Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Canucks Are In Utah To Take On A Hockey Club

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

In hour one, Halford & guest host Jamie Dodd look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they set up tonight's first-ever Canucks matchup in Utah versus their Hockey Club (6:00), plus they talk the latest hockey news with Sportsnet NHL host David Amber (26:24). 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.

Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-d scores! It's a power play hat trick for Patrick Leine! Sam goes to the net. Sam goes to Marcheseau! He scores! