Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 6/25/26

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports including Canada's World Cup loss to Switzerland, they look ahead to Canada's next matchup in the Round of 32 on Sunday versus South Africa, plus the boys look ahead to tomorrow's NHL Entry Draft 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. We are going to begin. I think we're going to spend the entire first segment of this show on the Canadian men's national team, both in terms of what happened yesterday, what happened last night in terms of who they'll face in the round of 32 and then a very funny and interesting development that we will not start. That's a tease. Pretty interesting development specifically for one of the hosts of the Halford and Bruff show.

But we'll get into that at the end of the segment. We do need to start. Stay out of Johannesburg. we do need to start with what happened yesterday. Canada only needing a draw to remain in BC place through the round of 32 and to win the group, we're not able to get it done. They lose 2-1 to the Swiss at BC Place on Wednesday afternoon. And as a result, they now go on the road for the round of 32 match against South Africa,

which we'll get into in a second. The Swiss stay in BC place for their round of 32 match, which will happen in eight days. time. Okay, so I have a question for you and the listeners if they want to weigh in. Let's answer some questions. Which statement is more true? Number one, Canada had too many injuries to win. Number two, Canada couldn't handle the pressure of the moment or three, Switzerland is simply better than Canada. All right. Even if you agree with all three statements, which one do you agree with the most?

Again, was it injuries for Canada? That's one. Was it the pressure or was it the fact that Switzerland is simply better than Canada? You know what? I'm going to work through all these. Is the list there's text in? You got to pick one, though. You've got to pick one to start with.

You can work through all three. Okay. But just pick one. One. You believe the most. Canada had too many injuries to win that match. When the starting 11 came out, so I went to the match yesterday. had an awesome time.

We can get into the experience at BC Place later because I think it's a backstory at this point. When the starting 11 came out, I was with my kid, and I turned to him and I said, this ain't happening today. Yeah. It's too tall of an order.

Yeah. When I saw that in addition to missing Ishmael Kone in the middle of the pitch, that Stephanie Eustakia wasn't going to start either, I said, this is way too big of an ask for Natanzibah and Matthew Schwanier. to not only be thrust into their first starts of the World Cup,

but to do so against by far the best opponent Canada was going to play in the group stage. It was almost the perfect confluence of circumstances where Canada just wasn't prepared to do this. I went back and looked at some of their lineups for when they were playing in the Gold Cup. You remember when Jesse Marsh was trying to show off and boast the depth of the program by not relying on, as usual starting 11 and playing guys. Because a lot of the guys just didn't play in the Gold Cup. And that was guys like Natanzibah and Matthew

Schwanier. They were out there in a starting role against a top 20 team in the world in Switzerland. Yeah. And here's the thing. Chuanier was in over his head. I almost feel bad criticizing Schwanier because he put in a shift.

He gave everything that he had. He was working his tail off. But there was a certain part of that first half early on where the pace of play and the level of play required he wasn't up to and you know what he just reverted to he just dropped deep and he's like I'm just not going to get beat and that's fine

but Canada had nothing in the midfield and very little an attack and you know what to a certain degree celibate did the same thing in the first time yeah here's a thing I mean Eustacio there's oftentimes when I'm watching Canada play and I'm like and this isn't all the time but sometimes I'm like

eustacio is their best player Eustacchio plays with a confidence. Yep. And he's a pro. A fearlessness that, and you saw it when he came in, he's like, I'm just going to kind of start bossing things to a certain degree. I didn't think he was as unbelievable as some suggested coming in up the bench. It was certainly a different.

But he was a difference maker. Here's the thing you could say. Yesterday, with their starting 11, no Bombito, no Davies, no Eustacio, no Kone, you could make the argument that Canada was about four of its top five. footballers. If you're going to say their best five players are Jonathan David, Bombito, Davies, Eustachio, Kone, that's four of your top five players in your most crucial World Cup match. Yeah. Here's the, do the exact same

exercise to the Swiss. Take away four of their top five players completely out of the starting 11 and ask them to go out and get a result. It would be a lot more difficult than what they faced yesterday. Okay. So you're you're choosing that one as the most. true that statement. Do you also agree that Canada couldn't handle the pressure of the moment? Yeah, all three of your questions are very good questions, by the way. And the other one was just that Switzerland is simply better than Canada.

You were at the match. I watched at the fan zone. The city was alive yesterday. And the country was alive. I, you know, I hope you had a great experience at the match. I had a great experience at the fan zone. It was fun. I had a great time. But the pressure of the moment,

Canada did look a little jittery. And I know that Jesse Marsh afterwards said that they were too passive. Did they play a little bit scared? So Jesse Marsh tried to manage his press, the high press.

