Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 6/10/24

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports, they get the latest Canucks news from NHL.com & In Goal Magazine's Kevin Woodley, plus the boys tell us what they learned. 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. Hello, Pitcher backs in the three at the buzzer. And the Boston Celtics are halfway to their 18th championship. Mark Tom on the right side. Look for the game. Go. Go. Score.

Go. For Higgins. Maybe it was the hockey gods getting us back for game six. The Lord is vengeful. Oh, spiteful one. Show me who to smite and they shall be smote in. Good morning Vancouver 601 on a Monday. Happy Monday everybody.

It is Halford and it is brought to you by Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kinstech Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning and welcome back. Good morning, thank you. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Halford and Brougham in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda parts, services, trades, loaners, rentals, all of it. Visit them today at Vancouver Honda and visit their customer service center. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, Rafi, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for.

We both sound awful. We sound awful. It sounds like I've been on a four-day golf bender. Because you have been on a four-day golf bender. Because I've been on a four-day golf bender. It's like 8 a.m., time for a beer. To follow my 7 a.m. Caesar. And you have been a little under the weather.

I lost my voice on Saturday. Right, okay. I went to an elementary school fair on Friday. Okay. Under the weather. Oh, did I? You should mention he was invited, by the way. As a guest of honor.

He didn't just show up to the elementary school fair. Hey, hey! I thought you were going to be like, I went to a concert. No, no, no. And you were screaming and losing your voice. I was meeting with the public on behalf of the Halford & Brough Show and Sportsnet 650. Okay.

But there was a loudspeaker beside me, so I was speaking over top of the loudspeaker the entire time, and I lost my voice. What were you speaking about? Oh, just talking to people that were coming up about the Canucks and how people were excited about the season. Okay, hold on. It's an elementary school fair. Were you in a dunk tank or something like that? There was a big Sportsnet 650 tent. Okay.

Giving away a four-pack Vancouver Canadiens ticket. Really? Yep. Oh, okay. And also in a dunk tank under the tent. Right. Okay. Yeah.

I was in the pie eating. Oh, good for you. There was a pie eating contest. He was selling his wares. Did anyone know you? Yes. Did any of the kids? Yes.

Really? Our youngest ever listener, as far as I can tell. Regular listener. A three-year-old named Conley came up and said hi. He's serious? Yep. He asked about the Canucks power play. He did. He said his favorite player is Petey. Nice. Yeah, so it was good. Yeah, he was like, what do you think,

Lindholm 7x7? Yeah, I was like, what's going on with Sidora? What was he golfing with Murph for? Anyway, we got a lot to get into on the show today. Even though we are both under the weather. That's how much we want to be here on June 10th of 2024. A reminder, our one of this program is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler, pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid.

Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We have a big guest list today. It begins at 630. We're going to go to Florida. David Amber, Hockey Night Canada Sportsnet NHL host is going to join us for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, which goes tonight. 5 o'clock from Florida. Game 1, obviously

in case you missed it, Florida won 3-0 over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1. Brilliant performance from Sergey Bobrovsky. We'll talk to David Amber about that at 6.30. 7 o'clock, we're going to go to Boston. Gary Washburn from the Boston Globe, national NBA writer, is going to join us.

The Boston Celtics are up 2-0 in the NBA Finals over the Dallas Mavericks. Yeah, I hope the Mavs can make this a little more interesting than it's been so far, but the Celtics have been so dominant in these playoffs and heading into the Finals, a lot of people said, well, yeah, that dominance because your opponents haven't been very good.

But now you're looking at this Dallas team and going, are they very good? They won, was it 64 games during the regular season? The Boston Celtics did. They were a dominant team. You know, they only lost four games at home all year during the regular season. And now they're 14-2 in the playoffs.

So it's almost, almost as if the most dominant team in the regular season is now the most dominant team in the playoffs. We'll talk to Gary Washburn about that at 7 o'clock. 7.30, Luke Fox, NHL writer from SportsCenter, is going to join us. Luke is also in Florida, but I want to talk to him about the other big news of the weekend. Gary Bettman's State of the Union address in which they announced that the salary cap will be going up

to $88 million. They confirmed some plans for the Four Nations face-off. They dealt with a lot of league business. There's a lot to get into, so we'll discuss that with Luke Fox at 7.30. 8 o'clock, it's our regular guest on a Monday, Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and InGoal Magazine. As I said, we've got

a big guest list. There's a lot to get into. Working in reverse, 8 o'clock, it's Kevin Woodley. 7.30, it's Luke Fox. 7 o'clock, it's Gary Washburn. 6.30, it's David Amber. 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? You missed that? 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 will begin on the ice Saturday night in Florida. Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves for the Florida Panthers as they defeated the Edmonton Oilers 3-0 in Game 1 from Florida. Sergei Bobrovsky, everybody, became the first goalie in 13 years to get a shutout in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. Do you know who the last one was, Jason? Lou. Roberto Luongo.

Of course, Roberto Luongo now serving his role as the Director of Goaltending Excellence in Florida. Did it with the Canucks back in 2011. So it was the biggest story coming from Saturday night was the Sergei Bobrovsky show. Everyone was talking about the Russian goaltender and how good he's been. Laddie, I want to turn to you right away.

