Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 7/10/24

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Mike & guest host Josh Elliott-Wolfe look back at the previous day in sports, they talk Canada's Copa semis loss to Argentina, plus they chat a bit of Canucks with Thomas Drance, as they rank all the off-season moves the club has made thus far. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. And so Fernandez! 2-0 for Argentina. It gets away from Jansen, and the Giants win it. A wild pitch thrown by Richards. I lost socks no matter how you cut it up. Yeah, just...

Dead man! Dead man walking! Good morning Vancouver 601 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. It is Alfred and his brow for the Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. But it's not Alfred and Brough this morning.

It's not just me, lone by myself, old lonesome Alfred. Josh Elliott-Wolf is here for the Reindeer of the Week. Good morning, Josh. Good morning. Good morning, A-Dog. Good morning. And Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello.

Halford and Brougham in the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff. They can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program.

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powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. Ooh, heat card, read good. How you doing, Josh? I'm good. It's so early. It's very early.'s what you're waiting for. Ooh, HeCard. Read good. How you doing, Josh? I'm good. It's so early. It's very early. Josh had a couple friendly reminders

that he's on the Halford & Brough show this morning. One, me with my raspy voice having yelled at the television all last night during the Canada-Argentina match. And two, there's a 4.30 in the morning. Yeah. It's early. I don't set alarms that early. It is early. I also want to point out, I was going to save this for later in the show,

but let's lead with it. Josh is currently driving a Sportsnet 650 branded vehicle. It has every logo. And by every logo, I mean every logo on earth plastered all over the car. Every radio station, every business, every advertiser, you can barely see through the windshield. It's great watching you roll into the morning. I'm a driving

ad. And I have to park it in my apartment parking too and I'm just like, man, people have to think less of me right now. You look like a NASCAR driver, but more suburban and less racy. You get the coat too. I'm rolling in with all the ads on it. Okay, we got a big show ahead

on a Wednesday. Guest list starts 6.30. First-time guest on the program, John Arnold, CONCACAF writer. We're doing soccer heavy today, folks, by the way. There's your early 603 warning. CONCACAF writer, you've seen his work at ESPN, MLS, and The Guardian. He's going to join us to talk about Canada's 2-0 loss in the Copa America semifinal to Argentina last night. At 7 o'clock, Nico Kor is going to join the program. He, from CBS Sports, Galazo, he was on the call last night

for one of the Spanish language calls of the match, so we'll get his thoughts as well. Maybe more of an Argentinian lean from Nico. Talk about this team that took care of Canada last night, 2-0. 7.30, it's the Drancer, Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver. We'll talk to him about his latest piece on the Canucks offseason's move, a sort of retrospective to what happened now nine days ago at the start of free agency.

And then at 8 o'clock, he kind of boned us yesterday by not answering his phone because he was asleep. He said, I'll make up for it today. Dave Softy Muller from KJR Sports Radio. How's he sleeping again? That would be bad. You bumped him a half hour later. It was a 7.30 hit yesterday.

Yeah, it's going to be an 8 o'clock hit this morning with Softy. Give him a little reprieve. It'd be a good move, though. He's like, hey, you know what? I'm not going to answer. Yeah, big power move. I'll show you. The most unnecessary power move of all time.

Like, no, we understand the hierarchy. This is just rude. Yeah. Are you familiar with Softy? I don't think I've interviewed him before. Okay. He is an electric factory. He's got a lot of energy.

He's very, very animated, and he hates the annual invasion of Blue Jays fans in Seattle. Well, he's anti-Toronto in general. Right. And then it really hits its fever pitch when the Blue Jays play in Seattle. Josh, I don't know if you remember a little while ago, but there was a campaign, I guess, in a sense, from Orioles

fans to make Felix Batista, his name was the king. But then Softie was the one who got really angry about it because there can only be one king. I mean, fair enough. Which, of course, is Felix Fernandez in his eyes. So he was the guy that made all those headlines then. Okay. He's very passionate about Seattle sports.

We'll put it that way. So Softie at 8 o'clock, Thomas Trance at 7.30, Nico Cantor at 7 and 6.30, John Arnold as we get a lot of footy talking today. Without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened.

Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy

your life can be. What happened? You missed that? You missed that what 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 it was a valiant effort it was a solid performance but in the end it was simply not enough against the best team in the world.

Goals by Lionel Messi and Julian Alvarez lifted the best team in the world, Argentina, past Canada, 2-0 in the semifinal of the Copa America last night in front of 80-plus thousand at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. I'm curious to get your thoughts right away, Josh Elliott-Wolfe, because you're a huge soccer guy. No, everyone says that about me. You're hearing it more and more. What did you think?