He had the guys in one of those weird you know, half in, half out kind of zones where... It felt like that too. Where we're going to apply pressure, but not as much as we normally do, but enough so that we're not totally relenting. They never really had... And I could go into a diagram breakdown of how they really like to press

when they're, you know, guns ablazing and everyone's running and they're really aggressive. And it was almost like a hybrid version of a press, but also being conservative enough to make sure you're not being totally exposed at the back. And, as I mentioned, once Salaiba and Shwanir, decided that dropping back deep was the safest way to play, they were dropping back deep. That, in part, was pressure. But I also think that this is Marcia's weakness as a manager.

The in-match tactician, he is not. He is a motivator. He's great at drawing stuff up ahead of time. He's great at raising the energy level of his team to play the style that he wants to implement. But when it comes time to steal a call or Robinson line, the fine lines where you need to draw on that match and you need to see it through. His biggest undoing might have been at the start of the second half, where in his post-match media availability, Jesse March openly acknowledged

that he should have gone to five at the back to try and maintain that nil-nil result, which would have won them in the group and kept him at B.C. place. Because here's a thing, and I'm going to go deep in the weeds here. Okay. The Swiss manager, Yakin, he's done a tremendous, job in this tournament of having the Swiss prepared coming out of breaks. He's been lauded

tactically for what he's done, especially against Bosnia. Right. He saved a bunch of his... These hydration breaks have added a new element. They're calling the momentum breaks now. Right. Yeah. He saved his substitutes. Normally you'll see substitutes come on

in the 60th minute, which gives him a third of the match to kind of get their legs and make an impact. He kept his subs on the bench against Bosnia until that final hydration break. They came on and then they exploded offensively and he said, I have strategically started to reevaluate things on breaks because

we're almost like in a four quarters match now. So what did the Swiss do coming out of the halftime break? They put pedal to the medal. They scored two goals in 12 minutes coming out of that halftime break where Canada looks sluggish coming out. I know Marsh read him the riot act. At least that's

what promised David said. His message was to them to come out, you know, and wake the F up. But they did not. As a matter of fact, their worst spell of the match, I thought, was the first 12 to 15 minutes of the second half, where they became completely unglued and completely undone. That is management, essentially.

That's a tactician on the other side, finding an opportunity to pounce and maybe making some tactical or structural adjustments. And that's Marsh, regretting in the aftermath that he didn't put five at the back. Okay, what about Switzerland simply be, better than Canada. Like they're just, even with, even with the injuries,

this is not, this is not a minnow country. They're top 20 in the world. And I, I know when the group came out, we went over the teams pretty extensively and we concluded like Switzerland's the favorite to win this group. They've been in a lot of World Cups. They've had a few guys retire, but a lot of those guys yesterday

have played together for a long time. and they are tournament tested. The most disappointing part of the match for me yesterday, sitting there watching it was that Canada felt like they were second best in chasing the match the entire match. It never really felt like Canada was giving a, and I mean a serious threat to where the Swiss were like, these guys can play with us.

It felt like the Swiss, in terms of defending, we're comfortable with everything Canada threw at them for the majority of the match. And let's be clear here. the end of the match where Canada fought valiantly and had a lot of Vim and vigor Sure A lot of it was long throws from Alistair Johnson

Yeah speculative long throws into the box And crosses into the box And those are things that the Swiss were one willing to concede Totally. And two capable of defending. It felt like Canada was just a notch below But this goes back to your first question

Could Canada ever be at the level of Switzerland Without their four of their five best players? No. No. No. That was kind of the best you were going to get from Canada in that circumstance. And you saw how inferior it was at times. Okay, I want to bang through a bunch of other questions.

Yeah, man. Did Canada reach expectations in the group stage? Because to their credit, despite some key injuries, they avoided the ultimate disaster and they did qualify for the knockout stage. That was always in the back of our minds. Like, oh, we're like, okay, could lose to Bosnia, could a lot. lost to Bosnia and Switzerland, then you're on three points and then you're hoping, right? There's a bunch of teams out there right now with three points that are hoping that three

points will be good enough. I mean, they could have drawn with Qatar, right? Switzerland did. They also, Canada, also notched their first draw and first win ever at the World Cup. I think it's enough to say, I think they did enough to say that they reached expectations. but you wouldn't say they exceeded them. And that's fine. Yesterday, to me,

felt like a reminder that Canada is still so new to tournament football at the top level on the men's side. Switzerland was like the wily vet that's been there and done that. No superstars, but this is a country that's qualified

for the last six World Cups and made the round of 16 in the last three of them. them. Granted in Qatar, they got blown out by Portugal in the round of 16, but they got there. They were in the round of 16. Canada wasn't in the round of 16 in Qatar. Canada

didn't even win a game. Okay, so expectations. This is going to sound weird, but work with me here. I think going into yesterday, a lot of people felt that Canada were on the verge of something potentially big, and so the expectation

became to exceed expectations. I think that's what yesterday was. ultimately. Sure. Yeah. Yesterday was ultimate. The bar got moved when they had the opportunity against Switzerland. And the absolute destruction of Qatar.

