Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Best Of Halford And Brough 9/26/24

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they talk a big OT pre-season win versus the Flames in Abby w/ Canucks Talk & The Athletic Vancouver's Thomas Drance, 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. Whoa, wait a minute. Huh? Hold up. What? Oh, okay. Did we just lose the f***ing Canucks? You're listening to Halford & Brough.

Daniel Sprong. Back in across the Calgary line. Makes a nice move. Sprong. So the goal to the forehand. He scores! What a goal by Daniel Sprong with 14.3 seconds left. I mean, that was a hell of a goal, obviously.

We know we can do that. Ove scores! It's three! Vancouver Whitecaps successfully defend their Canadian championship reign! Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford, it is Bruv, 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. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford 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 that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler. They pay the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver.

We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorfie, what are you waiting for? Kintec. So who felt the shaken this morning? What? There was an earthquake this morning. No.

4.05. I thought it was just gassy. Nope, it wasn't. You were wrong. No, you might have been right, my friend. It was a bean you had. It was a singular bean. There was a 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Sandwichton.

And we're just... So, Sonia from City News came in this morning, asked if I had heard. I said, no, I was also asleep. Possibly gassy as well. But no major damage reported. So, that's a big sigh of relief for everyone. And it is pretty early in the morning. Most of you are probably waking up to this news,

like Jason Brough. We'll keep tabs on it throughout the morning. But we have some sports to get into today, my friend. Guest list begins at 6.30. Matt Vertoram is going to join us, our NFL insider from Sports Illustrated. Big game tonight, classic NFC East battle between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants.

So we'll talk a little bit about that. We'll look ahead to the week four. Huge game for the Cowboys. They better win this one. Massive game. They better win this one. Yeah, it could be real grim if it's not already for Dak Prescott and Mike McFerrin. You know what this is kind of reminiscent of?

When the Oilers went down to San Jose, struggling early in the season, and you're like, they better win that one. Remember they lost that game? And then they lost it. It was like, oh boy. And then Jay Woodcroft was walking off the season, and you're like, they better win that one. Remember they lost that game? And then they lost it. It was like, oh, boy. And then Jay Woodcroft was walking off the ice, and you could see him mouthing the words to his assistant, that might be it.

Yeah. And that was it. And you know what? He was right. It was it. 7 o'clock, Adnan Virk, MLB Network. The MLB playoff picture is coming more and more into focus with just a handful of games left in the regular season. We'll talk to

Adnan about that at 7. 8 o'clock Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk right here on SportsNet 650. We will look back on another win for the Vancouver Canucks. This time 4-3 in overtime out in Abbotsford over the Calgary Flames last night. We'll talk to Drance about that.

Just a loaded Flames team. Just all the stars you want to see. It was like watching an All-Star game last night. We'll talk to Drancer about that. Just a loaded Flames team. Just all the stars you want to see. It was like watching an All-Star game last night. I noticed Samuel Honzik was out there. I remember him from all the reads we used to do for the Vancouver Giants. Say something. I asked A-Dog if he was playing and A-Dog said, I didn't watch the stream.

Thank you. That's why you listen to this show. For insight and analysis and be up to the news like we are. He didn't know there was an earthquake. He didn't know Hansik was playing. We'll figure it out by the time this show is done, though. A reminder, at the end of this show,

we're going to give away another four-pack of Monster Jam tickets. Saturday at the Pacific Coliseum, we're giving away a four-pack to the best of what we learned. Start getting them in now. Why not start now? Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. Hasht hashtag it wwl and tell us what you learned over the last 24 hours in sports let us know we'll pick the best one you'll get a four packet tickets to see grave digger and the one that's brought to you by great clips and el poyo loco none of these are really

accurate but they're all going to be there on Saturday. I'll play the logo. For the monster trucks. All right. I'm not even going to work in reverse on the guest list. We have so many things to get into. So without further ado, Laddie, 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? You missed that? What happened? 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. Jake DeBrusque scored his second goal. Second of two. 58 seconds into overtime on Wednesday night. Vancouver Canucks rallied in the third period, won it in OT, a 4-3 victory over the Calgary Flames in Abbotsford on Wednesday night. Yeah, the game certainly finished better than it started. It was a bit of a sleepy affair, I think, through the first two periods.

Quite a bit of star power out there For the Canucks Hughes was out there Petey was out there, DeBrusque was out there Daniel Sprong as we'll talk about later He was out there The third period though Saw the Canucks start with a 2-1 lead That's good

But then they fell behind 3-2 That's bad But then they tied it up late on a beautiful individual goal by Daniel Sprung, a guy we've talked a lot about this preseason. This was his first game, and he really made an impact with a big goal. And he looked good throughout the entire game um he took on four flames and beat them all that's good i don't know yeah are we still doing that i don't know what the flames were doing on that the connects were actually on the power play so i don't know if

they were like we got to box it up it's the pk yeah but this guy's just gonna go right around us they're like oh well it's much too late to adjust now because he's already scored. And then on a three-on-one in overtime, it went Hughes to Petey with a nice little poke pass, I would call it, to Dabrowski, and Dabrowski's sitting there with an open net going, stuff's going to be easier. I already got two goals. Two tic-tac goals, two tic-tac-toe goals in two games for the Vancouver Canucks now.

