Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 6/4/25

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, plus they talk hockey trade rumours with NHL insider Frank Seravalli.  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Swing on and hit deep left. Back goes Nemo, still going back. This ball is off the wall. Around third is Edmund. The Dodgers are going to win it. Well the first time I talked to Connor, all he talked about was, I just want to win the Cup. He's on a mission. It can't be overstated what the Viola family has done for us. We need a new practice for you.

Okay. And here you go, and it's beautiful. No, no, no, no. Good morning Vancouver, six o'clock on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday everybody, it's Halford and his bruv. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studios in beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and bruv of the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates,

BC's first and trusted choice for net help. With over 3,000 five-star reviews, visit them online at sands-trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver We are coming to you live from the kintex studio kintex footwear and orthotics working together with you in step

Game day tonight everybody Stanley Cup final game one finally that kicks off our guest list today because it's 630 We're gonna be joined by sports netockey Night Canada host David Amber Stanley Cup final Finally game one between the Oilers and the Panthers from Edmonton tonight We can what can we expect from this Stanley Cup final the first Stanley Cup final rematch since 2009 David will join us at 630 to discuss all that 7 o'clock Frank Sarah Valley our NHL insider from daily face-off We'll get into some Stanley Cup final stuff with Frank, but we'll also get into free agency and trade targets specifically We can dive into the brand new and latest update daily face-offs top 50 free agent boards Jonathan Taves has entered the list say farewell to Yanni Gord

And I guess maybe Derek for Bort if he made the list. Yeah. I didn't go that far down. We'll talk to Frank about the top. He's a good player, but I know what you're saying. He might have made the top 50. I don't know, but he would have been near the bottom. I can tell you that. Hey, where's the love for the defensive demand? It's great. We're going to talk about it a lot.

And what happened? I bet our station talked about it a lot. I just don't know if he cracked that very prestigious top 50 free agents board at daily face-off We'll ask Frank at 7 o'clock 730 Matthew Fairburn is gonna join the program from the athletic Buffalo Sabres reporter He's got a new article up on the athletic titled How did Kevin Adams earn Terry Pagula's trust and how has he kept it? And it's a fair question because the Sabres have not made the playoffs in over a decade. Uh, a lot of conversations with a lot of people around the organization. So it's a real flash point piece about where the Sabres are at,

what they're going to do moving forward and who they might be moving on from could be something that the Vancouver Canucks might be interested in. We'll talk to Matthew Fairburn about his latest piece at seven thirty eight o'clock. Brandon Astle is going to join the program play by play voice of the Abbotsford Canucks. The Canucks still lead to one in their Calder Cup Western Conference final with game four going tonight from the H E B center, my favorite center in Texas. That's a chain of grocery stores, by the way. Kudos to pucks and pugs on Twitter.

They told us that yesterday, texted that in a reminder reminder you can hear Brandon on the call that game tonight Right here on sports net 650 begins at 5 o'clock right after Canucks Central You can hear game 4 between the Abbotsford Canucks and the Texas Stars in the Calder Cup conference final Right here on sports net six and notice you call them the hated Texas Stars the other day They weren't the hated Colorado Eagles, but they were they hated Coachella Valley Firebirds, so where do you what's the rationale Jason Megna? You can't get a team with former Canucks legend Jason Megna on it the white spot giveaway. We're doing that again today $50 gift card to white spot we're gonna award it daily today is Wednesday

We'll be giving it away at 815 to caller number five. The number here, 604-280-0650. That number again, 604-280-0650. White spot, BC spot to celebrate all of life's big and little moments. We'll be giving away a $50 gift card at 815 this morning. OK, that is what's happening on the program today. Without further ado, laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last let's tell everybody 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. On Tuesday, Canucks General Manager Patrick Alveen announced that veteran defenseman Derek Forbort was coming back for another tour of duty, signing a one year $2 million contract extension with the Canucks. We need more port license plates in the gift shop. I repeat, we are sold out of port license plates in the gift shop. I repeat, we are sold out of port license plates. Sometimes it's hard to get a word in with all the things that are going on in the show,

but it's good. It's funny. Yes, Patrick Alveen said in the press release, Derek's strong defensive play and solid work on the penalty kill really helped solidify our backend this past year. Derek has a strong voice in the room and some impressive leadership qualities. And we will look to him to help our team continue to grow and improve this coming season. So penalty kill leadership. Those are the two big ones for Derek Foreboard.

Was this the most obvious UFA re-sign for the Canucks? Kind of felt like it. Yeah. There's not much financial risk in keeping him and you might, you might even be able to turn him into an asset at the trade deadline if the Canucks are not on a playoff spot. Of course, we said that last season as well and he wasn't traded. So I always felt that they were going to re-sign Derek Forbort because it's pretty easy to do. And, um, you know, the, the, the Connex PK last year was easily the best team thing they did all year.