We were talking pre-show, your thoughts on Bobrovsky. What did I say? I want to turn to you right away. We were talking pre-show your thoughts on Bobrovsky. What did I say? I want to get out there right away. Take it away. I said it's extra frustrating for Canucks fans because Bobrovsky is doing to the Oilers exactly what Demko would have done. Why do you choose violence so early on a Monday night?

How dare you? This is what would have happened. He stole that one. He stole that one for sure. Outshot 32-18. But I think you have to give credit to the Panthers as a team for how they played, especially in the third period. The Oilers still had some chances. But I think that one of the main Panthers' strengths is that they can really tighten up when they have to

and basically choke out a game. And I don't know if they necessarily did that against the Oilers. It was a lot of Bobrowski. Yep. But it was partially that this team is, once they get the lead, they're so good at holding it and they can choke the life out of a game.

Seven shots surrendered in the third period and a shutout victory. That's pretty good to only surrender seven shots when you got the lead against the Edmonton Oilers. Florida did what Florida does. Florida did what Florida does in that game. Carter Verhage scored, and apparently Carter Verhage scores

every single game for them now. I believe that's 10 in the playoffs, tying Matthew Kachuk's franchise record from last year. And they got a goal from him. Borowski did the business. They were very physical very physical very physical i think everyone saw that sam bennett administered some physicality to the chin of connor mcdavid and uh evander kane tried to seek out some revenge a little bit later on for the hit but uh for game one here's the interesting thing is florida went out and did the things that it wants to do yeah and they still feel that they left something on the table.

Like when you listen to Barkov and Kachuk and Maurice talk after the game, they're not happy with the fact that they got outshot by such a wide margin. They feel like they left something on the table. So I could be totally off on this, but didn't it feel like this was going to be a good series when you watch that game? I know it was a 3-0 game, and on paper that doesn't sound like a super exciting game but i thought it was a good one i thought the energy was there yeah um i think there's enough personalities in this series and especially if it's a long series this is going to be edge of your seat stuff i think it actually set the table nicely considering how much concern so jimmy dodd now who by the way is great he's really like jimmy

dodd yeah he's a great co-host uh he doesn't have allergies uh my allergies are quite bad uh so eyes look a little red i don't know i don't know how much you caught of game one of the nba finals but that had a lengthy layoff uh both teams came in looked rusty didn't shoot the ball well and it was a blowout for Boston. So we're like, that's not a great start to a series that we were very much anticipating. I had similar trepidation, big word, coming into Saturday's game, and it actually was kind of different because the energy level was good.

I thought the game was pretty good. And I think as far as narratives go, this sets up a great game too because Edmonton has not scored a goal yet yeah and that's going to be fundamentally important to edmonton winning hockey games but they're happy scoring a goal but they're happy with how they played yeah although there are already some conversations with chris knobloch don't call me chuck knobloch about uh maybe having to make some alterations to the line but i know they're only one game i like that i like how he went back to the cc nurse pairing and it was like immediately a problem and then right away everyone's like

break them up again please don't put them together ever again and he was so desperate that he was citing the uh analytics on the pair you know like uh actually they were out there for quite a few like chances for him like yeah but the goals those are so important in hockey i find so an interesting part on that too was um he went to the as they call it the nuclear nuclear option which is where you throw mcdavid and dry saddle together and speaking of metrics several several people have pointed out that in the playoffs when he throws them together they actually haven't been that productive like you automatically think that you throw them together and boom goals happen and it hasn't really but in the same breath everyone's

like yeah but in the stanley cup final metrics be damned you're gonna put them together nuclear nuclear now nuclear uh so there's a lot of storylines going into tonight's game uh we will talk to david amber a little bit later in the show as a matter of fact he's coming up at 6 30 uh so we'll park the stanley cup final for now because I do want to get into a variety of things, including some other news in and around the National Hockey League. The NHL salary cap is going up to $88 million next season. The league and the NHL Players Association announced this on Saturday.

That's an increase of $4.5 million, up slightly from the $87.7 million projected figure that the Board of Governors had at their meetings in December. So this is a good thing. Gary Bettman was very proud of the fact that the cap had gone up even beyond their projections, and he said it was a great thing to see. And it means that revenues are as robust as I've been telling you all along. So I get to crow about it, too.

Well, having the Oilers in the playoffs for a long run and ticket prices in Canada, even the Canucks going to Game 7 of the second round are going to juice revenues a little bit. Having the Rangers have a decent run at Madison Square Garden, that was good for the NHL. But just hopping off that topic, because I don't really want to talk about Gary Bettman bragging too much,

I was just on Cap Friendly because I was wondering how long the Florida Panthers had Carter Verhage locked up because I think he's one of the more underrated players in the league. I think he's a very important player for the Florida Panthers. And what did Cap Friendly tell you? Well, Cap Friendly, I mean, Cap Friendly, it's just such a good tool. I love it. Right? You go to the site, and I learned that Carter Verhage

only has one year left on his deal before he's UFA. And then I noticed, oh, Sam Bennett is in the exact same spot. So the Florida Panthers are going to have quite a few decisions to make. And then they've got quite a few pending UFAs. And like, for example, we all knew about Sam Reinhardt, but they've picked up a few rentals like, you know, Vladimir Tarasenko and Kyle Okpozo. And you go, this is just such valuable information.