I'm sure you're going to look on the glass-half-full side of things with their second straight victory and two very nice goals in both games. That's right, yeah, because the Holgländer goal was a really nice one against Seattle in the first game. The three stars were DeBrusque with two goals, Sprong with that beauty, and Quinn Hughes for just being amazing like throughout the entire game I think everyone watched him play and they're like yep still a good defenseman that reigning Norris trophy winner the normal stats by the way weren't available from the game so we don't have

a ton of to work with beyond goals assists and shots we don't have ice times or anything like that but let's start with with Jake DeBrus because he was very prominent. As mentioned, he scored twice. He looked like he might have even had the first goal when he was standing in front of the net. I thought he might have tipped it home, but it was actually Max Sasson's goal. But at least DeBrus was there, right?

In front of the net, that's where the Canucks need him. He then tipped home the Canucks second goal of the game off a point shot from De Arne um Petey got a third assist on that one I don't count those though yeah third assist though um and it was a nice point it was a nice tip uh he called a little bit lucky and then as mentioned in overtime he finished off a three-on-one rush with Petey and he was for his second of the night so it was a really good debut even though it was just pre-season against a really pared down Flames team although I don't even know if they have a full lineup if you wouldn't call them pared down because they're not a very good team but

so Rick Talkett afterwards he he liked a lot of the individual stuff he liked the games that DeBrusque had he liked obviously the goal and the game overall that Daniel Sprong had. He liked Kiefer Sherwood was another guy that was everywhere. He was skating miles. He had a ton of energy, ton of speed. And I think Tockett looks at Sherwood and sees a guy like, love this guy's tenacity. And I think if we can harness this even a little bit better,

teach him a little bit more, then we might have a real player here but I don't think Talkett overall was thrilled with the performance again the Canucks were losing this game in the third period and if you look at that Flames lineup compared to the Canucks lineup I think it's just going to be a slight adjustment for this team as they transition their game to more up-tempo. And Talkett said after the game, number one, some guys, some guys, not all guys, some guys need to be in better shape because if you're going to play fast, if you're going to try and move the puck up the ice, you're going to get lots of rush chances, then you better be prepared to get back. Not unlike, to bring a little soccer in you, to wake you up, Jesse Marsh, the new gaffer for Canada,

has got a very high-pressure, high-attack style press. That was the word I was looking for. And you've got to be in shape to play it. So if the Canucks are going to play fast and they're going to try and create lots of rush chances, well, they better be prepared because if there's a mistake, and Rick Tockett noted one mistake that even Jake DePresca made, they need to get back and protect. There were a couple of goals and chances that went against them

that almost brought us a little bit back to the Bruce era, which is not an era you really necessarily want to go back to. But the Canucks won the game. They got some good individual efforts. And overall, I think Tuckett just, he's not worried, but he's not super impressed either. He knows there's still work to be done. Well, let's hear from the head coach himself right now

because you brought up some good talking points that I think we're going to hear repeatedly throughout this preseason until either the Canucks get it right or they get up to speed. Speed is the big takeaway here for me and for Brough listening to Talk It Speak last night. Here is the coach, Rick Talk It, last night. First, praising the newcomers. Greg, let's get this one going.

That the newcomers, it's great that they got success early. And then the tail end of this quote is, with a butt. So we'll play this now. Rick Talkett, nice for the newcomers to get some success early as the Canucks win 4-3 in overtime over the Calgary Flames. Well, this is the big event guys, right? You know, Sherwood, the way he forechecks, you know, he's a pest out there.

But he had the puck a lot, and you go, you know, obviously Jake's a scorer, and Spronger's a big event guy. You know, it's good to have those guys at any time. They can do something for us. So, yeah, it's nice for them to get some success

early, but, you know, on the other side, we've got to clean up some stuff. I thought we were, I thought we played a little slow in some aspects of our game. We've got we've got to clean up some stuff. I thought we played a little slow on some aspects of our game. We've got to make sure we play a little faster. I thought Calgary played a little faster than certain parts of the game. So that's where he started to introduce the speed factor. And then he followed up with

another thing Jason alluded to. If they are going to play at a certain pace and a certain speed, certain guys are going to need to get in a little bit of better shape. Here's Rick Tockett on the fitness of some guys and the fitness that is going to be required to play how fast they want to play this season. Rick Tockett

following the win over Calgary. Some, yeah. And obviously, there's going to be some kinks. But to play fast, you've got to come back fast. I thought we were coasting. You've got to be in shape to play this game. We're going to continue to skate hard. If you want to play at this pace, you've got to be in shape to play this game. So we're going to continue to skate hard. If you want to play at this pace, you've got to be in shape.