That's a good point. I mean, there weren't many team things they did well. They had a great PK. They were top three in the league? Individually, yeah. Top, uh, individually, Quinn Hughes had a good season and team-wise they had the third best PK in the league. This is quite a turnaround from just a couple of years ago when it was the worst in the

league. Forebort, Bluger and Suter with three of the best penalty killers in the league this season if you go into the numbers. Sherwood, Myers and Hronik did some nice work as well. Interesting, I was looking at some of the numbers last night and Carson Soussi was a guy who really struggled in that role that last season, he struggled everywhere. In what was, I still say like an under the radar significant down season for the Canucks, how badly Carson Soussi played because they could never get that second pair going. At any rate, Derek Forebort is back now.

And I did see a lot of people wondering, okay, well now that Forebort's back, do the Canucks have to trade someone off the blue line? Right. And I don't think so. Like, I don't think they have to because Willender, DPT and Mancini could easily start the season in Abbotsford and there are

going to be injuries. Saw it last year. And so here's the eight guys. They've got Hughes and Hronik, Marcus Pedersen and Tyler Myers, Derek Forebort and Mancini, DPT and Willander. Am I forgetting anyone? You got it.

You got eight. Now, all that being said, I do wonder if the Canucks will trade a piece from the blue line. Management hasn't exactly pushed back on that notion and we all know you got to give to get, to make meaningful additions. But like before Forbort resigned, you and I, when we talked about the blue line, it said, well, maybe they're going to be a team like an old Nashville team where you had the good

blue line and the good goaltending and your commitment to defense and you look at the forward group and you're like, that's not a great forward group, but they still managed to make the playoffs. We still said they need to sign some veteran guys on the back end and well, they signed one of them yesterday So Mike the urologist from Brockville texts in slow news day in sports when this is top of mind Mike I'll push back and vehemently disagree because this signing and This deal with Derek for board. The story isn't really about Derek for board if we're being honest There's two other more significant stories here. One is the future of the Canucks blue line,

specifically in this very pivotal season that they're going into, right? He signed to a one year deal and it gives them the type of depth. And you mentioned that group of eight, like if I was a neutral observer and didn't have any ties to the team, but I understood the game and understood hockey,

I'd say that's a very nice group of a defenseman. Yeah. It takes a lot of boxes. You've got a high end with Quinn Hughes. You've got depth throughout. You've got young guys that are promising on the way. And you've got veteran leadership and you've got guys that fill specific roles.

And you got, you got, uh, eventually hasn't been announced yet, but it's expected to be. You got Kevin Dean, one of the better defensive coaches. And I'm talking about not just like system of defense is coaching up young defensemen. And the other thing, Mike, to consider here is it's another free agent early in the process that has decided not to go to market.

So start looking around the league right now. Tampa Bay, as we said yesterday, was able to re-up with Yanni Gord. The Islanders re-upped with Kyle Palmeri. I know Noah Cates was an RFA, but Philadelphia was able to get a deal done there. Media availability yesterday out of Carolina, Eric Tulski got up there and said that

with the amount of cap space we have, we're talking to all of our pending UFAs and we're gonna try and keep them all. So just start looking at a bigger picture conversation here. As for Fourboard himself, it's funny that you mentioned Carson Soucie there because year one of Fourboard, did it kind of remind me of year one of Soucie

in that it was interrupted, it was fits and starts, starts, stops the entire year because of the injuries both guys had in their respective first years and then for Bort obviously had The very tragic passing was father midseason, which also cost him some games So he only finished with I believe it was 54 games played by him correct in that limited time I thought four Bort showed very well in his first year in Vancouver remember how much Susie was injured, but when he played He was very if that's usually one when he played. Now the issue is, is that Susie followed that up with,

as you mentioned, an incredibly disappointing season. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen for Forbork, but you do need guys like this. And I think if you look, if you were to bring one thing back from last year that was a positive and you want to build on, a hundred percent, it was the penalty kill. That was the shining light of the organization last year.