You know? So yesterday going into that match, the energy around BC Place and in BC Place was very much, you have a very difficult task ahead of you. But the opportunity is so large and so big. And look, everyone there knew that a win meant they were staying at BC Place for that round of 32 match. the expectation became to exceed expectations. And then when the match started, it turned very quickly

because you could see how composed the Swiss team was and they just weren't phased by the pressure, the speed, the aggression of Canada like Bosnia were and like Qatar were. And there was a big difference in the tone and tenor and energy of the matches. I think Qatar got really rattled by the crowd and just the situation that they were in.

But they just weren't capable of... Switzerland's seen all that. Well, like, okay, for example, Nathan Akangi, who plays at the back for Switzerland, he's played in the Premier League, he's played in SETI, uh, and I laughed at one point. I'm like, he does not seem phased by Tejohnen in the moment.

He didn't. Like, Buchanan's a very good player, and he plays in Spain and La Liga, but... He was unbelievable against Qatar. Because the Qatari defenders hadn't seen someone of that caliber before. Yeah. Nathan Akangy had. And it was just one.

one of those things where the more that they tried to go out of the more he's like, hey, but this is what I do professionally. I deal with high level attackers and I know how to deal with them. And, you know, at a certain point, I'll go to even further down

the road here. When you really started to see the injury set in, was in the 11, but also in the end, when Canada was going to its bench, and it's Liam Miller, and it's Jacob Shaffelberg. And like, Schaffelberg, I joke, like, he's the most Canadian footballer of all time.

He's there to get in on the forecheck, right? Like, get pucks in deep, get Schaff on the forecheck. Good energy guy. Good in the room, too. This is going to sound super harsh, but, like, high-level football in countries don't play Jacob Schaffelberg in matches that really matter. He's not a guy that you bring off the bench when you're trailing by one. Okay. This is going to bring us to my one of my final questions.

What is going on with Alfonso Davies? So that would have been this Davy spot. So Shaffelberg was the final sub. Shaft came in for Luraya and it was like, you're going to play as a left back, but you're just going to be up the field. You're just going to attack from that spot. So with Davies,

we were told by Jesse Marsh that he was going to play. He didn't. Marsh explained afterwards that he was never going to play and that he intentionally lied to use Davies as a decoy so that Switzerland would waste time preparing for him. Fine. Switzerland didn't, by the way. So is it as simple for Davies as not being ready to play and his coach decided to use him as a decoy?

Because it does feel like those jackals in the media are insinuating there is something more there. Yeah, well, there's something more there. And it's the Byron influence. And I don't have a firm read on what to what degree that is, but it's absolutely there. You can tell, okay, here's what I think is happening. I don't think Davies is healthy. Right. Okay. I don't.

And furthermore, I'm not sure he's ever going to be healthy. I think that is what we might be dealing with. Because if you look at his last calendar year, the one thing that keeps happening is he keeps coming back and he keeps getting hurt. Yeah. Okay? So put that...

And he keeps coming back for Byron. Yep. And he keeps getting hurt. Yeah. So put that in context. He's not healthy and he might, there's a possibility he just might not be healthy. Secondly. Like one of those guys that's just constantly injured.

I mean, we've seen them countless times. Sure. Seen them in the National Hockey League. See them in the NFL. You see him in every major sport. Happens to guys' bodies, especially the ones that are as elite as Davies. It's like the, you know, super fancy F1 cars. Yeah.

They tend to break. Now, the Byron influence is there. What's compounding this right now is two additional things. one, Marsh just can't accept that a negative is a negative. He's always one of those guys. It's like you can turn any situation into a positive. And he's trying to do it here by using Davy's lack of availability as a decoy. And there's two issues with it.

One, it's not working. And two, he's creating a distraction and creating an unnecessary narrative. Yeah. Now, the other part of this is that... And fans sometimes just don't, like, even if even if you say there's a reason we lied to you that the fans, you know, I'm sitting there at the fan zone and I tell him the boy who's getting upset

that Canada's losing. I was like, don't worry, we got a we got a few cards up our sleeves, first of all, you know? Like, we're going to make some subs. We'll bring some energy guys on. Alfonso Davies is going to come on. So he got excited for that. I got excited for that. That was my expectations. And look, it wasn't, like, devastated by it.