So I think we've got to get a couple guys up to speed, which is fine. But it's always nice to see the elements that we've been working on in the game. Like I said, the two games were fine. I just think we've got to get a little bit faster, thinking faster. So it's interesting because when we talked about in the offseason, you know, what does the team need to improve or what's an area of their game that they probably need to get better at, speed often came to the forefront of the discussions.

And it was in a lot of different ways. We would go through the roster and be like, which guys are really good skaters? And prior to adding like Sherwood and Heinen, I think both of whom add just pure speed to the team, there wasn't a lot of them, right? There was guys that were fine skaters, but you wouldn't call the team collectively blazing fast

based on the parts, right? So there's that. I think really what it comes down to is if you're going to play faster, there's three elements to it. One is like what we just talked about. You need fast skaters. That's pretty basic logic. Like you need guys that are going to be able to skate as opposed to guys that can't.

Then Taka spoke about it. You need the certain level of conditioning and fitness. So that's the second part. And then the third part is a mentality. You have to think and approach and attack fast. You can do it in other ways right you can be more methodical you can be more plotting but it's still an attack mindset but to do it with speed means uh probably one there's a lot more north south and then what stuff we talked about yesterday

knowing where you need to be and where you want to go and because yeah if you're trying to play fast but you don't know where you're going to go you're going to make a lot of mistakes and you're also going to run yourself out of shape it's a lot of wasted skating yeah it's wasted energy yeah where are you going so those are going to be the things to monitor in this pre-season at least from my perspective because they've got a lot of the the tenets and the staples of what they want to do as a team already set right they got their structure from last year. I think everyone, they've gone through enough practices where everyone knows where they need to be on the ice.

Right now, what's the next evolution of a good hockey team? That's probably a nice way of putting it. And this one will be, can this team get faster so that when it comes time to applying more pressure or not getting caved in for long stretches, like we saw in the playoffs sometimes where they were in a defensive shell. Speed, you know, counterbalances and counteracts, all these things. So I think they're going to see some better lineups now

because in the preseason, what typically happens is if you've got a home game, you play some, if not all of your stars. So we saw last night Calgary loaded with superstars but none of the veterans I don't think were in the lineup if you go through the lineup it was not star studded

now they go to Seattle on Friday Calgary on Saturday Monday is Edmonton. All those games. So that's three games in four nights starting Friday, all on the road. And then they have a few days off, and then their final preseason game

is Friday, October 4th against Edmonton. And that's the game we've been wondering if the Canucks will, okay, let's dress a pretty full lineup. And hopefully JT Miller is part of that. He hasn't played in the first two games. I don't know if there's anything going on there. I don't think there's anything too much to worry about. But you never know with this team.

And then they have, so they go Friday, October 4th, and then they don't play until, they don't open their season until October 9th. So it's not like you're going to be worried about fatigue or anything. So if Rick Tockett feels like he wants to, unless there's maybe a final battle that he wants to see between a couple of guys that are trying to make the team, maybe the October 4th game is the full team. But I don't know.

He's not telling me his plan for the preseason. But there's four games left. We haven't seen JT Miller yet. A lot of people will probably wonder, how did Petey look last night? Well, he made a great play on the game-winning goal, and Jake DeBrus was nice enough to say afterwards that that winning goal was all Petey.

It was a three-on-one. Quinn Hughes made a nice pass to Petey, who just kind of like poked it across the crease to DeBrusque, and DeBrusque had a wide-open net. Petey also had a chance in the third period where the, I don't know, the seas kind of parted for him. I know Lekker-Mackie, he might have tipped it back to him, but Petey was in pretty much all alone in the high slot,

and he got off a shot and he hit the post. But I don't think he played so well that people were like, he's back, baby, right? Right. One preseason game, guys. Yep. One preseason game. So just to stop anyone from texting in,

it's preseason, guys. Let's not freak out about it. You're still allowed to analyze. And, you know, I watched him play, and, you know, I thought there was a chance this season that he might come, like, firing out, like, unbelievable. Like, oh, my God, this guy is just, like, he is ready to roll. He's looking to make a statement.

You know, him and Hughes were out there in Abbotsford last night, and as good team leaders, I know they spent a lot of time out there signing autographs, being the faces of the team. And that was good to see. Hughes was obviously very good. He was the third star of the game doing his thing. I still watched Petey and I was kind of like, okay, let's go. Let's go.

And I wonder if he's one of those guys that maybe needs to get into a bit better shape because we heard him talk about his knee issues, the tendonitis that he had to work around in the offseason, and maybe he's going to need to play himself a little bit more into game shape because the expectations are really high for this guy. Like the Canucks, based on their lineup last night versus the Flames lineup they should have smoked

the Flames and in the end they they needed to score late on a really nice goal by Daniel Sprong and then winning it over time okay I think you actually said something actually said something important there where you're you're you're waiting and you're waiting and you're analyzing Pedersen's game and then you also had the self-awareness to note that it was game one of the preseason against basically Calgary's AHL team, right? I have the self-awareness to know what would happen if I were to say that Petey wasn't very good in his first preseason game. But this is the dynamic now. This is the Pedersen dynamic. I was actually thinking, should we set a bar of how many games?