You know what? I thought it was a valiant effort, and it was further than, and to be clear, I'm a casual soccer viewer. I lock in for the tournaments, but outside of that, I don't have my finger on the pulse, so to say. But my expectations, they exceeded them. And it's, I don't know. I guess there are aspects of it where it's frustrating

because you're like, man, you had some chances and you could have maybe done more throughout the tournament. But that being said, it would have been much more surprising had they beaten Argentina. Yes, and it was about what everyone expected, if we're going to be brutally honest. A 2-0 loss, as much as I hate, hate, hate chalking up moral victories,

I think we need to take a wide-length snapshot of what the Canadians were going up against. That's an Argentinian team that has two, count them, two losses in their last 62 competitive matches. They are the World Cup champions. They are the odds-on favorite to be the Copa America champions. Even though Lionel Messi is in the twilight of his career, he is still the greatest player to ever play the game. They shouldn't have been asking him for autographs mid-play, though. That was uncalled for.

Yeah, that really threw the game on him. Did he sign his ball? Did you see them at the end? Yeah. Ali Ahmed, actually, the Vancouver Whitecaps player, tried to get Messi's jersey in the post-match jersey swap, and Messi said, no, sorry, I've already promised it to another player, and that was Derek Cornelius.

Does that happen during the game? Cornelius is like, oh, man, I've got promised it to another player. And that was Derek Cornelius. Does that, like, happen during the game? Cornelius is like, oh, man, I've got to be quick. I'll talk to him now. I don't know if there was a sort of tap on the shoulder, nod with a few minutes left. Hopefully he didn't do it at the opening kickoff. He's like, good luck, by the way. Messi's like, the game's still on.

We're playing right now. Yeah, I mean. Is that a no? It's a practice that's there. And I'm not going to go too far down the road on that one because at a certain point, and for all the texters texting in, we will address the unseemly part of the game, because I know that there are a lot of casual observers last night.

Maybe some people that tuned in not just to the tournament for the first time, but to soccer for the first time and watched a lot of what happened last night and either left very confused or very disappointed or in some people's cases, very disgusted. So we will discuss that later later but i do want to get into brass tacks with the match itself what you saw last night was a canadian team that you know a lot of people were saying well they probably deserved at least a goal out of that match and i would be inclined to agree they had enough uh push and emphasis and desire to go forward a few half chances but the reality of it was they didn't have that little bit of class at the very end that little bit of extra

that the top teams in the world like argentina had argentina managed to capitalize on they didn't create a ton of chances through the first 60 minutes of the match but when they got them in the 22nd and then again late taking advantage of a clearance right up the middle, they pounced, they converted. It was in the back of the net. I want to play some audio here from Jesse Marsh. We'll first talk about the good, why he's proud of this group,

what they've accomplished. Tournament's not over yet for the Canadians. They will play in a third place match on Saturday in the soccer hotbed of Charlotte. They will be taking on the loser of the Uruguay-Columbia match. So here's Jesse Marsh talking about the tournament. Not quite over, but how proud he is of his group to have gotten to this point.

In general, what I said to the team afterwards is I know that they're very disappointed, but I'm very proud of them. You know, we've put together some incredible performances. You know, just starting our process, like I said, we need to find a way to expand our player pool. We need to continue to challenge our group to come together and be able to perform in moments like this. But in general, we've had a wonderful five weeks together, six weeks together, and it's gone way better than any of us could have scripted. So there's still a lot of work to do, but we've built a really good foundation,

and I'm really optimistic about what the future can look like. So there were a couple interesting takeaways from his media availability. I mean, he actually said, when he was talking about the depth of player pool, he felt that in the 18th minute of a 90 minute match, he could see his guys starting to lag and get tired. And that's why he's talking about the player pool, because he mentioned that Argentina, the incredible depth that they had coming off the bench, like Latara Martinez played with Inter this year in Italy. They won the Serie A title. Like, they've got incredible depth.

They can rotate through their squad, and they can be fresher in these moments. Canada, meanwhile, continues to trot a guy like Liam Miller off the bench to try and change the energy and everything. And that is the big difference between the elite nations in the world. It's everything. It's that little bit of extra finish in front of goal. It's that little bit of class in the final. It's everything. It's that little bit of extra finish in front of goal. It's that little bit of class in the final third to finish things. It's having players

you know, ABCD starting and then EFG and the rest of them being able to come on the bench and they don't really lose any quality. So how do they... I'm a soccer expert, but maybe you can explain it to me. How do they expand the player pool like you said?

Is it more of like, hey, these guys that can play for Canada are playing for other countries? Or is it, let's wait and see who develops and this might take a while? It's the latter, right? So they're going to need more players to quite honestly play in higher profile leagues than MLS. This is meant as no disrespect to MLS, which is a very fine domestic league, which has a lot of players playing in it, which play internationally.

But if you look at the upper tier, the upper crust teams in the world, they have their players playing in top five leagues. So that's England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, if you want to throw them in there. And it's slowly starting to happen. So like Moise Bombito, the center back that was playing, he's getting calls from European clubs now i would not be surprised if the maritime messy jacob schaffelberg starts getting some looks overseas as bombito and schaffelberg are great names too yes yeah i gotta say yeah you should sign them on their names alone right bombito like that's amazing um so it was but

at the same time um like when tajan buchanan broke his leg it a huge loss, not just because the players out for the remainder of the tournament, but all of a sudden it's like, well, he's a valued member. Even if he's coming in off the bench as a final 30 minute change of pace, energy guy, him gone. Then it's like,

well, now we have to bring in Liam Miller who plays in the championship in England or it's Ali Ahmed. And then you saw at the end of that match, like Matthew Schwannier got his first look of the entire tournament in the semifinals. So there's that to be considered. Marsh also acknowledged like their work in the final third just wasn't good

enough. It wasn't up to snuff. You need to be able to convert some of those chances. The header late was one that I think a lot of people were looking at. Like if that goes in suddenly the final five minutes plus added injury time become really more compelling. I want to play. Sorry.