We were trying, remember we were trying to cherry pick individual performances and we're like, yeah, you liked what Pew suitor did and there was a handful of other guys that you were impressed, Keith for sure would, with their individual campaigns. But from a team perspective, not only was the penalty kill something that was good,

I think it's something they can build on identity wise this year. Okay. So do you bring back suitor? Because he was a pretty big part of that. Great question, Jason. And I think what's going to happen is that the Canucks are going to explore and probably are exploring a bunch of different trade ideas. Maybe they circle back on pew suitor later. Now sometimes that can bite you in the butt. Cause suitor or maybe not suitor specifically,

but some players feel disrespected by that. They're like, oh, couldn't find anyone better. Right. Come back to me, huh? Yeah, I'm not your priority. I'm your second priority. And then you're like, mm-hmm. But here's a pretty big deal. I like honestly, I I haven't

1000% counted out the possibility of the Canucks bringing back Brock Besser. Here's why why? What if they can't find anything on the trade market sure and then there are got there they go to a guy who's like Yeah, I want to be in Vancouver. I You know, so you're not gonna have to I don't think you're gonna have to overpay Brock Besser They go to a guy who's like, yeah, I want to be in Vancouver. So you're not going to have to, I don't think you're going to have to overpay Brock Besser to re-sign. I mean, fair market value for Brock Besser, some people might be like, that's an overpay. But you know what I'm saying?

Now if they do circle back on Brock, he should be like, you're going to have to overpay me now. Well, I will say who comes crawling I did think it was interesting that a guy like Derek Forebort One stayed where he was because he's been a bit of a journeyman over the last doesn't he doesn't seem like a guy that's That opposed to moving around in the last five years He's played in Calgary, Winnipeg, Boston and Vancouver So he's jumped around the league as a lot of veteran defensemen do.

He's had to in some way. Yeah. OK. But I'm just saying, like a lot of those guys sometimes like Carson Susie got a two year deal, right? A little bit more security out of it. Signed a one year deal. Three, didn't he? Did he get three? OK, whatever the case, even more security. Signed a one year deal for two million. A lot of people say that's, you know, small potatoes,

but it's a pretty good deal for the Vancouver Canucks. The agent, of course, is none other than Ben Hankinson, who of course also represents Brock Besser. Yeah, oh, Derek, Derek loves Vancouver. See, that was Ben Hankinson, brackets, as played by Jason Brough. But I, again, this, what I'm gonna be really curious about moving forward now is how many teams

with the added cap space don't go shopping in free agency, but keep their free agents from going to free agency. I do wonder if that's gonna be the trend. The Connex right now, if they're looking at it, and they're like, oh, we could go to market and see what's out there three and a half weeks from now, or we fill a void by resigning Souter, and then I do wonder

and I'm kind of with you, does the Besser conversation come up where they really get down to brass tacks and they're like, I don't know if there's a better option out there. Yeah. And then the question for Besser is, are you gonna wait to July 1? And are you gonna see where you wanna go?

Cause there will be teams that will be, there'll be teams that are gonna be able to spend without question. I mentioned the Carolina Hurricanes yesterday. They had their end of year media availability. Tulski went up there and said, we're armed with cap space. They have almost $30 million in cap space, which is pretty good for a team in the NHL's Final Four.

And they're already talking about, let's get Burns back, let's get Orlov back. And then when we do that, let's see if we can go spend some more and get right to the cap ceiling. Look at the Leafs. Yep. Like what if Marner goes? That got a lot of money to play with. They got a lot, they got a lot to play with there.

Um, now because of Marner, there might be some guys that shake loose. You know, Vegas really seems to get talked up a lot as a possibility for Marner. So maybe Vegas has to kick someone out as they like to do. Um, one of the guys that I want to talk to, um, uh, Matthew Fairburn about is Alex Tuck in Buffalo because he's only got one year left on his deal and then he's an unrestricted free agent. And the way things are going in Buffalo, I think

everything's on the table in Buffalo. And I wonder if Buffalo would be a team that if, if the Canucks are asking around the league about Elias Pedersen, Buffalo seems like an obvious place to start. Okay. And now I want to pivot off to Stanley Cup final media day yesterday, which is always on the eve of the Stanley Cup final, which goes tonight, game one. We're going to have David Amber coming up on the show at six 30 to talk about that, but Stanley Cup media day on the subject free agents, by the way,

a couple of little news and notes coming out of there. Corey Perry said that he wants to return for a 21st NHL season. So this won't be the last year that Corey Perry will be in the league. Did you see his kid at media day? I did see that. Yeah. Pretty funny. He's like, dad, do I still have to go to school?

He's like, ask your mother I still have to go to school? He's like, ask your mother. Yeah. No comment. No comment, said Corey Perry. So Corey Perry said he wants to come back. Aaron Echblad, who's also technically a pending UFA, although most people expect him to be back in Florida.