Like, how many games do we need? What does he get, 10 games of the regular season? Or what's going on here? When you have a second half of a season and a playoff like he had, and when it's very well documented from the management to the coach to the player himself that it was underwhelming, and if you want to throw out the word problematic, you can. You set this dynamic up.

You put the microscope firmly on your performances, even on September 25th, when you're playing Calgary's American League team in Abbotsford. So up at ESPN.com right now, Greg Wyshynski has his 32 bold predictions for each NHL team. And his one for the Vancouver Canucks, Elias Pettersson bounces back big. And he noted last season the Canucks star center saw his point production drop from 102 points down to 89 points, which it should be said

still made him a better than a point per game player for Vancouver. Pettersson had a bit of tendinitis in his knee, a rotating cast of wingers, and some jitters about his contract negotiation. While he's reportedly still dealing with tendinitis, Pettersson signed an eight-year extension in March and appears to have a steady line mate in former Bruins

scorer Jake DeBrusque. Petey is primed for a return to form and a monster season for the Canucks so that's what the national media and friend of the show Greg Wyszynski that's what they're saying about PD down south so he is one of the main storylines obviously for this team uh this season so he's gonna get watched and people are gonna analyze his game like I I watch I I think there's a little too much reaching in his game. Too much reaching. Too much poking, right?

And, well, but I'm obviously going to allow this to play out, you know. Let's see how it does. But he needs to be good. And don't forget, it was Patrick Galvin that said, let's not waste any time here. Let's get right to it. Let's start the season and start showing that we're one of the premier teams in the Western Conference. A reminder, if you want to get a hold of us on the show

and you want us to dive into any topics on last night's game, the first two games collectively are moving forward in the preseason. Anything you want Canucks-wise, this is your home of the Canucks Sportsnet 650. Text to the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket, 650-650. Bubble Matthew, good name, did so this morning. He writes in, Guys, I am impressed by how shrewd this management group is. How refreshing it is that they held out to get Daniel Sprong

and the new goalie low on one-year deals. So, Sprong, let's focus on that for a moment here because probably outside of DeBrusque's two goals and really the collective um narrative last night was the new guys yeah it was sprung it was de brusque it was sherwood all three impressed in different ways sprung probably got the most buzz because of the highlight reel goal he scored with 14 seconds left to tie it up in the third period i'm gonna throw it to some audio from Rick Talkett here. And Talkett obviously has some experience with the player.

They didn't really necessarily overlap all that much while they were in Pittsburgh, but there was some alignment there. So they know what kind of player they were getting. And this, in a very short clip, but Talkett says, this is kind of what you can expect from Sprong. This is what he has a knack for. Here is Rick Talkett on Daniel Sprong. Yeah, he he's got that knack to do that sort of stuff you know he's

he can skate so he's you know there's a lot of things we can work with him to really make him complete but yeah that's uh i mean that's a hell of a goal obviously that's uh we know he can do that so it's going to be interesting because the for those that aren't aware of the story and the narrative on sprung it's high-end talent um like some would just say like an elite level shot elite level finisher creativity the ability to do the things you saw last night uh obviously not the well-rounded game what's going to be interesting here is kind of a talk it was speaking about there. It's like, can we take the tools that he has and harness them in a good way, in a positive way? Now, to me, that's code for can we put him in certain situations where he'll thrive and then shadow and hide him in the situations where he'll get caved in? Yeah.

And it's an age old argument we've had since the moment that they signed Sprung. It's like, can you do that and be a top six player? I mean, it's part of the reason why the guy's bounced around as much as he has with the numbers that he has. Let's just be dead honest about it. There's a lot to like creatively and offensively about his game, but remember, I don't want to be the glass half empty

guy all the time, but the goal he scored last night, the highlight real goal was in the first week of the preseason against a bunch of farmhands from Calgary. It is what it is. It was a beautiful goal. It was a beautiful goal. It was amazing.

But talk to me, and is he able to do that against, I don't know, a good defensive team in the National Hockey League in February? It's probably not happening. And people who want him in the top six, there's a lot of responsibilities in the top six. Even Jake Dabruska got called up by the coach for making a mistake last night. Right.

