Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best of Halford and Brough 7/3/26

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they preview tomorrow's Round of 16 matchup between Canada and Morocco in the World Cup, plus the boys get a 'Nucks update from Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. For these games, you don't really need to help yourself up too much because the occasion kind of takes care of itself. Absolutely, there's an opportunity to shock the world here. I'm just so happy Ronaldo still in. We're going to make it for Ronaldo. This is where Ronaldo.

We're not saying we're doing everything right. That's impossible to do. We'll try it. but we're also human. I myself was once president of Algeria. Good morning, Vancouver, 601 on a Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. Sweet, sweet Friday.

It is Halford, it is Brough. It is SportsNet 650. We are coming live from the Kintech Studios in beautiful Mount Pleasant in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adah, good morning to you. Good morning.

Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. We forgot the weekend drop in there. Ladies and gentlemen. The weekend. We'll get it later. Halford and Brub in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates.

All their clients. say, I wish I'd called them sooner. If you're ready to be debt-free, why wait? Visit them today at sands dash trustee.com. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to 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're coming to you live from the Kintech Studio. Step Strong with Orthotics and Footwear from Kintech. If you want to text into the show, hey, it's Friday. It's Ask us anything Friday. The Dunbar Lumber text line is 650, 650, trusted by contractors and DIY champions across Metro Vancouver for generations. Find them at three convenient locations or visit Dunbar Lumber online today. It was the holiday. That's what messed me up.

Yeah, right. I forgot it was Friday. Yeah, I understand. It's okay, Greg. Too many holidays, you know? It's okay. I took two of them last week. Let's get into the Duick Morning Drive.

It's our morning guest list brought to by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 7 o'clock this morning, so that means the first hour, all uninterrupted Halbro. AJ's going to join us at 7. A reminder, it is Friday. Jason mentioned it's Ask Us Anything Friday. We are giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's pizza on East. Broadway for the best to Ask Us Anything.

After AJ at 705, Gareth Wheeler's going to join the program. One soccer analyst. Canada kicks off the round of 16 at the World Cup tomorrow. 10 a.m. Our time. Massive match against Morocco. We'll set it up with Gareth at 705, as I mentioned, right after AJ. in the second hour of the program. At 7.30, Jack Lang is going to join the program.

He's a football writer from the athletic. He's got a feature piece up right now titled, next up for England, the Estadio Azteca, where Mexico look invincible. With all due respect to Canada and Morocco, England, Mexico is by far the match of the weekend, kicking off at 5 o'clock our time on Sunday night. It has got all the pomp and circumstance

that you can get out of a round of, 16 match. Jack is going to join us at 7.30 to preview it. 8 o'clock Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk. It's been a busy week for the Canucks on both the free agent and trade fronts. What's still left to do? We'll dive into all that with Drance at 8 o'clock. Finally, another reminder. It is Ask Us Anything Friday.

We have lots of opportunities to get to them today. So get them in. Hashtag AUA. Put a pizza emoji in your text to be entered into the grand prize contest. Best Ask Us Anything wins a $100. gift card to AJ's pizza on East Broadway. Big show ahead. Lots to get into. Without further ado, Laddie, to tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

What happened? I missed all the action because I was. We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Missed it? You missed that? What happened is brought to you by ATS traffic. Start a career path in traffic safety. Receive competitive wages and training at one of Canada's best managed companies. Visit them online at aTS traffic dot ca we're going all World Cup the first half hour of this program

where do you want to begin with Canada Morocco and maybe I'll do a little interview of you and you can act like the soccer expert that you are let's start with what are Canada's chances

realistically of winning this game well they're slim Jason real slim so we're 12 we're 13 matches through the round of 32, 16 matches in total, right? Of the 13, I'd say there's only been one true bona fide stunner of an upset,

and that was Paraguay over Germany. The rest have gone according to form. I don't anticipate anything huge is going to happen today with all due respect to Cabo Verde. I do not see them getting through against Argentina. So, statistically speaking, 12 of the 13 have pretty much gone according to the odds makers

form. You put Canada beating Morocco in the category of a massive upset. So the odds are slim. But the odds aren't the same as Argentina, Capo Verde. No, but they might be the same or close to Paraguay beating Germany. I'd put it in that realm. What if Canada's the next

Paraguay? Well, that kind of leads me into the next question here, which is what's Canada's best hope of winning? And I went, I did a bit of a deep dive, if you will, on that Paraguay, Germany match. A couple things stood out. Now, one, Paraguay plays a very defensive shape. They play a four or five. one. So that's four of the back with five midfielders, as opposed to what Marsh was talking about going to in the second half of the Switzerland match, which I guess would have been a five, four,

one or a five three, two. Whatever the case, you basically got two blocks, and equating nine players, a five and a four, four and a five. Paraguays played it throughout qualifying and everything. They only played with a lone striker. And they made themselves very tough to break down with, they call it breaking lines, the passes that go from the top sort of vertically through. And they forced the Germans to the outside. The Germans launched 32 crosses in the match against Paraguay. One of them was successful, the Kaya Havort's goal. Outside of that, Paraguay did a great job of packing the middle, allowing possession.