You know? I'm not saying we were like, that's outrageous. I, he lied to the boy, right? You know, like, it's good. I'm not taking it that far. Sure. It is kind of like, you go to the game,

and you're like, when is Davy's coming on? When is Davies coming on? I imagine there was a lot of people, but he didn't even look like, he didn't, he didn't even pretend that he was going to play yesterday. I don't think he warmed up at all. There was a we want Davies chant in my section, just to put that in perspective.

Okay. So there's another part of this too, and it's that Davies now has been thrust, and I put this on the gaffer, to be honest, he's thrust into a situation where people want to talk to him and want to figure out what's going on. Right. And he's not willing to do it. Can I read, can I read a paragraph that Patrick Johnston wrote in the province yesterday? And Pete was there covering the game. And, you know, it was writing about all these questions that we've got about Alfonso. Davies and he writes, we'd ask Davies, Canada's captain, about all this, but he didn't stop to speak to anyone in the mix zone after Wednesday's match. He simply had his phone pressed to his ear. Whether he was actually talking to anyone or not didn't matter. The message was clear. He didn't want to talk. First of all, if... I do that trick all the time.

If Davies used the fake phone call to avoid talking to the media, I got to respect it. big ups to Alfonso Dames for them. I use it throughout my entire life. I used it yesterday. But it doesn't make me over optimistic about his chances of playing on Sunday. And that's another thing about losing that match to Switzerland. Yeah,

Canada advances, but two things. Number one, they don't get to play at BC Place. We all knew that. Number two, they lose some days of rest because you've got to play right away on Sunday. Switzerland doesn't play until Thursday now.

It's a bunch of. of extra rest that they get and they don't have to leave the city. Okay, I did a lot of this prep at around 5 o'clock yesterday. And here's a question that I threw in there. And this was for Halford to address. What are Canada's chances against South Korea, a team that Halford called his dark horse before the tournament. Okay, forget about that last part about the dark horse before the tournament.

Classic Halford. but they're not going to play South Korea because another team from the South. South Africa beat South Korea last night in Mexico. And so Canada will now play South Africa, which is something none of us saw coming in L.A. South Africa is ranked well below. they're in the 60s. Well below South Korea. Well below Canada.

And here's another factor. There are, I think, 300,000 people of Korean descent living in Los Angeles. Okay? Most people know that. They were going to have home field advantage. It's essentially over Canada in that match. Even though, you know, Canada is pretty close and we can all travel down there. No.

They would have had a significant advantage. And now tickets on StubHub, I'm noticing, like last night, the ticket prices were $1,500 to get in the door. They're now down to like $900. Because there's people just like, they're unloading their tickets. So tell us about South Africa. What they did yesterday was the biggest and most improbable victory in the the country's history at the World Cup.

Nobody expected them to pull off that result. Consider what they went into this match with. They were largely outclassed in their opener. Now granted, they were playing the host Mexico, but they also received two red cards. They lost two-nill. They didn't look great.

By all rights, they should have lost to check you, but they managed to pull an equalizer back late their first goal of the World Cup in their second match to get on one point and keep them alive going in to the final match of the group stage.

Had they have lost that match to check you, they would have been out. That would have been it. And they were minutes away from being out. They go into that match with South Korea yesterday. And for reasons still unexplained, the Korean gaffer called it a tactical decision.

They did not start, they benched Kiyunman Song for that match. He was healthy. He was healthy. He came on as a substitute. he was not in the 11 and it looked like it I don't know whether they were confident that they were going to get a result against South Africa and move on or if this was just the Gaffer Galaxy braining it

but they didn't put him in the 11 and they looked off they looked nowhere near the team that dueled with Mexico in the first match and beat the checks in the second I don't know what was going on I didn't do a super deep dive into it but South Africa took full advantage scored the only goal of the match

defended like crazy in the second half and managed to escape with the most famous victory and they move on to the knockout stage for the first time in the country's history so Canada is moving on to the knockout stage for the first time in the country's history and so is South Africa now this happens at the World Cup sometimes

luck of the draw has these two minnows going up against one another into the knockout stage so crazily enough the final 16 of the World Cup is going to have one of Canada or South Africa get in it, which is wild. Do I have time to tell my little funny story? Sure. We're completely screwed on the clock anyway.

So first of all, after this match, I tweeted something fairly diplomatic. I tweeted, Canada shouldn't feel overconfident versus anyone, but on paper, that is a massive break. Yep. You know, not controversy at all, right? And then J-Pat, bloody J-Pat throws out a tweet, and it shows that South Africa will play Canada, and then the winner of that will play probably the Netherlands or Morocco.