And what Fockett liked about that was that he put DeBrusca right back out there and he made amends for it with some solid play. And Sprung is going to be a really interesting talking point for the remainder of the year because of these things. It looks like a shrewd management move. He's got high-end offensive talent, and he's got some intrigue because no one can really make sense of why he's bounced around

as much as he has with the numbers that he's put up. And if this thing pans out, the Alvin and Rutherford duo, between that, if they can get Sprong contributing for the contract that he's on and she loves contributing big time for the contract that he's on they're gonna have two of the better value brus i don't i mean they didn't they didn't come out of their boots to sign to brusque either like they didn't give him a i think him a good contract but it wasn't like crazy and if yeah and if he meshes with pd and he becomes that trigger man for peterson you're

talking about a man i think sherwood's gonna that trigger man for Pettersson, you're talking about a manager. I think Sherwood's going to be a real fan favorite too. You know, you're talking about a management group now that's going to have a lot of ticks in the positives, which we haven't seen in a long time here. Like that many, right? They're pro scouting from day one though. We'll see about this defense though.

We'll see about this defense. Right. I think Hughes and Hronik are going to have to go back together. I think so too. I don't know what J to go back together. I think so, too. I don't know what Juleson was doing on Calgary's third goal, other than just weaving through the neutral zone. He went over way too far to one side. Are you suggesting that Noah Juleson was out of position? And then he stumbled. Yeah, sometimes Noah Juleson gets a little too aggressive.

He's a wanderer. He's a bolt and wanderer. He wants to see the world. Yeah, he's got a little backpack. And then he's like, there's some guy that I don't know, and he's on the flames, and he has a breakaway, and I think that was my guy. Yeah, he has a bindle on the back of a hockey stick,

and he just walks the train tracks. All right, he's a wanderer. And I don't think that he's ever. Imagine he actually had a bindle. Well, I don't think. Okay. He got a bindle. Remember when he came in the playoffs? I a bindle well I don't think okay remember when he came in the playoffs I know we gotta go for a break

remember when he came in the playoffs last year and I was like you know what's gonna happen and you called it he's gonna he's gonna run around

he's gonna be all excited because it's the playoffs and it's it's like Noah Juleson I'm gonna do Noah Juleson things and you love it because they're big collisions he's gonna step up on a guy

and take himself out of the play in the process and give up an odd man rush. And that's like exactly what happened. The hit is going to be spectacular, but it's definitely an odd man rush. Do you remember we had our impression of watching Nual Julson play? It was like, oh, yeah, great big hit. Oh, they scored ass. That's happening in there. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. And then during scored ass. That's happening in the theater.

Oh, yeah. Oh, no. And then during the regular season, you're like, whatever, that was a good hit. During the playoffs, it's like, uh, goals are a little more important. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough. You're listening to the best of Halford and Brough.

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

Red Russian. Thomas Grant's erotica. PDO. Thomas Grant's erotica. 803 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and 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. We are in Hour 3 of the program. Thomas Drance is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 3. Hour 3 is brought to you by Campbell & Pound Real Estate Appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio.

Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Soar feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec Studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider, powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec, to the phone lines we go. Thomas Drance joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Drancer. How are you? Morning, gentlemen. I'm doing well. How are you liking that Trevor Lawrence ownership?

Going to have a big bounce-back game in Houston on my bench. What year is that going to happen? This season? It's a long-term acquisition. He's only 25. He turned 25 yesterday. Happy birthday to the lemon, Trevor Lawrence. Okay, we're going to park Trevor Lawrence for now.

Jason's getting angry at me for throwing to him, so I'll throw back to you. Halford always throws to me and is like, you do the Canucks interview. Halford, what are you curious about with the Canucks? So Rick Talkett yesterday, in the aftermath of the game, twice, twice pointed out that he thought his team wasn't playing fast enough.

And as a matter of fact, I actually said that he felt that Calgary, primarily made up of players from the AHL Wranglers, played faster than the Vancouver Canucks. So it's a two-part question for you, Thomas Drance. Do the Canucks need to play faster? And if so, how do they get there? Yeah, and you know know i thought they actually generated off the rush i just thought they also surrendered a ton off the rush i mean dryden hunt had the

breakaway in the first period and then a couple shifts later uh they hit like the flames hit the canucks again uh with a sort of rush chance that was almost identical. And then obviously we saw, you know, in the third period, as Calgary was able to take a lead briefly, right, it was two goals off the rush. And this team, you know, they didn't surrender rush chances last season. That just wasn't something they did. Now, I did think they were generating off the rush, though.

And you could see some of the landmark sort of style breakouts Now, I did think they were generating off the rush, though. And you could see some of the landmark sort of style breakouts that Talkett and the club were working on pulled off on occasion. Specifically, there was one that was like picture perfect that sprung Archdeep Baines for a quality chance in all alone in the first period so you know what i'm what i assume he means is that the team was not playing at the sort of pace that in his mind's required for them to do the the stuff they want to do in terms of generating without necessarily leaving them exposed um the other side now look there's not a lot of stuff that we look at at this time of year and like really, really wait. Right. Like star players in this environment, finding their hands, right. Finding their feet, pacing themselves, preparing themselves for the year. Right. You should never come out of a preseason game and be like, oh, man, that star player wasn't as good as he needs to be.

