Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Boys Are Back In Town

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), plus they chat about yesterday's first Canucks informal skate of the season, as much of the team returned to practice out at UBC (27:00). 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 Halford and brough Dun-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You're listening to Halford and Brough. This is driven right-setter field. Friedel going back, it's gone. It's another home run for George Springer. Petey, you know, running down the middle there and he looks like he's come into this season

with a bit of a new look and probably a slightly different attitude. You know what I hate about myself that I have everything? Well, a lot. You don't have six more hours. Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody. It is Halford, it is rough.

It is SportsNet 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adon, good morning to you. Good morning. Lattie, good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Alfred inbruff of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal could get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. Visit them online at Sands-trustee.com. We're coming to you live from the Kintech Studio, Kintech footwear, and orthotics, working together with you in step. It's a big day for the sprats, big day for the sports. We're excited to be here. Things are starting to happen.

We're starting to get back into the full swing of things here. on the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650. Our guest list today begins at 7 o'clock. Adnan Verk from MLB Network is going to join the program. Jays win again last night. Mariners lose again last night. Jays keep the top spot in the American League. The M's you'd think they'd lose some ground in the wildcard,

but no, no. The Rangers lost as well. So we'll talk to Adnan about all that. Also that Framber Valdez story in Houston, not going away. Lots to talk about with Adnan as we get closer to the MLB postseason. The follow-up questions for him have included, I don't believe you. Not even a question. Just a statement of fact, poor guy.

The catcher, I mean, of course, not for Amber Valdez. We'll talk to Adnan about all that at 7 o'clock. 7.30, Brady Henderson's going to join the program, our Seahawks insider from ESPN. Happy NFL kickoff day to everybody. We've waited a long time for it. It is finally here. Eagles, Cowboys, tonight. I got all my bets ready, ready to lose them all.

excited about it. And then after tonight we got a game Friday night and then on Sunday, Seahawks Niners in Seattle's regular season and home opener. It's a regular season, debuts our home opener. We're very excited to get into that. Hawks are still two and a half point

home favorites in a rivalry game in this one. They're two and a half point favorite. Two and a half home dogs. Also perhaps more importantly, the over under, which we're going to be paying attention to a lot with the Seahawks this year, 43 and a half. We're going to talk to Brady about all that at 730 to preview Sunday's regular season and home opener for the Seahawks.

8 o'clock IMAX is going to join the program. Ian McIntyre, SportsNet Canucks reporter, fresh off conducting and writing about his interview with Canucks Captain Quinn Hughes, which we talked a lot about on the show yesterday. Does IMac think that Quinn Hughes will be able to block out the noise this season? What does he expect from the Canucks as they returned to their informal skates yesterday at UBC? We'll talk to IMA at 8 a.m. about all that. that working in reverse on the guest list. 8 o'clock, it's IMAC.

7.30, Brady Henderson. 7 o'clock at Nanverk. We had a lot to get into on the program today. 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? Missed it? 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.ca. We begin with the Vancouver Canucks, who on Wednesday returned to the ice in a very informal fashion out at UBC. A good number of players taking part in the informal skate, both Elias Pedersons. I'm just, I know they pronounce it differently. Elias and Elias.

Both of the Pedersons were there. Not the third though, question mark. No, okay. Brock Bester, Van der Kaine, a lot of other guys that were there as well. I'm not going to run through the list of all of them, but it was a good, healthy chunk of the Vancouver Connects the road at UBC. The group did do some drills joined by very importantly, goalie coach Mark Wittranius.

He's out there early, getting the job done, skills and skating coach. Lankin and Demko were both out. Jason Krogh was running things on the coaching front. We're going to get into this conversation a lot more in the 630 segment of the show. We've got a lot to get into. We've got Evander Cain Audio. He met with the assembled media yesterday. A lot of thoughts about where guys are going to slot in

and who might be playing with who this season. We're getting into Canucks Talk right away on this show today, Jason. We want to hear from the listeners on this, so we'll give you a little bit of time to pull yourselves together. And if you want to send in a text, I guess some of the questions might be, who do you want to see play together next year? Is there any duo specifically or trio specifically

that you want to see? and then give us a reason why you want to see those two or three together. I'll tease for you with the audio. Evander Cain was talking an awful lot about Elias Pedersen, the prospect of playing with EP40 this season when they finally get to doing line rushes and all that good stuff before the informal skates ended. The new attitude, Elias Pedersen.