So too does Aaron Echblad. He said he lives and breathes and bleeds the Florida Panthers, so I can't see him leaving the organization. Now the reason I'm bringing up Stanley Cup Final Media Day is there was a bunch of interviews and a bunch of audio to parse through but I think the audio that caught the most attention and we're going to play some of it now was the audio from Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito. I'd say he's probably regarded as the best GM in the game today. If you were to have poll random NHL fans in terms of the work that he's done and the championships that they've won and everyone would say yeah but he's

got the tax advantage which is why he gave the following answer about why the Florida Panthers are successful. I think the most important thing for us in attracting players is, I think the players have understood now how much we've been empowered by ownership to try to do the right things. And it can't be overstated what the Viola family has done for us to allow us to implement whether we need a new practice rink. Okay, and here you go, and it's beautiful.

And to allow us the flexibility and here you go and it's beautiful. And to allow us the flexibility to try to do the things that we think are necessary to try to win and to try to have an excellent organization. And I think the players feed off that. And they know that if the chicken isn't right, that we're gonna get new chicken. And it sort of transcends all that we do.

It sounds silly, but it's true and it's real. The sun doesn't kill us. It's a nice environment to live in. It's a good place for families. It's a good place for singles. It's got a little something for everybody. And then I'll point to Paul and the coaching staff in that room.

And players, no, I think, I'm not gonna go through each one, but so many of the players who have come to us have had career years, and it's a function of the coaches in the room. So players from the outside, I think the tax thing is marginal at best. And I think the real reasons are that

trying to figure out a way to do our best to try to win. Good place for singles, you say. Oh, I've never heard that chicken line before in my life. I'm willing to try it out on a trial basis. So what is it if the chicken isn't right? We'll get a new chicken. You get a new chicken? Yeah. That classic phrase.

You know, you hear it all the time. It sounds like a George W. Bush quote. It's like, what do you think he knows what what the saying is but screws it up and becomes more memorable They have a bunch of food poisoning problems with the Florida Panthers this year Chicken Salmonella outbreaks get a new chicken the Canucks are like you're gonna eat that chicken because we already paid for it How sick you get? This chicken goes against her cap, okay?

Please eat it. The sound bite on the practice facility was not the one the Canucks wanted to hear. Can I just say how amazing this practice facility is? I pity any team that doesn't have this kind of facility. It is very funny. It was funny. Rick Tawket goes to Philly. He's like, this practice facility, I'm here right now.

There's like a hundred sheets of ice, all you want. And then the team that everyone is talking about as the model franchise in the NHL right now, they're talking about their beautiful new practice facility at media day of the Stanley Cup final. Because it was funny, I just want to jump in, is that the Florida Panthers went to the 2023 Stanley Cup final and lost to Vegas, right? And then their new it's so funny their new practice facility was opened in March and then

three months later they won the Stanley Cup. It was like all we were missing was the practice facility. I think every NHL team should get on this for next season. Whenever the Canucks go into their arena, they should somehow try and find a way to shoehorn it into the conversation. You have to practice at the practice facility. Can't practice anywhere else. We didn't even ask you about that. Yeah, it's amazing really that this has become such a conversation piece. Some of it intentional for sure with talk it. That was intentional intentional some of it just purely coincidental like yesterday I don't think Bill Zito was talking up The practice facility to take a thinly veiled shot at the Vancouver Canucks ahead of game one of the Stanley Cup final

But I mean that would have been funny We all glommed onto it right away because he said the best part was he was like Vinny Viola. Yep. There you go 65 million so easy Easy 20,000 square foot practice facility. Have at it, boys. Yeah, I'm a billionaire. Of course I can make this happen. Right.

The Canucks are maybe still years away from getting their practice facility. And that's the words of Jim Rutherford. At the end of season availability, when he said, they went down the road with three or four different ideas and they couldn't get it done. And he said, we need 20,000 square feet that we can build on with a dressing room

added to a rink somewhere and then just use the ice. And they haven't been able to make that happen. And, Halford mentioned it's a $65 million practices facility. It's in Fort Lauderdale and I was reading about it last night and a lot of the players live around Fort Lauderdale and the rink is near there. It's sunrises near Fort Lauderdale.

All the media will be staying in Fort Lauderdale. The singles call it Fort Lickerdale. Yeah, there's some great beach bars down there. And the players drive their golf carts through the surrounding neighborhoods to get to practice. That sounds nice. I mean, that's got to be a selling point, right? I would say so. Of course it is.

If you signed with us, you could drive a golf cart to our practice facility. In shorts. Anywhere you want. And it's legal. People will leave you alone. You want to go play golf? So I'll ask you guys, and I'll ask the listeners, if anyone wants to win the Dunbar Lumber Text Line 650, 650, if you had the chance to sign anywhere in the NHL, where would you

sign? I probably, I have to admit, I'd probably choose a warm weather place for my body. Like I just think it would be, it would feel, you go through a hard practice, maybe you're into game 60 of the season. Sure. Everyone else is cold up North or it's raining and it's warm for you, but I have to acknowledge that I'm old. You are. And the winters didn't really bug me when I was younger.