I just want to play one more thing. This is Marsh's loan remarks about the refereeing and then sort of a more critical look at what his team didn't do. And this will jump off into what was a, another very tragic display of refereeing and also the theatrics that played out between Argentina and Canada last night. So here's Jesse Marsh. He gets this question in Spanish.

He answers very quickly in English about the refereeing and then goes on to talk about his Canadian side. Yeah, I'm not going to speak about the referee. And then, yeah, one of the things that we lacked, this, you called it a killer instinct. You could say this. But I think we just lacked efficiency in the final third, every match we created big chances. And if we could have been a little bit cleaner in some of these moments, then, then maybe we'd have a few more leads in

the tournament. And then even, even then, you know, if we can get a lead earlier and, uh, against Peru against Chile, we could, you know, we could put a few chances away, then maybe we can also save legs. But, you know, that part we'll have to continue to build. But there's so many positives about the last weeks. So the refereeing was, if you watch the entirety

of the tournament, last night's officiating was no worse than everything else that we saw through the other Canadian matches at the tournament it's all been bad yeah as a matter of fact I actually I'm and I know I'm probably gonna get skewered for this I actually thought the officiating last night was fine compared to some of the egregious egregious refereeing that Canada had uh particularly in the Venezuela match which I thought was the worst of the bunch and they managed to get through it

um Chile and Peru were kind of different animals because it was very difficult for the referee to officiate because there was fouls every two and a half, three minutes. It's very tough to call. But I thought last night there was a foul that was clearly missed in the lead up to the first, the Alvarez goal. I believe it was a foul in the back on Bombito. And it was clear as day. And you could see Marsh freaking out on the sidelines.

But to not speak about the officiating, but to jump off an attention. Now I'll ask you as a casual soccer observer, what goes through your head when you see the theatrics that dive in? Rodrigo DePaul getting a ball tapped into his back and rolling around. Rolling around like he was shot.

A lot of people are texting in and saying, how can you take this sport seriously when things like that happen with a regular occurrence i don't know for me i've never been one of the like i don't i don't watch soccer not because i'm like against all these theatrics and everything so i've always just been accustomed to this happening in soccer that being said it is frustrating i guess um and especially because it feels like and maybe it's biased but it feels like canada doesn't necessarily go as far with their theatrics because they don't as some of the other countries and when you see a guy get a ball to the back like we did yesterday

i thought it was fun more than anything but but it is frustrating i could see why it was an enjoyable romp as laddie calls it an enjoyable romp through the grass for him. Okay, so I mentioned this yesterday, and I'll mention it again today. There's a manager by the name of Marcelo Bielsi, manages the Uruguayan team. He had this very passionate rant the other day. He went on a five-minute uninterrupted rant on the current state of the game. And in it, he actually said that the game is becoming and i don't think it's now i

think this is a like i think it's evolved over the last few years that the game has become less enjoyable to watch because there's the constant search for the controversy the accusation and the determination of who is guilty and oftentimes there's such an emphasis on it that the players spend an inordinate amount of time trying to draw that out of a match. Do you get what I'm saying? They almost focus too much on trying to draw a yellow or red card out of the referee's pocket.

There's too much attention paid to trying to simulate in order to get a penalty or diving in order to have the referee make the rectangular shape with his fingers and go to VAR. And I under, and if one of the greatest managers in the sport is saying this about the sport, I have time for the casual observer that is saying it's hard to watch.

And it is hard to watch at times. I don't try and defend it. I don't try and like put a spin on it i love the sport and i love the theater and i love the way that the game is played in the life the interesting thing to me is that it's played so many different ways in so many different places that was south american football last night the good bad and otherwise all of it and i i appreciate parts of it and i don't appreciate other parts of it but i can see why someone that maybe had never watched a match before turned that on

and for example hockey guys are looking at that and like this is a joke that guy had a ball tapped into his back and he's rolling around like he's shot I get that complaint and I won't fight back against it I do hope that Canada emerges from this tournament

kind of what you were saying like they're the team that gets knocked down and quickly pops back up. Actually, Schaffelberg against Venezuela, that was him. Yeah. Like chopped in the legs, down, pops right back up,

and he's running at a thousand miles an hour again. Hammered in the back, down, pops back up and goes. If that becomes your identity, I think it's a really good thing, and I think it'll be really positive for the team moving forward. Not positive for teams moving forward.