Now, the Dutch are getting screwed in this. Yep. Okay? So they've only played two games, but they're probably going to finish top of the group. but regardless, I think, they're going to either get Morocco or Brazil. Yep. It's most likely Morocco.

So Morocco, very good team, as we saw in the last Morocco. I think it's clinched Morocco's clinch in that spot, and the Netherlands are the little likeliest to be in there. But regardless, get on. But I think if even Netherlands finished second in their group, they're going to play Brazil. Yep, right? So that's pretty tough, right?

You do well, you win your games in the group stage, you clinch, you clinch away through the into the knockout. stage after two games and you're getting either Morocco or Brazil. And then Canada and South Africa get each other, right? So I tweet out, the Dutch got screwed and Canada got a gift. Somehow, while I was sleeping, somehow my tweet went viral in South Africa. So there's a radio DJ named Mo Flavis. in Johannesburg.

Yes. And that was the one that kind of kicked this off. He's got close to a million followers on X and he found your tweet and it's gone super viral in South Africa. And I gotta say the South Africans are

reasonable. Honestly, they are. With their responses, they're not as bad as some NHL fans. They'll be like, woo, we've bookedmarked your tweet for Sunday.

I'm like, no, that's fair enough. But this, this tweet has 1.2 million views. 1.2 million views I was like I was like

what the I looked at it this morning I was like what the hell happened here you should have seen Bruff's face when he sat down this morning opened his laptop

and looked at his viral tweet from last night now one of the most polarizing figures in South Africa AM Vancouver radio man Jason Brough never what I thought

has seen the day but here we are welcome to infamy friend sometimes I would like I'm gonna lean in to this, but I'm like, I don't really want to mess with South Africa. With the opposite of leaning into this. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. We just have to call Thomas Dran's erotica. Thomas Dran's erotica. Coorsy. Thomas Grant's erotica. Expect goals. Thomas. Transerotica.

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As mentioned, our next guest is from the Athletic Vancouver and Kinnock's Talk right here on sports. SportsNet 650. It's Thomas Drance on the Halford-Inbvreth show. What up, Dranser? Gentlemen, good morning. Good morning to you. Are you excited about being on this day,

NHL draft Eve? Yeah, always. I mean, it's an exciting time of year. I'm usually looking forward to getting through it, especially by this point. But yeah, I mean, one week to go, you think about all the news that is likely to break, not just for the Canucks, but around the league.

And obviously, it's already been head spinning. in terms of the magnitude of the deals we've seen. But, you know, we got two days of the draft coming up tomorrow, the next day. Ryan Johnson's going to speak in, what, an hour here. Always the possibility that you get additional news, signings, trades, extensions, and then qualifying off for deadline, development camp opens for the Canucks on Monday. I mean, this is the busiest part of the year. So, yeah, I mean, this is what we do it for.

Will Ryan Johnson get asked about filiparonic? And even if he does, what are you hearing on the filipronic front? Yeah, can't add much to it. You know, I think you will be asked about it. I think it's probably the most pertinent question, you know, frankly, just because I think it tells us a lot, right? It speaks volumes about sort of the approach and where exactly the quote unquote Canucks plan that we're going to see, right? We don't know what this team's plan is to rebuild. We don't know what this model is going to look like.

They haven't made player personnel moves yet for the most part, aside from some American League signings. So, you know, I think the erroneous question to me is just enormously telling. The club has talked about patients. They've talked about culture. I think that all points in one direction. But on the other hand, they've also talked about accumulating draft capital. Yeah.

And so, you know, as we've seen, I mean, top 10 picks have changed hands three times this week. Top five pick we saw get dealt, which never happens. But it did for Bowen Byram. So there have been a lot of high value draft picks flying around the NHL trade market and the cost is premium trade assets. It's not the guys who have a lot of the term on their deal and are older. And honestly, it's not even the guys that have say over where. they go to some extent, right? I mean, the Bowen Byram Christ emerges because that team had the freedom to create an auction environment, the Buffalo Sabres, and did so expertly. Kudos to them.

But there's also a contractual angle there, right? Byram wasn't eligible for an NTCNMC. That's what creates that sort of price demand. And, you know, even if you're talking about Philip Oronik, yes, he is the Canucks only premium asset here. I also think you have to recognize that, you know, NHL trade values effectively set by multiple factors. One of them's quality, the quality of the player. But another massive factor, right, is demand, is that ability to create the sort of environment where in order to get the player, teams have to spend the sort of trade price, right, that Chicago ultimately ponied up this week.

