Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 9/23/24

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports including an impressive Canucks training camp, they talk new 'Nucks goalie signing Kevin Lankinen with NHL.com & In Goal Magazine's Kevin Woodley, plus the boys tell us what they learned.  This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to Halford and Brough. And he gets the handoff, and he looks for running room, and he pops it outside, nearside, down to the one. He's in. Touchdown, Seahawks. Darger Yakutchuk through center, got moved to the inside. What a move to the net. Scores. A brilliant goal by the Senators rookie defenseman. I love joints. It's great.

Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Bradford. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintex studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning.

Good morning, Michael. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Bradford, the morning is brought to you by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today by visiting your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer. Today, we are in hour one of the program.

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Kintec, it is a Monday. We are back. It is another exciting week of sports on the horizon. It was a big weekend in the world of sports as well. Canucks training camp, that's in the books. They wrapped it up yesterday. Preseason starts tomorrow. Adog came in here bright and early, all

bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and he was so excited for the start of the preseason. Because it's the first step for Jonathan Lechermacki and his Calder Trophy winning season, Adog. Well, it was Rocket Richard Trophy winning season. Well, and a Hart Trophy. Maybe the Vezna.

This is the start of it all. So they'll probably play Wednesday, right, in Abbotsford? I would imagine. If that's where Petey's going to play. Petey and Hughes are going to be playing in Abbotsford on Wednesday, and Besser and Miller are going to be playing Tuesday at Rogers Arena, I think. You got the same email as I did. The Canucks are marketing which individual stars are going to be playing in which exhibition games yeah i think

that's less marketing and more damage control concerning what happened i think it was last year when people went out to abbotsford and they're like uh nobody's here right so we've got exhibition action this week uh a reminder four of the six preseason games will be televised all of them though all six will be heard right here on sportsnet 650 brendan bachelor and randy janda with the call as for today's show what's happening you might ask first guest at 6 30 very befitting because a couple preseason games against the seattle kraken former former Seattle Kraken head coach Dave Haxtall is going to join the program.

We'll talk to Dave about his time in Seattle, what went wrong in Seattle. We'll also talk to him about the relatively short shelf life that NHL coaches have these days and how acutely aware they have to be of it. He had three and a half years in Philly

before he got fired. He had three years in half years in Philly before he got fired. He had three years in Seattle before he was dismissed there. So Dave Haxtall at 630, 7 o'clock. Mike Tanier, our NFL insider from the two deep zone. We're going to talk to Mike. I want to talk to Mike about the NFC. It's very topsy-turvy in the NFC right now. Just another crazy week in the NFL.

This has been, I think, the least predictable first three weeks of the NFL season that I can remember. If you had told me that maybe the two best teams and record wise or whatever in the NFC at this stage would be the Seattle Seahawks and the Minnesota Vikings, and they would have significant leads over teams like the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys. But I would have told you you were crazy. Do you think Bryce Young was watching Andy Dalton rip it up for the Carolina Panthers and going, oh God.

I got to learn how to speak. I know I should be cheering for my teammate here, but this does not look good for me. Bryce Young was like, I'm going to have to learn how to speak Canadian. This is terrible.

No good. So he's going to, Mike Tanner's going to join us at 7 o'clock to talk all things NFL. 730, this is one that you stick handled. I'm very curious to get him on the program. Kyle Turris, longtime NHL-er.

He was sort of working in NHL circles, and now he's at the North Shore Winter Club. He's the new hockey director of the North Shore Winter Club, and he's trying to put together a new program for high performance hockey but I thought it would be interesting to bring on Kyle just to talk about the state of minor hockey in British Columbia I know a lot of parents will be interested in this one because it's pretty confusing out there yeah I can imagine and you know I actually went and saw Kyle present on this program just out of interest for this interview. And, you know, he talks a lot about his minor hockey experience and how things have changed since then.

So really interested and looking forward to chatting with Kyle at 730. Very cool. Eight o'clock. Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and InGoal Magazine is going to join us. Kevin, we'll talk about another Kevin. The newest Vancouver Canuck, Kevin Lankanenen signed over the weekend in case you missed it a little goalie reinforcements for the canucks they held firm on their offer they weren't going to break the what was it nine hundred thousand dollar threshold for kevin lankanen so kevin lankanen the newest member of

course uh would you consider him a journeyman goalie is he too young to be a journeyman yeah okay uh well traveled does that work anyway kevin lankanen is the newest member of the vancouver consider him a journeyman goalie? Is he too young to be a journeyman? Not yet. Well-traveled? Does that work? Anyway, Kevin Lankanen is the newest member of the Vancouver Canucks. Kevin Woodley will break down his game. He's an insurance salesman, too, per free. There you go. Kevin Woodley at 8. Kyle Turris at 7.30. Mike Tanier

at 7.00. Dave Haxtall at 6.30. What a show. What a guest list. We also got 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. No. What happened?

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

resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. The Vancouver Canucks wrapped up their five-day Penticton vacation excursion, if you will, on Sunday afternoon with the good old blue-white inter-squad scrimmage at the South Okanagan Events Center. Team Blue beat Team White 2-1. Blue, they wanted it more. They were the more desperate color, and they showed that on Sunday.