We would be lost without Cap Friendriendly as a sports talk show. As we talk about the NHL and the hard cap has made things so different in terms of covering the game, and we need something like CapFriendly. I'm just glad it's here forever. It's not. It's going to be gone in July. For those that are unaware. What?

I'm sorry, friend. Yeah, that sucks. CapFriendly is gone. I love CapFriendly. It was so easy to use. You. For those that are unaware. What? I'm sorry, friend. Yeah, that sucks. Cap Friendly is gone. I love Cap Friendly. It was so easy to use. You got 20 days left to enjoy Cap Friendly, maybe a couple days into July. But according to Elliott Friedman over the weekend. You know, but I was just getting over the loss of Cap Geek.

And then my mom married Cap Friendly. And I was like, Cap Friendly is such a good step cap site and now you're telling me that cap friendly is leaving too is it my fault is it my fault if you're drinking at 6 13 in the morning pour out a little liquor for cap friendly so all of you sports radio nerds. Take your chamomile tea and your ear medicine. Pour a little out for CapFriendly. According to Elliot Friedman, CapFriendly will be done in July. It's because the Washington Capitals, right?

It's their fault? I'll finish. According to multiple sources of freeges, the Washington Capitals, those sadistic bastards, have agreed to purchase CapFriendly. Why? Why?

And we'll turn it from public information to private information. They shouldn't be allowed to do that. That's really mean of them. Well, there's been lots of analytic sites that have been purchased, whether they're cap sites or just like data type sites that have been purchased and then they go dark.

I've been told Puckpedia is the new go-to apparently. Yeah, it's a big day for Puckpedia. This is finally their time. But the thing with CapFriendly is that they had actually developed good sources by themselves. Most of the time with these sites, or at least the way they start out, is that they go per this guy's report. And they'll have a link to the Twitter report or the original information on, for example, no move clauses, right? And reporters would find out the no move clauses and then that would end up with a footnote

on the CapFriendly site or whatever site. But I think eventually as CapFriendly became the really only site that hockey fans and obviously NHL executives would use it as well. They just developed their own sources. Like if something was wrong on the site. Someone would go directly to CapFriendly. Yeah, go to CapFriendly. And so I don't know. I'm sure the Washington Capitals have plans to build this out even more.

And they were just like, well, we'll buy the site. That'll give us a good start. So we don't have to start from scratch. And maybe they like the people that run CapFriendly. Maybe they think they're in a valuable part of the operation. But it is, here's the good news. And I think Halford already mentioned this. CapFriendly is still going to be public and available to use through free agency on July 1st.

So enjoy it while you got it. And Puckpedia, let's go. Let's go. Time to step up to the bigs. Come on, guys, because we need this. It's going to be, it's honestly, I probably use CapFriendly on an average show. I turn to it at least 10 times.

Yep. It's a valuable tool. Again, it's very niche. There's probably some people that are like, what are you guys talking about? Puckpedia pretty much does the same thing. I mean, it's like it gives you all the same information. I will say, though, at a glance. But were they just pulling it from CapFriendly?

That's what that's that. I don't know. I'm just saying you're going to have to develop their own. I don't know. Damage in lines. I don't know. As far as a resource. Do they have the armchair GM function?

That's they do not have that. As far as the resource goes. Also, do they have the armchair GM function? That's all I need to know. They do not have that. As far as the resource goes, though, like, Puckpedia is excellent. It's just my one complaint is it's not as compact. So if you look at it at a glance, there's more scrolling involved, so you can't see your information as quickly. So here's the interesting. The layout could be fixed is my main complaint.

Interesting aside here is over the weekend, I was diligently researching the show because i am a professional and definitely uh definitely wanted to listen to all the podcasts that i humanly could so i was listening to uh philip horonix agent alan walsh who has his very own podcast and he spent about a two and a half three minute rant during one of his latest episodes talking about the philip horonix contract situation contract situation in Vancouver and one of the tangents that he jumped off on and he's done this before so it's nothing incredibly new but he said he hates how the modern

NHL is so defined by things like the salary cap the player's salary how much he's making and then in negotiations what he's worth and what he's not worth well the agents always say that because they hate the hard cap that is the agent speak for they shouldn't have a hard cap i thought the timing was uh just it was coincidental more than anything else but it was incredibly interesting

because he was saying it basically devolves everybody into a number it's you don't really guess it does yeah you're not really concerned about the player you're concerned about the dollar figure attached to the player you stop thinking of players in terms of good and bad everything is related to how much they're giving you based on how much you're paying. Yeah, you have people like Drance, and he's not wrong, but he'll come in and he'll say, the NHL is an efficiency contest.

And you're like, oh, that sounds fun. I love a good efficiency contest. So the way to deal with this is to strip all of the public data from people so they have no idea what anybody's making. They're going to go backwards, actually. Yeah. Because they they're gonna stop releasing contract details at the time of signing they're like philip heronic has signed a contract for some money that will be the press release so so speaking of um it's uh of all this financial stuff it's june 10th um the canucks have some decisions to make in this next little while i I wonder when some legit news will come down,

or is this all just going to go all the way up to the draft, and then the draft occurs, and maybe there's some rumors, and maybe some moves at the draft, and then July 1st is free agency, and Nikita Zadorov, and Elias Lindholm, and Dakota Joshua, and a few other guys could all sign if they want, not with the Canucks. Yeah, I think what's going to happen is the NHL is going to take its annual moratorium

during the Stanley Cup final where no business shall be conducted to take away from the league. I think that's only big trades, though. It's like if the Canucks wanted to sign Tyler Myers to an extension. Too big. He's too big. He's too tall. I don't think the NHL would be like, you can't upstage the cup final with a two- or three-year deal for Tyler Myers with a hometown discount.

