Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 9/19/24

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports and hear from Canucks management and the coaching staff from Penticton ahead of Canucks training camp, they discuss some breaking NHL expansion news, plus they chat with Canucks Talk host & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance who joins the show from camp.  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 & Brough. You're listening to Halford & Brough. My expectations on some players are higher. I know they're capable. They've shown it, and now we're going to find the next level. It ain't going to get any easier. Higher expectations, and it's going to be hard. You have to embrace the hardness.

I laugh because my son loves the spin-up-on-yourself podcast. Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It's Alfred and his bruv. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios

in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddy, good morning to you. Hello, hello.

And Arash, good morning to you as well. Good morning. Alfred and bruv of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff. They can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program.

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So, Orfite, what are you waiting for? Kintec, the guest list today begins at 7 o'clock. That means I think we're going to do the first hour of this program, 100% uninterrupted hockey talk, almost exclusively Canucks. Maybe we'll get to some other NHL stories as well, but hockey is back. Training camp gets underway for real today from Penticton,

the South Okanagan event center. Our guest list begins at seven o'clock with Adnan Virk from MLB Network, followed by Sam McKee from Fan 590 in Toronto at 730. We'll talk to him about the Leafs. Eight o'clock with Adnan Virk from MLB Network, followed by Sam McKee from Fan 590 in Toronto at 7.30. We'll talk to him about the Leafs. 8 o'clock, it's the Drancer from his new home in Penticton. He's never leaving. We'll talk to him about what to expect from the opening day of training camp. Thatcher Demko is going to meet with the media today.

That is much anticipated. We'll also recap everything that Patrick Alvin, Jim Rutherford, and Rick Talkett had to say yesterday. I also want to talk to Sam McKee about the big corporate news uh MLSE uh now Rogers news majority Rogers owned uh what does it mean what does it mean for the fans what does it mean for the teams in Toronto I'm curious what about us yeah who cares about us? I'm curious about what will happen down the line to a team like the Argos or TFC. Does MLSC still value those now that they're majority owned by Rodgers? Or what potential changes down the road could this all mean? Because a lot of people are talking about, hey, maybe Ed Rogers, who is my boss, could one day, since he's the empire of sports in Toronto now, the emperor of sports in Toronto, maybe

he goes after an NFL team. So I think that'll be an interesting discussion with Sam McKee that probably goes beyond who's going to be the 2C in Toronto. Is it going to be Mitch Marner, Willie Nylander, or Tavares is still going to be the guy? I don't know. I heard that on the way in. Nylander's back playing center. Remember they gave him a cameo last year? Yeah, that was like two games. Yeah, two exhibition

games. They're trying it again. Okay, so yeah, there's the guest list. Drancer, 8 o'clock. Sam McKee, 7.30. Adnan Virk, 7 o'clock. There's a lot to get into. So without further ado, Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No.

What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the B.C. Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training.

Visit them online at bccsa.ca. Yesterday, at around 5 o'clock our time, Vancouver Canucks brass, that being the head coach Rick Talkett, the general manager Patrick Alveen, and the president of Hockey Ops, Jim Rutherford, all met with the media to kick off training camp for the 2024-2025 season. Why don't we start with the injuries, Jason? There will be a few guys missing from the start or all of training camp. Thatcher Demko, probably the most prominent given everything that's gone on this summer. We don't know exactly what's going on. They deferred, said that Thatcher himself will meet with the media today to discuss

his health situation. All they said is that Thatcher will not be participating on the first day of camp. I'll run through the rest really quick. Dakota Joshua, Patrick Alveen cited Joshua's privacy, so they didn't want to add anything further to the statement that Joshua put out via the team's

social media about his testicular cancer diagnosis. We learned of a new LBI injury to two guys, Teddy Bluger and Cole McWard, not to be confused with Ward McCole. Both will be out about a week, although they said McWard is more week to week. So there's your health update to kick off the presser

with the brass yesterday. Yeah, just in case you missed it, there weren't really any bombshells or super controversial remarks yesterday because I wasn't there to ask the question that gets those quotes usually.

The hard hitter was not there. Actually, Jim Rutherford kind of doubled down on he still thinks everything has to go right for the team to have success and make the playoffs this

year, but he does think maybe they're a little bit better than last season. Jim, will Thatcher Demko start the season on LTIR? What are your thoughts?

Again, a lot of the stuff we've already heard, like expectations being higher and things not getting any easier for the team. From, I suppose, a pure hockey perspective, the most interesting guy to listen to was Rick Tockett and how he spoke about how the team needs to play with, I guess, not to put words in his mouth, but more of an attacking mentality while not ignoring the defensive staples and structure, et cetera, et cetera,

that helped so much last season. Now, I think this is probably a natural progression for this team under Tockett, and at least there is that progression. There have been some teams in Vancouver that haven't made any progress. So this is good. This is progress. You remember his first job was to come in and stabilize the situation defensively and structurally. Everyone remembers his first practice where he's like literally telling people where to go on the ice and then blowing his whistle and being like, okay, is everyone in the right position?