The Toronto Blue Jays. We'll turn our attention to them now. Here is the audio from last night's loss, and I'm sitting here between, you're a relatively good Jays fan, are you not? And Laddie as well. They came in this morning, and both Josh Elliott-Wolf and Laddie were looking kind of sad,

and it probably had to do with the fact that it was a new low, maybe. Maybe for the Blue Jays last night in their loss to the San Francisco Giants. The rare walk-off wild pitch. Here's what it sounded like. Bottom of the night, Dan Shulman on the call for Sportsnet. Jays lose to the Giants 4-3 on a walk-off wild pitch. It gets away from Jansen and the Giants win it. A wild pitch thrown by Richards that caromed off of Jansen,

and San Francisco scores two in the bottom of the ninth to win it. Let me just get this out of the way first. Those are some of the ugliest uniforms I think I've ever seen an MLB team wear. Yeah, I didn't know who they were at first. I forgot that they were in San Francisco. And I was like, oh, they're playing the... I didn't know... Those are their City Connect jerseys?

Yeah, they're not great. The numbers are like half visible. Yeah. It's a weird gradient thing going on. But anyway, yeah, terrible finish. Terrible jerseys. I watched the last four innings of it, and it was great for the first few of it when Clement got them the lead.

And then, yeah, they didn't have Green available, who is the closer right now, because he threw 50 pitches in Seattle over the weekend. They had a day off in the middle, so I don't understand exactly why, but, hey, they went with Richards, and he's never had a save before, and it sure looked like it. He didn't get one last night. He almost had it, though, because there was a 1-2

count with the runner on first. It looked like he got strike three. It was right at the low part of the zone, but Jansen didn't really catch it cleanly. Didn't get the call. Then they drew a walk, and then there was the hit up the middle that he just touched with his glove. It was painful. It was the most excruciating way to lose a baseball game,

and it's nothing that we haven't seen before from this Blue Jays group. And I think that's the thing is they find ways, new ways to lose, fun and creative ways to lose. And it's even more frustrating because, like, you say Kikuchi, 13 strikeouts last night. Career high. He was amazing. And the offense, again, just can't get it going.

Bullpen hasn't been great. 13 strikeouts and zero walks. Zero walks. Which was the other big note. He was dialed. Even though I'm going to be off, not that I'm counting down the days, but there's only 16 left before I'm off. I am acutely aware of where this is going.

Because we talked to about three different Blue Jays insiders over the last week and all say the same thing, it's kind of shaping towards, well, let's just pack it up and start fresh in 2025. Maybe Schneider survives the year, even though you played the dead man walking clip earlier, maybe they don't make any fundamentally huge changes.

If that's the case, this is going to be a very painful summer from a coverage perspective. Because it is July 10th. And I'm talking to Josh and to Laddie. Two guys that follow the Jays pretty closely. And you guys, it just looks like mental fatigue with this team. Yeah, I'm just so... Honestly, like, I'm pretty checked out at this point.

It's July 10th. Yeah. But they're 41 and 50. They, like, they're... No signs of life. Yeah. No signs of life. The thing is, they're not even fun to watch either.

They're not scoring a lot. These aren't back and forth games. That's a good point. Oh, they found a way to win. That's how they've been getting wins. Expand on that because Shulman and Buck calling the Mariners series over the weekend were very complimentary of how good the entertainment was. But I was sitting there with Jamie Dodd watching, and I was like, I don't know if either of these teams

are actually really good ball teams. They don't play great baseball. They were close games. It was entertaining because the games were close, and Sundays went to 10. But I was looking at them like, it doesn't just seem like great baseball. It's not two powerhouses trading blows.

Yeah, and both the Mariners and the Jays are both pitching heavy teams, and they don't score a lot of runs. So naturally, you're going to have close games between them. And I do think there's a level of semi-excitement just every time the Jays are in Seattle. But I don't know. The Mariners do play, I don't even want to say differently,

but they just get better results, so it ends up being more fun, whereas the Jays just don't get the results. Okay. And before we go to break a rest in peace to an invaluable website for hockey nerds and summer radio hosts across North America, especially those that follow hockey Tuesday evening, the very popular website cap friendly went dark rest in went dark. Rest in peace, CapFriendly. For those that are completely unaware,

because I realize not all of you are that interested in what third and fourth liners are making annually for their salary, CapFriendly was, I repeat, was a website that specialized in the business of the National Hockey League. Contract information on players, coaches, database it was great it was a invaluable resource there are others that are out there we had the founder of puckpedia hart levine on the show a couple weeks ago that'll sort of be the next iteration of it but cap friendly was the go-to i'm sure you've used it countless times my go-to yeah during your

broadcasting career and it is now no longer, for those that missed it, it had been sold to the Washington Capitals, who left it up for a while before ultimately going dark and turning it off entirely. It's no longer Cap-friendly. It's Cap-sad? Unfriendly. Cap-unfriendly. There it is.

Cap-angry? The operators of Cap-friendly posted a message yesterday. So if we are ever airing now in our AAVs and term on contracts, know that it's because a very, very good tool was ripped away from us on July 9th. Rest in peace, CapFriendly. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Power rankings of who's under the most pressure on the Canucks.