It's going to rock the hockey world. Could you imagine if Gary Bettman actually had a dossier of what constitutes a big move? And then, like, that one's okay. You can re-sign Ian Cole if cole if you like although ian cole's going to free agency that was what dolly told us on friday along with casey by the way so free each had a point in 32 thoughts where he said um it appears to be a very good market for defensemen and he said there are some defensemen who are really going to hit it big here

and the other thing i'm also hearing is that it's going to be a very good market for depth forwards who can play multiple places in your lineup and play that kind of heavy playoff hockey game. So the heavy defenseman and the heavy portable forward who can go up and down your lineup sounds like a lot of them are going to do pretty well.

So heavy defenseman. Can I have any of those? Nikita Zdorov, Tyler Myers. I would even put Ian Cole in that category, and I know he's not going to be back with the Canucks. That was reported. And then heavy forwards that can play multiple places in your lineup and do multiple things.

Well, Elias Lindholm, I think I would count him as a heavy type player. We saw how valuable that type of player is in the playoffs. And then Dakota Joshua, I don't know how much up and down the lineup he can play, but he can play on the penalty kill. You know, these guys, what people want is these guys not just for the size, right? We just don't want a big guy. They have to be able to do stuff. And both Lindholm and Dakota Joshua

are fairly good penalty killers. And, you know, if they go to free agency, they're going to get paid. I even have a hesitation about the Canucks giving Lindholm seven by seven. That was out there. And, you know, if that's the Canucks, that offer that's on the table and Lindholm

maybe hasn't said no, but he hasn't said yes to it. Man, like it is going to be, some of these guys that played for the Canucks this year are going to get paid and they deservedly so, right? They went into their, especially a guy like Dakota Joshua, he went into this year knowing

that he was playing for a contract, and he worked on his skills. He became an indispensable part of the Canucks lineup, and now he might have priced himself out of Vancouver. The cap going up to $88 million is great for the Vancouver Canucks, right? They have a lot of contracts that they need to sort out. They've got an extra probably $4.5 million than they anticipated from last year, so that's fantastic.

The problem with the cap going up to $88 million is that it also goes up for every other team in the National Hockey League, and there's teams that had an abundance of cap space that have even more now. My biggest concern with the cap going up this much is that some team might be able to come out of their shoes to sign a guy like Joshua, like put him at a number where the Canucks just aren't comfortable because they've got so many other things they need to do. Whereas another team is like, you know what?

We're willing to overspend by a million annually on this guy because we really think there's something here and we're willing to take that gamble. Like $12 million over three years or something like that? Is that coming out of your shoes for Dakota Joshua? Just because you could afford the gamble, I think, where other teams might not be able to. Like a team that is in the early stages of its rebuild

or a team that needs something up front that could use a 27-year-old power forward that can do a lot of different things and maybe is just starting to scratch the surface of what he's going to be in the NHL. That's something that I could see a lot of teams being enticed by. If you were Dakota Joshua what would you choose uh and these are numbers that are just coming out of my brain okay four

by three so four million times three years with another team or what if the Canucks said we'll give you a six-year deal so we're guaranteeing you quite a bit of money here. A $2 million cap? At a cap hit of two and a half or three. Two and a half? Yeah. What would you take? Like, forget the Canucks, forget the other team.

If you were Dakota Joshua, would you take the short-term money? And it's still quite a bit. I mean, $12 million is enough if you're careful with your money to be essentially set for life, right? If you're careful with your money. It's like a life, right? If you're careful with your money. It's like a scratcher win. Yeah. What?

Set for life. Oh, right. Okay. Or would you take the total money of like an $18 million plus you get the idea of you like Vancouver, you've got a spot in the lineup, you know the system or whatever. I mean, that would be a no-brainer for me is i would take the term from the canucks and stay in a good place well because you already know what you've got to a certain degree well i just wonder if it's going to come down to

a decision like that for dakota joshua i bet it would because you know you talk about like it's not always grass is greener i mean i can't remember how many times that i've talked about the yannick hen trade to San Jose, but that one always sticks out to me. That was a guy that I thought would just fit in perfectly, and it just didn't work. And we had Yannick Hansen on the show. And he was out of the league. And we had him on the show two separate times, and I asked him both times, and both times he was like,

I don't know what went wrong. It just, nothing ever clicked, nothing ever fit. Like, on paper, it made sense. Stylistically, it made sense. You thought he was a guy that could, again, portable up and down the lineup, could play with a bunch of different guys, but it never clicked. You might think that it's a great fit, but in reality, it doesn't play out that way. Okay, we're going to go to David Amber next,

and then we'll come back with some of the other news around the world of sports. I got a tweet or an X. What do you call a post on X? You've never sounded older. And Kyle said, I better hear some Canadian men's national team talk this morning after their massive result versus France yesterday. Yeah, I guess it was a good result for Canada.