We were talking about this earlier in the show. And with reports that the Canucks might be willing to retain salary on a little. Leas Pedersen. Yeah. Do you think they're going to operate around the salary cap floor for the next few years? And maybe that's a way to convince ownership to retain on Pedersen as in like, hey, you've got to reach this level anyway. So, you know, why not do it this way? Maybe.

Maybe. You know, I do think, like, the value of the cap space is minimal. from the perspective of what the team could use it to do otherwise, right? It's not like you're going to be able to go out and sign a Pew Souter caliber, top nine guy with the ability to play center for $1.5 million in August because no teams have the space to offer him, you know, three and a half times three, right? Like that's, that big environment's dead.

And when that environment dies, like retaining $1.5 to $3 million on Pedersen is not an issue. For me, the far bigger issue in retaining on him is losing the retention slot. Yes. Because that's going to make it harder to sell and net the sort of value you need. And, you know, I think we've seen a lot of signs of how the league is about to move, of how different this market's going to look. And I think the volume of trades has been a big part of that. But I also think the volume of draft picks moved has been a major part of that.

liquid capital has been, you know, what teams are after here, right? The Florida Panthers are clearly the best example, right? Where they monetize effectively like a young player who's trending pretty well. Yeah. But purely for the assets that they need to go get Brady Kachuk. And then in dealing with, like in acquiring or sorry, selling Kach, the auto senators prefer the capital to Mackey Samoskevich, in part because would San Jose, excuse me, have been interested in Mackey Semiskevich

in a second? Or did they want the top 10 pick? Like, clearly they wanted the top 10 pick. So there's an element to which that emphasis is going to be greater, I think, in a world where free agency and some of these secondary market forces, you know, players that aren't tendered qualifying offers, players that are bought out. Like, you've been able to go out and get your Wenberg, your declares, your, you know, Nate Schmitz, like on and on. I mean, there's been such a useful pipeline for teams to mine in these sort of value spaces. And teams have been able to get like real upside in terms of the bets they place there.

And I think those bets are just getting more expensive, which is what you're seeing this week. This is, you know, if you want to roll the dice on a Byram or a Nemech, like, man, the price is big. And I think that's partly because the route. to getting like the 24-year-old guy, you know, yeah, like, at least he'll be a third liner for us, right? You're like what Jack Roslovick was for the Carolina Hurricanes like two years ago, right? Like that, that route, I think, is severely diminished, hampered, it's gone. And so teams, I think, are paying for that upside at a different level.

So sort of to come back to the importance of the retention slots, I just think you need to be so conscious if you're the Canucks on, creating value during this rebuild in ways that go beyond just like not succeeding over the course of a season so that you get a high topic. Right. You know? Yeah. No,

I understand that. How else can they do that? What are some ways that the Connects can create some value over the next few years? Yeah. I mean, I think, first of all, one of the things that the team's going to have to offer here is going to be opportunity. but that's not really true right now. You know, I think this is one of the sticky wickets. I don't know, is that a term that people still use, gentlemen?

One of the crunchy things that I'm sort of looking at in terms of where the Canucks are positions, they don't have a lot of space on the roster. Right, which is insane. Yeah, I mean, they kind of have a full lineup. Yeah. And so, you know, that's regrettable because one of the issues or one of the benefits, I suppose,

of existing in a world without win now competitive pressure is that you can place some of those what bets remain on some of those guys that haven't quite broken through at 24, 25. Now it's important that you don't trade like a litany of thirds and fourths for them

the way that the Canucks did 10 years ago but there's still like your Raphael Lavois caliber guys who, you know, six foot four and fast and like he hasn't quite broken out and he's maybe nothing, but also for you, you can just bring him to camp and see what you've got. And maybe you can build value out of that. And especially if he takes advantage of the opportunity, the Canucks just kind of aren't set up to do these sorts of things.

I guess the other example that I'd use would be like the penguins, you know, where you like do those tear down things like they did with Jari and Skinner. And then you keep getting paid for the asset or what the sharks did with Jake Wallman would be another one. Now, in the case of the Walman deal, that was like free. That's a cap constraint issue. That's a path that's not going to exist. But the logic of gambling on a guy out of favor with another organization, because your roster's lean, you have opportunity to plug him into a bigger role. Because he's better than the other team valued him as he will build X, Y, Z value,

and then you turn that into an asset. Like, that's the path that I think the connects need to be conscious of trying to open up here. It's not necessarily about finding your version of that, right now, but I do think you need to subtract from this roster in part because you'll want to be able to speculate in that market if you're going to create value. What is the value of having veteran defensemen playing with a younger defenseman?