I will go through this as quickly as possible because I'm talking about an inter-squad scrimmage. Mark Friedman scored the opener. Connor Garland made it 2-0 for Blue. Carson Soucy cut that lead to 2-1 for White. That was the game. Game over. Scrimmage over.

Penticton over. They left shortly thereafter and they are now back in the lower mainland ready to begin preseason action this week. How did special teams look? I didn't get that deep into it. Artie Seelovs looked really good in net apparently. There was a clip from... I think the penalty killing looked good in a 2-1 game.

Yeah, I could wager that. Was the fourth line deployment satisfactory? I don't even know if there were fourth lines. There were lines. It took a while to track them down yesterday. But because we are so dedicated to our craft, we did it. So let's just kind of run through, not necessarily what happened in Penticton,

because I think we've established that training camp was a success. Everyone was happy with it. But at the same time, everyone was more than happy to get going and get started on the preseason. Well, yeah, and the preseason starts starts Tuesday and hopefully it starts better than it did last season when the Canucks went to Calgary and lost 10-0. Although that was a good wake-up call. You know what?

It set the tone. I don't know what the tone was, but it set it. It was a good wake-up call. Well, let's get into the big news of yesterday. And this was the story that hung over the entire Canucks training camp, despite Rick Tockett wanting to make about a new attacking mindset, you know, rush chances, et cetera. You heard a lot of that.

Small area battles, and you're like, what about the goalies? What about the goaltending? The Canucks did sign Kevin Lankanen, who they were poking around, and they finally poked the right place, I guess. They got him to sign a one-year deal worth $875,000. So on the one hand, it's great that the Canucks got this deal done, winning the game of chicken they played with Lankanen and his agent and getting him to sign for less than $900,000. I'm sure Lankanen was hoping for more, but the Canucks held firm and Lankanen eventually, I suppose, looked at this and said,

I'm out of options, so I'm going to sign this contract. Now we'll see if the Canucks will be able to stay out of LTIR with this signing. I was reading an article that Drance wrote for The Athletic and he said that the team still believes they can, but it is getting pretty tight. And at the same time, when you say, yeah, it's great that the Canucks were able to get this done and good work by the Canucks management group to get Lankanen signed, add some more insurance, consider it a pretty solid goaltender and got him on a good deal.

So that's all good. But it kind of makes the Demko situation seem a lot more real. I'm glad. I saw your notes and I saw the way that you wrote it. I knew it was real. I knew it was real. But when they did get it, they're like, oh, well, they really are worried about this. Okay, I'm glad you put it that way.

That's exactly how I felt. I was like, oh, man, now you know that they're going to start the season with this. I guess it's going to be this three-headed goalie monster. I don't know if they're going to carry three. You said you doubt that they carry three. I don't think they can afford to. I don't think they can afford to carry three. So I think Yuri Patera is probably the odd man out.

He'll end up on waivers. Will he get picked up? I don't know. Drance also wrote that he thought that Patera struggled at training camp. Now, I'm not going to sit there and judge goaltending too much at training camp. I know they were doing a lot of odd man rushes. A lot of three-on-ones.

Yeah. You've got to be better on that. It's like a backdoor tap-in. You've got to get there. You've got to get there. That's why we work on our pushes. You've got to get stronger. You work on your pushes as a goalie um well let's go into pre-season storylines right now and i think the goaltending is going to be one of them obviously um you know i i think the canucks right now if you were to look at how they're going to start the season it's going to

be silabs is going to be the starter lankanen's going to be the backup and they're going to have some guys down in the ahl um is there a chance that the canucks could lose patera on waivers i suppose there is he's waiver eligible so we'll see on that but you know the most important thing for me is like getting the guys who are going to start in vancouver ready to roll see loves um by the way if there's any good news on on the injury front silov said saturday he has been a hundred percent for uh about a week hasn't been bothered at all by his knee through the first three days of training camp um well and everyone in attendance on sunday said that silovs was uh exceptionally good right talk it said it afterwards i know all the pundits that were up there were writing about

how good that he looked. So that's a very positive sign. But remember, he withdrew from Latvia's Olympic qualifying games back in August because he had a... Remember the coach came out

and he said, he needs rest. Yeah. So they rested him and they were like, oh my God, this guy is falling. Demko's hurt now.

Seelov's is hurt. His ligaments were inflamed. Yes. Yeah. So it's going Now, Seelov's is hurt. His ligaments were inflamed. Yes, that's what those, yeah. So, so, it's going to be Seelov's and Lankanen to start the season.

So, I think things are looking pretty good with Seelov's, but I, I would question how much time Lankanen's going to need and how much they're going to need to play him during the preseason to get him up to speed. Just on, you know, hasn't been playing. Yeah.

Because he just signed a contract and he's got to get used to his new teammates. Yeah, it would have been nice to have him in earlier, obviously, but I guess the delicate dance at his contract negotiations had to go down. By the way, additional note, a small one, but Dylan Ferguson, who was brought into camp on a PTO to fill the goalie spot, he was released from his PTO shortly after the scrimmage on Sunday. The

Canucks cut their roster by 17. They sent a bunch of people back to junior and then to Abbotsford as well. And Ferguson was probably the most notable of them. Largely because he's a local kid. He had a handful of games at the NHL level and he was brought in to fill the gaps at goalie. But it seemed like the script was always going to follow

that they were just going to wait and wait until Lankanen was ready to sign. Well, he was there until unless Lankanen didn't. Right. That's kind of how that went. Yeah. So even then he was probably going to be released. He was there for to be a body, a training camp. And he did a great job as a body. Yeah. One of the best bodies we saw up there.