Terrific result. Nil-nil draw with the number two team in the world. And that's why a lot of people hate soccer, folks. Yeah, really selling it here. That's why a lot of people hate soccer, because a 0-0 draw is celebrated. Uh-uh, a 0-0 draw in a friendly match. Riveting stuff. David Amber, coming up next on the Alfred and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

You're listening to the best of Alfred and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough. 8 o'clock on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halpert and Breff, Sportsnet 650. Halpert and Breff in the morning. This is Brad T. by Pacific Honda. Pacific Honda is North Vancouver's premier destination for Honda vehicle sales and service.

They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 3 of the program. Kevin Woodley is going to join us in just a moment here from Ingold Magazine. There's a couple of funny texts that came in. Oh, God. Okay, hold on. Let me get through this first.

Hour 3 of this program 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 and we are coming to you live from the kintec studio kintec canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star google reviews soar feet what are you waiting for kintec that's what you're waiting for apparently a lot of people are waiting for lu Luke Gazdik to appear on the show. That was pretty funny. Some poor guy.

And he didn't sign his text, which is probably the right thing to do. Put together a lengthy, lengthy text expressing disappointment that we had Luke on the show. Right. Just one problem. That was Luke Fox. Who both pronounces and spells his surname differently than Luke Gazdik. They are not the same person. The only thing they really have in common is that they work for Sportsnet and their names are Luke.

Yeah. And then. They cover hockey. The individual wrote back. I'm sorry. I was making breakfast. To which I replied. That seems like a flimsy row back i'm sorry i was making breakfast to which i replied that seems like a flimsy excuse i'm sorry it's making breakfast but you had time for that 300 word text that you sent into the local sports radio station you burned most of the breakfast there's no way no way anyway we address so you weren't here on friday um we did not have uh gazdik on the show

as we normally do we decided to take a week off i don't know what's going to happen moving forward i don't have a crystal ball it seemed like it was sort of a mutual understanding that he wasn't going to come on the airwaves on friday yeah it's also pretty much understood that he has heard, seen, and felt the backlash. So we'll see what happens. We'll have him on tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. We're just going to have Luke's on all week. Just try and throw some more curveballs at the listeners.

Let's talk to Luke Woodley. That's right. About the goaltending situation. Kevin Woodley, now known as Luke Woodley, has a presentation of Wayrock Hyundai. He joins us now on the Halford & Breff Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Kev? Not much. I feel like Luke learned a lesson from

one Luke Woodley many years ago on some show that he thought nobody was listening to. What did you do? With a couple of now-morning clowns talking about Rolly Melanson and how he would never be he wasn't planning to return at the end of the

season. And he didn't return at the end of the season but Rolly still has not talked to me since. So thanks to you two guys. That's our fault. What was it called back then? Alfred and Brough I think. No, no it wasn't. We're talking way back in the podcasting days.

The curtain blog show? The blogging days. The blogging days. Curtain blog radio, buddy. Curtain, there we go. Sorry, guys. I had a total brain fart. It's 8 o'clock in the morning, and I'm barely awake.

But, yeah, I don't know if you guys remember that, but I just wasn't planning on letting it out, but the conversation took that way, and I blurted it out, and next thing you knew, Roy Malone hasn't talked to me since. But it was true. So it just goes to show the moral of the story is never appear on some pissant podcast. Yeah, that's it. Kev goes on some small podcast.

He's like, you know what? I don't even like goaltending. Yeah. I think it's boring. I'm all for the scores. Excommunicated. Yeah. I'm gone. I love the goals. Kev, Sergey Bobrovsky's performance in Game 1 stole all the headlines. Where are we right now with Sergei Bobrovsky as a goalie? Because I feel like there's still quite a bit of arguing over how good he is,

where he stands compared to the other greats in the game. I've even heard the words Hall of Fame kicked around in a Sergei Bobrovsky discussion. Can you just let everyone know where Sergei Bobrovsky is right now as a goaltender? Because sometimes it's confusing because they're very inconsistent goaltenders in general. Well, it's a good question.

Because some of the regular season numbers in Florida, when you weight them for sort of shot quality, frankly, each of the last two years, like his backups. Last year, his backup wasn't better on the whole, but it was Alex Lyon who got them on a per-shot basis. Anthony Stoller's actually had a better season. Again, obviously not the same when you're playing that much less, but behind the same team,

Josh would say percentage was notably better. He's probably going to get a decent payday this summer as a result. And yet at the end of the day, there was never any question about who was going to start in the playoffs because Bob sort of found his form. And interestingly enough, not early. In the first round, he sort of did just enough. His numbers weren't great, but but in key moments he's never out

of a play and he has the ability to almost intimidate in in that regard by the the fact that he's just never out of it that you know as the Oilers would be wise to learn you're not beating him along the ice very often um and when you think you've got a wide open back door you better make sure you put it in the top third because he's so explosive and so fast. And he's got a great technical foundation, but he's willing now as his career has gone on to go outside that foundation and just throw himself at pucks in certain moments.