Going into next season? Going into next season. That's a good one. I mean, do we just want to say non-Pettersson division? And go with the rest of them? Yeah, because I was going to say, number one is Elias Pettersson. Yeah. Yeah, so the rest of them.

The thing that is interesting to me about it is you kind of have, you have a few guys that are on new contracts like philip peronic dakota joshua you could put in there as well and then jake debrusk obviously a big one um you have guys like brock besser who are looking for contracts and then also a lot of career years last year yeah and pressure to repeat that um of the new guys i think it's pretty obvious it's debrask right of the the free agent signings he'll be under the most pressure it's a big ticket right it's a lot it's that's a lot of term the aav isn't necessarily bad you're not i'm blinking twice at it but uh he is going to come in with all the trappings of every significant free agent

that goes anywhere right uh you were a day one signing one big money july one free agent that goes anywhere, right? You were a day one, signing one, big money, July one free agent target. There's already designs about who you're going to play with. There's already designs about what your production is going to be like. There's going to be targets that fans are going to expect him to hit. I think it's probably going to be, you know, we want to see him score 30 goals,

which he has yet to do in his NHL career, I'll point out, although he's been on pace a couple of times. So that'd be my choice. Yours? I was going to say DeBrusque. I'll probably go Dakota Joshua as an alternate, just because you got the pay raise. And last year there was questions about the kind of shape he came into training camp with and then ultimately into the season with. And he figured it out. We all know how good the third line was, but I think there's going to be pressure on him to have a repeat of that performance

and almost be like a consistent 20-ish goal guy throughout the four years. If we talk about the traditional trappings of NHL players that we've seen on new contracts, Dakota Joshua is the one. You were great value on your previous contract. We liked that. We liked how much production you were giving us for minimal dollars.

Now you make more dollars. And this is a very easy way from going to a feel-good story to an onerous one. That is a risk. Incredible risk from the Canucks perspective because he's on the same team. If you go to another team, there is a sense. Incredible risk from the Canucks perspective because he's on the same team. If you go to another team, there is a sense of newness and you're going to be given a grace period because, well, he's given a chance to fit in.

He's got to find line mates. He's got to get comfortable. He's got to get used to the system. Joshua, everything remains the same for him. Probably his line mates as well. The only thing that changes, he's going to make a hell of a lot more money. And that, I mean, with jackals in the media

like us, that's always an issue. Yeah. If there's a lull at any point in the season, we're going to be on him. And I feel like fans are going to be on him. You like referring to yourself as a jackal, don't you? I mean, we... You use it quite often. We do it, especially in the

morning. And sometimes it's like tongue-in- in cheek, jackal them. But oftentimes, like especially bruv, like the cleavers come out with regularity. Oh, he's a jackal. Right. And part of it is leaning into the fan aspect of all of it. Like, I don't try to pretend like an actual reporter media member anymore. That dream is long gone.

I know that it's an embodiment of the fans, and the fans are very fickle in this market. And a lot of it is on a night-to-night, game-to-game reaction, which is totally illogical, but also part of the way that fandom exists, right? Those fickle jackals. Yeah. So like you're saying, they'll be a lull. I'm glad you take your jackaldom seriously.

Yeah. Really delve deep into it. Peak jackaldom. But when you're talking about the lull, right? There's going to be one this year. I mean, if there's one thing, like, for example, I thought last year in the playoffs, after busting out of the gates with that great game one against

Nashville, Joshua kind of went quiet. Yeah, and then he had a good game one again against Edmonton, and then he went quiet again. And the consistency is going to be part of that. Don't count out the PDO Kings, man. PDO go brrrr. What are you talking about?

Fair enough. It's going to happen. They're going to keep going. Going to play better than expected. And going to go further in the playoffs than they did last year. Hell, maybe even a Stanley Cup. Wow, you're really into this. What? Yeah.

I have no idea what you're talking about right now. So the PDO Kings. Mm-hmm. The Canucks had a high. So the PDO Kings. Mm-hmm. Like, the Canucks had a high PDO. Yes. PDO Kings. But that's a term that you've just come up with? No, it's been used on Twitter.

Yeah. I don't do... I don't dive into... We've been talking about the PDO all year. Yeah, I know, but I did not know that the PDO Kings... I was like, are you talking about the Los Angeles Kings? No, man. The Canucks, the PDO Kings.

See, Halford is not in with the Zoomer lingo like us young kids here. And the go brr means that it's just like, it keeps going. Yeah, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what go brr meant at all. What? Is he cold? No, it's like a car. Halford furiously go brr.

Yeah, I'm like, I think Andy's sick. Do you need a blanket? That's the blank look. The most boomer moment you've ever had. You know what? When we did this 20-year age gap,

I did not expect to fall into boomerdom so fast. But it's happening right in front of my eyes. And it wasn't even my fault. It was Andy. All right. Andy set you up for failure.

What we just have to call Thomas Drant's erotica. Thomas Grant's erotica. Corsi. Thomas Grant's erotica. Expect goals. Thomas Grant's erotica. Top model. Thomas Grant's erotica.