The lines from the scrimmage yesterday. We can run through a few of these. Dan Heinen gets the plum, the cherry position, skating alongside JT Miller and Brock Besser as the winger on that line, which I'm kind of intrigued by. I think Heinen

is in a good situation here. Not that he wasn't in his previous stops like in Pittsburgh and Boston. Very good teams with very good players to play with. But it feels like there's that opportunity

to ride shotgun alongside Miller and Besser's that opportunity to you know ride shotgun alongside Miller and Besser on that line if he can step up and take it because it is a vacancy you understand as a duo that Miller and Besser are going to play together that's pretty much set and I think Heinen's a really good fit there I do too he's got the speed um that maybe Besser doesn't have uh not maybe he doesn't have it it right and he's really smart defensively and this is going to be their number one matchup line so I mean Miller Besser and Heinen you know I'm not going to sit there and say that Heinen's for sure going to stay there for the rest of the season but I think on paper it really makes sense the other one that I think people are going to be really interested in,

especially Adog, it sounds like Pedersen, DeBrusque, and Lekker-Mackie are going to get a shot. Yeah. And probably Wednesday in Abbotsford versus Calgary. So assuming that the Lions stay together based on training camp and we all know that the Canucks want to give Lekker-Mackie an honest shot, it's kind of like, all all right this is yours to lose so show us what you got and you know if you have a can't or if you have a preseason remember like Pod Colson did last year which was very disappointing then you know we'll look at different alternatives but we're giving you this opportunity right now

because we want you to be successful. I'm here for it, man. Honestly, I was a little skeptical at first and I thought it might have been a bridge too far when going all the way back to Young Stars. And I did notice that there was a concerted effort from a lot of different people in the organization to talk up Lekermacky. And I was like, OK, you know, it's good. He had a very successful 2023, 2024 campaign. And maybe they just want to do this like a make good project. Like, yes, the prospect is coming along as we thought.

But now I look at him like, it's almost like, why not? Like, why not give him a real shot at this? Why not get the highest ceiling of all the guys, right? Yeah. And why not see if he can rise to the level? I mean, well, at the same time, let's be careful here. No, but there's no unrealistic expectations. And why not give it a shot?

If it doesn't work, I don't think you really lose anything. You just say, OK, you're not ready for it yet. Yeah, fair enough. If it does work, all of a sudden you're in like kind of found money territory, because I'm not going to lie. When July 2nd came around and the Canucks have made all their deals on July 1st, Lekker Mackey being in the opening opening night lineup was the farthest thing from my mind. You talked about all the wingers that they brought in, all the guys that were going to be able to play. You didn't think that he was anything more than a guy that was going to go to Abbotsford next year.

Yeah. And I think when you look at the other options to play with Pettersson and DeBras, you're kind of like, well, maybe it could be Daniel Sprong, but here's a guy that's bounced around the league and a lot of coaches don't seem to trust him defensively. Maybe it'd be Nils Hoaglander, but he had a great season last season, didn't do much in the playoffs, and maybe he's better on the fourth line. Maybe that's ideally what he is. He's a fourth line player playing with a guy like Sherwood. You know, is Nils Hoaglander good enough to be, you know, if the Canucks have title aspirations, and if they want to do better than the second round last season,

they might as well go for a Stanley Cup. If you can get into the Final Four, you might as well go for it, right cup if you can get into the final four you might as well go for it right let's do it uh so you throw that out there you know let's see what the high-end top prospect can do for them he's a first round uh pick he's coming off a terrific season let's see if we can carry on that momentum speaking of hoaglander he skated throughout the week up in penticton on a line with Atu Ratu as a center and Connor Garland as winger. Oh, that's right. I should have mentioned that. That's on me. That's not the fourth line where

he's been really good replacing Dakota Joshua. Yeah. With Atu and Garland and Rick Tockett has said that that was the best line at training camp. Yeah. So maybe that's the temporary fit for him. So what do you think has happened? Do you think that that is Ratu is the placeholder for Bluger and then Hoaglander would be the Joshua replacement?

Possibly, but you never know. If they like this line, maybe they keep it together. And, you know, maybe Joshua goes up the lineup. I don't think that, well, I think that Rick Tucker probably thinks that we're going to keep Joshua and Garland together. But, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it is complicated right now with some of the injuries that they have out there. But it's kind of crazy if you think about it. Because, like, say they keep the third line together. You got Sherwood, Suter, and who's the

other fourth line guy you just said? Sherwood, Suter, and Hoaglander together. And then say LeKarimaki makes it. Then you got LeKarimaki, Pedersen, and DeBrus together. Then you got Besser, Miller, and Heinen together. That's that insane depth we were talking about. That is absolutely absurd.

You're telling me your fourth line is like Sherwood, Suter, and like that's like, and Hoeglunder? Like that's ridiculous. And Nils Zeman is like, what about me? What do I do? What do I gotta do? But I mean, you gotta admit, that's really impressive. If that actually works out that way. And there's still a long way to go. We haven't even

played a preseason game yet. Let's see how all these guys look. I'm just saying if the Lekarimaki thing actually happens, which I'm not saying it will. Everyone's got to stay healthy too. Of course. Well, the two guys I'm very interested by right now are Lekarimaki, obviously.