And I think you saw that in the Nugent Hopkins open net that he put over top of the net as Bob comes flying across with some type of wild pad stack variation. Now the top third of the net was still comes flying across across with like a some type of wild pad stack variation now this top third of the net was still open and Newt just missed it and you know I think the fact that when you look at the charting I did this uh heading into these Stanley Cup finals I think it was 22 or 38 have been in the top third top quarter of the net and the Oilers actually only hit the net twice in that portion like that's that's something they got to go to school on but uh in terms of like I'm frankly I don't I don't

think he needs to win a cup to go to the hall of fame he's top 10 in wins or will be very soon um he's got two Vesna trophies for long stretches of his career he's been the best goalie in the league now the problem is there were stretches in between where he wasn't and most of it was related to injuries like he was constantly sustaining lower body injuries interestingly enough he changed the way he trained around 2016 he brought in a Finnish goalie coach that he had been working with when he did his off-season training in Red Bull Salzburg in Switzerland. And that guy brought in a Finnish off-ice coach

with a sort of martial arts background that had been studying goaltending. And the two of them got together, and they basically redeveloped, rebuilt how Sergei Bobrovsky moved and trained. And so there's actually a story up at ingolmag.com. It was written like four and a half years ago by Cat Silverman, and we just reposted it to the news site last night, realizing, okay, we've got this really good story that not a lot of people know about.

We should probably have it on our site. And it kind of explains a lot of it, and I think it's a big part of this sort of, he had this great start to his career and then a dip and now there's been pretty much a second half resurgence and yeah there were some down years with the 10 million dollar price tag but I think the the good outweighs the bad by a significant enough margin that I'll have that conversation about Hall of Fame any day well yeah and just so we're clear like this conversation is absolutely happening because your colleague at NHL.com Nick

Katsunika he's got a piece up right now talking about Bobrovsky's elite performance in Game 1. And he wrote, Bobrovsky is a two-time winner of the Vezina. The 35-year-old has 396 wins, 14th in NHL history. Ten of the goalies ahead of him are all in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And then he asks, where would a championship put him? Where would the Conn Smythe Trophy put him? You know, is this guy going to the Hall of Fame? And it's crazy because you think about it.

At one point, David Amber was on the show earlier and he was talking about that contract at one point looked like one of the worst in the NHL. And now we're talking about Bobrovsky being enshrined in the Hockey's Hall. Yeah. And again, like in the first couple of years in Florida, weren't great. But, you know, I just think, you know, and part of, and part of this is where they were as a team, right? That's the other thing here. At the end of the day, for all the praise and accolades well-deserved for Sergei Bobrovsky, there were times early in his career when he lifted up a mediocre team.

But I think we've hit a point in the NHL where you just can't, it's really hard to do that. Like, you need structure in front of you. We've seen it here in Vancouver, right? Did Petra Demko become a bad goalie two years ago, or did the team just hit such a rock bottom defensively

that he didn't have a chance? And as Bob's teams have gotten better, we're seeing the best of Bob. And that's where the adjusted numbers sort of, you know, paint the picture that it's not all Bob. But even in those stretches stretches especially in the playoffs this year where the numbers don't jump off the chart you're like the goalie's still there the guy that has the ability to get into the heads you know and this is going to be a big thing for Edmonton right like

a night like the other night you can all of a sudden start to be too perfect, try to be too pretty, and end up missing that and a whole bunch more. So there's sort of, and I said this to Wish for an article early in the playoffs, there's almost like a Grant Fear-like quality. As much as I used to hate that sort of,

like when the game matters, he makes the big, it's not like all big saves are big saves, but Bob has the ability to make a ton of big saves just because of his explosiveness, just because of his body control, just because he's never really out of a play.

So whether it's, you know, I don't buy the, oh, when it gets to 5-5, he'll lock it down stuff like we used to hear with fear. But the fact that he has that ability to just sort of make these sensational, like out of nowhere, momentum-changing saves in the playoffs, and we've seen a bunch of them. But the fact that he has that ability to just sort of make these sensational, like out of nowhere, momentum changing saves in the playoffs. And we've seen a bunch of them.

I always loved that story with like that idea with Fury. Like he'll let in five, but, you know, if it's 5-5, you're not getting that six past him. And like maybe he should, you know, focus a little more on the first and the second period. Yeah, that's one that always kind of just sat weird with me. But at the end of the day, it was a different era. And he had a team that had the ability to do crazy things offensively. And listen, and again, are we having this conversation

if Bob isn't on a team that appears destined for possibly a Stanley Cup here and was in contention for it last year, right? Or does he get the 400 wins quietly in the shadows and nobody's having this conversation about Hall of Fame, even if in the goalie world we're like, hey, these numbers add up. Speaking of Kevin Woodley, from InGoal Magazine, NHL.com, here on the Halford & Ruff Show on Sportsnet 650. Kevin is a presentation of White Rock Hyundai.

Visit the showroom on King George in White Rock or whiterockhyundai.com. Here's a question for you, Kev. Where is Jacob Markstrom going to be playing hockey next season? The only thing I know, and I kind of said this on Thursday, on your, I don't know, is it a brother's station? Is it a sister station? The Sportsnet station in Calgary.

And I think it might have been the first time it was reported a fish sort of out there. It's been speculated, but really out there. The one thing I do know is he has zero intention of playing for the Calgary Flames again. Okay. So for a comeback, there is no intention for Jacob Markstrom to go back. Well, they made it pretty tough on him last season.