Oh, yeah. We got audio, folks. We'll play it all at 630. Now, we need to get into a bunch of stuff that happened yesterday. At this stage of the game, over the last few, weeks. This would be the time that we would normally dive straight into the baseball, but we got to go straight to

the tennis. Shout out and congrats to a good Canadian kid Felix OJ Ali Asim got past Alex de Minore in four sets yesterday at the U.S. Open. Four hours and ten minutes to take care of the Australian foe going to a Grand Slam

semifinal in the process. Second time that Felix has done it at the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows. Let's hear the call of the winning point and then we will turn it over to some FAA audio because he is very excited to be getting back into what is a star-studded semifinal at the U.S. Open. Here's Felix OJ. Aliasim and the win yesterday in the quarters. It's more disappointment for Alex D. Manor at this stage of a major.

What a fortnight that Canadians are enjoying, though. He wins a battle that is four hours, ten minutes in total, to book his ticket to the final four. So you mentioned that it's a star-studded. semi-finals. There's Felix. Yep. He's going to play Yannick's sinner. Correct. The number one seed. And then on the other side, Carlos Al-Karez, the number two seed. And generally considered, well, both of them. Maybe Al-Karaz is considered better than sinner. Who knows? The ranking suggests it's sinners. Sinners thought to be better right now. Right now. Yes. Yes. But Jokovic is the opponent for Carlos Alcaraz, one of the big three formerly.

So, I mean, this is tough. And here are the odds. I'm just looking at one sports book. Here are the odds that Felix is facing against Janik's sinner. Sinner is at minus 3,500. I know. I saw it too. To win.

That's like, that's like the. opening of college football when you've got, you know, I don't know, Ohio State if they were to play like Appalachian State. Yeah. Felix is kind of one of, in terms of this star studded semifinal, he's the one of these things is not like the other. One is the seeding. He's the only guy in the 20s that advanced to the final four. Everyone else is a top seven seed. And it's also a reminder, I think, that it's been an awfully long time since the once promised. missing Phenom, who now is a little bit older, has gotten to this stage of a grand slam. As a matter of fact, Felix talked about that in his post-match interview,

talking about how it's only been four years, but it feels like a lot longer. Here's Felix Oje alias him after beating Alex de Minore yesterday at the U.S. Open. It was amazing, yeah, four years ago. It feels like more, honestly, it was a tough couple of years, but it feels even better now to be back in the semifinals. Thank you so much. It's been an amazing tournament so far. Like you said, it's not over.

There's still, you know, some tennis to play. And the biggest challenges, you know, are yet to come. So, but, you know, that's what I live for. That's what I train for. So I'm going to show up and be ready for my match on Friday. Now, in this match, it actually didn't look great for Felix early on. He dropped the first set to De Minorn. It was actually down 6'5 and was on set point in the second set.

So he was really close. One point away from falling behind two sets to love. rallied, came back, and then really took charge to the match, which is something that he's done in all of his upset victories as far as he's found a flashpoint in the match and then taken over and run with it. Now, that's an important thing to bring up here

because if he is going to pull the upset against Sinner, which would be the biggest upset of this run so far, it would follow in a series of pretty significant upsets that he's pulled already. I think the biggest one obviously was the number one against the number three, Zverev, where again, he lost his set but was able to take advantage of a little bit of a wobble in Zvara's game

and then took off. Obviously beat the 15 seed Rublev, that was an upset, and then beating the 8th seed, Diminor. So he's got a track record here of being able to punch above his weight class despite his ranking. But all that said,

Sinner has been almost flawless in this tournament. I know the fellow Canadian Shapo took a set off from earlier and that was a big accomplishment. But if you're looking at just in terms of the most dominant form right now, this has got the stage set for another Alcraz Sinai.

or classic in the final, but hopes are high still that the Canadian kid can get it done. I don't think Alcaraz has dropped a set. Alcaraz is not and sinners only dropped the one if I'm not mistaken. There's a bit of separation between the first and second seed top two players in the world and everyone else. It's the big two now. Where it was the big three, it's the big two now. I am going to be very curious to see at the ripe old age of 38 if Joker can push Alcaraz

in that semifinal. So the odds on that, by the way, a little closer. But Alcara is still a significant favorite at minus 345. It's been a grind for Joker to get to this spot. Whereas Sinner and Alcoraz have cruised, it's taken him, and I mean, obviously Felix as well

coming in as a 20, ranked in the 20s. It's obviously a tougher road. But it's going to be, I mean, this is a great thing. We had, especially in the last couple years, every time that we've talked about Canadian tennis, it's kind of been like, What's happened here? What's happened to Chapo?