I think Germany ended with a possession. Yeah. The percent possession in it. And dealing with the crosses. It kind of took a yeoman's effort to constantly clear and not have clearances up the middle, you know, not have the keeper drop any of them, all that kind of stuff. Does Canada have the ability to do that? Yes.

Short answer, yes. But it is incredibly taxing on the group to do it again and again and again. And do they want to play that way? Well, that's a great question. Because there's the want and then there's the sort of pragmatic side of it, which is, do you want to give yourself the best shot at advancing? Because normally we're used to, if Canada is overtaxing itself anywhere, it would be pressing.

Yes, that's correct. Right? So which you can think of, I don't know, for hockey people, forechecking. Forechecking is pretty accurate. So pressing, forechecking, I was actually like, it's pretty funny when the boy was playing soccer. There was a couple coaches that were clearly Canadian coaches. It was like, you got a forecheck guys. I'm like, we call it pressing.

Please don't call it for check. And it stops, rims, yeah, it doesn't work. That if it works. You can kind of. say like the low block in soccer, however you want to terminate it or whatever. Well, it doesn't have to be that. It's just you have a sort of commitment to defending.

Yes. And then when you get the ball, you're trying to possess for a little bit longer stretches as opposed to really trying to hit someone on the counter. Right. You know, you're, or you don't want to just ice it. Don't ice it.

I mean, if it's late in the match, ice if you're up one. But now it's interesting. I don't know how much of Portugal and Croatia you watch. yesterday. Watch a bit of it. So the first half, because it's funny, that match, we'll talk about it later, that match will go down is one of the most entertaining matches of the World Cup. Well, the second half at least.

But the first half was very crafty. And there were oftentimes where Portugal would defend, or sorry, Croatia would defend, defend, defend, and then when they got the ball and they possessed, they didn't go racing forward to try and counterattack with pace. Yeah. They methodically moved forward, but were content to relieve what pressure Portugal was having while an attack, if that makes any sense. It was like an attack to kind of take the, take Portugal's foot off the gasoline.

Well, and let everyone get a breath too. Yeah, and it's an older. Sure. And it's an older side. And so there was a caginess to it that I appreciated in the first half. So is there a chance that Morocco overlooks us? Is there a chance that Morocco is tired after their match to get to this point? The overlooking thing, I think, is interesting because I think, sometimes that that can very much happen.

Sure. And what it might result in is an early goal. Like let's go back to, I don't know, what's the England Congo, right? Yep, yep, yep. I don't know if England was ready to play in that game. Like, I really don't. And then Congo scores. It's like all of a sudden, you know, you're like, oh.

now I don't know what the odds maker said about the second half like when Morocco or when Congo went up one nil I would assume that England was still the favorite in the sports books yeah but as the game wore on it was kind of like all right you get to the 70th minute or whatever you're like now we're starting to get worried I wonder if Canada striking quickly first would be good I don't it I don't even necessarily know if it needs to be quickly scoring first is such a big thing. Yeah, I just, I'm trying to, I'm trying to imagine a scenario where Canada wins this. So, the traditional scenario would be like, they hold it nil, nil, and get to penalties and win it, right?

Like, that would be, that's what South Africa's plan was against Canada. Well, right. And, like, Germany lost on penalties. Right, but Paraguay scored early. Right. But, you know, the point is you get it to penalties. That's oftentimes what the underdogs want it. and then it's a coin toss in penalties.

But I do wonder if there's a way for Canada to just get on top of Morocco and just kind of punch them in the face. Okay, well, there's one... Or do you not do that? Okay, well, there's one thing that we have to be abundantly clear about. And I'll paraphrase what Jesse Marsh was saying during his pre-match day media availability. He's like, you don't play a match with one particular style. you change things up and there's an evolution of a match where

sometimes you press in a 4-2-3-1 and then sometimes you lay off in a 4-4-2 and sometimes you revert to a low block and the tactics in the formations can change quite dramatically when you're at this level and you've got this quality of player you can really do a lot of different things

within the match especially with the hydration breaks and everything Oh right the hydration bricks are a huge factor in this aren't they? So I don't know how many people have been paying attention to Switzerland even though they basically called Vancouver Home for the last 10 days. The Swiss, if you've watched their matches, they've almost figured like unlocked the key to the four

quarters thing because they come out of breaks with a real focus and if you look, they scored out of the hydration break against Bosnia. They scored out of the second half against Canada and yesterday they scored a minute out of the second half break against Algeria. And

the manager, Yakin, has said, I've really kind of re-evaluated what we do tactically, how we do our substitution patterns, to be based around coming out of these breaks with a real, you know, what a freaking boost. But they either with subs or with the style. What a freaking boost. Thank you. With the game plan they want to implement. It's very interesting in that regard.