I didn't really think of it. I never thought of it in my 20s. I never once thought about how cold it was in my 20s. Yeah, it did bother me. I was just wearing a go, go and drink, right? I'm like, all right, the booze will keep me warm. Yeah, yeah, do you remember just being like, I don't bother me. I was just about to go and drink, right? I'm like, all right, the booze will keep me warm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember just being like,

I don't want to bring a jacket because then I'd have to bring it, put it somewhere. Same thing with an umbrella. I'd have to check it at the bar. Yeah, I don't think I own an umbrella from age 20 to 30. Yeah, so if I was younger and you asked me that question, I'd probably be like, well, I want to play in Canada because that's where it matters.

That'd be cool. And at the end of the day, that's where it matters. That'd be cool. And that's the end of the day. That's just what the Canucks have to target. And they have to do a better job of selling it. And in some ways you can kind of quietly, passive, aggressively take a swipe at, if you want to go down to Florida where, you know, maybe 10,000 people care about the team and then there's some casuals that, you know, come aboard when

it's the playoffs and then go for it. If you don't want the pressure, if you don't want that, then go play there. If you want to come where it really matters, then come play in Canada. Yeah. And they kind of have to throw the gauntlet down because this was never an issue before. And people bring up the tax thing and look, I think it's, I'll use Bill Zito's words, I think it's a marginal advantage for the Florida Panthers.

But you know what's a bigger advantage? Putting together a good team that can win, doing things right as an organization, and becoming a destination. Florida wasn't a destination. Before it was where you went. It's like, remember the trade with the Wango there? Everyone was like, oh, Andy gets to go to the Panthers.

It was more just like, oh, he's gonna go to the Panthers and he's gonna finish his career like that. It is a good point. I think some people do need a history lesson on how low that franchise sunk. Remember they went 20 plus years without winning a playoff round. They had they had ugly, ugly streaks of consecutive misses in the playoffs. They ran through coaches, right?

They had Peter DeBoer there. They had Gerard Gallant there, right? They had lots of different guys come through, but it wasn't until stable ownership, quality general managing came in that they were able to put together a consecutive run of teams. And part of this whole process that they've gone through is that they were, it was okay being as bad as they were and as futile as they were because people didn't care when they were bad just as much as the,

it's not a ton of people that like there's people that care that they're good, but there's not a huge fan base that was crying out at the injustice of a franchise that went like 25 years without winning a playoff Round right there wasn't like Toronto where they were throwing stuff on the ice When they lost in the quarterfinals of the 2012 playoffs like they you know it didn't happen There's that and that's the good and bad of Florida. The interesting thing for Vancouver and I wonder if one day, maybe when we're even older, we'll get to the point where we have the like Tavares, Toronto draw that, you know, players that grew up Canucks fans. And I'm thinking more of like the Bedard and Sellebrini era type players.

We're getting both those guys. You know, one day it'll be, you know, 10 years from now, but it'll happen. Well, I honestly like the draw from now, but it'll happen. Well, I honestly, like the draw of Toronto still, and it'll always be this way, is that there's kids that grew up wanting to be Leafs. Of course. I think that's why Chris Tanev chose the Leafs over the Stars, staying with the Dallas Stars and going on the Maple Leafs.

We all know it's why John Tavares and his bedsheets decided to go to Toronto. Maybe one day that whole narrative and that whole storyline will flesh itself out in Vancouver. I think it'd be a great thing because there is going to be a generation of NHLers and it's going to make us even older. Grew up idolizing the Sedin era. That was their team and those were their guys and that.

And Bedard, the Tyler Mott era. Right. And who could forget the Tyler Mott era? Well, do you remember that was his favorite player? That was his favorite player, right? Which is still mind blowing, but. You know, this is more just.

He's also listening to this show. This is more just like a thing where pieces have to fall into place, but I will be curious, like years down the road, if there is that element of, you know, what we've seen from countless guys from Ontario wanna go grow up and play for the Leafs. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Cibber Valley. Cibber Valley. Frank!

Cibber Valley. Frank! Cibber Valley. Frank! Frank! 7.02 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650.

Frank! Halford and Brough for the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates, BC's first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 five star reviews. Visit them online at Sands-Trustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. Frank Saravalli from Daily Face Off is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. He is a presentation of angry otter liquor.