It worked great overall. He was the coach of the year for a reason, but we all know what happened in the playoffs and the Canucks struggled to create scoring chances. Bottom line. They struggle to create scoring chances. And championship teams aren't just defensive or offensive. They aren't just good one way or the other. Sure, some of them will be more defensive than others and more offensive than others. But they're both.

They take care of business in their own end. And they hurt the opposition when they get the chance. And I think what Tockett saw when he went over some of the game film from last season is there were chances to go out on the rush, and the Canucks, for whatever reason, took those opportunities too conservatively. They didn't attack those opportunities, and maybe that's natural that the Canucks played a

little conservatively last season when they had the puck given that's where all the focus had been just in play a more responsible game play a more mature game now they need to take another step so hopefully the personnel this season is a little faster and that helps. But it's probably when you're talking about things in training camp that Rick Tockett is going to be emphasizing, it's probably a more of a mentality thing. Sometimes you got to make a play. It's not forcing it. It's not being reckless. But you're not going to win a championship if you're scared to make a play. And the Canucks need to get the puck to the inside more and garner more scoring chances.

Taka also mentioned the need to maybe get the D up the ice more and not just Quinn Hughes, which actually really does make me wonder if they're going to experiment with Hronik on a different pair where one where he isn't tempted to just defer to Quinn Hughes and Quinn and Hronik can be like well I'll be the safe guy on this pair it's like well maybe you should be the risk taker for lack of a better way of saying it on another pair I think this is the most intriguing thing hearing Talkett speak about it in the terms that he did yesterday going into this season, because the structure that they played with last year, you kind of alluded to it. There wasn't really a lot of gray area with structure.

There was spots you were supposed to be. There were things you were supposed to do. And Rick Talkett called them staples. There were staples of what we had to do. Non-negotiables. Non-negotiables right non-negotiable is a very important term because there's no uh misinterpretation of what you're supposed to you know gray area you know exactly what you're supposed to do now he's talking about something that is much more gray and that's an attacking mindset because there's not a lot of

hard and fast rules when it's about well well, we need to be more aggressive. It is an approach. There might be with talk, though. But that's hard. Because he's talking about. You got to embrace the hard. But that's hard. But it is.

But. Like telling guys. Here, just let me work. I'll work on this. Telling guys where to go on the ice is actually easy because it's very much this is right and this is wrong. You have to embrace the hardness. But you can do that in the offensive end and you know you know where you go front of the net drive the net drive the net

drive the net i'm not talking so much about where to go i'm talking about when to go sure yeah that's what i'm talking about is one guy's while i was trying to make a play is another guy's that was reckless that was dumb you can't make plays you shouldn't be making plays one guy is i was trying to make a play as another guys you made a mistake as robo used to say fine lines that's the thing there are very fine lines between aggressiveness and recklessness and that's a tough thing to coach too because you end up um contradicting yourself sometimes you know when things work out you're like way to make a play. It was a good time to do it.

But when they don't work out, it's like, we don't play that way on this team. No, I know. You didn't make the safe play. And you're like, well, you told me to be aggressive. They're like, yeah, but you also have to make safe plays. So that is going to be interesting with a team that certainly has enough guys with the offensive flair.

Like, no question. They've got guys that are probably salivating at the idea of, let's be more aggressive let's take more chances let's blow the zone like that kind of stuff you know and at the same time they won 50 games and had 100 plus points last year because of their defensive structure like let's make no mistake about it the goaltending played a large role too but they won games last year because they knew how to defend as opposed to the previous year where they looked at the defensive side of the game and they're like, I don't figure it's something. And that's why they got to game seven of the second round against a team that nearly won the Stanley Cup is not because they were running and gunning.

We've heard all this before from Talkett. We heard it at the end of last season. And hopefully what we see is something like the evolution the Canucks went through under Alain Vigneault, especially after Mike Gillis arrived. That team was good defensively or at the very least

had a superhuman goalie in Roberto Luongo. But at the time when Gillis arrived, they had just missed the playoffs and they didn't have a very dynamic offense. That changed with both the philosophy of the team and the evolution of the personnel. Yep.

Remember when Gillis and AV had that trip down to Vegas when they first met each other? Yeah. And they had those long discussions. I don't know what else happened in Vegas. Maybe they had some wild nights together. It was the narrative went that Gillis wasn't quite sure about AV because he thought he was maybe too defensive minded.

Then they talked it out and by the time we got to, here's the reference, 2011, they scored the most goals in the NHL and they allowed the least, which is, you know, pretty good. It's ideal.

Can't ask for anything more than that. You really can't. What else happened? Okay, let's run through some of this stuff. We're going to play more of the audio from Alvin's interview with Sat and Dan on Canucks Central because, quite honestly, it was more candid and more insightful than some of the stuff that he had at the podium.