Run Russian. Thomas Grant's erotica. PDO. Thomas Grant's erotica. 731 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Josh Elliott-Wolf is in for the vacationing.

Jason Brough for the remainder of the week. How's it been going so far, Josh? I think it's been good. I think you've been great, personally. Halford & Brough go brr. That's all I've learned so far. I still don't know what that means. Apparently, I said it's been good. I think you've been great, personally. Halford and Brough go brr. That's all I've learned so far. I still don't know what that means. Apparently, I said it was a car.

I misinterpreted it as a car. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. You're responsible for all of these references on this show. I made a mistake. You can't screw it up. Okay, so the phrase is go brr. Yeah.

And it's in reference to what? It's a money counting machine. Like brr. Yeah. And it's in reference to what? It's a money counting machine. Like brr. Yeah. Or when you get really cold. I thought it was like an engine. Or when it keeps on going. That's what I thought.

If it's really cold outside, you go brr. Yeah, that too. These are just definitions of brr. Yeah. Now you're making this way more confusing. I literally thought it was just like a generic engine sound. So the phrase Andy used was- PDO go brr.

PDO Kings go brr. Yeah. It's a very Reddit thing, I will say. No, it was all over Twitter. It got over Twitter and everything. It became like a Canucks meme throughout the season as the PDO kept being a thing. So the Canucks- And we talked about it on the show countless times.

We have never said the phrase PDO Kings go brr. No, no, no. PDO specifically was mentioned. Yes. I wonder if Dance was about this. It's on you then to connect with your youthful audience and understand what go burr means. Tap into the audience. You have no aura, Mike Halford.

I used to know what it was, but now it is weird and scary. Okay. Thomas Drance is waiting patiently on the line. Let's take care of business. Halford and Brother of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking getting patiently on the line. Let's take care of business. Halford and Brother of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly,

knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour two of the program. Thomas Drance is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour two is brought to you

by Primetime Craft Beer, meticulously brewed for quality and taste. Primetime is full flavor without compromise. You can get some, get some at a liquor store near you. Or what is that? That is the most comically large water bottle I've ever seen.

I've never noticed that before. I'm a boy over here. What is that? Yo, put your water bottle on the screen. Okay, please go to watch.sportsnet.tv and look at Josh Elliott and his water bottle. I don't know what to tell you. You know when a team wins the Super Bowl and they dump the cooler of Gatorade on the winning coach? Josh is drinking out of it, but not out of the spout on the Gatorade container. It's like tipping the Gatorade container in your mouth.

Good God, man. Seriously, I'm going to post a video of this. I'm going to post a video of this. That water bottle is taking one quarter of his screen. You're going to get water poisoning if you drink all of that. The name emblazoned on the water bottle says Hydro Fest. How long does it take you to fill that up? Like 20 minutes?

It takes, if I'm filling it here, it's the whole commercial break. The name on the water bottle is Hydro Fest. And folks, let me tell you, it is a festival of hydration. Josh should do a bit where every day he comes back with a slightly larger water bottle. I don't think they get bigger than that. By Friday's show, it just takes up the entire screen. I was at the Nike store the other day. There was one bigger than this, and I was like, should I do it?

Was it a backpack? You feel a little jealous? Did it come with straps? I have never seen a water bottle that big before. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I felt a little self-conscious he saw the bigger one at the store. But also just casually taking a swig of this canteen. It's like something out of a cartoon.

Sorry. Okay, Dranz is on hold, of a cartoon. Sorry. Okay. Drance is on hold, by the way. Whatever. My apologies to the primetime craft beer people. If you can make a 64-ounce beer and put it in a similar jug of Josh's, I will gladly drink it. Primetime.

Get some today. Let's go to the phone lines now. Thomas Drance is joining us here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Drancer? Gentlemen, good morning. Good morning to you. Have you ever heard of the phrase, PDO Kings go brr? Yeah, it's, you know, K-Mad, Riot Survivor on Twitter,

had like the, it was like a Zamboni, and he kept adding to it over the course of the season, and that was the machine that went brr. Okay. He's in touch with the youths. Come on, Halford, get it together. Drance is more in touch than you. Half the words Drance just said, I don't even know what they are,

but I'm going to press on here. How you been, bud? I know you're on kind of like pseudo-semi-vacation here, so thanks for taking the time to do this. Yeah, no worries. Well, you know, I'm writing at the Athletics, so I'm not on vacation from the Athletics, but I am

off of Canucks Talk for the summer. So, yeah, it's a partial vacation. I'm just slowly recovering and starting to enjoy a little bit more mobility and a little bit more normalcy. So, yeah, things have been good.