I'm kind of interested to see what they do with Ratu, to be honest, because if he's centering a line that Tauket said was probably their best or the one that he was most impressed with during training camp, it means something. I don't know what, but it means that he was making things happen.

And I have noticed if we, if you want to follow the narrative arcs, the one on Ratu that we've heard from a lot of different people was don't forget about me. Like I was a guy that was a key part of that Horvat trade. And I wasn't just a throw in. I was a return. He played NHL games. Ivat trade, and I wasn't just a throw-in. I was a return. He played NHL games.

I think they had high expectations for him with the Islanders that never necessarily panned out. And last year, he was a guy that kind of got forgotten about because his play in Abbotsford didn't exactly jump to the forefront. Text in to the Dumbbell Lumber text line, 650-650. Slow down. No chance Lekker or Mackey makes the team. The history of management is to

let prospects cook in the minors you guys fall for the hype of prospects every year uh number one it has been the management and the coaching staff that has been hyping up lecker mackie uh and number two um the penguins even though they do have a history uh back then of letting these guys develop down in Wilkes-Barre they gave Daniel Sprong this opportunity really early on yep that's the one that keeps jumping

up to me there are similarities if Le Caramac doesn't make it you slot in Sprong there and every other line I just listed would still

stay the same and it's still in the same depth I love your optimism but then is Sprong the right guy? well we don't know I'm just saying that's then is Sprung the right guy? Well, we don't know.

I'm just saying that's what you... That's the only choice. You can't put him on the bottom six. Sprung isn't a bottom six guy. He doesn't play defense. So Sprung is either in your top six or he's probably not playing. He feels like the temporary fit everywhere he goes.

He's not the guy you want to invest in long term, but in the short term, like he was in Detroit, like he was with Seattle and everywhere else. Yeah, like he's got to be on that second line. He's got to be on that second line for like one year. I text in, I don't think it would be fair to say that Sprung wouldn't be a good fit because of his lack of defensive responsibility when we're willing to put a rookie that hasn't played much in North America

in that same role, even if his ceiling might be higher. We don't know what Lekker Mackey's like defensively. We want to see what it's like. Yeah, there's a lot of projection going on right now. All we really said was, and I said it specifically, like, I'm here for trying it. Yeah, I'm here.

Yeah, like, I mean, let's put it this way. Training camp in the preseason can be a very rote exercise. It can be pretty dry and it can be pretty boring. So to have something to glom onto, even if it's not necessarily

going to pan out, and let's be honest, the chances of it happening are probably pretty slim, but there's a chance they're making the chance happen. They're going to try this out and it's a good thing. Matt Texan, I'm going to assume the lack of chat about the defense is a good sign. Well, let's chat a bit about the defense because Hughes and Hronik have not been playing together they haven't been in the same groups at training camp and they were on different teams in the scrimmage hughes was

with juleson which juleson my favorite pair juleson we've seen before uh and uh dpd was with philip haronic and i think this is a case of especially with DPD throw him with a veteran and see if he can survive um I I really keep wondering um I I realize that going back to Hughes and Hronik as a pair together is the safety blanket and they're a terrific pair together and that's always the thing that you can do if you need to or if you want to. But based on what the Canucks have been saying all season or all offseason about wanting to have more of an attacking mentality and wanting the defense to get up the ice more and Rick Toged has said, and not just Quinn Hughes,

I just really wonder if they want Hronik on another pair. Like, ideally, do they want that? Now, I don't know if it's going to be with DPD. I don't know who it's going to be with. But I, you know, last year, they really tried to make Hughes and Cole McWard a thing. And that really, and it's like with Lekar Mackey, right? They tried it.

They gave it a shot. They realized, okay, this McWard kid isn't ready. So they sent him down to the AHL and, you know, right at the end, they were like, all right, fine. We'll put Hughes and Roenick together, right? And that might happen. And it worked great. And that might happen this season.

But I really think they want to get, they want to spread out their attacking mentality on the blue line because, you know, basically last season you had this Hughes and Hronik pairing, which was super dynamic, but then you ended up having a really expensive defenseman in Hronik playing a fairly deferential role as opposed to being like the alpha on the pair, the guy who's going to go up and attack and let someone else be the deferential stay-at-home guy.

So we'll see how that pans out. I don't know if DPD has a legit shot at making this team. Maybe he does. But, you know, you got a lot of bodies back there. You got, you know, there is Susie and Dayarne, and they're going to make the team. They skated together as a pair. Yeah, and Myers is going to make the team.

He was with Kudratsev. I don't even know if that's pronounced right. That was really good. It might have been. Kudratsev. Yeah. And then Derek Forbort. My son is also named Forbort uh he was with Mark Freeman who

had a really good training camp scored yesterday scored yesterday Freeman's like remember me I'm here eighth defenseman Mark Friedman but but like so the whole thing with the Canucks and trying to stay out of LTIR too is are they going to keep eight defensemen or are they going to keep seven defensemen so at any rate to keep seven defensemen? So at any rate, all these questions are kind of out there right now. We haven't even started the preseason. And as we all know, as the preseason progresses, the questions start to fall away. You're like, OK, well, that guy's gone.