Not to dismiss his podium work. Shots fired. It was very good podium work. Let's start with the goalie situation, okay? Because Thatcher Demko is going to meet with the media today. I thought it was curious that they kicked the can down the road on all the health stuff, essentially. And in the case of Demko specifically said,

Thatcher wants to meet with you guys tomorrow almost to clear the air, to give you guys a sense of what's going on with his injury. So we have to wait on that. However, Alvin was asked by Satin Dan about whether or not he would need to add another goalie before the start of the season. The answer kind of revealing because Patrick Alvin, well, he doesn't know yet. Here's the Canucks general manager on Sportsnet 650 yesterday. I don't know. I think we're excited about Gio Pitera that comes in here from the Vegas organization

where he played, I think, a handful of NHL games and a little bit older. And he's been around. So we're excited about the depth on goaltending with Tolopilo and Patera and obviously Seeloff that came in last year and played for us in the playoffs and performed really well there. So we'll see here over the next couple of weeks and see how Thatcher comes along and how our younger players are performing. So the exact quote was,

Thatcher wanted to get in front of you guys, you guys being the media, tomorrow, and clear where he is. So I'm very interested to see what Demko's going to say. Very interested. Me too. When the general manager of the team is asked a pretty point blank question,

do you need to bring in another goalie or not? And he says, I don't know. That's interesting because everyone knows that the Kevin Lankan and rumors have been out there for, I don't know, three weeks to a month feels like it's been out there for a long time. Sounds like it's a money thing. So are they just waiting and waiting and waiting until the dollars make sense? I don't know. But it's going to sound like the dollars make sense? I don't know. But it's going to sound like Patrick Alvino.

I don't know. But the goaltending situation, I'd be pretty surprised if they go into it. If Demp goes out and they go into the regular season with Patera and Archer Seelovs, that feels a little dicey for a team that's talking about we need to embrace the hard because it's going to be hard. And Alvin's line is let's not waste any time. Would that change significantly if they went into the season with C. Loves and Kevin Lankanen?

I think it would provide them more of a safety net if things went a little pear-shaped. Just options? Yeah. More options? Well, I mean, Alvin's line, by the way, he's not embracing the hard as much as talk it is. His line is let's not waste any time.

He said it yesterday when addressing the group in some sort of ballroom in a hotel. They put the video up on the Canucks social media. And he's like, let's get to it right away. Like, let's not waste any time. Let's not screw around at camp. Let's not screw around in the preseason. Like, everything has its go time right from game one. Let's not waste any time.

So for me, it'd be like, well, you know, if you need to bring in another goal. He would hate this show. Right, we waste tons of time. We're filibustering constantly. So that was one thing that he talked about. I did notice, and again, I don't think there's any huge revelation here, but we may as well get into it

because talking about the line combinations is always fun. Taka gave a brief glimpse into what he's thinking about as they open up camp today, and we'll probably see some of these similar line rushes. So no surprise that he said Miller and Brock Besser are going to stick together. Sounds as though Pedersen will indeed start with Jake DeBrusque. Now he said, quote on Joshua and Garland,

those guys together play damn good hockey for us. It's hard for me to break those guys up, but of course he's going to have to because Dakota Joshua is not, not going to be able to start camp. He also said that a Pew suitor is going to be a center for us to start the season is for now because Teddy Bluger's hurt, right? So I wonder how long that continues when, and if Teddy Bluger comes back and a Bluger slots right into that,

the third line center position, or if something else happens, maybe Suter gets a look there as well. So we spent a lot of time yesterday talking about Petey, and Petey ultimately didn't speak to the media. I was a little bit confused about how they were going to do things, but it was the Canucks brass yesterday. None of the players. Demko is going to talk today. I assume other players are going to talk today,

but we still haven't actually had Petey at the podium, but Patrick Alvine did talk about Elias Pettersson being in full health and what his expectations were of Elias Pettersson on Canucks Central on Sportsnet 650, and here's what he had to say about that. He's in full health and he had a good summer. Very excited about the new players coming in. Trained extremely hard. He has something to prove. He's a good player in the league and he has pride. And I think he learned a lot.

And he will be ready to go here tomorrow. And he's one of the players that's gonna raise the standard and then my expectations are higher on him and he knows and uh he will be ready to go now pedersen did speak privately i suppose with uh imac um and well not so privately because imac took what he said what he said and then he wrote about it which which is like quite, yeah, not very confidential at all. And exclusively, I should say. And Pedersen told IMAC that he feels recharged, which is good, which is what we all wanted him to feel coming into training camp, recharged.

And he said, obviously, it was a lot of noise last season, but it was expected. It took a long time to sign. And then I signed and signed a big dollar and was not performing as I wanted. But that's behind me now. And I'm looking forward to what's ahead. He was asked about his tendinitis.

And he said, I still feel it sometimes, but it feels good now, better than where we left off last season we had to work around it in the off-season training but yeah i feel good and i feel better on the ice it gave us more time to work on conditioning and work on speed and then the three words that we wanted to hear everything is fine good that's what he said it's all I wanted to hear. Everything is fine. So look, I'm still curious to hear from Petey when he speaks to the media. And we actually have sound bites, see how he sounds. But I think for the most part, we've heard all the right things.