And the good, honestly, the good managers at this tournament have figured that part out. How can you turn this into an advantage basically playing four quarters? Who are you most worried? about in this because for Canada for Canada to win this game they're almost going to have to play a perfect game okay there's a

like you know I mean Canada beat South Africa because the South African defender made a mistake yep right it was not a good clearance and Stacchio was able to get on it and hit it and score you know we've seen some

mistakes from this Canadian team you mentioned that Switzerland game I mean the first goal conceded by Canada was a comedy of errors. So who do you, who do you worry about? Who might Jesse Marsh worry about? Well, okay, just further to your point, too, on that. The goal that Canada scored the Eustachial goal, you mentioned it was a bad clearance. You know what happened there was it was a cross from Shaffelberg that was fairly

innocuous. And after 91 minutes of tremendous and stout defending, there was that one cross that South Africa just dealt with poorly. That's the danger of playing the style where you're relying on clear, clear, clear, is that eventually something might slip up. You shank one or whatever. And you know what? Truth be told, the only thing you did wrong with the clearance was put it up the middle.

Yeah. You know, if you had managed to clear it to the sides or wrap his foot through it and just clear it long. But it just that moment of, and I know it sounds really cliche, but you lose your focus for a second because you've been dealing with crosses all day. So in light of that, the centerback, whatever center. pairing Marsh goes with assuming he doesn't go with five at the back to start and I don't think he will

I think it's good I think it's going to be Bombito and Cornelius those two for me and Cornelius was part of the confusion in that Swiss gold so you can't have mistakes like that the Moroccan attack especially they're attacking midfielders they're going to have

the pace the technical ability and the savvy to pounce on those kind of opportunities and finish you can't I mean I know this is going to sound dumb, but you can't give Morocco any freebies in this match. And I'll be honest, the second goal against Swiss, which ended up being the backbreaker, that was a freebie. That was a mistake at the back by Cornelius, a poor cover afterwards by the two centerbacks.

And then if you want to talk about the one goal that Max Craypole wants back for this entire tournament, it was the second goal against the Swiss, which ultimately stood as the match winner for them. It was not a good goal on him. You know, it's a save that he has to make. That's two or three mistakes in one sequence of play that kept Canada from winning the match, winning the group, and force them on the road and through this path. So those are the stakes involved with one mistake.

Against Morocco, you just can't afford to do it. Now, that's a tall order when you think about it. For a guy in Cornelius who's been up and down, I thought he was very good against South Africa, despite missing that wide open hunter to score. His match rating was high. Bombito, I guess he's good to go. I guess he's healthy.

I mean, I have my doubts that he's still 100% match fit in terms of shaking off all the rust, given how long he's been out for. But this is probably the best you're going to get him in this stage. You just got to hope that he's not, all of the reflexes, the timing, the arials, all of it is sharp. Because one error at the back, and if it's in the back of the net, the worst thing Canada can do here is go behind early and have to chase a match against Morocco because they're also very stout defenders. Okay. So we can continue the conversation on Canada with Gareth Wheeler at 7.05. A lot of people texting into the show right now talking about Portugal and Croatia

and the decision to disallow Croatia's late tying goal on an offside review of our decision that when it gets explained, you understand the explanation. Some people just don't agree with how that decision was made. Right. I mean, it's going to be hard to break down on the radio without visuals because it's a little difficult to explain. But the Cole's notes version are that on the Croatian equalizer in the 103rd minute, by the way, and that was 13 minutes of added time. And that would have been a massive story had the goal stood,

that 10 minutes were recorded on the electronic board is added. And the ref went all the way to 13. There was a touch from one of the Croatian attackers, a flick on with the head. the most narrow and slimmest of touches that I will be honest, the naked eye of VAR didn't exist would never have been picked up. It wouldn't have. But that header flick on changed the entire sequence of events that followed because after the Croatian flick on,

the ball hit a Portuguese defender's head. Now, the ruling on the field, and I think it's the right one, but I'm sure some Croatian listeners, our vast Croatian listenership will disagree. the ball that hit the Portugal defender's head was deemed to be accidental or unintentional. Yeah. That he wasn't playing the ball. For the record, that necessarily wasn't the ruling on the field.

It was the ruling with VAR. And added to this was a chip inside of the Trianda ball, which gauges touches. So that, you know, properly confirmed that it did go off the head of the Croatian defender and then also went up the head, or sorry, the Croatian attacker and then the Portugal defender. whatever the case it is and it's funny that you asked this at the beginning of the tournament because we were talking about almost everything else in the preview

except for VAR and you said are we going to get a World Cup moment where VAR plays this integral role and we got it yesterday that is because it had been relatively quiet that was the biggest VAR decision in World Cup history yeah to this point

and I know you can stack some other ones up there but the drama the theater what it took took off the board and quite frankly what it took away from the neutrals, the football events who wanted to see that go to extra time. And here's a thing. If the goal stands, it is one of the most improbable and one of the most controversial

equalizers in World Cup history. Can we talk just for a second about how the referee makes the decision to call full time? Because, you know, it's tough for a lot of fans. because they see, you know, 10 minutes has been added or whatever. And then you're like, okay, get to 10. And sometimes things happen within that 10 minutes, and you're kind of like, all right, you know, we'll add a little bit more. Yep.