Well, I mean, might have been twice. Not just once, but twice. I mean, think about it. He was having a Vezna, like he was my Vezna frontrunner at the trade deadline. That's how good his season was. We talked earlier about sort of, you know, environments and performance relative to environment,

and obviously gold saved above expected is a big one. He was lapping the field at that point. He was like, Hellebuck's going to win the Vezina. Markstrom was 10 goals ahead of him at that point. So you ask him to waive his no trade twice or his no move twice. He agrees twice. You don't pull the trigger. You trade away his best friend in hockey, Elias Lindholm.

You trade away his best friend in hockey, Elias Lindholm. You trade away his probably second best friend, longest running teammate in Chris Tanev. Then you trade away the other half of the top pairing on defense, Noah Hannafin, and you make him suffer. What was a great season becomes a completely missed

opportunity. So you tell me what about that says I want to go back to Cal. Is that where the inexperience of Craig Conroy as a general manager might have been shining through a little bit? Perhaps. Actually, I don't want to hang it all on Craig Conroy. You're right. It's easy to say he's inexperienced, and he is. Obviously, first year in the job, he made a lot of other good moves. It sure sounds like in this case at least one of those occasions,

the deal fell through because the deal he cut included eating salary to make it work for the other team. And obviously, anytime you're eating salary, you're increasing the assets you got back, but there was not an appetite for that at the ownership level for continuing to pay a portion of Jacob Markstrom's salary for the next couple of years. Interestingly enough, it may work out because there are a number of options on the trade market this summer from a goaltending perspective. Obviously, we know about Linus Allmark, but he has no trade protection as well. And I think he'll be picky about where he goes, if he goes. And then the other one, the other big name is John Gibson. So,

you know, the question sort of becomes, as much as I thought they may have missed the opportunity to sell on Markstrom where you could have had a playoff run plus two seasons, he may still be the most attractive, I think he is the most attractive option on the market today. And they may still, they may end up cutting a good deal, especially here about New Jersey considering their top pick, and not having the salary for the next couple of years. I think the fact it went especially here about New Jersey considering their top pick, and not having to eat salary for the next couple of years.

I think the fact it went so bad in New Jersey maybe makes them more desperate, but certainly the appetite might be increased for making a move like that, even though they have Jake Allen for another year. Who is the most desperate? Is it New Jersey? I mean, Toronto needs goaltending, too. Well, Toronto's a team that, again again on Thursday I tied him to as well I could see a fit there I'm a big Joseph Wolfe fan but there's worse things to have than a Jacob

Markstrom as your mentor uh and and Wolfe has kind of the only thing he hasn't proven is an ability to stay healthy through a season uh and that becomes a fair question with him and so you get a mentor in Markstrom I mean we you we know how Markstrom operates. We know how intense, how hard he works. Like that would not be a bad guy for Joseph Wall to learn from for a couple more years. You'd be able to limit Jacob's minutes, which we know here in Vancouver and saw in Calgary is important as well. You'd have a natural fit in Toronto with a goaltending coach. Curtis Sanford being an Ian Clark disciple, and a lot of the things that Jacob learned here sort of being taught there and a part of their daily routines.

There's a lot that fits in Toronto as well. The one part I don't know is, you know, because they're taking away cap-friendly guys. I haven't been able to look up and see whether he fits financially, because I know that's always a question when it comes to the Maple Leafs. It's going to be live until July 5th and then it goes dark. So we've got a little while here. We're speaking to Kevin Woodley. I only read headlines. We're speaking to Kevin Woodley from NHL.com

and Ingle Magazine. Kev, a guy that Vancouver fans became intimately familiar with during the first round of the playoffs was UC Sorrows of the National Predators. He is entering the final year of his deal uh they are trying to work on extension there's the igor shisterkin extension that seems like everyone's waiting for to see what that number is going to come in at before everyone else makes their deals there's also yaroslav askarov the 11th overall pick in 2020 it's a very complex situation in nashville how do you see

things playing out between soros and the Preds? It's all going to depend on the ask, because I don't see Nashville and Barry Trotz spending Sorokin-type money. And I understand the hesitation to do so, even if you see Soros has been a guy that they have ridden as hard as anyone as a number one workhorse over the past couple of years. Should have been a business trophy finalist two years ago. Had a bit of a down season this year.

You know, Sorokin sort of... ...a million dollars that he got. And then you look at what Bob's doing at the 10... Like, there's this push just, you know, that, hey, when you have one of the elite top guys, you keep them and you pay for them. And yet, I hate to say this, like I'm waiting for a knock on the door to take away the union card. I'm not sure I would.