What's happened to Felix? I thought it was going to be this ascendancy as opposed to a peak and then a valley. So good luck on the weekend to Felix. We'll see what happens. And that wraps the tennis talk for today. Let's pivot over to the baseball. And shout out to Laddie, who put this together. After the Toronto Blue Jays went for not one, not two, not three, not four, but five home

runs yesterday in a 13-9 win over the Cincinnati Reds, our good buddy Dan Shulman, who doesn't tweet very often, took to the social medias yesterday. And all he said after the 13 to 9 game was, I need a beer. I'm like, what's it talking about? Well, Dan was a busy guy and shout out to Laddie for putting this together. The super

cut of all five home runs is the Jays won yet another wild game 13-9 over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday night. Here's what it sounded like. This is driven to right center field. Friedel going back. It's gone. It's another

home run for George Springer and a high fly ball to right field it is taking Marte back he's running out of room and it's gone and Dalton Varsho has homered for the third consecutive game in this series now Kirk drives a ball to deep center and it's gone back to back to make it a two-run game well hitball to deep right field and gone an absolute screamer into the seats in right and barger has tied this game with a two-run homer they get all five of their runs in the second and out the railroad lines one deep left field and it is gone And the home runs just keep on coming. And the Blue Jays have taken the lead.

The amount of wild wins, but also wild losses, the Jays have experienced over the last few weeks is remarkable. But I know I've been pointing this out, maybe too much for some people, but the Jays, despite their quote-unquote struggles, have now won three of their last four series. They won two of three against Miami, two of three against Minnesota, two of three against Cincinnati,

one of three against Milwaukee. So for all the wobbles, like at least they're still getting the odd results. We're all still very worried about pitching, especially the bullpen, right? And I don't think anything that happens down the stretch in the remaining month that's to go in the season is going to do anything to,

make people less worried about the bullpen. Yeah, Hoffman could go out there and have some good results, but I think the first time he comes in in the postseason, people are still going to be like, okay, hold on to your butts. Good poll.

What a way to go into the Yankee series this weekend, right? Like, you go up against the Cincinnati team, which granted, has some troubles on it, especially in its pitching staff. But Toronto went deep, 11 times, for 29 runs over three games against the Reds. You want to talk about having your offense peak at the right time going into that Yankee series. All the bats exploded over the course of that three-game series against the Reds.

So that's awesome. Do you think the Reds pitching coach was like, are we hanging curveballs here? What are we? What's going on, guys? I know they got, they kind of got screwed over in the second game because their starter got sick, right? So they had last minute they had to put in an opener. Sick of giving up home run. One of their best starters, too.

Yeah, he got whiplash from turning around so often. You got vertigo. But so there's one thing. Great job by the offense. get on track going into this huge series against the Yankees and the Yankees lost last night to Houston in pretty dramatic fashion as well jazz chisholm got called on a meltdown yeah a little bit of a meltdown afterwards but okay the other thing too can i can i just can i show you can say whatever you want um it's your show great job i think by beber for for hanging in there i mean i don't know

if it was you know like the manager might have been like you're hanging in there buddy yep but like that looked bad early on and he ended up pitching six innings. And that goes a long way for the bullpen. He gave up five runs in the second inning. Jays were down obviously, five nothing. Bieber stuck with it and managed to hold the Reds off to the point where the bats

could get going and they could start chipping away at that lead. Well, we retired 11 in a row at one point. The Jays now have 42 comeback victories this year. No other team in Major League Baseball has more. It's been one of the signatures and parts of their DNA this year that's been very impressive is that because

they've got the good, they don't have, I mean, I know the home runs are coming like crazy now, but the ability for them to generate runs one through nine in the batting order means that they can come back a lot. They're not waiting for one part of the meat of the order to get up there. They can chip away and chip away and they do a good job coming back. Beber ended up throwing 98 pitches, which is a modern day record for starters in Major League Baseball. You see that they're starting because Bassett threw 107 pitches in his previous start. So they're starting to realize our bullpen sucks. Yeah. We need to start pitching more. Pushing it a little bit.

You can't come out when it's 5-0, Dever. You got to keep pitching. You mentioned the big series about the Yankees coming up. It's huge that they're now three and a half games up because even if they get swept, they still keep on to that first place. But that's a bad attitude. It is, but it's a- Mariners attitude.

It's a nice peace of mind. Speaking of the Mariners. And getting swept. Yeah, by the Tampa Bay race. Don't look now, Laddie. But the raise are one game above 500. They're only two and a half back in the wild-guards. They're not 69 and 69 anymore.