How did that referee allow that match to go on so long that Croatia was able to score? And I thought that was pretty criminal. And how do we accept? How do we accept that? It's just like, yeah, he's got it in his head. head or whatever how much time he wants. Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of people see 10 and they're like, okay, so at

100 minutes, 90 plus 10, this thing should be over. Done and dust it, blow your whistle. There are moments within the extra time where you've added extra time onto the extra time. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud. But he's got to be just doing calculations in his head. Like, he's not going to a notebook or anything

like that. He's talking to the fourth official. I mean, you've seen the headsets and they have and everything. So there is communication going back and forth. Yeah, he's like, should we just let this go? He was like, I kind of like to see if Croatia can do this. Should we give them a more look at it? Just one quick one? And so there's a conversation happening.

This isn't a lone wolf scenario. But I mean, the, they've, look, FIFA has gone and bent over backwards to pick up the pace of play and to limit the amount of, I call it another word,

but crapphausory, that prevents the game from being played, right? Guys taking too long to get throw-ins, guys taking too long to get goal kicks, guys going down to tie their boots, when there's a free kick. Guys feigning injury.

Yeah. Although they've cracked down on that. Well, so I'm saying, in FIFA's defense, they've acknowledged that the casual fan hates this. Right. And they're trying to make amends for it at the end. And here's the thing. No one's complaining about the theater of yesterday.

Everyone's complaining about the outcomes, but no one is saying, I wish that we didn't get to experience all of it. Now, the Croatian fans are saying, I wish we did, the goal stood without question. But you understand what I'm saying here, right, dear listeners? Well, I think the theater and drama of it, you're never going to replicate that. And a lot of that has to do with the human element of a singular referee,

seemingly deciding whenever the game ends on his, you know, decision. And the agony and ecstasy of a goal being scored, everyone with beta breath waiting for a review, and then it being chalked off. Tony Texan, in an era of pitch clocks and var, how are we still dealing with an arbitrary timing in a World Cup match? Isn't it great, Tony? Isn't it great? It doesn't make any sense.

And it's almost like, and people, people will say, well, that's, that's soccer. Like, we don't do that in North America. I don't know, man. First downs in NFL are still pretty random sometimes. But they've made a lot of adjustments to try and correct it for sure. They have. I think that there is some nod here. And I have this is just my chip technology in the ball eventually.

This is just my, but just my opinion with this. I think that it's almost as if the game wants to have some human element left in it. Yeah. And that is what the extra time is. Now, I'm added time. Sorry. Keith the water guy points out, though. There was no reason to add three minutes to the 10th.

That is 100% spot on. I was. Well, Sean Texanis said Portugal scored in the 94th minute and their celebration was over 140 seconds. There is your extra three minutes. Yeah. I saw this argument made as well. I didn't buy it as such. I saw the goal being scored.

I thought the celebration was well within the realm of what I've seen in other World Cups. And I thought that, now, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like, don't get me wrong. The referee had reasons for adding the three. I thought that 10 was more than adequate. And I thought that maybe, maybe an extra minute on top of the 10 would have sufficed. But to add three felt like an awfully long time. Anyway, there's another text that came in.

How does a microchip sensing the most minute of touches qualify as the ref making a clear and obvious error when even in super slow motion you can't see the trajectory of the ball changing due to the Croatian header? Has clear and obvious error just been thrown out the window now?

Well, no, because it touched his head. Like that touch by the Croatian attacker was what made it offside. But the rules are, okay, we're going to go way down the road here because they have changed what clear and obvious specifically refers to here.

So it's goals, penalties, direct red cards, and mistaken identity. Okay. Right? So in instances like that, I think they defer to chip technology. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's how it's working. I've seen that before in cricket when they're trying to determine whether the ball hit the bat. And I think they have sensors in the cricket bat. And it was very reminiscent of what I saw last night. Because I thought when I originally saw it, I was like, oh, that's, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, this is great. You know, people are actually asking legitimate questions. Tony writes back so you can't stop the clock. That's correct, Tony. The clock never technically stops. Unstoppable. As soon as the referee blows for the start of the half, the clock runs. Yeah.

That's just one of the unique natures of the sport. Have they ever, ever seriously considered? going to just a clock like we use in, I don't know, every game now. Have you ever seen NCAA soccer? I have, actually. Yes, they do that. NCAA soccer runs from four, starts at 45 and runs down. Okay.