This guy's gone. These two are playing together. And then before you know it, we'll be at the first game of the regular season. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. Let's go to the phone lines now. Kevin Woodley, NHL.com Ingold Magazine here on the

Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Kev? How are you guys? We are well. Do you want to get in on the Radko Gutis conversation from Friday? I know that one really piqued your interest last week. Oh, yeah, no, I just wanted to, I don't want to get into the conversation. I just wanted to poke the bear and see if we could get it going a little bit. That's all.

I'm just all about the chaos. I never want. It was entertaining to listen to. I could sort of picture Brough, like the eruption of Mount Brough was, yeah, it was kind of entertaining to listen to in my car. I got a number of texts about that. Myrtle texted me last night. He's like, you guys should do another Radko Gudis show.

I'm like, well, first of all, why are you listening to my podcast? Like, that's a better Toronto guy. I never want to discuss Radko Gudis again, especially with Laddie and his lies. All the best defensemen are journeymen that have played for four teams in five years. They're all saying that, bro. They're all saying that. Why don't you keep referencing his all situations Corsi? He was bad

on the penalty kill. He was bad on the... What is that even? Attaboy, Kev. You did it. You got him yelling again. Oh, man. I nearly got through the show. As soon as Andy texted me to confirm that I was good to go this morning, I was like, only if we can poke the Radko Gudis bear. I would prefer to talk about Kevin Lankanen.

Can we do this? We can do this. What would you like to know about Kevin Lankanen? Is he a good goalie? He is a really good goalie. He should have been signed a lot earlier than he was. It sounds like maybe, I mean, basically the backup market was Laurent Brassois, Anthony Stollers at big money,

and then everybody else had to settle for sort of million-dollar range. In some cases, guys I think could play in the NHL taking less. And I would have had Lankan in, honestly, next on that list among backups after those two. And I think it's a sample size thing that maybe had teams either not trusting what he did or frankly unaware of what he did relative to environment for the last couple of years. Like this is a guy who was 12th last season in adjusted save percentage this is a guy who over the past two seasons combined is also 12th in adjusted save percentage just barely behind thatcher demko um again tiny sample average 500 shots a season not playing a ton not getting a ton of starts

behind a workhorse and uc sorrows but on a per shot basis actually outperformed sorrows last year so um there's a pedigree there. He obviously won the World Championships with Finland, went back when he was with the Blackhawks and then got kind of thrown to the wolves behind a Blackhawks team that couldn't check their hat. But he's had a lot of success in national

last couple of years. I think the Canucks in a way got a little bit fortunate that not enough other teams actually subscribed to the clear side analytics model and realize how good this guy he's better than the backups on about a third of the league like at least statistically and now the only question is how quickly can he adjust to how they play here um and how will he fit in and i think what helps

in that regard is the fact that he skated with Marco Terranes, their new goaltending coach, for the past, well, off and on for multiple summers and two to three times a week this summer. So there's a familiarity with his game and an understanding of what maybe they can and can't adjust in it. Halford and I were talking about this earlier, and I don't know maybe maybe we're being naive here but when the canucks signed lankan and we're also like man it kind of

makes the demco news seem a lot more real now but they actually got this guy in now because there are knock-on effects to the system um and they clearly think that you know they need this insurance in here for for demko and i'm just wondering you know just your thoughts in in general about the situation with demko and whether you have any expectations whatsoever on when he might be back with the Canucks. Well, I think, so like, first off, you're right. Clearly this wasn't the plan or the, or the idea. And like I said, they got quite fortunate that in my mind, one of the top backup options in the league was still available.

And when I threw those numbers out there, like these are the same type of numbers that, you know, compared to Charlie Lindgren in Washington, when they signed him said confidently, we'd look at back of that as the best signing of that off season. And now he's a starter for 1.3. Same with Connor Ingram getting claimed off waivers with Nashville to Arizona and look at the success he's had there.

Like that's what these numbers typically translate to. They're usually a guy that's ready to pop in terms of what they mean here for the start with the system. This pushes everybody down the depth chart and doesn't create an ideal situation. You know, first off for the potential of it being our tours in the American hockey league, if,

and when, well, I'm not, but when Thatcher Demko is raring to go in a hundred percent, even if she loves outperforms Lankanen, one guy disappears off waivers possibly and the other guy doesn't have to clear so there's that then there's you know your plans for nikita tolapilo you brought in yuri patera in for two reasons one they saw upside but two tolapilo

wouldn't have his playing time affected extremely by patera Like he's not a guy that needs to play a ton in the American League. So the plan was to make sure they continued to develop Tolopilo, and that becomes much more difficult. But at the end of the day, you're only looking out for the big club. And as Demko himself told us, there's a lot of uncertainty around this injury. And as much as he believes he can get to 100% and seems to be in a really good place the past couple of weeks after, as he said, a month off,

and I just appreciated the candor of his conversation with the media to start training camp last week, there remains a lot of uncertainty about the injury. The one thing, I can clear up one thing in terms of the uncertainty. There's no longer uncertainty about what it is. So you guys can get your WebMD out and look up popliteus.