Hour two of this program is brought to you by Jason Hominuk and Jason Da Morgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him online at Jason Da Morgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio. Kintec, footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. To the phone lines we go, the Power West Industries hotline. Frank Ceravalli joins us now in the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Frank. How are you? Pretty good. Good morning, boys. How you doing? We're well. I got a lot going on here. We will get into some Stanley Cup finals talking a little

bit, but more pressingly for our Vancouver audience and more interesting, I think from a league wide perspective, looming free agency, Daily Face Off has its top 50 NHL free agents up and on the internet now. And there's an interesting dynamic here in that this thing might need some revisions from time to time because guys are already coming off the board. We saw Yanny Gord off the board now that he's resigned in Tampa Bay. I checked in Derek Foreboard did not quite make the top 50, but he's now off the board having resigned with the Vancouver Canucks.

My first question, Frank is, you know, big picture here with the cap going up and all these teams having dollars to spend. Do you think there might be more of a push from teams to keep their guys from going to free agency with all that money rather than waiting to go shopping on July 1? Well, there always is, right? There's always a way bigger push to keep your guys as opposed to lose them on the market for nothing. That said, I think the other part of it, the push and pull is that think about what agents are thinking about right now.

They've got their calculators out. They're trying to adjust their ask for what they believe the new cap environment is. And now that we know what it is for the next two seasons beyond this one, kind of an unprecedented situation. We've never had that before in the salary cap era where you've got a document that says from the league and the players association, here's what the cap's going to be. It's, you don't have to guess. You can know what percentage of cap is and what your deal will look like.

And more importantly, how to adjust your ask up so that your player isn't left behind and underpaid. Brock Besser comes in at number three on the list and it looks like you've got them in around six and six years at eight and a half million. Is he one of those guys you could foresee in that aforementioned scenario where you get to market and the ask starts going up because there could be a dearth of goal scoring wingers available in free agency. Well, I think that number adjusts for that already, that eight and a half.

I think some of it with Brock is going to come down to fit and where he wants to play that there may be a situation where he might be willing to take slightly less to go there for comfort. And I also have never really gotten the sense that he's after every last dollar out there. I think more so the conversation has been centered around what's reasonable and fair. And I think to go back to the first part of your question about whether or not these teams can hang on to players before they get to market, I don't think they ever got to a situation with the Canucks based on term where they felt like

they were going to get close to a market value deal. And because of that, that's why he's on the move or very likely to be. I'm really curious about the Dallas Stars right now. I'm curious about what they're going to do, if anything with Pete DeBoer and when the Knicks fired Thibodeau, I was like, Oh God, I wonder if the, I wonder if the stars are watching that and wondering if they should do the same with Pete DeBoer. But I'm also wondering about some of their free agents,

Matt Duchesne, number six on your board, 34 years old. Um, the projection is a contract of three by 7.2. Do you think he's more likely to stay in Dallas or go somewhere else? The projection is a contract of 3 by 7.2. Do you think he's more likely to stay in Dallas or go somewhere else? Well, based on their current situation and the available cap dollars, I think logic would dictate that right now he's more likely to go. He's looking for some security for a multi-year deal. He's played the last two on one-year deals and has absolutely knocked it out of the park

both years. So obviously it's been a good fit for him. 82-point season and has had some playoff success, falling short of the ultimate goal. But if you're him, you go, okay, I've done you guys a favor now. First year I was on a buyout I wanted to land here second year I did you a favor resigning on the chief now it's time to get paid something reasonable and that part I just don't know that as constructed the Dallas Stars even have the ability to

offer what are they doing with their captain Jamie Ben are they moving out another piece on their roster in order to try and make room? I'd imagine they're probably gonna be considering a buyout of Matt Dumba is is something else in the works to try and free up space because other than that they just simply can't afford it. What exactly is going on in Dallas right now because we mentioned this on yesterday's show. I have big time main character energy there. It was, you know, Merrick wrote about it for you guys. Well, potentially cheating,

trading Jason Robertson. Kevin Weeks had that tweet of the American airline center with the big eyeball emoji. All these different outlets were what you mentioned, Jamie, Ben, like Tim Koleshov from the Dallas morning news wrote about, if you're going to bring back Ben, it shouldn't be as captain. It just felt like there's something going on there. Not to mention the Peter DeBoer drama with Jake O'Ranger and then in the aftermath, it just feels like there's a lot of unrest and a lot of uncertainty for one of the final four teams in the NHL this season, a conference finalist. Well, it's been one of the final four teams for each of the last three years, right?

Like they're a team that's been in the mix that has, you know, been very successful, has had opportunities and chances even going back to the bubble. Being a Stanley Cup final team has gotten really close. But here's the thing, when you get close and repeatedly fall short, I think it's also no different than in Toronto, which wasn't nearly as close. You ask questions. You begin to look at things a little bit differently. Do we have the right mix?