It's like, come on. No, no. They're there. They're ramping up. Obviously, it's different, though, for the guys who are competing for, like, real minutes and rolls. And it's definitely different for those guys at the bottom end of the roster, like, competing to make an impression to be the first injury call up or outright win an NHL job out of camp. I do tend to think some of that like systems work stuff though, the way a team's playing. I do think some of that is worth monitoring, not for like criticism, not to be like, oh man, I'm worried about this Canucks team and whether or not they can play fast,

or I'm worried about how much they surrendered off the rush. Like, you know, I don't think that matters. It's probably, you know, a team's not going to, like, click in terms of their identity. Who knows, right? Like, depends on whether or not they're a successful team. Some teams never click. Some teams, like the Canucks last year,

didn't click during preseason, right? Like, it was five or six games into the year, really, I'd say that win in Nashville, which was maybe game six where where you could kind of see what this canucks team wanted to do and and how it could play out um so it takes time but it is sort of a marker of progress i guess and and i think one thing that i was watching last night's game and thinking was you know, I do think that it's going to be tricky for this team to turn the dial on what they create through the neutral zone, right. While maintaining, you know,

a robust defensive identity, largely based, like not largely, but based in large part off of the way that this team was so disciplined about making conservative puck handling decisions, right. To effectively like take all oxygen out of the, out of the game, right. Like getting to that point where they can generate without sacrificing some of that defensive identity. I do think that's going to be a challenge. I think that's a hard dial to turn. turn, and I do feel like last night was just a marker of the progress they've

made thus far as a rush attacking team and sort of the distance still to travel. Daniel Sprong, so we saw the highlight reel goal yesterday. Incredible. Again, to your earlier point, we should probably point out who it was against. I think

one of the defensemen he skated around was Jared Tenardi, and it was cooley and net so um you know it comes with an asterisk of sorts and it is the first week of the preseason that said um what are you expecting from sprung this year oh i more than anything to have a good time. Like, I'm expecting Daniel Sprung to be a good time. Okay. You know, there's... Look, that shot is incredible. He had that first... The first power play sequence, he had, like, three really good chances to score. Couldn't quite put it away.

But you could see really quickly, right, that there's a difference between Sprung as a shooter and just about everyone except maybe peterson and jt miller like jt miller coming downhill and peterson's one-timer but peterson's one-timer hasn't really been like the weapon that it was his first season in a couple years right so um there's an element to which when sprong is on the flank on the power play, he hits that sort of rare level that like seven or eight other guys in the league do, where it's less about whether or not you prevent him from getting his shot off or stop it, and more about whether or not he makes the shot, right?

And I thought you could see that on that first power play opportunity and you know it just i really struggle to imagine that any other canucks forward and i mean like a fifth forward to join besser miller hughes petterson on on pp1 like i really struggle to imagine that anyone's going to hold him off for long because that weapon is too unique and it's and he's right handed he's too creative. You know, and then obviously you saw what he can do off the rush. He's also a pretty good playmaker. I thought you could see some sort of the, like, the themes of how a player like Quinn Hughes, a playmaker like Quinn Hughes,

could use a guy like Sprung to do some fun stuff. But I also thought, because it's pre-season right and then guys are finding their hands finding their feet and they're trying things right like i thought quinn hughes was shooting from spots that he wouldn't usually shoot from right like i think he's trying stuff right he's it's a different type of priority for him um but but i think you could see how that could be interesting or could be a good time. And look, that's what Sprung is like Sprung's, um, instant offense, right? Like he's a, he's a heat check player in the extreme and has just bundles of confidence.

And, you know, the way that he evaluates choices on the ice in terms of like his decision tree, right? Like he's always, his shots always the best option. And that's going to result to like, if we get some two-on-ones with sprung as the puck carrier um we're going to get some really fun sequences where and watch for it because it is fun where like it almost doesn't matter how good the passing option is like he's the option you know like there's so many good things about watching daniel sprung play hockey And I think that was apparent to Canucks fans pretty much immediately. Officially petitioning to have his nickname be Danny Goodtimes.

Yeah, Danny Goodtimes. You know what? I like it. We're speaking to Thomas Drance from the Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk here on Sportsnet 650. Yuri Patera plays the whole game yesterday. Tola Pilo sits and watches for the duration. What happens with Patera in a three-headed goalie monster

or whenever Demko comes back? There will be four because he does require waivers to go down. How do you see the goalie situation playing? Are you getting any insight on that? I mean, I think they're going to carry three goalies when Demko's back. I don't know if they're going to carry three goalies while Demko's still recuperating, right? While he's still on IR or however the paperwork works to keep him off roster but with the team.

Patera had a rough camp, so nice to see him play pretty well, especially given how many rush chances he was peppered with, albeit not against the Flames. Well, it's not like the Flames NHL lineup is all that good either, but not against a roster that looks like a real NHL team. Still, nice to see him bounce back. I mean, I think he'll go down. I don't think Patera is a player that you lose too much sleep over sort of protecting from the standpoint of waiver, you know, of waivers, right?

