logic of this, like an outgoing president hiring a GM, I don't like, a president who's not 100% on their way out influencing the hire of a GM when it's not exactly clear that he still enjoys the full trust of Kinnock's ownership and business leadership. I don't like. And so it just once again feels to me like, you know, we can talk about like, what a great guy Shane Don is or, you know, what a smart hire. I don't know, who's your second. who's your favorite name out there? Like, wouldn't it be cool if Roberto Luongo came back?

Or like, wouldn't it be? Like, bring up whatever name you want. And it's like, it kind of doesn't matter if you're running uphill in a process where they can't just sort of work through the thing that it's like, maybe we should hire a president who should hire a GM who should hire a coach. Like maybe we should just like do this normal. Yeah. I like to listen to Dodd. He's like, why does everything have to be so weird with this team? Yeah.

Well, he sounded kind of like, you know, um, Woody Harrelson talking to Matthew McConaughey and in True Detective, right? Like, just stop saying weird stuff. Like, that's it. I mean, maybe after it's all said and done, we'll be like, oh, I get it. That makes sense now.

Do you think that's possible or probably not? That's the Canucks, man. Like, you know, I would say, for example, that while we know how it turned out, So we have a certain view of what their Canucks legacies are. You know, Jim Benning was in that like Paul Fenton tier of guys who like, those guys were next guys up when the Canucks hired Jim Benning.

Like he was getting a job somewhere. Unfortunately, he was here, but he was getting a job somewhere. I'm serious. I know, I know. He was a, he was a hot commodity. Yeah. And by the way, Willie DeJarden was coming off a Calder Cup win in the HL. And he was getting a job in Vancouver or Pittsburgh.

Those were the two openings and he was getting one of them. And he leveraged the Pittsburgh job or Pittsburgh's interest to get the Vancouver job. Like he was always coming here. And so, you know, they sort of fire Mike Gillis. Trevor Linden's already in hand. Linden doesn't have experience, but he makes two very credible hires right off the bat. They were the wrong hires. But the outcome was good superficially.

When the Kinnock's fired Jim B, Benning and Travis Green and Land Boudreau and Rutherford. It's like, whoa, you know, that's like one of the most successful regular season coaches in NHL history and a Hall of Famer. Like, wow, that's a really credible way

to land. But it wasn't done right, right? Like, it was out of order. It was definitely not done right. So, like, I'm not going to be shocked by any means. If the Canucks end up, you know, we get to a point where the press release goes out and, you know, there's a new general manager

you're on the dais and we think, man, that is a really good hire. That is a credible hire. That is a guy who deserves a shot. But it's not going to matter an iota if this organization can't put the horse before the cart for a single time ever in a single instance of anything they ever do, right? It's not going to matter if you're operating, you know, from this standpoint where it's like, well, who's going to do the year end press conference if we fired Jim? Yeah.

Like, oh, well, no one knows who our president is. Like, he's never spoken to independent media once. He's done like a rights holder interview on television once. And our owner does not want to do these. And he's not even comfortable, it seems, putting out a statement explaining what happened to a 32nd place team that entered the season trying to make the playoffs while raising prices for his season ticket holders and preparing to go to the city to ask for, you know, hundreds of millions for the purpose of building a designated practice facility or at least contributing to that effort.

I mean, think about that, right? Like, they're raising prices after the worst season in history, worse than any of the expansion era seasons from the 1970s. And not just their record, just everything about the team. And gearing up to ask multiple levels of government, provincial and municipal for money to contribute to the effort of this Britannia project. Like, this is what's going on. They are in as, like, there's no spot we're partnering with the community and being transparent with your fans. And that community relations aspect should be more important, right?

Where ownership should be more visible than in this moment right now, especially once you factor in the, there's regime change happening and people are confused about it. Angle. And still, nothing. We haven't heard anything. It is weird. Like, I know fans get annoyed. They're like, we don't care. or, you know, honestly, let's be real.