He's recharged. Last season is behind him now. Everything is fine. The contract stress is over. Now it's just a matter of, you know, playing better. And we're all going to be able to see it with our own eyes. That was what was so shocking about Petey's play down the stretch. Unless you've never seen hockey before, you watched him play.

And regardless of the wingers he played with, you watched him and you were like, that's not the same guy that I've seen before. That guy is not involved in the play at the same level. I was thinking about this yesterday. I was like, why is this so jarring when other guys, other superstar players have had down seasons before? And the light bulb sort of went off, and it was that oftentimes when a star player has a down season or

a prolonged funk uh the team goes in a funk with them or the team's just bad Nathan McKinnon he had that one year in Colorado where he was like visibly embarrassed that he had to go to the all-star game because he was playing poorly and his team was playing poorly and there's been other guys too Connor McDavid got off to a slow start this year and the team was trashed and they fired the head coach. The really strange thing when I think about it now is that Elias Pettersson had these very noticeable, invisible struggles, both eye test and production wise. And the team was still doing really well.

Right. That was all. And I think maybe that's part of why we're just looking at this and be like, what's going on here? Yeah, there was like a pack of happy dogs at the beach and one sad dog that didn't want to play in the water. It's like doggy daycare. All the dogs are running around.

They're having a great time. There's that one dog in the corner that's not having a great time. That's kind of the analogy we're going with here. I miss my owner. Right? Who knows what's bothering the dog? He can't talk. He doesn't know.

A little tendonitis in his knee. Right. Maybe the dog has tendonitis. Who knows? Point being, it was very jarring to see it because not only did they win 50 games and accumulate over 100 points, they won a playoff round with PD not contributing. They went to Game 7 against the Oilers with a chance to go to the Western Conference Final on the line with their highest paid player, asterisk, soon to be,

not producing anything. And that's a very weird dynamic. So I think that's partly why we're constantly looking for, well, one, answers, but two, any sign that this thing is going to right itself. So one more thing from the Alveen interview on Connect Central. When the news about Ian Clark first came out and we said, this is a big deal. Some people said, it's not a big deal. He's still with the organization.

He's still going to be around. And we kind of pushed back to say, no, it's a big deal. He's not going to be there on a day-to-day basis. Not going to be working with guys like Thatcher Demko and Archer Silov. He's not going to be their day-to-day coach. Some people still were like, no, he's in the organization. If he needs to help out, then he'll help out. He's not even around right now. His aura will still be over top of this

organization. Yeah, he is. Okay, listen to Patrick Alvin, who was asked about Ian Clark. It was a surprise when Ian approached me, letting me know that he wasn't able to handle the day-to-day job of a goaltending coach due to personal reasons. So we worked on a kind of a transition plan for him

where he felt that he could help out with scouting and development. And he was with our amateur scout here in Penticton over the weekend for the Young Stars. And he's out ready scouting. And that's his job. So Marco and we hired Justin Pogge from Hockey Canada to be the goaltending coach in Abbotsford. But, yeah, Ian Clark is part of our staff and definitely to his strength evaluating goalies.

He's out there scouting. He's out there evaluating goalies. He's doing his thing. Maybe he's finding a guy right now to bring in, that veteran goalie that he doesn't know about. And Alvin admitted it was a surprise when Clark came to him and said he can't do the day-to-day. So it was something that they had to deal with.

And I don't know how much more we're going to talk about Ian Clark. It probably all depends how the goalies play this year. Yep. If they don't look as sharp as they had in the past, then we'll probably bring it up. If they're fine, we'll just be like, well, new guy's doing pretty well. Marco Terenas. You're listening to the best of Halford Terenius. You're listening to the best

of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. 7.33. What is this? I like this a lot. All I'm thinking is... I really like this. This is a sitcom theme song. 80s family sitcom.

Yes. Yeah. Like I said, they've either got a butler or a robot daughter. Robot daughter? Yeah. Small Wonder. Was that 80s though? Yes. Was it? They were not doing

that in the 90s. As long as we have each other kids, it's going to be great. That's right. Look up Small Wonder. It was a very definitive 80s show. Yeah, you're right. 85. I never watched it. There was one the dude was a very definitive 80s show Yeah you're right 85 I never watched it What was the There was one The dude

Was a sort of like Rotund basketball coach And he had like 10 kids Or 8 or something Oh yeah He might have been called Yeah anyway

Yeah yeah What was that called 10 was in it Just the 10 of us Or something like that I don't know Just the 10 of us The music's perfect for it I know Just the 10 of us or something like that. I don't know. Just the 10 of us.

The music's perfect for it. I know. I don't know. And that was the thing is that when you made a new sitcom, you had to outdo the previous one. So you just had one of the tropes was just more kids. Oh, my God. I got it right. Just the 10 of us.