Because I think a lot of people do like the idea of Zev Boullium being paired, for example, with a guy like Philip Horonic. And, you know, it's one of the, it's one of the, it's one of things. I mean, we have talked about, and I know I believe you have written about, you know, how important player development is going to be. You know, the drafting has become more efficient than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. Like, there's more information out there. People are getting better at deciphering that information. So it's going to be harder and harder to find those

diamonds in the rough in the fifth and the sixth round. There's, there'll still be some, but I think it's going to be tougher to find those. So maybe, we're the only scouts that saw Pavel Datzouk play because there was a storm. Yeah, exactly. That doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, I mean, with the, even just the

streaming capabilities, I mean, you can stream whatever game you want in the world, including like the, the Seafar U-11 team, right? Like, you can do whatever you want, right? So teams are going to have to separate themselves with player development. And, you know, part of player development is putting these young guys once they get into the NHL in a position to succeed. So, you know, you don't have them out there two young guys together on a pair or a young player with not a very good veteran defenseman that might be able to tell them some stuff on the bench, but isn't going to help them.

on the ice. Yeah, and there's a huge difference in weight, right, between a player like a Filiperonek and XYZ guy that you could bring in in free agency. Right. You know, like a Luke Chen or or what have you, right? I mean, not just in terms of their caliber on the ice, but because they're a top guy in the league, their advice carries more resonance naturally with whomever they're speaking with. So, you know, I think the, I think there's huge value to sort of having, a layer of credible top-of-line caliber players, especially on the back end. I suppose what I'd wonder about,

or I think the question that I'd be asking myself in the Canucks shoes would simply be like, are we positioned right now with enough of the core guys of like our next great team, right, to be holding value in that type of player? if we're multiple years away from sort of taking the sort of step we need, that player's in their late 20s, and we don't really have other premium assets to sell.

That would sort of be the thing you're weighing there. You know, it's tough. Like I'm not going to pretend to have a good sense of even how they're thinking about it yet. I'll be curious to see what they have to say this morning. But for me anyway, I just don't think you can simplify it as like, well, you need veteran mentorship. It's like no question. No one would ever dispute that.

I always say like there's a reason there's the scales of justice. Like you can't get so caught up in one area, in one part of the scale and then completely ignore the other. And people will often say, well, you know, Dr. and, bruff, you're being a hypocrite now because you said this previously. I was like, yeah, but like other stuff came on on the other side of the scale. Yeah, there's levels to this. Yeah. And really quickly, I think patience is one of those things.

You know, I favor an organization being patient, right? But I think there's a difference between like patients and paralysis. There's a difference between patience and passivity. Yes. And, you know, ultimately I think the thing that kills, like there's multiple things that can kill a rebuild. You can accelerate too quickly out of it, right? as I would say the Canucks did in 2017, 2018, right, into 2019 with sort of like the Delzotto and Roussel and Beagle signings. Yeah, yeah.

You know, or the Kings did would be another example. But I also think what we're seeing in Chicago and what we saw in Buffalo in the previous, like the previous sort of 10 years ago in Buffalo as that rebuild stretched into like year 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 was once you've got. the guys, the face of the franchise level guys, they don't tolerate ineptitude. They don't tolerate losing. They don't tolerate bad coaching. They don't tolerate bad management indefinitely. And, you know, that's where the Jack Eichols start to get HG feed or Connor Baudard or Quinn Hughes. I mean, we just saw it here, right? Like, once you have those face of the franchise level players in-house, like, you've got to engineer a way to be competitive before they're up for their next contract. You've got to make sure you're an appealing place to stay and commit to

and associate with, right? Especially, especially going forward. Especially going forward now, like with like, oh, you can just ask out. I didn't know that. Right. Well, and you can ask out coming off your ELC, like Nemwich was just like, guys, no. No. No more of this. You know, Byram's 25. Like, we're not talking about your 28-year-olds. We're not talking about your pending UFAs anymore either. Yeah. Chuck had two years left on his deal. Quinn Hughes had a and a half left on his deal. Like, Dylan Larkin has five years left on his deal. I mean, yeah, this is a new sort of partnership that you have to make with your players. And at least to some extent, in time, once you've got the blue chip face of the franchise level guys, like, you don't,

you're on the clock immediately. So once you're lucky enough to land that player. I want to, I want to put this to you because then it becomes a very delicate situation because you have to be brutally honest with yourself about the young players that you've got in your lineup, are these the guys? Right. Are these really the guys? Or are you just making them the guys because they're the guys that you have? Yeah.