It is the thin triangle-shaped muscle behind the back of the knee. And that evidently is where the injury has occurred, whether it's a tear, to what degree, we don't know. But this is basically a muscle deep behind under several layers of other muscles deep on the back of your knee. It doesn't do much. It sort of attaches to the top inside of the femur and then back to the tibia on the top of the other side.

For runners, it's what unlocks the knee joint from straight. Doesn't have a considerable, it's actually a pretty negligible effect on the flexion of the knee, but it pulls the lateral meniscus back in out of the way on flexion. So if it's not operating properly, there's obviously, it is a small but somewhat significant stabilizing muscle and ligament, and I'm not sure the degree of the damage or whether he's pulled it off the bone at the ligament or what, but it is super rare. I've talked to a couple of people have been doing this at the NHL level for 30

years. They've never seen it. So everything they're telling us tracks. And despite it being small and somewhat insignificant, there's obviously uncertainty that comes when there's no sort of prescribed way to either improve it. Like literally when you first look it up, one of the first things you'll see is the sort of healing time is anywhere from 3 to 16 weeks. So nothing like nailing it down, right?

Like there is that much uncertainty with this injury and so I think with that, to your point, nothing like nailing it down, right? Like there is that much uncertainty with this injury. And, you know, so I think with that, to your point, comes the desire or need for an insurance policy with more NHL experience than what they have in the stable now. Halford, I told you it was a popliteus. You know, I didn't. Oh, my popliteus. I didn't believe him.

As soon as he went down, I was like, that's a popliteus. He said it. I was like, I don't think it is. So here we go. Ready? You ready for this? Yeah, yeah,liteus. As soon as you went down, I was like, that's a popliteus. He said it. I was like, I don't think it is. So here we go. Ready? You ready for this? Yeah. Go.

The popliteus muscle is often called the key of the knee. Oh, my God. Because it hurts the key of his knee. It unlocks the knee. What did I tell you? Okay. Because it is responsible for, quote, unquote, unlocking the knee when the leg is in an extended position.

Okay. The key of the knee. So leg is in an extended position. Okay. The key of the knee. So I have a, I have a, here's the thing guys. Think of this way as a goaltender, your knee is rarely in the locked position. Like this is,

if you, if he was a long distance runner training for the Olympics and as with each stride, you, you get to that straight and point, you've got trouble. Yeah. Like, so I think hyper extending every time. Exactly. Well, no, but, and it, well, it won't straighten a, without it,

evidently you can't straighten your leg and then there's what it does to the, you know, in terms of unlocking and locking. So like, again, knowing the name of it doesn't necessarily help us because at the end of the day, people a lot smarter than the three slash five of us um don't have any answers on this evidently so um the fact we know isn't going to help us solve it so kev the the one big question that will have many questions but one of the big questions that i have is once demko is back and he seemed confident he'll be back do they know how to maintain his health do they know do they understand the maintenance of this injury because I don't

personally as a Canucks fan want to be watching Thatcher Demko and going oh he's back he looks good but in the back of my mind I don't want it, oh, I hope his pop Latias can hold up, you know, like, do they know how to maintain him once he's back? I don't have that answer, right? Like I don't have that answer. I think when you listen to him talk the other day, um, when he talked about being confident he could get back to 100%, you take that at its word. In terms of the uncertainty about whether this could, just as it did this summer, become a problem and have to shut down for a month,

again, if he thinks he can get to 100% and this isn't going to be a problem at some point moving forward, then that's really good news. I just don't know that. one way or the other right like i think we have to take them at their word on this um but again because it's as he said like this is literally something nobody in hockey that they're aware of has ever dealt with so um in terms of what that looks like. And he plays a position in hockey that puts more stress on the lower body and asks the lower body to do things it wasn't naturally designed to do. So obviously there's a degree of uncertainty that comes with this. I would assume they have ideas on how to basically help him get through this

and stay strong. At the end of the day, as you guys dig into this and do your popliteus research, you'll find that the injuries are most likely to occur to an already injured joint or along the lines of a PCL injury. The fact he was playing so soon after the early injury probably contributes to it. So it's probably just more of a general maintenance thing.

I'm sure they have some specifics. But as you get into this, like this thing is deep behind multiple layers of other muscles behind the knee. Like I don't know that you can go and train this. I think this is probably more of an overall maintenance thing. But again, much smarter people than I that they have on their staff are going to have ideas on how to strengthen everything around it so that this doesn't happen again. At the end of the day, there's uncertainty. We are speaking to Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and InGoal Magazine

here on Sportsnet 650. Kevin has a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. Visit the showroom on King George and White Rock or whiterockhyundai.com. So let's assume that we'll be seeing some Artie Seelov's action early in the season. Where's your confidence index on Seelov's carrying the mail, carrying the load to start the season? Well, I mean, I think you feel better about having to not play the wheels off him early as Kevin Lankanen comes in and gets settled. Like, you've got two options there, right? So, listen, our turns looked great yesterday,

and yet the very nature of that type of scrimmage is that the type of scoring chances he sees are where he excels, kind of like early in the Edmonton series, right, where they're trying to lateral and backdoor and cross ice. And, hey, listen, if the Canucks' new plan to generate a whole bunch off the rush leads to a whole bunch of chances against off the rush, Artur has the athleticism and ability to make a whole bunch of game changing saves and momentum changing saves like he did in that scrimmage last night. Oh, and by the way, for all the numbers I threw out about Kevin Lincoln and he's exceptional off the rush,