Like, yeah, I mean, with Lankanen in the fold, I would expect the team to sort of break camp with Lankanen and see Loves on the NHL roster. And then when Demko's back, I'd expect them to roll with three goaltenders as sort of break camp with Lankanen and see loves on the NHL roster. And then when Demko's back, I'd expect them to roll with three goaltenders as sort of a plan A. Although, man, it's going to be tough to do with all this team wants to accomplish from, you know, a cap perspective, but an LTI perspective of avoiding it in particular. You know,

we'll see how they manage it and balance it over the course of the year. It's going to be a challenge. Any idea when we might see Lankanen in game action? I don't actually. I would assume we will see him though. I know he was working out in Finland with a group of Finnish pros before coming over here on Monday. You'd want to give a guy at least 48 to 72 hours to shake off the jet lag coming from Europe to the West Coast.

But yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think by next week, like maybe he doesn't play one of the back-to-back games this weekend, the Friday, Saturday, but, you know, I think by Monday, you know, the-up that he's looking at is more about getting accustomed to his teammates and maybe some of the nuances of puck play as opposed to anything else. I don't think there'd be any reason why a delay of more than a couple more days would be required.

We're speaking to Thomas Drance from The Athletic Vancouver and Canucks talk here on the Alfred and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Thoughts on Kiefer Sherwood yesterday. I know he got a lot of play on social media. Again, I didn't get a chance to watch a game. I was busy. Me and the 12,000 of my best friends were watching the Whitecaps capture

another Canadian championship yesterday at BC Place. Nice. Yeah, and you know what? Another one of the talking points from Rick Tockett yesterday, aside from the speed they need to play at, is he seemed pretty happy with all the contributions the new guys were making. There was DeBrasque, obviously.

There was Sprong, obviously. And then there was Sherwood. How did you think that he played yesterday? Yeah, I mean, look, Sherwood's fast. Another likable guy from a fan's perspective, right? Leaves it sort of all out there fast. Has some skill, has some pop. You know, it's going to be interesting. He's sort of filling this Sam Lafferty role, right? And I mean, I know Lafferty had 10 goals last season, but man, how many of those were just like banked off his body at the net front right like i i think the fact is is that the one area that i'm curious to see um sure would really replace what lafferty brought last year is is more about playing to that like annoying hard fourth line identity with more consistency than the canucks got out of lafferty and yet you know i i do think it's worth noting that, you know,

Lafferty had a pretty significant size advantage, right? And that range in combination with his speed did matter with how this Canucks team wants to play, with what they asked their wingers to do in terms of tracking back, you know, applying that neutral zone wedge, et zone wedge etc etc um lafferty's got sort of the rambunctiousness and work rate that it probably doesn't matter but you know i am struck when i watch him play by the fact that as much as in your mind's eye it seems like he should bring the same stuff and he does in some ways um he doesn't have the same size and range and and i

i'm just curious to see what that looks like when the Canucks actually step out on the ice in more meaningful games. But yeah, I mean, a nice debut. He's had a strong camp. He's a good player. I know you like to place the odd wager on occasion, though not on hockey,

but I'm going to get you, like hypothetically speaking, we can play in this fantasy world where you would wager on hockey. Would you wager that the Canucks open the season with Hughes and Hronik still together on a pairing or do you think that they'll experiment with breaking them up and trying them separately yeah I wager heavily like put it this way if I was handicapping it I'd go Hughes Hronik take line rushes together game one I'd price that out as like a minus 350 favorite, like a very heavy favorite.

You know, the look that we've got at Juleson since training camp opened a week ago into the preseason last night, I do think there's an element to which the club wanted to challenge Hironic to be more assertive. I think they have, by the way, right? Like if you watch that preseason game, the one on Tuesday that Heronic played, I mean, you get the goal on the power play from him, but you also had him pretty engaged in winning battles in the defensive zone, I thought. I mean, I thought it was, you know, one of a, like a strong performance from him relative to what you expect from established guys like him in this environment. I thought he was pretty dialed.

And honestly, I thought he was throughout training camp, although he had a bit of a rough scrimmage on Sunday last weekend. So, you know, I think it's more about what you're drawing out from Heronic than it is about anything else. And I just don't know that the Canucks have the partner for Hughes to permit them to really play those guys apart full-time even if the club would like to see what it looks like so I would expect that we'll see them reunited at some point before the end of the

preseason and I'd expect game one they take line rushes together with you know in some combination susie to harney myers and um oh my goodness uh sorry susie uh forbert forbert uh together sort of making up the other six defenders drancer uh i am looking to unload ezekiel elliott and i'll give you a buzz after the show about that but i wanted to get out there on the record now. Thank you very much for doing this today. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week and the weekend, and we'll do this again next Thursday. Yeah, thanks, buddy.