Oh, really? Yeah. I thought you were making that up. I don't know. Yeah. And then there's one. It's like, we need more kids. And then the show's called Baker's Dozen, right? I thought you were making that up. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's one, it's like, we need more kids. And then the show's called Baker's Dozen, right?

Like, you need more. You just keep going. From the makers of Just the 10 of Us and I Can't Believe We Have 11 Kids. Stand-up comedian Bill Kirkenbauer played Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke. Yeah, you needed it. Coach Graham Lubbock, a teacher and the head of a large Catholic family with eight children living in Eureka, California. That was a show. Wow.

We used to make television. You guys are Catholic? How many seasons? Yeah, we are. Help me. Andy Strickland out of St. Louis just passed along a bit of a breaking news tweet. He said that NHL owners will be meeting soon to approve the expansion opening. I don't know if that will be meeting soon to approve the expansion

opening. I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but just the opening of accepting expansion bids. He says that the leading candidates are believed to be Tillman Fertitta in Houston, and

I believe his name is Vernon Krause in Atlanta. Atlanta. This time it'll work. Third time's the charm. They still need to build an arena in Atlanta, and if you're interested in this sort of thing, Scott Burnside actually has an article up on sportsnet.ca,

and the headline is, Why the New Arena is complex critical component to atlanta's nhl return i think they've got a couple of potential sites there and i will just throw this question out has any city in north america been through more stadiums or arenas than atlanta yep now i got another guy wait it, man. How many stadiums have the Braves played in? 30? It's less. And the Falcons have had a few too

because the Falcons in my lifetime played at Fulton County where they shared with the Braves. And then they went to the Georgia Dome, which they had for the Olympics in 96. And then when the Georgia Dome was not old, they built that fancy one that they've got right now. Is mercedes-benz is that what it's called atlanta fulton county stadium to the georgia dome to mercedes-benz and then the braves went from fulton county stadium to i think they moved into

the the olympic stadium right i will tell you i think that's what they used they retrofitted the olympic stadium not because the georgia gnome actually had like gymnastics in it okay they went people at the top deck were like i can't see anything they went from fulton county stadium to turner field which was the olympic stadium i think and now it's called truest park truest truest which is in the suburbs i think yeah question what has changed since the thrashers that they think there would be enough people in the city of Atlanta that would be interested in a hockey game? To put the arena in the right place? Is that all they think?

So is this like the Phoenix thing? Like, if it's in the right place, they'll come. Like, is that all it is? There's TNT headquartered in Atlanta. There's something to it. It's one of the biggest markets that they're not in. Tell me three things about Atlanta, A-Dog. I have no idea.

Well, there's a show called Atlanta. It's pretty good. Nice. That counts. I get it, though. I get the skepticism. You know, you go there twice, it doesn't work out. Third time's the charm.

I mean. It just seems like a big gamble. That's all I guess. But where would you go? Where would be less of a gamble? Don't say Quebec. Nordiques. Nordiques.

I mean, we'd all like to see the Nordiques back. Of course. I mean, yeah, Nordiques would be awesome. Houston is usually the first one I think of as the most obvious choice. With the long history of hockey in Houston. Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know. I'm not saying they should get a hockey team. I'm just saying of all the cities. I wish they didn't do expansion at all. We've got enough teams, man.

We do have enough teams. It's hard enough for the Canucks to win the Cup with 32 teams. Now we've got 34? Very rarely do I. Come on, man. Very rarely do I. Knock it off. There's too many damn teams.

Very rarely do I agree with stuff that comes down from up high, from the head of the NHL, like Batman and Daly, although we're trying to get Daly on the show. You're very pro-expansion, Mike. No, he astutely pointed out, he's like, yes, we have 32 teams, but seven of them are Canadian-based, which is unlike any other north american professional sports league meaning there are a bunch of markets in the u.s they

haven't gone into yet if you want to know why they're going into atlanta and i hate sounding like pratt but follow the money like it's they've got obviously yeah it's a huge market i get that but it's a huge hockey market it that's almost secondary because there's so much money and they can charge so much expansion fees and everyone gets rich. Isn't Phoenix a huge market? Phoenix would work, man. Phoenix would have worked if they had a real owner with real money. And the arena, I mean, you've never,

I've been to that arena. It is just, and I'm talking about the Glendale arena. I wouldn't go. There's no way. They've got to figure something out in ottawa too yeah it was a brutal location the guy isn't ottawa getting a new stadium i thought they were well labretton flats is back on the on the docket but they still got to strike the deals because there's there's multiple parts to that deal labretton flats is federal land but they

also got to probably work with the mayor of Toronto, of Ottawa, and they got to come up with who's going to pay for all this. Now, Eugene Melnick was terrific at striking deals and then absolutely scuttling them through his personality. So hopefully the new ownership group there is better at it, but they need a new arena. So a few arena situations to keep an eye on in addition to potential expansion. They're going to expand. There's too much money coming into the ownership groups right now to say no to it. But as a fan, I don't want it.