The PDO go brr thing, though, does remind me of the old, like, Black Adder joke, right, which is, like, I'm thinking of a word that starts with brr, right, and the guy starts trying to guess it, and it turns out to be a motorbike, right, when you start it up. Well, that's what Andy thought it was. Yeah, we all thought it was a vehicular sound, but apparently we were all wrong, except for me, because i never had a thought of what it was in the first

place i was like this is too far beyond me um okay your piece you were too far gone yeah your piece your latest piece in the athletic the connects 2024 offseason moves where are they better where are they worse answer both of them let's start with the where are they better yeah uh so they're better on the wings they're better on the wings now interestingly the so effectively this is an annual exercise that i run through uh using dom decisions net net rating model and what i sort of do is build uh two rosters one that assumes that the canucks just returned literally every single unrestricted free agent that they had. So as if like the roster at the end of the season was frozen in time

and just returned and then compare it with the roster as it sits on paper, sort of on July 4th or whatever, July 5th, you know, to effectively measure not like is Vancouver better than they were entering last season, but how much better are they as a result of the off-season moves made and the decisions made by connect's management right and and sort of the output or one of the most interesting outputs is despite reallocating money uh or cap space from the third pair and the center ice position onto the wings, the net rating model does not consider Vancouver to be upgraded offensively.

It considers them to be upgraded defensively, right? Effectively, going from Zdorov, Cole on the third pair to Forbort and Deharney sort of modestly downgrades the club's offensive attack enough that the addition of DeBrusque, Heinen, and Sherwood, who are offensive upgrades, or, you know, more or less, I mean, the team does lose some offense with Lindholm moving on, but certainly Heinen's an offensive upgrade over Mikheyev, and Sherwood's an offensive upgrade over Lafferty. You know, effectively, it all comes out in the wash and the team's net rating is unchanged offensively in terms of their offseason moves. But defensively, because these wingers,

you know, are a big deal. And because the third pair defenders, both Deharnais and Forbert are seen as actually collectively defensive upgrades, like upgrades in terms of the club's defense, the team's modestly, very modestly improved defensively as a result of some of these off-season moves. So, you know, I think the main takeaway from that in terms of where are they better is that, yeah, this team managed to modestly improve itself as a result of

what they did this offseason, which is pretty impressive. Really, when you are sort of coming off of a season in which Pedersen's on a new deal that pays him $4 million more, right? Hronik's on a new deal that pays him four million more right uh heronix on a new deal that pays him four million more joshua's on a new deal that pays two and a half million more and so once you factor in allocating ten and a half million in raises to your own players uh to then be sort of dexterous enough to go into the offseason and pull off moves that the net rating model sees as improving the team, even just modestly.

That, to me, is the main takeaway. That's really good work, really difficult to do, and sort of positions the Canucks pretty well to be one of the top teams in the Pacific Division again. That's what I was going to ask. For any team, how difficult or, I guess, how impressive is it that the Canucks were able to, especially with the roster turnover, not only maintain the level of talent, which I think probably would have been relatively impressive in and of itself,

but to, in fact, potentially build upon it like the Canucks did? Yeah, I mean, it's massive, especially because, you know, all of these model, these like projection models, you know, Jay Fresh had one that he published the other day that projected the Canucks for 110 points, right? The net rating model and granted, we'll see sort of what it looks like once ice time adjustments happen. Because that's a big part of Dom's exercise, right? Like we're effectively using like the development camp model we're not even in training camp mode yet um so so things will change but the net rating model also has the canucks as one of the top teams in the league

um and and while that could change they'll probably remain top 10 and and so a big part of this too isn't just that they maintained it's that most other teams didn't right um and that most other teams like just look around the pacific division you know uh whether it's mark stone or alex piatrangelo or some of the older vegas players whether it's copetar and dowdy from los angeles whether it's a guy like Ekholm in Edmonton, you know, most of these other teams have at least a key contributor or two who are old enough that these models look at them and say, hey, at their age, they're probably not going to be able to contribute as much as they did last season. Let's downgrade their rating. Andcouver you know not only were they able to more or less improve but they have a prime age core right yeah hughes is 24 turning 25 in october

right peterson's 25 turning 26 in the fall uh you know jt miller's the only guy you know on the other side of 30 among vancouver of seven, six most important players. And he's still early enough in his thirties that the model still projects elite performance and isn't looking for an imminent fall off. So when you look at sort of relative strength, right, all of these projection models are going to be pretty high on Vancouver, not just because of their off season moves, but also because relative to the rest of the league, relative to the rest of their offseason moves, but also because relative to the rest

of the league, relative to the rest of their divisional opponents, they have a prime age core, which should buoy them, which should strengthen their relative position across other NHL teams, because where these models see sort of signs of decline from some of the other core groups in the West and in the Pacific, that's absent in Vancouver's case in a positive way. So offensive rating stays the same, defensive rating goes up. Is every game just going to be 2-1 this year? What do you think of their offensive upside? Yeah, well, and that's sort of one of the main takeaways right is like you know i i buy i bought all season vancouver's defensive game right that that i think is legitimately robust

i think the way that they play systematically the even the way that they possess the puck right like even the way vancouver holds the puck in the offensive zone feels like it's in service of preventing rush chances in service of effectively doing the old sadine thing uh and leveraging like quinn hughes's puck dominance to sort of prevent goals uh with as opposed to and yeah they score them too but um as opposed to sort of driving scoring chances and creating quality looks. You see that with how conservative and disciplined Vancouver is about sort of avoiding like home run passes, right? The way that they're comfortable playing the puck up high as opposed to trying to force low percentage passes

into higher danger scoring areas. I mean, that's a trademark of how Rick Talkett's team played last year. And I think it's a key reason why Vancouver was able to limit goals against to such a, to such an extent. Now, this team led the league in shooting percentage last year, right? And it was, you know, by a fair bit, like 10.7. We don't really see teams sustain that level of conversion efficiency. We sometimes see a team like Boston, the Boston Bruins did a year over year in 2022, 23.