These days, lots of people just, like, want an excuse to lick boots. But the truth is that the facts on the ground are wild. Like, this is not how most teams do business. This is not customary around the NHL. This is, you know, sclerotic. This is dysfunctional. Just in terms, just from a pure messaging strategy standpoint, none of it makes sense. And all of that part of this really concerns me.

I mean, I would be concerned. if they hired a new GM and Rutherford stayed in the president of hockey ops role for the next season. Because I would just be sitting there going, knowing Jim Rutherford, he can say that the new GM makes all the hockey decisions. But, you know, like, what's he going to just sit around and focus on the practice facility file? I don't buy that for a second. I think there's an optics issue with that, which is why, you know, I believe and take into account everything. thing you're saying to me, but for me, if I were to bet, be like, I don't think Jim Rutherford is with the organization next season, but that's me guessing.

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't feel as comfortable handicapping it as that, to be totally honest with you, right? Like, you know, even if there's people internally, even if there's people internally making their own lists who think it's going to go down that way, you know, like there's a lot of power in being the one speaking to fans at the end of of the season. Yeah. Like that is not generally a role occupied by someone who's on their way out. But who else could it have been, though?

That's the thing. Who else could it have been? What were their options? You kind of went through it. You know, Michael Doyle doesn't- Interim GM and ownership. Ownership is, I think it's a non-starter. I think he, Francesco does not want to go up and do those press conferences.

I don't think he loves public speaking. fine but then you've then like if you're if so think think it through this way if your goal is that Rutherford is going to be permitted to make his own decision like this isn't let's show an old line of the game a hall of fame guy who we still respect and trust respect by allowing him to leave on his own terms and help us get through the draft and he's going to speak to fans and launch this search but it's the winding down of the Rutherford era, right? Yeah.

If, like, if that's what you're talking yourself into, there's still an enormous amount of power in putting him out in, in that situation. And I would just strongly suggest, like, if, if someone had asked me as a PR guy or what have you, like, should we do this? I would have said, like, you know, only if you're comfortable with him staying. Yeah. How could he wield, how could he wield that power? Explain how he has has this power that you're talking about.

Which power? Like the ability to survive, the ability to pick around? Well, you're saying simply by putting him out there in front of the fans, you're giving him a lot of power in what way? Yeah, you're giving, you're investing in him this sort of trust to continue to be the voice of administrative leadership for the franchise. you're also removing that power from yourself, if you're a Kinex ownership. You know, you're not sort of putting him on equal footing with your head of business operations, right?

Because that's the other part of this. Like you put up the head of president of business operations. And even if he doesn't have a profile in the market, he's, you know, positioned equally with Rutherford. And he speaks to ownership's disappointment. And like, that's also a missed opportunity, right? if your plan is to pivot and sort of begin to empower the third list maker, um, you know,

reportedly. And so, you know, more than anything, it's just that there's power to ownership. Like ownership is, and I don't mean ownership of the franchise. I mean ownership of sort of the perceived authority within an organization,

right? And, you know, like to be in possession of it. Yeah. To be in possession of that invests, an incredible amount of sort of weight and entropy within an organization. And so, look, I don't really know how to handicap or read this yet.

I'm still working on it. You know, I still think Rutherford's deeply involved in even leading this search. I reported on Friday and believe, and Friedman reported it as well this week, that, you know, Rutherford's preference would be to name Ryan Johnson General Manager. Right. If Ryan Johnson's named the general manager, I think that's going to be a really interesting sort of takeaway where it's like,

okay, are we sure Rutherford's leaving, right? Yeah. If it's not Ryan Johnson, if it's not Ryan Johnson, that opens up its own can of worms in terms of how this organization treats its own people.

But also, you know, I think would create sort of different types of questions about, you know, who made the hire and sort of what exactly this club is doing. And I guess more than anything, it's like,

almost no matter what now, the questions are going to come and there's going to be uncertainty about who hired the GM, what side are they on, what's their agenda, right? Who's what's the, like, right from the, right from the jump, any hire that the Canucks make, it seems, is going to have sort of an additional layer of uncertainty attached to them, just in terms of how they're branded locally with people sort of wondering whose choice was this. What's really happening? Right? And all of that puts, you know,

especially a team that needs to be able to message and sell hope to their fans clearly on the back foot. Drantz, I wanted to ask you real quick about Shane Donne. I know you're a big fan of the guy. Yeah. What would the opportunity with the Canucks be?