I hope I was able to punch it in on this radio head like Chase Brown. Thanks, buddy. Toughest chance. We're all our inside fantasy football jokes. It's terrific. Just terrific. So I lost my game on this past weekend from that Monday night football game

between the commanders, the Manders, as I call them and the Bengals, because on first and goal with the Bengals needing to put a score on the board down to scores, they kind of, the commanders may have seeded the reds the end zone right they weren't going to stop them because they just let them go in so they had chase brown in the game and they

decided to throw the ball for some reason even though the commanders were just run it in you can have it crazy then they took chase brown out and put in zach moss yeah and zach moss ran it in thereby ruining my chance to win fantasy. Well, I love fantasy football stories. Anyway, that was Thomas Drance from the athletic Vancouver here on the helper. That was the best Canucks interview. I think we've ever done with Thomas Drance as well.

We covered all the bases, all the bases. Well, here's the thing. You know, a lot of the times when we do an eight o'clock, uh, connection interview,

you're just like, you do this bruv i don't say that well it's unspoken and you did it today because as soon as you said hi and made your crack about trevor lawrence you're like over to you bruv yeah because i assumed you were excited to talk about uh like it was another opportunity to dump on elias pedersen so that's fun see i didn't even do that i know i noticed you didn't even ask a question about him. That's fine. You know what? I was this tempted to be like, so Brough was dumping on Pettersson

this morning. Said it was lackluster play. I didn't go there, though. I wasn't dumping on him. I wasn't dumping on him. He made a nice pass. And then what did you say? To Dubrovsk. And then what did you say? And then I said, the Canucks won and it was great.

And Petey was the hero. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what he said. He was the first, second, and third star. Yeah, I said he reaches a little. They call that fishing in hockey. There's a little too much fishing in his game. That's all. That's all. He was very conservative about it. I mean, he did a good job

of not piling on too much. It's the preseason, guys. You've got to relax about the preseason. Take it easy. It has to relax about the preseason. Take it easy. You know, it has to be after the season when you finally admit, okay, maybe he didn't have the greatest season. Right. And then all of the offseason. Right.

Okay. You know what I want to do before we go to break? I want to kick off what we learned. I've been watching the opening ceremonies of the President's Cup. Is that what that is? I kept looking over. I was too busy interviewing. Yeah.

The things that get in the way. It's frustrating when someone's just watching TV the whole time, isn't it? The things that get in the way of my job. Isn't that frustrating? The things that get in the way of me watching television include my job and Tom Strand's. Yeah, it was Jim Furyk and Mike Weir and Jim Furyk towering over

Weirzy. Yeah. And a bunch of helicopters for some reason. Yeah, I don't know what the helicopters were there for. So we talked about this this off air but i'm bringing it up right now um brant snedeker is completely bald that's your what we learned no no that's not what we learned i have a real what we learned but everyone remembers brant snedeker back in the day yeah he had like the uh he had the hair that just like flowed out of his hat and he would wear a visor a lot and he'd have like the long sort of like strawberry locks coming out of the back he always said it was a shaggy haircut he looked he had that very like uh college kid remember in the early 2000s with the pop collar and maybe a poopy shell

yeah yeah and now brant snedeker noeker. No, it was a college kid look. Very college. The college frat boy, like, goes to the University of Texas. Yes. You know? And it was kind of. He's got a buddy with a neck beard. And it was kind of unique at the time.

Yeah. Because he did look different on tour. And now Brant Snedeker is completely bald. And it threw me for a loop. I have been enjoying the Golf Channel's coverage of the President's Cup. There is almost It is almost

no focus on the American team, which is funny because they're the heavy favorites and the Americans are... What's the focus on? The focus is on whether the internationals can pull an upset because they want people to watch this thing. Right the americans are such heavy favorites in this i saw that they are pushing all they can into the narrative and you can see it happening in real time they're all

trying to talk themselves into the fact that the internationals could pull an upset and it's all like based on like i like the vibe it's a good vibe with this international team i heard it's all based on, like, I like the vibe. It's a good vibe with this international team. I heard it's a family vibe. It's a family vibe. You know, you've got three Canadians on the team, and, oh, Canadian sports fans, they love their sports up in Canada. Up in Canada. And it's a lot of Tom Kim.

He's going to bring some energy. TK, they call him. And then it's kind of like, yeah, but the Americans have, like, Scotty Scheffler and Xander Shoffley and Colin Morikawa, and the internationals haven't won haven't won this tournament like in forever I have like we're taking this very seriously well it's an honor it's a huge honor for Mike we're sure yeah I mean so I hope he's taking it seriously the the I hope he's not like everyone had their beer is everyone good the the line that I threw out there about the family atmosphere was I guess he went

and picked the brains of some NHL coach. I think it was Marty St. Louis, right? A lot of NHL people, I think. I'm trying to understand. He was trying to get like tips and tricks on how to build camaraderie and a really good vibe on the team.

And one of the pieces of advice he got was like, include everybody's family. So bring along the wives and the kids and get them all to meet it's like a surefire way to kind of bridge the maybe the unfamiliarity

so I don't know if they're doing it or not but we shall see you're listening to the best of Halford and Brough