There's too many teams. I need to see the Canucks win the Stanley Cup at some point. And the more teams there are, the harder it is. And what we just have to call Thomas Drant's erotica. it is. Trans-erotica. Expecting goals. Thomas. Trans-erotica. Tom's model. Thomas. Trans-erotica.

Red Russian. Thomas. Trans-erotica. PDO. Thomas. Trans-erotica. 801 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody.

Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough in 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. What's up, bro? This hits different after our car wash thing yesterday with Drance. That was you. Let's not say our.

I didn't like it at the time that you brought Patrick Johnston into it. Liked it even less. However. Everyone pictured it, though. Everyone pictured it. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio, Kintec Canada's favorite orthotic provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet.

What are you waiting for? Kintec. It's so hot out. Oh, he's got the hose. Stop. Stop. Please stop that. And there's the sponge.

Please get off my car. Sir, there's a dent in the hood. So I know Drance is on hold i was thinking about this though so he's up in penticton he lives there now he's at the hotel they got me thinking i gotta book a hotel i'm going to scottsdale in december i'll try for your american breakfast yeah so the hotel that i was trying to book at you know they try and draw you in with all the the add-ons and the perks and continental no no classified specifically as free american breakfast that is hilarious so i ask you would you like a bottle of vodka with that yeah i'll ask trance when he gets online but what because we know what like a full english breakfast is like beans stew stewed tomatoes, blood pudding or whatever,

and then a guy named Nigel serves it to you. It's actually pretty gross. Yeah, it's terrible. What would be a signature staple of an American breakfast? You know my answer. What's your answer? It's the wet eggs. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's the scrambled wet eggs. That's every American cafeteria. I actually what I'm talking about? It's the scrambled wet eggs. That's every American cafeteria. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yes.

I know what you're talking about. Come get your wet eggs here. Can you imagine if they were marketed as such like on the menu?

Oh we serve our eggs wet. I'll take the wet eggs please. Serving of wet eggs for me and my son. Another batch of

those wet eggs. What else would be on it? Pack of smokes. Handgun. All right. Both are good answers. Another batch of those wet eggs, please. What else would be on it? Pack of smokes. Handgun. All right. Both are good answers.

To the phone lines we go. Thomas Drance from The Athletic in Vancouver joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Drancer? Yeah, I'll have those eggs extra wet, please. Soggy steak and wet eggs for me, please. Reminds me of the, do you remember the True Detective season two with Colin Farrell? And he has this line where he's like drinking in a bar and he's like, I get wet off any number of vices. And like, I don't know why that line, that combination of words always makes me laugh.

I just like think of him ordering eggs now and saying it. Laddie, when I asked him this this morning, he took no pause whatsoever. He's like, wet eggs. I'm like, all right. Because everybody knows. Everyone knows. I also think, speaking of wet, I think I need you to explain the car wash thing with me and PJ. That's Brough's thing. You don't have to listen to the podcast.

I'm more of a wet egg host myself. Yeah, Brough. How did you even get on that subject? Well, someone asked what the car wash is. The media car wash. The media car wash. The media car wash when you go through all the players. And we thought the players were going to be speaking yesterday, but it was just the Canucks brass.

And then we joked that the media car wash is a charity thing they put together and all the members of the media wash your cars. And then you had kind of a sexy role in it. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people turned role in it. Yeah. Yeah. I would. And a lot of people turned the radio off, actually. Jorts were heavily involved.

Jorts were involved, yeah. Hey, wet eggs, wet t-shirts, all the same. Let's go. What was the most notable thing about yesterday's remarks from either Jim Rutherford, Patrick Alvin, or Rick Talkett? Yeah, you know, I think the easy answer is Demko, because that's still the biggest looming question, and I think it's been, in some ways, the biggest looming question since,

you know, for me anyway, June, right? Like, late June, when the club re-engaged with Casey DeSmith sort of late in the game, ahead of free agency, it was interesting, right? Like that sort of piqued our interest. And then over the course of the summer, you know, there's been a lot of conversation in the Vancouver market. There's been very little hard info or Intel and, you know,

we still don't have it right. Like there's still uncertainty here. You know, you, you do get in, in some remarkable situations like with Dakota Joshua's statement this week, right, you do get a player directly address their injury situation on occasion. Often when it comes to, you know, like an illness, something like that, pretty rare for just sort of of an injury especially um you know an injury that feels connected to a series of them um so so i suppose that's the easy answer i think what stuck out to me though the most was you know jim rutherford really laying out

in sort of his version this year of the um we're a playoff team if everything goes right kind of restating it and then very explicitly saying you know we're going to get into the season and we're going to sort of see where we're at and we're going to upgrade this team you know uh but over the course of time and going into the trade deadline and we're sort of entering the season with a team that's at least as strong, if not stronger than our team last year. Right. And spelling out that process, right. Really sort of reminding us how aggressive this front office can be. And the fact that, you know, in, in deciding, are we a contender?