And there's, it's all on the referee to decide when the ball goes out of bounds, what considers a stoppage and then when it lets the clock run. So if you, if the ball goes out and you pick up a throw in right away and you whip it in, they don't stop the clock. Okay. If a guy boots the ball 10,000 feet into the stands, the referee will, there's a hand gesture and he'll signal it and he'll stop the clock. What else is crazy is that at the end of NCAA soccer matches,

they do a countdown for the final 10 seconds. So you go 10, 9, so there's no added time. Right. The moment that it hits zero and there's like a horn or buzzer that goes off, the match is over. And it is wild to watch because you're like, this is not right at all. Right.

It's got like the very North American like here. The buzzer beater, you got to score before the big horn goes up. call from the ref here what are we doing listen i i i have there's a little bit of a traditionalist in me and i and i and i'm certainly not the one that's going to be able to talk the most about soccer but like to me that is the whole the whole notion of nobody in the stadium knowing when this game is over like when we were at uh was it the lafc game where the white caps were desperately trying to hold on maybe it was another game i was l i was like i was like i was like blow the whistle.

Like the game is over. The game is clearly over. And that's actually, that's why I lost my voice. The following day, it wasn't cheering on the caps. It was yelling at the referee to blow the whistle.

And it just seems like, it seems wrong. Like everyone in the stadium should know when the game is over. But you, but here's the thing. Including the players. Counterpoint.

I feel like that's very important. But you were so emotionally involved and not knowing that you blew your voice out. at a game that you probably wouldn't have otherwise. Okay, I understand, but like... Hey, I'm just saying... You can make people emotional in all sorts of situations. They're not all moral.

It also gave us 26 minutes of content at the start of a show where people are genuinely interested in that... Look, although Andrew and Victoria is like, blow the whistle on the segment, I hate soccer. He's definitely not listening right now. He tuned out right away. Okay, first half hour of the programs in the books, we got a lot more to get into on the show.

A lot of NHL news. We can get back into some of the World Cup stuff. We can look at today's matches. We can look back on whatever else happened yesterday. We can also look ahead to the weekend. At 7 o'clock, we've got AJ and then Gareth Wheeler's going to join us for a Canada Maraca preview. 730, Jack Lang is going to join us from the athletic to talk about the challenge that awaits England at Esteka and Mexico on Sunday. This is going to be a very soccer-heavy show, but we are right in the best part of the tournament right now. I know the finals and semifinals are going to be great, but this round of 32, the first

knockout stages where you get three matches every day and some of these great matchups on the horizon. What a wonderful time for the World Cup. Is the round of 32 like the initial playoffs where the first round is always the best round? Well, this is the first time they've ever had a round of 32. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. So we're finding it out in real time. You know what, though, A dog, I will say not as many upsets so far as I kind of hoped for. There's only been the real big one, Paraguay beating Germany. But, you know, I'm hopeful that maybe we'll see something today. Maybe tiny Cape Verde will be able to do it. against Argentina. Spoiler, they will not be able to do it against Argentina.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. From the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks Talk. It's Thomas Drance here on the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650. What up, Dranser? Gentlemen, I think the non-bagot debate comes down to the density of the non. Okay. You know, if it's dense enough, maybe if you like air fry it or bake it. I'd oil it up first. I think if you do that, then it can be frisbee further than a baguette. But I think for the most part, none is probably too flimsy and a routine bagel in bagelin.

That's bagel. That's baguette, javelin. A baguette javelin or bageland would go further. Someone in the Dunbar Lumber text message in baskets suggested that the Bread Olympics be called the Gloo Olympics, which I liked a lot. That was pretty slick. I like that. That was pretty slick.

We did discuss the argument about the bread being crusty and hard while also being girthy. And then we realized, are we talking about bread? And then we dropped the conversation, oddly enough. Let's go to everything that's happening. Don't say girthy. Yeah, it's too late. I already did.

Let's go now to the week that was for the Vancouver Cadox. Let's just get some general thoughts right off the top about everything that Ryan Johnson and company did on July 1. and then in the days or time subsequent. Yeah. So, okay. You know, and I guess really we can go back to the Gallagher trade, right? So we saw two maneuvers that I would sort of group together to subtract pieces from this roster in Hoaglander and Marcus Pedersen. And in both those deals, you saw player go out for draft pick long into the future,

2029 third, 2031st conditional. And then so that's, you know, a real declaration of patience from Canucks management. I mean, both of those picks fall outside of current management's deals. Yeah. Right? I mean, they'll need new deals by the time they get to the point of using those picks. So that's a interesting dynamic, I think, maybe even one that has its own gravity, really, as the years progress here. But realistically, you know, if other teams are unwilling to give you a third round pick this year or next year or whatever on a more usual timeline, you push it out, they still have as much upside.