like he's in the top 10 over the last two years against rush chances so that bodes well if some of their attempts to score more leads to more of those types of chances against but it's there's going to be a learning experience right like the good news is you're not going to have the Edmonton Oilers for seven straight games and a team sort of figuring out oh hey this isn't working let's try and generate a lot more stuff from the point and through screens and the things that he hasn't had a chance to figure out yet at the NHL level. Like, I don't think as much as that will have helped build a book on our terms that wasn't there at the start of the playoffs last year. I just don't think the teams pay that much attention

to it when it's Vancouver on a Tuesday and Seattle the next night on a Wednesday compared to how they would in the playoffs. And obviously the Oilers did and took advantage of it. I threw it out before, like first three games, 1.2 screenshots a game. Last four, almost five screenshots a game. They clearly went to work on it. There are elements that he still has to learn at the highest level. I believe and have confidence that he will

and he will make those adjustments um what that looks like in the short term like you don't worry about like the the most important thing are the things we can't see and that's between the ears and so the fact this is his chance if demko doesn't start the season to to maybe become the number one the fact that he has added pressure from Kevin Lankanen, perhaps. Some might see it that way since he's been signed. Like, none of this is going to bother him. Like, mentally, that's something you don't worry about. Artur Silov is exceptionally strong.

And so that's a real positive, just like we saw in the playoffs. Under the bright lights of the postseason, he didn't wilt. And so that's at least one thing you don't have to worry about. But there are probably going to be some ups and downs as you adjust to other elements of the game. Kev, thanks for joining us today. Good information about Kevin Lankanen and some good thoughts about Thatcher Demko.

We'll chat again soon. Enjoy the start of the preseason. We'll be at the regular season soon enough. I'm looking forward to it. I'm just happy that I gave Halford after years of him

finally figuring out how to say White Rock Hyundai. He's now got to work on his Popliteus. Popliteus. That's the, yeah. Popliteus. I told you, man.

That's a Popliteus. And you were like, I think it's an ACL. I'm like, it's a popliteus. Everyone knows. I'm going to try and come up with different variations. He has a popliteal area. That's a good one.

I'm working on it, Kev. Thanks for in three to 16 weeks. Thanks, buddy. Take care, guys. Kevin Woodley, NHL.com and InGoal Magazine here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. We're both sort of, we're in the throes of are you research that's what you're doing right now right you're looking up the pop latias no the old pop no why not it's important it's the key of the knee i'm just doing some online banking that's that's important too you'd be amazed at the amount of administrative

work you can get done during this show yeah kev you just go he just talks and talks and then you're back and you're like all right kev that's right i just ordered some socks off amazon um let's do some what we learned here uh i'm gonna continue on on these uh the curtis rourke band i'm gonna try and build this bandwagon for the nfl draft i don't know if curtis rourke is a consideration for the NFL draft, but what he's doing right now at the University of Indiana, I think is worth watching. Now, they didn't exactly play a top team last week, the Hoosiers, but it was another big day for Curtis Rourke and it was another big

win for the Indiana Hoosiers. Rourke is now up to, he's over a thousand yards passing in four games, eight touchdowns, no interceptions for Curtis Rourke. First off, you're obviously underestimating the power of Charlotte. I didn't even know they had a football team or a university for that matter. But the Hoosiers took care of business 52 to 14. That was on the heels of Curtis Rourke's big game at UCLA, which sounds a lot better. Four touchdowns in that game, over 300 yards passing. We've got Nathan Rourke

on the show tomorrow, don't we, A-Dog? Nathan Rourke is going to join the show tomorrow. So we'll talk to Nathan, obviously about the BC Lions and trying to get back to their winning ways

after a dreadful performance. That's my Tony Gallagher. Dreadful performance against the Toronto Argonauts. Just a dog's breakfast of a game. That is a very good Gallagher impression, I've got to say. Well, thank you, Andy. So we'll talk to Nathan about that,

but we should also ask him about his brother. Yeah, 100%. What's going on down there? And I also want to ask Nathan. Clarify what school he goes to again, please, for my sake. Indiana. The Hoosiers. The Hoosiers.

Traditionally a basketball. Not Indiana State. Indiana. Traditionally a basketball school. However, he is making a name for himself. So I follow a lot of. Hoosiers are usually like not a good football school. Terrible football school.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. However, however, I start. I've been following for the last couple of years a couple of guys that because of all the conference switches are now like deeply into Big Ten football. And I saw one and he's like over the weekend on social media, he was like, he's got a lot of followers too. He's like, bro, don't bother me right now. I'm too busy putting together Curtis Rourke's Heisman candidacy.

Like that is the level that he is playing at so so he's going to have some big opponent opponents down the stretch on uh more difficult than charlotte yeah we have to get into november but uh he'll play michigan he'll play at ohio state also has a game uh against the washington huskies october 26th and we're trying to get curt Rourke on the program. But first, we'll talk to his brother tomorrow. So lots to talk about with Nathan Rourke tomorrow, so tune in for that. Give us a moo cow on the Rourkes.