Because the volatility continues to be the biggest story in goaltending, right? You paid Sorokin $8.5 million and he wasn't your starter in the playoffs. Right? Yeah. Like, you know, so for every sort of, Hey, it's time to pay the goalies again. I understand the pushback and I might be hesitant to do so. And I think in a perfect world, you build out a system that keeps giving you goalies, like with your scouting department, with your development department, so that when it comes time to pay a guy, if you're not convinced,

you don't, and you move on him, maybe get some more assets if you're not convinced you don't and you move on him maybe get some more assets and you're comfortable that you have something coming up to replace him and that's kind of like and and the scar off might be that guy i'll be honest i haven't watched enough of him i didn't love him as a draft pick as much as everyone else because i just felt he didn't use his hands they were dead everything was along incredible along the ice but everything was along the ice and i don't just mean doesn't catchucks. I mean doesn't use his blocker and stick to steer pucks. And that costs you in the National Hockey League or even in North America. But he's had a good season, and certainly he looks like he's ready for the NHL,

but ready to replace UC Soros, that's a different ask. You know, when you sort of look at these decisions, your ideal is to get to where Columbus was when Ian Clark was there for a long time. And in a way, where Vancouver found itself when Casey DeSmith had the minor injury and Thatcher Demko was out, like to have that guy ready. Coming up, Columbus is still sort of reaping what Ian Clark sowed when he was with the Columbus Blue Jackets because Daniel Tarasoff is sort of next man up, right? And the irony of all this is one of the teams that built such a department is the Florida Panthers. And do you know why they built that department?

So that the next time they didn't have a goaltender, they weren't the team going out and paying for Bob. They were the team that could let him go like the Columbus Blue Jackets, which is pretty ironic given where we are today. Okay, I got one more for you. We're up against it for time, and I don't want to get you kicked out of the union, but you already kind of went down this road. In light of everything you've just said,

should there be a little bit of trepidation in New York about the fact that Shisterkin could be making like $12 million a year and being the highest paid goalie on AAV of like all time? Oh, yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Like, again, how you allocate it is how you allocate it.

But what are we seeing in the playoffs? As much as you're paying Bob 10, the reality of the team in front of him is a big part of the results that they are having. And I know that sounds odd after game one. The Sorokin example I just gave. Yep. I just, you know, you ask any NHL goalie coach,

and I've asked some of the best this question, what do you want? Give you a one, two, three down the middle, an elite top four in defense, or an elite number one goaltender, and they're all going to tell you, I will take the top four in defense, and I will build you a goaltender, and they're all going to tell you, I will take the top four on defense and I will build you a goaltender that can win behind them. And we've got Stuart

Skinner in the finals with Edmonton. I just think there's enough examples that, again, union card gone for saying this, but I would prioritize my spending differently. Even if I do believe that Shesterkin is one of the now just handful of guys that belongs in the elite category. There's just too much volatility, too much inconsistency, and too much need to have another guy behind him playing 30 games a night to pay a guy

that much to be on the bench for a 30-year season. Kev, you had a good run. And with all his fails, he can always start up a podcast. Yeah, or a blog. Thanks for doing this today, bud. We appreciate it. Okay, thanks, guys.

Have a good one. Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and InGoal Magazine here on the Halford and Brough Shroud Sports Night. Well, he's out of the union. Lad, he's furious. Furious. Who is this guy? Who's the clown that you just brought on the air?

Is his name Luke? We can... No, it's Kevin, not Luke Woodley. We couldn't make this clear. So there's some news out of uh sunrise florida oh uh cody cc is gonna sit one out tonight no way really dana is in for him and he's paired with uh darnell nurse so uh welcome to that challenge dana uh cody cc looks like he's going to be a healthy scratch

because uh at comas with bouchard kulak kulak with broberg that's a great name name pair kulak and broberg this is the first that's a cool bro bro lack the cool bro pair cool bro cool bro cool bro yeah um So this is the first time that CeCe's been sat. He played 79 games during the regular season.

This is crazy. Yeah. Knobloch has made the right decisions for the most part when he's done these things. I don't like giving

the Lloyd Braun lookalike credit, but credit where credit is due. He's pushed all the right buttons. You know what else this allows him to

do sneakily is when you put Desjardins. Not play CeCe this allows him to do sneakily is when you put DeJarne. Not play CeCe. No. Well, that. But when you put Nurse, you can't deploy them like you deployed Nurse and CeCe. You now deploy Nurse less, too.

Right. Okay. Yeah, I know. I get what you're saying. It's a two for one. You get CeCe out of the lineup entirely. Right. And then you're like Nurse.

But it does make his defense of the Nurse-CeCe pairing look a little, you know, suspect. He said that. He just said it publicly. Sus as the kids would say. He had to say it publicly. Yeah. I mean. No, I know.

You know. You can't be like, they were just awful. Yeah. I'm a little surprised by this. It feels like a. Oh, I'm not. It feels like a. Oh, I'm not. It feels like a,

well, no, cause it hasn't been one game. They've struggled, but nurse and CC, the nurse and CC often trend together on social media. Like nurse. Yeah. It's,

it's, you know, I'll give him credit. It's ballsy. One game into a Stanley cup final. It's ballsy. Yeah. Um,

but he did the same thing with Stewart. He turned the Vancouver series in a very different direction when he yanked Stewart Skinner out of there. And that was the right thing to do for Skinner's sake too. So maybe this is going to be the right thing to do for CeCe's sake.

I distinctly remember when I heard the news coming down, I was like, that's bad for the Canucks. The Canucks want Stewart Skinner in that for the whole thing. They don't want a mental reset. They don't want Pickard for two games. The way things were going and the way they were putting pucks past Skinner,

every Canuck fan, player, pundit, if you were in favor of the Canucks winning that series, you wanted Stuart Skinner to remain in that. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.