You can argue more upside, given how hard it is to project probable outcomes in the NHL on three to four year time horizons. five-year time horizon, potentially, in the case of the pick they got for Pedersen. And then you bring incredible replacements in Gallagher and Alexiak with zero acquisition cost, right? Gallagher was free, less than free really, since the Montreal Canadians retained 50%. And then Alexiac, obviously, signed free agency. In both deals, you end up saving some money, right? There's some cash savings. the cap hits are neutral effectively.

And, you know, you're also saving term, right? Pedersen had five years left. Alexei's only two. Hoaglander had two years left. Gallagher had only one. And so we now sort of have this template, patience, right? Obviously, both Alexia, Gallagher, and then you throw Luke Shen into the mix. and you're getting noted good dudes, right?

You're definitely getting big guys for the most part, not Gallagher, but Cotter's big, Alexeiuk is big, Shen is huge, a true unit. And then we saw what this draft class looked like, right? So real emphasis on traits and speed with Cotter and size in addition to character. And, you know, I think more than anything, just like we kind of have a guy.

guidebook for what an ideal subtraction from this lineup looks like. I think when we sort of look back at the overall offseason, you know, it was pretty gradual. It definitely wasn't conservative. That trade, the Marcus Pedersen trade is creative and radical. The club didn't really do the toughness thing, right? But they also brought in heavy guys. Yeah.

You know, so it's a sort of interesting thing where we were talking about like Curtis Douglas and, you know, bringing in some guys with some weight who can put on a show and, you know, express some frustration late in games if the Kinecks are getting blown out at home during a rebuild and the sort of idea of what you need from a toughness perspective being almost like sideshow stuff or at least a little element to that during, you know, the leanest years of an accumulation phase. And I felt like, you know, maybe reflecting the values of the twins, they did bring in toughness, but it was hockey toughness, right? It's not the fighty stuff.

You do it by committee. And so I thought that was sort of an interesting, mature approach, maybe a cleverer approach than what people in this market, myself included, might have been calling for. So, you know, I think we're beginning to get a sense of what this looks like. you still would have liked to see the team, I think, shed one more of those six remaining deals for older guys, you know, late 20s with term on their deals and some variety of NMCNTC. I think they still will. Yeah, I think they still should. Yeah. You know, I subtracting Hoaglander and Marcus Petterson, you know, while DeBrusk and Petterson, Elias Petterson remain on the roster, you know, not only,

would like if I had handicapped who would go, I probably wouldn't have priced it in as those two guys being first, the two guys that have gone being first. But also, you know, I think those other deals are kind of more urgent to make. So, you know, that that's sort of, I guess, one looming incomplete hanging over this. But, you know, I think we saw the connects make a lot of thoughtful choices. I think we saw them do the sorts of things that, you know, help a team add value and look like a discern. A discern. coherent plan to begin to rebuild this team. And that's, you know, a lot better than what we usually have been treated to by this franchise across the last five, ten years. Transfer, I've been thinking a lot about your theory on drafting, becoming more efficient and how good rebuilding teams might be able to separate themselves from the bad rebuilding teams by really getting good at player development. And, um, I, um, I, I just wonder if you have any thoughts on the challenge of developing players on a team that's probably not going to win many games. And Halford and I were talking about this earlier.

And we kind of came up with the saying of you can't be a winning team, but you can't be a bunch of losers either. Right. I like that. I like that. And, you know, I also think development doesn't have to happen for you. Well, it does, to some extent. but I would really de-emphasize the extent to which development needs to happen in the NHL for the Knochs right now. You know, surviving in the NHL at 1819 can be counterproductive, right?

Because you need to, and I talked to Braden Kutz at length about this this week, he felt both of the world championships, the world junior championships, and in his three games stint in the NHL, that he'd get there and he'd be like, oh, I'm trying to take Matias Eckholm-wide. Like, wow, that's unbelievable, you know?

That he was almost too respectful of all these guys who he spent his time growing up watching. And that down the stretch in Prince Albert, you know, as he was watching other games, and he specifically called out Matthew Schaefer. and he was like, you know, this guy's just going for it all over the ice, right? Like at every moment he's just going for it.

And Coots recognized that the next time he got a shot to play in the NHL, he needed to at least have that same swagger, that same confidence, especially because his game is challenging guys one-on-one, right? Like he's a guy that goes after opponents and takes them wide and, you know, tries to go through them. And so, you know, I thought that was a really interesting bit of commentary from Coots, a really sort of self-aware reflection that he processed over the course of the year when he reflected on a pretty wild season, a WHL trade, three games in the NHL, world championship, junior championship experience, and sort of took from it was

I need to have the confidence to play my game. So sort of coming back to this, like, I do think there's an extent to which, like, we saw guys, young guys for the Canucks, perform well in flashes on the roster, season, whether it was Z. Booiam or Tom Blander, for example. But fundamentally, they were white knuckling it every game, right? Like there was. Yes, they were. They were surviving.