And I mean, I think you're seeing that with like Carolina indication, right? Like the ruthlessness that you have to bring to the table in terms of self-evaluation. I think, yeah, I think there's a huge premium to that now. breath like I think that's a really a really good point and and just to circle this back and sort of tie it up with a bow in terms of the heronic leadership mentorship conversation right like fundamentally the cost benefit analysis I think you have to ask is like do we have the guys now if no what's a reasonable time frame we're going to need to accumulate those guys right let's say three to four years maybe five right yeah in terms of the right so okay so if we're coming out of this cycle in year five six seven What age is Philip O'Onick going to be? And is he going to be a more useful piece to accelerate what we're doing then, right? When it really starts to matter for us, or is the assets that we can get for him now more likely to be those guys?

Right. And to me, that's the question. Because while I hugely value the mentorship of star players, you know, at least to some extent, I think you have to be clear. ride about the fact that that mentorship is going to be at a premium in like three, four years as opposed to right now. Where are you with the young guys in the organization right now? Like I, like talking prospects. Are any of them in your minds?

And I would include the guys I played in the NHL a bit last year, like Boo. Of course. Yeah, we can go like you 23. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Where do you see them as the guys? the guys for what like i think they're guys who can be good players on on a like there there's outcomes

where they can be really good pieces of a championship level team like you know i i think if if boeum can be like a josh morrisy type guy right that's a really good player it's a very good player you know vallander has a really wide range of outcomes he produced enough that it's not out of the question as a as a high end outcome that he could become like there's guys like Romaniosi that produced at this level. But that would be, you know, the top, like 95% outcome for Valandr. But yeah, I mean, I think there's worlds where he could be in and around that mix. His sort of range of outcomes and player archetypes is sort of hard.

Let's say, let's say like a smaller K. Andre Miller right-handed, something like that. Right? That's a guy who played number one, five on five minutes for the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup final, like on a Stanley Cup winning team. So that's a very, very good player. You know, and then Coutts, I think there's still outcomes where you get something on that, you know, like Matthew Barzell Light, like maybe a low-end, top-line player. There's also outcomes where something more like Curtis Lazzar or like a middle six winger out of him, right? That's still very much in play, too.

So there's a huge range of outcomes when you look at sort of the top three guys that are still very, very possible. I would say like what I don't think you necessarily have, what I think likely you do not have is the dude capital D. Right? Like I don't think you have your, I don't even think you have your stankovin, right? Or something like something at that tier. And I certainly don't think you have your like Barkov analogy. So it's like for me, that's sort of the level of player you still need to go get in this rebuild.

You still need to identify and acquire. But I think you've got some guys who could be like the third or fourth best player on a really great team down the line. So, you know, they're not bereft. I'd call their prospect system slightly below average today, but after they make 10 picks, including four in the top 41, they'll probably be on the fringes of the top 10, something like that in the NHL.

So work to be done, but they're not bereft. It's just that they don't have the top end guys yet. They'll get one on Friday. All right, Dran. Very exciting time in the world of sports. Do you have time to get into? the World Cup? Oh, yeah, always. Okay. What did you think about

we were exchanging text, Dr. Anson and I in the wake of the Ismail Kone injury. Oh, okay. I was trying to come up with an adequate replacement. What did you think about? Yeah, I'm talking myself hard into saliva. You know what? I'll say this. I thought he was fine. I didn't, I didn't mention this in the I didn't mention this the intro. Very

tough to do what he did where it was shaky start for him and Schwanier. He got better as that match went along after a tough start. Which isn't easy to do because they took off Schwaner at the half. after like, that's enough now. Sileba got better and better and better. The setup on the goal is fantastic.

Yeah, I'm really curious to see what he can do with Estacchio. I mean, man, the idea of four years from now having healthy Kone and saliba is like what's starting to get me excited. But you can see the quality and the size and the athleticism. I mean, he's clearly a promising young player. And so, you know, sometimes promising young players have breakouts at this tournament. And that's what I'm talking myself into. I'm doing like the Brock Purdy thing.

He was pretty good at Iowa State after Jimmy Garoppelow went down. That's what I'm doing. You know, I'm like, yeah, I can envision it. I can see it. 22 at Anderlitt. Like, yeah, this is the start of his big brand. You know, I'm talking myself into that. So that's how I'm how I'm coping with the Kone loss.

But yeah, I mean, nice break. South Africa is going to be tough. But, man, it would be sick if they could win an elimination game at the World Cup. Like, I just, I can't wait to pace anxiously while watching it. and checking my phone every 10 minutes for hockey news. Drans, so thanks to this, buddy. Have a good one. Cheers, boys.

Be well. Bye. Thomas Drance from the Athletic, Vancouver and Kinnockstock here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.