There's 70 and 69. So it was another tough loss for the Mariners. yesterday. Nine, four, to the Tampa Bay Rays. Seattle has now lost five of six. Most distressingly, they've lost 14 to their last 20 games. So this isn't just a streak that's happened over the last two series. They can't win series on the road. They're having a real hard time keeping runs off the board. The pitching staff did not do well against the raise on the weekend. The normally reliable George Kirby, the shortest start of his career last night against the race. He only went two innings allowed a season high eight runs

so the pitching woes have just spread across the entire staff and that's not a good thing for a Mariners team the only good thing that went right for the Mariners yesterday was that the Texas Rangers aren't making up any ground as the Mariners sputter because they too lost last night as well can I throw in a run differential

stat because I like to do that as well Mariners are just plus 11 they're in trouble now I went and looked at fan graphs Rangers are plus 90 so who's a better team well if you look Okay, so you go to, do you use fan graphs most of the time?

Yeah. So fan graphs, as of this morning, still had the Mariners at 76% likelihood, which I felt like was high to make the postseason of the Rangers were at 12. And I don't know exactly how the algorithm works, but where I'm sitting from, it certainly feels like the choke is on in Seattle. I don't know if there's like a quantifiable choking metric, but they, this series against the Rays, who, despite the fact that they're on a bit of a heater, that's a very

average baseball team by way of the they came in 69 and 69 yesterday. That's about as average as it gets. Nice. Yeah, thank you. This is not a series where you can walk away with nothing, especially at this stage of the season. The interesting thing about the Js, to circle back to what you were

saying earlier, is they won that series. And they've won a lot of these series where they've had these sort of big explosive blown saves. You almost forget that those are singular instances. Their ability to bounce back, their ability to, and Schneider said this from the beginning of the year. Yeah, there's going to be some bad losses in here. But as long as we can write the ship and win the series,

it'll offset some of the sting of these losses, especially the blown saves. Like, you go back through August. For all the blown saves that the Js had, Jason astutely points out, the record didn't crater. What's happening in Seattle right now is the record is cratering, right? Like, this is a problem.

When you win 60 or last 20, you do not look like a team worthy of the postseason. the expanded field and everything, there are some teams that are probably closer to 500 who go on a heater during the year, which the Mariners have done a couple times, right? That sort of inflates and boosts their record. And they get in with around, what a freaking boost. Thank you. With around, I don't know, 90 wins.

But the Mariners right now with the teams that are on their heels, they feel safe because the Rangers aren't taking advantage. But I'm, you know, they got to start winning some baseball games, plain and simple. Okay, do you want to mention one little thing about the NBA? commencing an investigation into the report on Kauai and salary cap shenanigans. Right. So yesterday, a spokesman for the National Basketball Association, Mike Bass, one of my

favorites, said in a statement that the league was quote, aware of this morning's media report regarding the L.A. Clippers and is commencing an investigation. This all came from the Pablo Tori Finds Out podcast, which we mentioned on the show yesterday, in which Clippers owner, Steve Ballmer, has been accused of circumventing the NBA salary cap by giving $28 million to Kauai Leonard for what Pablo Torre and one of his sources

classified as a no-show job. Now, this is going to be really interesting because a lot of, there's been a lot of analysis and pushback in the aftermath of Torres' report. One of the more prevalent ones was on social media yesterday where Maverick's owner, Mark Cuban, said that there's no way, no way that Steve Ballmer would have done this

because I guess when the company, and I forget the name of the company, aspiration went bankrupt, I guess all of their documents became public and available to, you know, I guess Freedom of Information Act, whatever the equivalent would be. Well, it just goes to court, bankruptcy court.

Okay. So the information would have been available and it would have been very easy for Balmer to be caught as he was by Pablo Torre's podcast. There was a back and forth between Tori and Mark Cuban on Twitter, which ended with, I think they took it to the DMs eventually. No one who's a billionaire could be a bad man. No, surely he wouldn't be scurting the rules. Also, I know that there's some taco there that now he's going to start, Pablo Tori, that is going to start looking at all of the NBA extensions that have been signed recently for under the Supermax or the max value to see if any of these other shenanigans were going on.

I don't know, I didn't know what to make of this when the story broke. very curious to see what the NBA investigation will unfurl because one of the things that Tori pointed out was that this, he didn't do this on a lark. He had, I think it was seven different sources on the record talking about this deal, countless documents. I think he's in the thousands of pages of documents. So it's a well-researched and well-reported story from his end. I mean, he is a trained journalist. This isn't like your typical podcaster, like the numerous one like us for example if we were to do some investigative journalism it'd be poor i think it mildly i think what um what cuban was getting at though is did this company aspiration do this by itself right

or did balmer the owner of the clippers directed to do this and was he in on it were the clippers in on this, or did that company, because it had this big investment from Balmer, kind of just like, okay, we'll help you out a little bit here, but we won't tell you. Like, that's kind of, I mean, the whole thing boils down to what did Clippers ownership know about this? So that'll be, I mean, that's, that is a massive lead in story to the start of the NBA regular season, though, because I was trying to remember, and I think the last. time that something of this nature happened.