You know, and they survived the season in the NHL. But to some extent, do you want a guy surviving in the NHL? Simply because, like, sending them down to Abbotsford would make fans feel superficially like they haven't, you know, continued to progress. I want them playing with confidence somewhere. I don't want them having the NHL turning them into passive players, not trying to make a mistake. Right.

You have to manage that dynamic. You have to still be willing to, you know, go for it. And also, you have to have that mindset that, okay, it's 3-1 in the first period for the other guys, right? So now we have to take chances, right? But when those chances inevitably, don't all go our way, can I continue to play that game?

Can I continue to feel confident in my own game? I think that's a challenge that all young players go through. I know Zee, Booiam did. And, you know, so in any event, I don't think, like, one of those players starting in the American League, like, I don't think getting to a point next year where, you know, and I see everyone being like,

and Booiam starts with Horonic. And it's like, okay, well, if you do that, like, make sure they're not playing tough minutes. Yeah. You know? Well, they will be if he's playing with Horonik, right? Well, you got Alexiak. You know, you got Electric.

You got, you got Kiro Kudraevsv. You know, Kiro Kudraafsv is probably more advanced in terms of the defensive side of the game and the habits, a side of the game than any of the other young defenders. Like, if you're going to throw a guy to the wolves, like Alexiak Kudraafzv, right? Like, if Tom Belander's playing 25 minutes for 35 games in the American League next year, that's not a stepback. Hey, Trancer. That's good. What's your confidence level that Zeeb Boullium will turn into? I mean, you tell me what you expect him to turn into because it was pretty hard to judge a lot of the Canucks young players last season.

We know what Zeebubiom did before he came to the Canucks and it was a lot of good things. Because now there's talk about getting these guys, some of these guys, whether it's Boolean or Ogrin, extended. And there always is a bit of a risk. that you take on when you extend young players long term? Yeah, the risk for a player especially at William's age to me is to not do it. To not do it. The issue for a guy like William is that a lot of his value is going to be tied up in the power play. You know, at the end of the day, I think there are reasonable outcomes for him to be,

like if you go look at his net rating comps, so that's Domlessision. model at the athletic. You know, there are a lot of players who start their career at the level that he was at and end up, you know, with any shorter defenseman, whether it's Booiam or guys like Tommy Blyle and Xavier Villeneuve who just got drafted. The line between being Quinn Hughes or Lane Hudson and being Adam Bockfist or Eric Brantstrom, right, is like not very significant. Yeah.

If you hit, you're a star, but if you don't, you might miss massively, right? And, you know, also the bar you have to leap over to have value is higher because a really good four or five defensemen, if you're small, you're just as likely to end up being Victor Mette, right? Who's who is super promising as a super young player, but like at the end of the day, not only, elite offensive undersized puck mover. It's like, that guy's out of the league. You know, or Matt Greslich, right? Greslick had 40 assists the last season and signed for $1 million in September, right? Like the, the, you have to jump over such a high bar.

You have to be such a high level player to be like an impact guy. So for Buehium, a lot of it's going to come down to the power play. And as good as Horonic is on the power play, like one of the awkward things about keeping him is you need to keep his value high. but if you don't develop Bueaim into a PowerPlay 1 guy, you know, that kind of caps his ceiling as like a Sam Gerard type guy, as opposed to a Morgan Riley or a Josh Morrissey type lefty, right? And that's a huge gap in value. So I think the connects need to be really conscious of that.

To some extent anyway, his value, his potential value, will mirror their own choices here and his own development path and whether or not they're clear-eyed about seeing the sort of primacy of the power play and then his ability to be a difference maker on it as, you know, as keying his value. But yeah, like, you got to go long because, A, the rules are changing. Yeah. Right? The rules are changing on September 15th.

You can't do eight years. You can't front-load deals. You have to minimize the amount of percentage of signing bonus year over year after September 15th. And two, you know, like this is the world we're living in. Every year that you don't sign a guy, you risk the market for his player type resetting, right? Like the Jake Sanderson comp is, which is eight times eight, is really only going to be available this year, a year from now, after a bunch of these other deals and other similar players sign and, you know, for agent valuations inflate as a result of cap growth. with like those comps are off the table.

And this Carolina Anaheim analogy is the one that I keep using. Like Blake and Stankovin get done last July, cutter Gochee and Leo Carlson don't. Right? How many millions per year is that going to cost the ducks in terms of cap efficiency in terms of actual, you know, hard cash? Yeah. Like you have to pay guys early in an era of cap growth.