Well, I mean, he's never seemed to aspire to the role of general manager, which I think is to his credit. I think Joan's been around a long enough to know too that there's a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice, right? Like those are hard jobs. And, you know, he wants to contribute. Generally, he's wanted to contribute.

You know, he's super high character guy, smart. I'm a big fan of the person. But the, you know, that life, the life of the general manager is not necessarily one that he's pursued, you know, with like sort of steadfast. ambition. And I actually think that's to his credit. To be totally honest with you, I think that's to his credit. But yeah, so, you know, this is the Dome name, I think is especially interesting because it does sort of beg that too high question, right? Don to me, coming in as the general manager, I struggle with, but Dome being added to the organization is a net win. Anytime you can add a person of that caliber with that level of experience and those

types of leadership skills to an organization that's a win. So, you know, the don't hire for me is, or the don't potential for me is a really fascinating wrinkle here in that, you know, like if you're talking about a don't RJ axis or something like that, I think it's probably going to end up being out of step with what I suspect is going to happen in Toronto, what's already happened in New Jersey. You know, the fact that the Nashville search is still ongoing. Yeah. With no apparent end in sight implies to me that, you know, they might not be very happy with their sort of conventional hockey guy approach, right?

And this is the other thing to watch here, right? Like, we'll see what happens in Nashville and Toronto. Those books aren't written yet. But so far we've got those sunny made a hire in New Jersey. And certainly from the sounds that Pelley's been making, the list of candidates that have been interviewed, it feels like they're going in a very data-centric way. now we've got this delayed search in Nashville and that implies to me too that they might not be satisfied

with sort of the conventional hockey options are the Canucks going to make a hire that feels like six years behind the rest of the league like is that because I guess that would be my concern like in a world where it's like meta in New Jersey say it's Gillis or some access like that in Toronto or you know any of those four finalists Gillis Chaka, not that they should be put in the same sentence.

But you know what I'm saying? Evan Gold, like those guys that they've been talking to, say Nashville has an unconventional hire. And then the Canucks, it's like Shane Donne and Ryan Johnson. You know, that, wouldn't that feel weird? Yeah. Am I nuts? No, you know, there was one other thing I kind of wanted to bring up in the context

of this conversation. Everyone wants a guy with like a PhD and quantum mechanics to be somewhat involved. Well, everyone's recognizing, I think, two things. one, that these jobs are incredibly complex and require high-level strategic thought and an ability and professional skills to manage teams, you know, that befit a $2 billion organization, everyone else is anyway, right? And if you don't, like if you're making a hire that feels like it's out of a 2005 playbook, you know, that that's one thing. And then the other part of this is that I think everyone's looking around at all these experienced quote-unquote candidates

and being like, what? Like, I wouldn't, that guy? You want me to trust my $2 billion organization of that guy based on his track record, right? Like, the truth is, I think a lot of operators, I think a lot of owners are looking around and saying, you know, most of these teams haven't been that well managed. Like, most of the guys doing this don't know what they're doing.

Yeah, you know, Fridge did throw out there yesterday that he thought the tone and the tenor in the context of the still open GM searches was, I think he used the term weird, like what's going on in Nashville, what's going on in Toronto. Maybe it just because it doesn't follow the normal course of action. But he did kind of lump in. Or, or all the usual hockey guys, right, that have made the flow of information so predictable over the years, aren't in control in those situations. There's a part of it, yeah.

There's a rupture in the information flow because different types of candidates are being considered. And so it feels weird to, you know, your reporters who are used to talking to a select group of people because the power base is shifting in the league. Like that's the other, that's the other possible explanation for the quote-unquote weirdness. Dranser, we're up against it for time. We've got to go.

Thanks for doing this, bud. Cheers, boys, bye. Thomas Trance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk here on. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.