By the way, I do want to point out that, you know, we kind of scoff at the weird direction that college football has taken with NILs and the transfer portal and everything but um the path that curtis rourke has taken wasn't available to him in if this was a previous iteration just transferring yeah entering the portal or proving himself in a small school a dog a dog a dog a dog a dog when Adog. When I say in college sports, this guy has entered the portal, what comes up in your sci-fi head? Well, a giant circular portal opens up on the field or the pitch or the ice

or whatever, and he just goes through it. You step through it, and you're like, I'm in Bloomington now. Yeah, exactly. Like, well, we step through the portal. We don't know where he is. They're down a man. Anyway, it's great. Is that not what happens?

Sort of. Except here he ended up at Indiana. A lot of good players to the portal. Yeah. I'll just say, like, there are some good things that maybe have come up. And this is one of, this is a very cool story. Like, I know we've mentioned it kind of anecdotally and like in passing over the last couple of weeks, but what he's doing in a big conference

and like, yeah, they torch Charlotte, but those are Nintendo numbers that he's putting on, like 510 yards is crazy. And it sets the stage for, like it'll be a prove it moment when he goes up against the traditional powers, right? Where it's like, okay, you've done it against, you know,

the school for the deaf and blind. Now try and do it against a real talented school. And I think it's going to be very interesting. And then if he's able to, we're talking about a guy that he's already on NFL writers. Like I've looked and they said like, yeah, he's,

he's a guy that's got a very good chance of being drafted. And then this brings me to his brother. He'll go down to the States and not get a chance. and now it brings me oh are you canadian now it brings me to his brother who we're gonna have on the show tomorrow i don't think that even if we ask nathan rourke he's ever going to be completely transparent about what he thinks happened when he was down south we can only ask him though do you think you got a fair shot here's where i'm at with this right now how nathan you're watching skylar thompson this weekend your thoughts and then tim boyle right he did make that one good throw though so here's the question did nathan rourke perform

really badly down there to the point where he couldn't usurp guys like skylar thompson and tim boyle or was there some sort of prejudice or preconceived notion of what he was as a quarterback? Because it does not make sense. You didn't have enough backers, maybe. You know, you always need to, Mojo would always say this, you need someone who's going to pound the table for you. Yeah. Play this guy.

Play this guy. You have to play this guy. I know what I watched on Sunday. I mean, and I'm not a NFL head coach. I'm not a scout. Some would say I barely am a fan.

Like, Halford, you don't know what you're talking about. But I know subpar quarterbacking when I see it. And I saw a guy in Miami

that, granted, he's a backup quarterback, but they had an entire week to try and game plan something. And they put up three points. And he got handed. Skyler Thompson got annihilated. Yeah. And then they were forced to play Tim Boyle.

And we're three weeks into the season. Like, the season's still new, and everyone's got optimism because it's not over yet. You're not doing the death march yet. Like, we're not talking about week 16, let's get Tommy DeVito out there. I just wonder when he went down there for the first time, was that his best chance? Because his second year, his game probably, what's the word?

Atrophy? Yeah. I mean, we've seen that since he came back to the CFL. He doesn't look like the same player. He had such momentum and he was feeling it. And he went down there. Do you remember the preseason game

that he had that was on all the highlight reels? Like, who's this kid that just made this incredible play in the preseason? But then he never really got a shot. Yep. I mean, we've seen some pretty...

Again, we're in week three and in somewhat limited duty, we've already seen like Aiden O'Connell came in yesterday at the end of the Raiders game, right? Davis Mills has thrown some passes. It's very strange to me that a guy could go down there and he got picked up enough times the team showed interest. I don't know what the divide was. And honestly, maybe it could be that it wasn't good enough. It could be. Could be, for sure.

Absolutely. He could look like Skyler Thompson out there, or even worse. Right. To those people that accuse us of pushing narratives, I literally have no narrative here. I don't know what happened. I just know it doesn't really make sense. Because you can't tell me that nathan

work couldn't have gone out there and done what skylar thompson did yesterday for a team he could have hurt his shoulder easily sure whatever it was a chest but i but i don't know i mean it's it is very bizarre anyway that's my my what we learned is that i i didn't learn i don't know okay get your what we learned into the dumb bar lumberumber text line. What is our giveaway? We are giving away a four pack of tickets to see Monster Jam this Saturday at Pacific Coliseum. That is the annual monster truck tour that is coming through Vancouver.

All your favorites will be there. Grave Digger, The Mortuary. I made that one up. Truckasaurus. Right. No, Truckasaurus isn't there what um stop false advertising the mohawk warrior presented by great clips is my favorite that's a real one apropos of nothing i saw the greatest license plate the other day on the on the highway we're

talking about trucks i saw it was like an old i think it was like, do you remember those Pontiac Firebirds? Boy, do I. Yeah. They were pretty cool. Pretty sick. It was old and not in the best shape. Here was the license plate. GNR AFD.

Nice. I know what that means. Guns and Roses, all F and day. Oh, you idiot. Do you actually know what it is? Is it Guns and Roses, all F&A. Oh, you idiot. Do you actually know what it is? Is it Guns N' Roses? Yeah. AFD, what is it?

What was their most important album? Oh, Appetite for Destruction. Yeah. I like mine better. I wanted to drive past the person. I was like hitting the gas. And I'm just like, yeah, rock and roll. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.