And then again, last season or the, or the St. Louis blues, the prior collective seasons, like we occasionally see a team sustain an elevated shooting clip, but 10.7 a percent that that's very very rare and and in fact while the Canucks finished the year with the highest shooting efficiency five on five in the

league um you know if you divide it at the all-star break right they were uh 11.8 percent beforehand which is ridiculous in the first 50 games of the year and it was a major reason why they amassed this 33 11 and 5 record obviously in combination with Thatcher Demko's excellence and Vancouver's sort of emergence as this elite defensive side um and in the second half of the year, from sort of the all-star break on, they were shooting 8.8%, right? And guess what? The record, 17, 12, and 4. So we saw this team hit some regression in season last year,

and not just some regression, like a significant amount of it, right? 3% off of their shooting clip in the first 50 versus the last 33, sort of continuing through that national series and then obviously they were able to get hot again as as a shooting team uh mostly mostly in chasing stuart skinner before it cooled off in games six and seven so against the oilers so you know the fact that this team's not improved structurally from an offensive standpoint to me is actually something of a concern. Not like a capital C concern, but just something to watch for. Because it's going to be very difficult regardless of like this team could have improved significantly offensively.

And it's going to still be pretty difficult to score as many goals as they did last year so much so much went their way uh their percentages were so high in a way that's you know very unlikely to be sustained that this team could have improved offensively and still taken a massive step back from you know the seventh most prolific goal scoring team in the nhl right like it's going to be pretty hard to be average even unless they find a way to generate, you know, a far higher volume of quality looks, rush chances, some of those things that Rick Tocant himself

has openly talked about looking at. So I think that's sort of one of the key conclusions from this piece of analysis in general, which is this team probably did modestly improve, and yet with everything that went well for them last season, right, all the health that they enjoyed, the bounces in their favor at both ends of the rink, you know, they can be better

and still not be a 109-point team or a 50-win team or a Pacific Division winner, right? Like, they're already at a level where their results last season were at such a high ebb that even if they've managed to improve and even if they've managed to strengthen relative to the rest of the league, they can be materially better and still not get such dizzying results next season it is how for the rough on sports net 650 joined by thomas trance of the athletics so with all of that it kind of stands to reason that the canucks may have to find ways to create more offensively this season but

how do they i guess like what's the best version of this team? Like, how do they balance finding ways to create more offensively with leaning into the defensive style they seem to want to play and with all the pickups they made in free agency seem to want to continue to play moving forward? You know, it's going to be interesting. I think the, like, I do think upgrading their ability to generate or or move the puck effectively like i think a lot of it's going to be about what they're able to do on the back end in terms of generating scoring chances because i look up and down their forward

ranks and it's like jake debrusk is a pretty good bet to give you 25 to 30 goals right Brock Besser is a very good bet to give you 30 JT Miller is a good bet to give you 30 maybe more right Pedersen likewise um you know like Hoaglander and Dakota Joshua benefited from significant conversion efficiency but I buy that first of all Hoaglander's really skilled and can at least give you 10 to 15. And Joshua, I think, can sustain a pretty high shooting clip because he's just shooting from high danger areas with ruthless discipline. And then I see Garland as a guy who should be able to give you 15 to 20

and maybe more if the percentage has sort of been in his favor for once. So, you know, I go through that list and it's like, there's a fair bit of offensive talent that this team has up front. But what they sort of, the way that they play, right, the way that they prioritize sort of zone time, second stick opportunities, shooting from the point. You know, the way that they move the puck when Quinn Hughes and Philip Hronik aren't on the ice,

and they were hugely dependent on Hughes and Hronik to generate looks, especially once they caught up to sort of like high-end two-way teams in the postseason, right? I mean, his team was generating like 16 goals or 16 shots on goal an hour in the playoffs without Hughes and Hronik on the ice, which is like nothing, like literally nothing. So when you sort of put all that together,

I do think the main way that they need or the main adjustment that they can make to generate more offense would be potentially splitting Hughes and Hronik so that they have more puck moving in more minutes or upgrading their defense, upgrading the skill level of their defense so that they have sort of more get up and go, more puck moving ability from the back end, more shot creators or players that can at least contribute to shot creation from the back end. Because when you sort of factor in everything and the way Vancouver played,

it just felt like they were terrified to give up rush chances, given the sort of speed and composition of their back end. And likewise, sort of, you know of avoided that possibility by holding the puck the way they did and being extremely conservative with puck management decisions the way they were throughout last season. Drancer, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

We appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week. We'll do this again soon. Cheers, boys. Thanks. Thanks. Thomas Drance from The Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk right here on Sportsnet 650.

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