You know, what, what, what sort of this, the ceiling is a group that we're going to have, it's sort of contingent on performance and what the team's able to accomplish throughout the season. And I thought Alvin sort of restated it, too, when discussing that there's no specific areas of need that they enter the season thinking about targeting the upgrade. And yet, you know, they're going to look to be aggressive. This team conducted itself in terms of the volume of trades and improvements over the course of, you know, the start of the season season through the deadline a little bit unlike other teams in the

league right like this was a deeply aggressive front office and and i felt like even right from the jump talking about the start of the season you could see the wheels turning you could see that that was a big part of the plan that that this front office views this team you know this is the start of the season but this is by no means a finished product. And I thought being that explicit about it from sort of both of the hockey operations leaders on the dais was instructive. I thought that was telling about sort of how this Canucks hockey operations group, management group, thinks about the process of going about making this team a contender um so what are we going to get today in terms of player availability are they

all going to speak or is it i mean we know thatcher demko is going to speak but are we going to hear from any of the other players is there a yeah like a formal plan for it or is it just post skate talking so there's three groups skating today starting at 9 30 with the c group which is you know usually the young players and the strivers um these are players that will likely go directly to american league camp um so uh that group you know it the thing is is i'm not exactly sure when Demko speaking. So, uh, Demko,

I think we'll speak around 10. I, it sounds like he's going to speak first. So it sounds like we'll hear from Demko before we hear from anyone else. And, uh, I would expect that around 10 AM Pacific time. Uh,

the first sort of NHL group, uh, will be on the ice, um, around 10 30. And then after that, it's very much like there's two practices from 1030 to, you know, roughly 1 32 PM. There's going to be two NHL team practices or group practices.

And after those, basically everyone's available. Day one of training camp, you're going to hear core players for the most part, right? Like there'll be some one-off media requests. I'm sure some smaller scrums, but, you know, I expect to hear from Pedersen, Miller, Hughes, like the big guys will speak today. And then you sort of go through camp and get guys as it goes.

So that's sort of what I'd expect today. That's what we usually get at an NHL training camp. You know, so unless there's anything different or unless there's an injury or a treatment or whatever following a practice, I'd expect it to flow like that today. Do you think Hughes and Hronik are going to start training camp together? I'm curious to see.

That one I'm not so sure of. What I'm pretty confident about is that we're going to see a couple of younger guys get a shot with the big centermen. Like I think one of Pedersen or Miller, and I would assume Pedersen just based off the fact that I think Besser's pretty much cemented on Miller's right wing. Like I think one of those guys will get LeKarimaki to open camp. I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't give LeKarimaki that type of shot early in camp. And if you're going to do it, do it early, right? Like that's the sort of thing you might want to see early.

And likewise, Rick Tockett called out the intelligence of the defender Elias Pettersson in his availability yesterday. yesterday and that sort of makes me wonder like could we see you know something like Hughes with DeArne and Pettersson with Hronik to sort of open camp because again that's the sort of thing like you do it early in camp maybe they get an exhibition game and then you get back to sort of something that looks a little more NHL opening night for the majority of the exhibition slate and for practices with, you know, the smaller group, the group that's under 30 in total numbers, as opposed to the, I don't know, I didn't count the amount of Canucks players on the training camp roster, but I'm sure it's 60, right? Like I'm sure it's a double, maybe triple what you'll typically have during an NHL season. So that, you know, those sort of choices wouldn't surprise me as we go

into day one. That's sort of what I'm expecting at this point. Is it fair to say that Rick Talkett wants his team to have more of an attacking mentality this season? Yeah, no question. And he talked about it at length. He's talked about it a couple of times over the course of the summer. And, you know, it's really interesting, right? Like his description of we maybe were playing it too conservatively. You know, I think there's a lot going on there. Honestly, I think it's a really loaded comment because conservative puck handling decisions in the offensive zone, like in zone, I think was such a key part of how this team prevented chances off the rush.

Right. Like, you know, we sort of went into the season before the acquisition is a door of, and kind of knew that this team maybe didn't have most mobile defensive group. And we'd seen what that had looked like when they traded chances in previous seasons, especially during the Bruce, there it is era. Right. And this is something I've talked about at length, right. That with the way that this blue line had been built in the past,

this team seemed like they had to make a choice between attacking, which they could do if they forechecked hard, but they'd surrender a lot the other way, or defending, in which case you risked getting into what you got to sort of at the tail end of Travis Green's tenure, where the team couldn't score anything at five on five, right? And that sort of killed the betting era, effectively. There was like a choice to be made, as opposed to being able to play good two-way hockey.

Now, the team found a way to play good two-way hockey last year, but really it was by cranking up the defensive side of the game and then converting, as opposed to generating, at a wildly high rate, both off the rush and in zone, and especially off deflections and second stick opportunities. And that sort of powered their rise to the top of the league. You know, they were, what, first in the West, second only behind Boston at the All-Star break last year. But post-All-Star break, they were like the 14th best team by win percentage, even though I think they had put it in cruise control and begun to manage some minutes and trial young guys.