Now, we'll have to fact check me on this one, but I think it was former Minnesota Timberwolf Joe Smith, the former number one overall pick, who signed a regular deal with the T-wolves and then had one of these off-the-book deals as well. And the punishment there was five first-round picks that they were docked. So there is a precedent here for salary cap circumvention, especially in this nature where you're paying somebody off the books, whether this will rise to the ranks of that remains to be seen. Okay, we're going to have a Conucks conversation on the other side.

A bunch of players were skating out at UBC yesterday, including three of their most vital forwards of VanderKain, Elias Pedersen, and Brock Besser. And I would say wild cards, too. We really don't know what to expect from all three of these guys. Also, Vilmer Arlickson. Yeah, he's a big boy. he's a big boy but we know what to expect from him

and that he won't be on the Canucks so I want to hear from you guys about you know who do you want Kane for example to play with who what kind of line would you like to see him on are there any other duos who does Besser play with

because he's essentially been paired with J.T. Miller for the last few seasons but Miller I don't know if you guys got the news last season. He was traded, actually. He was traded. Yeah. And Besser, you know, after Miller was traded, Besser looked a little lost out there. So how do the Canucks, after making such a big investment in Brock Besser, how do they get him going again? Who's he going to play with? I'd love to hear your thoughts into the Dunbar Lumber text line. 650, 650 Metro Vancouver's Trusted Choice for Contractors and Renner Warriors for over 50 years. Visit them at

one of their three locations to serve you or online at Dunbarlumber.com. You're listening to The Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Before we go to break, I do need to tell you about the BC Lions. It's another season of hard hits, heated rivalries, and nonstop entertainment. For tickets, visit BCLions.com and get ready to roar as one. Sixthirty-three on a Thursday, everybody, Halford Brough, Sportsnet, 6.303 on a Thursday. Happy Thursday, everybody, Halford Brough, Sportsnet, 650.

Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. B.C.'s first and trusted choice for dead help with over 3,000 5-star reviews. Visit them online at sands dash trustee.com. Good time for thrash Thursday. It's an exciting day. The NFL starts tonight. We have, for the first time, in months, Canucks quote-unquote, practice audio.

Haven't had that in a while. But the Canucks were out at UBC yesterday for an informal skate. And Van der Kaine met with the assembled media following the skate yesterday out at UBC. Yeah, and we'll get to his audio in just a sec, but along with Kane were a couple of other very key forwards. Elias Pedersen and Brock Besser. Remember, we went into the off-season, not knowing if either of those guys would be back. And a lot of us expected Besser for sure to be gone. and Elias Pedersen

maybe the Canucks would explore a trade because they had in the past but ultimately Pedersen not traded Besser resigns and then Evander Cain is added in a trade from Edmonton now if you're looking at the Canucks depth chart

I think there are six obvious forwards to play in the top six this season okay they are two centers Elias Pedersen and Philip Heedle. Okay. And the Canucks weren't able to upgrade at center. So Heedle is in there and Souter is no longer with the team.

And then there are four wingers, Debrusk, Besser, Garland, and Kane. I would also agree with that. And it all does Jason seem very, very obvious. Who will Besser play with? He's mostly been with J.T. Miller for the last couple of seasons. And as we noted before we went to break, we all know he didn't look very good after Miller was traded. Now, some of that may have been the uncertainty of his situation and maybe he felt a little disrespected by the Canucks or he wasn't feeling the love. And he went, well, I'm not going to show you much love then.

Who knows? Right. Let's just be fair there. it was a very stressful season last year Besser no longer had the guy that he'd been playing with for a long time and playing quite well with things were very much up in the air

now I look at those six players and I think you've got two potential play drivers also known as guys who can make things happen by themselves got it that is Garland who we saw last season do that and we've seen them do it frankly for the last couple of seasons and elias peterson if he bounces back hopefully some others show they can do it too but for now i think you have to

have peterson on one lined and garland on the other and then it's just a matter of how do you make it all fit so let's make some duos i got to think we'll see if besser and peters can be a duo. Seems logical. You could start Cain on their other wing or you could put de Brusk there. So let's imagine a line of the three guys that were skating together yesterday

of Evander Cain, Elias Pedersen, and Brock Besser, and I think that leads us into the audio we've got from Evander Cain. Yeah, so he was the one that met with the media following the informal skate out at UBC. yesterday. Touched on a variety of things in his scrum, but I think

the most interesting one was his remark, and remarks plural, about Elias Pedersen, playing with him, what PD's bringing into his table, and interestingly, what PD looks like having returned, and now skating out at UBC. This is about a minute of audio here, including a

question and a follow-up. This is Evander Kane, one of the newest members of the Vancouver connects at the informal skate at UBC, talking about who he might be playing with this season, and what those players or play brings to the table. What do you like about the forward group? Well, I think we're a team that's going to, you know, work really hard.