Otherwise you become the cowboys, right? Like otherwise while the Eagles are getting, you know, Devante Smith done before Jefferson and all these other guys keep resetting the wide receiver market. Like the Cowboys are dragging their feet with Cedley Lamb and now with George Pickens. And guess what? Those guys end up making more even if they're not as good. And I suppose even if it doesn't pan out the way you want it, because the players are still so young, let's say it's a few years into the contract and it's not looking good,

there still might be a team that goes out and takes a chance. Like I think about Mason McTavich in Anaheim. Right? Like, who's a healthy scratch in the playoffs, but still held some value, still another team thought, okay, well, maybe in the right system. I'm always looking at the downside, too. It might be just being a Canucks fan and some of these long-term contracts have turned into problems, right? But let me, but the downside is also managed by going early. Like if you'd gone early with Elias Federson on a long-term deal, it wouldn't have worked out, right? Like he would have been fine for the first half of the deal. But you would have been eight years. So you would have gone eight years in 2021, right?

So you'd now be entering, you'd now be entering a phase, though, where he has two years left on his deal. Like, he'd be super movable this summer versus having six years left on his deal. That's what happens if you go along earlier. You, A, get through it faster, but B, and then B, this is the other thing that no one ever talks about. You have a window in the NHL. You can buy out a guy under the age of 26 for one third.

So you get to take advantage of that sort of risk mitigation factor as well, which won't be available to you once they've proven it and are earning more anyway. And then lastly, you can structure the deal and front-load the deal differently right now so that you pay out as much of the cash as possible. So even if you do end up with Zibuum being like more second-payer power play specialist than a top-payer star, right, a favorable contract structure and a contract structure that's data. three or four years down the line can still be a nuke trade asset, even if he's not, you know, the engine or the offensive engine of the next great Canucks blue line, right? So, yeah, I mean, it's unfortunately a no-brainer. Like, I don't really see how it makes a lick of sense for the Canucks to not pay

early, given their cap position and sort of given what they're trying to do in terms of locking value in, you know, with Ogren too. Like, I'd just point to the Jeffrey VL deal and the Ilya McKeyev deal and the, AJ Greer deal and say like four and a half million for third liners looks like pretty much market price, especially if they have size and speed. But this guy doesn't have to be a 55 point second line winger to pay off a six times $4 million valuation with where these market prices are going. You might as well get ahead of it, structure the deal in a front loaded way, and give yourself

a chance it'll win. You're answer one final question and I know this is your final official hit with us during the season. Yeah, thanks for having me all year, boy. Yeah, no, it's been awesome. So let's end it on a PD question. What are you hearing on his interest? What are you hearing? What in your head is the likelihood that he is still a Kinnock come training camp?

I think pretty high at this point. I mean, that deal is hard to move if you get through the draft without moving it. It's pretty interesting. Now, there seems like there's so much out there still in terms of big news items, players that we know of requested trades, players that we know teams have tried to deal like Jason Robertson. You know, you have your Dylan Larkins. You have your, I mean, a lot. It feels like there's a lot unspoken for yet out there in the marketplace, obviously, Hellebuck.

And the winger market hasn't really. moved at all. They're still like bunting and Manta caliber guys. So what I'd say is the winger market hasn't moved an unrestricted free agency and I would think that that gives Jake DeBrusk a more straightforward route to being dealt later in the summer because

maybe across this weekend and early next week you see some of the Manta bunting type guys sign and then maybe a team circles back on Debrusk. Although the fact that that market didn't really form around the league I think an interesting window into what that deal could look like, right? I don't think DeBreskes is marketable as Marcus Pedersen.

So that's something to bear in mind here. With Pedersen, you know, 11.6 is a totally different beast than 5.5. That to me feels like a deal that's hard to see coming together necessarily on this side of the draft, on this side of free agency, as more and more money gets spoken for. So that would be the one that I'd sort of look at and think, that one feels like we might be in a holding pattern. Like that feels like the Canucks might be holding here. We might be in for another Pedersen season in Vancouver.

You know, I think the club was super motivated to move him. The fact that they didn't, I would imagine, you know, speaks volumes in terms of his market price too, right? his level of interest around the league, how complicated that was, you know, that that potential deal was viewed by teams that are like, okay, there's a lot of like off ice baggage here, you know, the, he's not skating as quickly. Like, do we know that he's the same player? You know, we all, we all know what level of upside there is here, but do we really believe that he's got access to it? You know, not to mention he still has control over where he goes. And I think it's reasonable to wonder like you know maybe he'd go to la they've already used all their

cap space but would he go to columbus like would he go to detroit right like we don't we don't know so it's a you know i think if you're handicapping at this point something like minus 350 that he's at connect's training camp minus 400 like i think it's a it's got to be a pretty heavy favorite at this structure all right buddy thanks drancer thanks for all thanks for all your time on our show this season. All three answers I gave you over the course of the full year. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I think it's just been like our first question. Like, why don't you continue on from what you were saying last week? Dranzer, I hope you have a great offseason. Thank you. I'm sure we'll be reaching out to you if anything big from the Canucks happens. Sounds good. Enjoy your summer. Thanks again for having me all season.

Bye, boys. See you, pal. Thanks. That's Thomas Drans from the other. Athletic, Vancouver and Canucks talk here on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to The Best of Halford and Brough.