And, you know, I don't know how instructive that is, but worth pointing out. This year, it sounds like they want to generate more. They legitimately want to try to generate more, and they have to. I mean, this team generated or managed to create like a historically low shot rate in the postseason. If you look at how they generated shots five on five last year,

like the teams that they were in and around, almost all of them missed the playoffs. In fact, all of them missed the playoffs, right? It was like Detroit, Arizona, Montreal, like 26th in the league in terms of how they generated shots on goal five on five. It's a hard way to live, right? Like it looked awesome last season, but this team was also converting on 11% of its shots five on five.

That's really hard to count on. And if it abandons you, you know, you can have things happen like you don't score more than three goals in the two biggest games of your season, right? So, you know, I do think they needed it and I do think they expect to do it. And where I'm curious to sort of figure out what it looks like is I still think, because this is all holistically connected, an awful lot of what Vancouver did in terms of conservatively managing the puck, especially in the offensive offensive zone served to dominate zone time and help protect um you know

a defense core that i think was vulnerable to being attacked with speed the other way and i think we saw that by the way in the edmonton series you can hear rick talking when he talks about this issue he's like was this partly I don't want to say fault I mean it was the coach of the year and did a terrific job but this is almost in my opinion opinion like a natural progression where talk it comes in he's like all right we got to clean this up right we are playing reckless dumb hockey we need to play more conservatively we need to take care of the puck that is step one okay everyone got the structure defensive responsibilities in mind now we need to change our thinking a little bit to not being too

conservatively so it's going to be interesting to watch how he treads that fine line because it's one of those things where hey we need to have more of an attacking mentality but don't forget about all the staples right and you know they're connected again right like you take those extra chances you know if you're moving faster you're getting a little bit more spread out through the neutral zone as an attacking team. And the shooter misses, you know, far side and the puck rims around. Well, they might have you outnumbered the other way. Right. Like there's a giveaway. They're going to have you outnumbered the other way. Right. So there's a balance here. Like every time you attack aggressively, you also open things up. Right.

Like that's how hockey works. It's one of the most interesting games in the world for this reason. You are literally always simultaneously attacking and defending when the play is live. And so, you know, I do think there's a balance to strike. I do think it's a balance that the Canucks were probably too far on the conservative side for last season, but it worked, you know? And so not messing with success necessarily, but trying to, you know, sort of find the balance, right?

Like just sort of turn the dial just a little bit. Does that get this team to a better place? I do think if they're going to win big, right? If they're going to get to where they want to be, the conference final, the stanley cup final i do think they're going to need to be generating an awful lot more than they did last season well talk it also said that maybe we need to get our defense up in the play a little bit more and not just quinn hughes which made me wonder about heronic possibly playing on a different pair and being the attacking defenseman on that pair not deferring to Quinn Hughes all the time could you see them trying that with you know with that in mind could

you see them trying that in training camp in the preseason I could but I think it's going to come down more than anything to whether or not they have the right fit with Quinn right like Hughes Hironic is such a powerful weapon yet there is a sense internally and Talkett and Heronic explicitly had the conversation following last season that when Heronic plays with Hughes you know he so often sees it being the right play to just sling it back over to Quinn Hughes and by the way that's totally correct and a result, maybe defers too much and doesn't assert himself offensively enough or as much as this team would be best off having given what Hirona can do. Right. Like that's a that's a sense internally.

I think in an ideal world, this team would have options to play Hughes and Hirona on separate pairs and drive and contribute offense on separate pairs. But it's always been framed to me as something that's maybe a little bit more aspirational, something that's maybe a little bit more, you know, for the future when we get the blue line to where we want it, as opposed to an option for right now, given what Vancouver's got on the right side, where you've got Hironic, you've got Myers, who very rarely has played with Quinn Hughes, except situationally over the course of their what five seasons now in which is it's five or six seasons. I mean,

so they've been playing together as teammates since 2019 20 and we've never seen them really get a long run as a, as a pair. So is that really an option? And then, you know, you get to the, the, the, the Dharne experiment. And I mean, I really think that's an experiment in a way right this is a guy who certainly was down lineup uh in his uh breakout season for the oilers over the last you know i guess it was a breakout season and a half and then he was scratched ultimately in the playoffs but he was hobbled so that's sort of like do you have the guy do you have the guy?

Do you have the guy that allows you the flexibility to play for Aronic separately? I think it's something that looms large in the minds of Canucks execs and coaches. I won't be surprised if we see it, especially early at training camp, but that's the contours of how this team views it and talks about it internally,

including with the players themselves. Drancer, good stuff. Enjoy training camp. We miss you here in Vancouver. I know you're a Penticton resident now, but maybe one day you'll come back to Vancouver. Enjoy your time up there. I'm sure there's lots to cover over the weekend. Yeah, I'll be back and then your cars won't be so dirty, boys. Cheers. Thanks, Drancer. See you, buddy. Thomas Trance from the Athletic Vancouver. Sorry, the Athletic Penticton here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to the best of Halford & Brough.