I think, you know, we have some great skill at front. Obviously, you got Petey, you know, running down the middle there, and he looks like he's come into this season, you know, with a bit of a new look and probably a slightly different attitude, which is obviously going to bode well for us. And it's going to start with him and it's going to be on everybody to, help him out and, you know, produce offensively at a high level with our entire forward group.

You've played with great guys. Yeah. What does 40 do for you in your mind? What do you like about his game? Well, I think he's a guy that obviously skates really well. He's able to handle the puck through the Neutral Zone. He has great speed. And, you know, I've played with a couple of guys like that in my career.

And I think it's imperative to kind of help them create space through the Neutral Zone off the rush and at the same time kind of letting their attributes make yours even better you know getting open finding the right spot to be it so they can get you the puck and kind of reading off them so excited to play with him and and we'll see what happens. Sound like he used some shooting accuracy at practice there yesterday. He did note that. Yeah that was funny. It sounds early days and brief audio but it certainly sounds as though Kane is anticipating maybe being, if the duo of Besser and Pedersen is going to be a thing. And I think it makes sense. It's logical, like I said earlier. It certainly seems that Kane has put his

hand up and be like, I'm more than willing to volunteer to play on that line as well. Although I kind of would like to see a line with Kane and Garland on it to see if they could push the other team to the point of insanity with being annoying to play with. And, you know, three-putt Shane texts in. I'd like to see Kane with Sherwood potentially a line with some sandpaper. And we should note that we're throwing out these six players as kind of like obvious top six guys. But we all know the lines are going to are going to change. And some guys are going to get injured. Some guys are going to get dropped down to another line. And maybe Adam Foote will be like, I want to put Sherwood into the top six or I want to give Nils

Hoaglander a try in the top six. So that sort of stuff is going to happen. Now Tatiana in Langley Texan, I think it's important for Besser and Pedersen to solidify themselves as a duo because they're both going to be here for a long time and it would be good for both of them to have a consistent partner to build chemistry with. And then I'd rather have Cain with Heedle as a deterrent for guys throwing dirty hits as much as possible. I don't know why Heedle's in there as a deterrent, but... I think she means he would be the deterrent for people hitting Hegel. Oh, Kane with Heedle, I understand.

Yeah, because everyone's taking liberties with Heedl, given his injury history. I don't know so much about the deterrent part, Tatiana, but thank you for writing regardless. I do think that the intrigue of having a second line where it would be Heedle between Kane and Garland. For the reasons that you pointed out, that I think that it would be a maddening line to play against. And I also think it gives you a pretty unique look. there's not a lot of teams in the National Hockey League that can throw that out there. Here's the thing. The one thing about Kane is that

he is, even though he's in an advanced agency, he's not the player they once, was he still a bit of a unicorn in terms of what he brings to the table. There's only a handful of guys that can do it. So whenever you put him on a line, it gives that line an identity that it probably otherwise wouldn't have. Now, to pair him with Garland,

I think it would be a super infuriating line to play against. If you were to put him out there with Sherwood for fits and starts, think that you could also get a very maddening group to play against. And I do think, I do think that that's going to be something that

the Canucks might want to lean into this year is being more difficult to play against and having more of that being on the front foot when it comes to physically engaging instead of being the one that kind of gets punched in the mouth, which we have seen on a number of occasions, and then is forced to

respond. We talked about that a lot last year. There was a lot of times in moments where the Canucks would either be on the receiving end of a dirty hit or someone trying to engage them physically and it was always how are they responding? You can eliminate a lot of that conversation

by not being the one that responds but being the one that instigates and makes it happen in the first place and then puts the pressure and puts the other team under the caution and says what are you going to do about it right? It's a great question to ask someone when you see a fight on the horizon. What are you going to do about it? Because then you make

them decide and they're either going to say well, now I'm going to kill you, or they're going to say, no, not right now. And then it's the other team's media and fan base that has to discuss, like, why was there no reaction or why did they react too much and get themselves into penalty trouble? That's a lack of discipline. It is, but we joke, but that's how it works, right? And a good way to eliminate it entirely is to be the aggressor, as opposed to one that constantly has to respond to having your toughness challenged and having your pushback