Is this the right coach? Should we change things up? That's part of what the Dallas Stars were sifting through yesterday. I understand that for the first time since those comments, I believe Jay Gottinger, Jim Nill and Pete DeBoer got together yesterday for a meeting. I don't know exactly how it went, but I think this was the beginning of unpacking what was a really disappointing finish. And there's zero question that Pete DeBoer runs hot.

I mean, to me, it wasn't even just the comments that he made about Ottinger and how he kind of doubled down on them and how he managed the situation. But it was also the commentary heading into the game itself, their final game of the season. In the morning skate, he said, coaches can't put the puck in the net. Like what an absolute indictment of the players on your team,

you telling everyone how much they're falling short. You could see how you coupled those two things together in the last 24 to 48 hours of their season, that there would be a lot of unrest or certainly some trust and credibility lost within that locker room that's going to have to have Jim Neal ask the question is this still the right guy to lead this team and oh by the way how come Pete DeBoer has had really good teams that never gotten over the hump I mean we asked that question about Paul

Maurice last year and so sometimes it only takes one to break through and you're viewed in an entirely different prism. But today, those are the questions that they're asking in Dallas. Frank, with all the aggressive teams and all the cap space out there, do you think it's possible that a guy like Mitch Marner sees his negotiating rights traded before July 1st? I do. But the only way I would likely see that happen is if there was something legitimate in there for the Toronto Maple Leafs that makes it worth their while.

And the only way you could probably get there is if they do a sign and then trade with the eight-year deal to make it worth that other teams while to go out and spend the capital to not just jump the market, but also be able to potentially a little bit suppress the AAV of the deal. Yeah. I just wonder, you know, there's, I'm thinking about the Canucks right now and Jim Rutherford

said at the end of season presser is like like if we have the cap space, then we'll try and be active in free agency. And I took that as they're going to do a lot of their moves before July 1st, because you know, when it comes to a player like Mitch Marner, if you're waiting until July 1st to find out if you get him, if you don't get him, that can sometimes put you in a pretty tough spot.

And I don't know if there's even as like a close to plan B, if your plan is to sign Mitch Marner. Do you know what I mean by that? Yes, I do. But you would have to think that that would be the first item, the first domino to fall because if not, nothing else works. Exactly.

What do you think about the idea of Marner to Vegas? I think that makes a ton of sense. I think they're a team that's always chased the shiny toy. I think that they were a team that had followed the Marner situation and Rancid and situation very closely. I think they're a team that has had a ton of playoff success

and is wondering if we drop Mitch Marner into this really competitive group. Do they just scoop him up and take him along for the ride and he finds a way to break through? And I think they also look at some of the other players on their roster and wonder if he's a great fit. So they don't have a ton of cap space that they never do, but I think they're one of those teams that might be willing to reshuffle the deck in order to make it happen. And by the way,

since you mentioned the Canucks and their offseason plans, I probably should mention that it did not go unnoticed in circles, league circles, yesterday. The general manager asking me specifically, hey, do you know why the Canucks didn't put Pedersen on that infographic that they sent out? He's the highest paid player on the team. So they're noticing that it certainly was a topic of conversation yesterday. Do you think the time spent between the Canucks playing their last game and now, or the next few weeks, does that give people a chance to be like, hmm, maybe we can turn them around?

Because when he's playing during the season and we talked about his performance at the Four Nations in front of the whole hockey world, which wasn't very good. You could probably sit there and go like, no, I don't want to add this guy to my team. But as you get into an off season, what I've noticed, and this is totally anecdotal, is there's a lot of fans from teams like, whether it's Buffalo or Philly going like, I want my

general manager to go out and get Elias Pedersen. And I'm wondering if that can happen sometimes to general managers as well. I don't know if they're reacting to some of that increased conversation. I think more so when you get to this time of the year and really it would have started in mid to late April as everyone else is still playing and you've got all this time to figure out what's

next way before the combine, before the world, before anything else. I think you have these long sort of brainstorm think tank sessions of, okay, obviously we're a ways away. We didn't make the playoffs. We've got a ton of work to do to figure it out. Let's just throw stuff against the wall. And I do think that that's part of those, the germination of those discussions then becomes,

well, what happens if we did pursue that? What would that look like? And a lot of the conversations, believe it or not, are really similar to the ones that we have on the air or ones that you'd have with your buddies sitting at the wood at a bar. That's what they do in these front offices. Like they will sit on a couch and literally on a whiteboard write down 50 names and try and figure out hey what makes sense? And is this a viable possibility? And that's how it kind of begins to come together.