challenge and asking the question who's the guy that's going to fight? Who's the guy that's going to stand up? Right? You don't always want to be the team that's looking at the calendar. Well, we'll get them next time, right? Next time that we play the Kings or whoever else, that kind of thing. Keith, the Water Guy texts in I'd like to see Debrusk, Pedersen,

and Besser, Sherwood, Heidel, Kane, Garland, Blugher, Carlson, Hoglander, Sasson, O'Connor. I don't even play Garland that low. I don't, yeah. I mean, I do. I you would, but I think when the Canucks re-signed him and given all they've seen from him in the last few years and his growing role as a leader on this team, he's a top six guy.

I think you have, again, like, you're talking about play drivers. If you've got Sherwood, Heedle, and Kane as your second line, who's driving the play there? Who's making things happen out there? and you can make things happen in different ways you can have crazy speed you can have crazy playmaking ability but I don't really see an obvious one there um he'll like that's also like a line of not great passers like he'll

I think he has some good attributes as a center but I don't think puck distribution is necessarily it which is why I think you have to have garland in the mix on one line and Pedersen in the mix on another line in your top six. I would love another player, maybe it's Heel

to show that he can be a play driver and make things happen and get the puck from one end of the ice to the other. But, you know, I think if there's been a knock on him, he's more a guy that like just takes guys on one on one. He almost, he's like a center that plays like a winger.

I think Gar, Just, I'm going to focus on Garland here for a second. I think Garland is a guy that it's going to be really interesting to watch this year. Okay, so consider where he's at in the evolution of his career. Well established as an NHL or at this point. He's played close to 500 games. He's been in the league for seven years, and he's 29 years old. So you're saying at this, this is his, these are his peak years right now.

Maybe he's had his peak. I don't know. He had 50 points last year. That's only the second time in his career. He's gone over 50. but he's got a very lucrative extension in his background. He's making 6 mil a year. He's now gone, I think he's being counted on to,

especially with the ice time, do what he did last year. I know he got some pretty high totals last year and he finished averaging about 18 and a half and we thought maybe he was overextended. Well, I don't want to see him on PP1. No, but I think it... If he's on PP1, there's something's gone wrong. I think that you could probably take maybe

some of the power play ice time away. I still have him playing like 17 and a half, 18 a night. Well, I think he's got a PK. But I think, yeah. But I think the bigger point is it's no longer him being overextended. I think that's what he is as a player. The production probably needs to go up. He probably needs to be closer to 25 goals.

It depends how much power play time you get. You really have to separate that. You can't just look at totals. He did score seven times on the power play last year, right? That was a quarter of his goals. More than that, actually, because he only scored 19. It was almost half his goals, right? So there's that.

The other interesting thing with Garland, though, is that his profile as a player, I think, it's elevated. I thought, and I know it was just a sort of nominal thing, but being one of the forwards invited to that U.S. Olympic camp, I think, was a, it was a statement that, like, he's in that category. He's in that tier. There were high-end talented guys going. And I know there was like Shane Pinto and Brian Rust. And at the, you know, guys that were just invited to go. they're not going to make the team. And you could put Garland in that category.

It was a feather in his cap for sure. But it also, I think, gives credence to where he stands in the league. Like, they understand that this guy is a driver of the Canucks. And he's a guy that makes things happen for that team. Like, he's not a complimentary guy anymore. The length of contract, the amount of money being paid. I also think that the way that he's endeared himself to the fan base, like that kind of stuff does matter.

You know, he's because of his size. Connor Garland chants at Rogers Arena last year. And it's because of the size and the style that he plays. And also his name lends itself to the chant. It's true. You know? He's perfect syllabic. It like it works. But, you know, I think that he's a guy that's like firmly in that six

at the top of the lineup and will be counted upon a ton in a good way. Now it's like one of those, well, if you're playing, there was always that caveat, well, if you're playing Connor Garland here, you're playing Conner Garland that much, it means you're not that great of a team. I think that narrative might be gone. I think he might just be a straight up driver for this team. What did you think of Cain, a new player to the team,

talking about how Pedersen maybe has a different attitude this season? He's not dumb. He knows what happened last year. Everyone on the planet knows what happened last year. It was so publicized. I doubt there's any player in the NHL, maybe one that's like really in the dark, that didn't know in pretty good detail about the drama.