And I think when you consider on the whole, a lot of different things that Pedersen brings, like I know that there's a few teams out there that think they can be the team that gets him back on track, get them out of Vancouver, get them to a potentially more quiet place, get him with our players and our staff and our training group, and we'll turn this guy around in half a season. So that was actually going to be my next question. What do people say about Peddersen, people outside of Vancouver? When you have a conversation with them, are they asking you questions like, what do you think

happened there? Because even in Vancouver, we're kind of like, what happened here? And we're still not 100% sure, although some people have some theories. Well, I think they see a guy who's beaten down. I think they see a guy who's beaten down. I think they see a guy who has had his confidence shaken who for his entire career up until the last 18 months, everything for the most part has probably come pretty easy to him because of his immense talent and gifts. And they see a guy who's been challenged and who has dealt with various

kind of tough situations whether it's been the ongoing spat with Miller whether it was the tendonitis that he claims set him back that the team believes didn't really whatever the situation he's the situation, he's hit a wall, he's hit a roadblock here and they think that there's that immense talent can come out again and show itself but that he's got to put in the work to do it and I don't I don't think it's fair to say that his work ethic has been questioned. But I do think it's fair that the Canucks have basically sent out signals questioning that that have left other teams wondering, does he have the wherewithal to actually do it?

We're speaking of Frank Saravalli from Daily Face Off here on the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. You know, Frank, there is reporting out there that it feels like more and more that there's maybe one guy who's gonna ultimately decide whether this thing comes to fruition or not, and that's Jim Rutherford. We were playing audio from earlier in the week where it was suggested that Rutherford was the one that pushed the extension over the line

for Elias Pedersen in Vancouver, and ultimately if he is to be dealt, he'll be the one that gives it the go-ahead. I'm curious to know if you're hearing the same sort of things with regards to whether Pettersson stays or goes, because ultimately the question is going to be answered in one of two ways. Do you trade away the problem or do you try and solve the problem internally? I'm just wondering if it ultimately comes down to the president of Hockey Ops to make

that decision. Of course it comes down to the president of Hockey Ops. Who else would it come down to? The general manager. Well, who did the general manager report to? That's a great question. I don't know. In the time that the two have been in Vancouver,

it is flip flop back and forth between who does the public speaking, who's the front and the facing part of the executive, who's doing what role? I can stop you right there. Don't confuse the public facing with what's happening behind the scenes. Okay clear it up for me. Without a shadow of a doubt Jim Rutherford is making all of the hockey operations decisions with input from Patrick Alveen and the staff. What did you hear about? Did you hear anything similar about Rutherford being the one who pushed the extension and the

way it was put by Elliot Freeman was that not everyone in the organization was so sure about it. I hadn't heard that and obviously not saying it's wrong. We all talk to different people, so depends where you get your information from. I hadn't heard that and obviously not saying it's wrong. We all talk to different people so it depends where you get your information from. I can only take you back to, and as the guy who broke the signing from the people that I was talking to at that moment in time, they were over the moon with how that worked out. They felt like the AAV that they got them at,

relative to all the things that we talked about in the very beginning of our conversation, the cap increasing, the way the deal was structured, they thought for sure it was gonna come in a lot higher than that, and they thought that they were in a great spot where they landed. And so I think everything that I had heard toward the end of it was that for all the consternation and the back and forth that had gone on in between that

when it was done and signed they felt like they were in a great place. I do want to ask one final thing about upcoming first round picks of the draft the Canucks obviously have them but it's not in that top five. And I know there's been some chatter recently with the Islanders holding at one and some other teams in that top five, I think specifically Utah, about teams potentially moving off of picks, either trying to trade down or trying to move the pick entirely to get help. Now, what are you hearing about the top of the board within that top five

teams potentially moving off of picks? I think for the first time in a long time, that's a very real possibility. And to be fair, like there have been other top five picks in recent years that have been offered, but some of them have been very specific based on that moment in time and how the board fell. This time around, I think there's a number of teams in that top five. I would look at Utah, I would look at Chicago,

I would even look at San Jose and say that they're in spots to do something interesting. They're wondering if they can get their hands on an older, more established player that can help them sooner. And it's not necessarily to speed up the process, but with where Utah is, they don't need another guy that's going to start impacting their team in three years. They want to make the playoffs now and they've got a really good team and they've got tons of picks and prospects. It's not to say they won't pick there.

It's just that they're open to the idea of doing something different. Frank, this was great man, lots of information to chew on today. Thanks a lot for doing this, we appreciate it. Enjoy game one of the Stanley Cup final, we'll do this again next week. Thanks guys, see ya. Yeah, thank you. That's Frank Ceravalli from Daily Faceoff here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.

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