He should have been like, now that PDs pass the tendonitis. Right. He worked out in the summer. all this stuff right and you know the other part about the peterson miller narrative that i think made it such a juicy and salacious story across the league was that you had guys that clearly fit like the archetypes of enemies you had j t miller who was the big loud grumpy brash american and then you had the bully yeah and then you have the skinnier younger quieter

withdrawn Scandinavian kid who was like on the receiving end of that yeah so it may do you think

that affected that dynamic I'm being serious here do you think that affected how some people looked at that situation

like maybe there was someone that has been bullied maybe when they were a kid at school or bullied at work

and they were like I know what that looks like and I know how it feels or maybe there's there's a there's a bully out there that's like i know how it feels to really want to bully someone and then they would have been on the j t miller's right the only the only thing i'll say though

is an important part of the context because i'm sure that because you got to stick up for the bullies too right you know they have opinions as well they need it too yeah yeah the only thing that i'll say that adds a wrinkle that i don't think enough people picked up on was that um a lot of not a lot but some of what Miller did last year was dictated and mandated by the organization. Endorsed. And it was because, and look, it wasn't like,

it wasn't Talkett and Rutherford now being like, go bully a guy. It was them saying, this messaging will resonate and mean more when it comes from the peer group and the leaders as opposed to the coaches and the executives. Do you remember when Frege reported

early on in the season that the Canucks felt that Pedersen needed to be toughened up? Sure. I remember it. And then Miller was like, I would like to volunteer for that job. We haven't even put it out there yet.

Haven't put it up on the job board. You've already taken it. Yeah. But that was part of it. Like, for example, coaching in youth sports, I've often told the players

when they come, like when I've coached and they come and try and tell me something. I'm like, don't tell me, go tell your teammates. I'm like, because what happens is you tell me

and then I relay that message to the, kids and they've already tuned me out right they've only got so much time for this old band talking so there is something about the message coming from your your peers and your teammates it hits different it resonates they have a way to talk to their peers that adults don't right and it that um i think that logic absolutely applies to a national hockey league team there's only there's only so many meetings you can have with the coach right there's only so many times the talk it can tell you to move your feet before i get it you want me to move my feet yeah can we move on to something else

And eventually you tune it out. So the logical step is, well, let's get the players to try and push and prod and motivate one another. Well, we always hear there's a, it's like it cuts both ways because we always hear about a dressing room. Like, we want the Canucks to have a dressing room with leaders that hold each other accountable. And we've had people come on the show, former players, and we've asked them like, what does that look like? Well, sometimes you have to have some hard conversation. with your teammates. Okay.

But I think it's very possible that J.T. went too far with it. And more than that, I think it's possible that that is just the wrong way to motivate Pedersen.

He's not the type of guy that's going to be like, okay, well, I'm going to show you how tough I am. He's a guy that's like I'm going to get more withdrawn then. Yeah. And you have to recognize that, especially when you give him hundreds of millions of dollars. And that comes with, yeah, that comes with knowing,

knowing the player, knowing who he is and knowing how to motivate these players. How many times do we hear coaches talk about every, you know, the modern coach has to know that everyone is different and you have to coach players individually. Now, that presents problems too.

And I think this problem from what I've heard probably bubbled up last season as well because if one guy gets motivated by you I don't know yelling at him he's like well I'll show you coach and another guy shrinks from that

then you got a situation where the guy who's always getting yelled at is like well why don't you yell at that guy it's a very difficult situation and we've asked former coaches about that and they admit yeah it's tough and I think what happened last season

is you just had two very different personalities and ultimately the Canucks decided that they could not coexist so we go into this season hopefully with a bit of a fresh start hopefully with everyone on the same page and hopefully knowing how to motivate each other. And what's Adam Foot been doing ad nauseum this off season? Building relationships. Fostering relationships.

Building camaraderie, trying to sew it back together after it was torn apart last year. Okay, we are way up against it for time. We got to go to break. I will set up the remainder of the show right now, though. Coming up on the other side, we're going to dive back into the Major League Baseball Talk with Adnan Verk from MLB Network. A lot of stories to get into.

We got the Jays, we got the Mariners. We got all the drama coming out of Houston from the Frambervaldez situation. 7.30 Brady Henderson, our Seahawks Insider from ESPN, is going to join the program. We're going to take a deep dive into Sunday's big game at Lumenfield. Seahawks, Niners, Seahawks, 2.5. home dogs in this one in a rivalry game. We'll talk to Brady about that at 7.30.

Then at 8 o'clock, IMAQ is going to join the program. We'll go back to Canucks stock, a full half hour of it at 8 o'clock as we talked to IMAQ about his recent interview and article on Quinn Hughes. Lots to get to on the program. Don't go anywhere. You're listening to The Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 650.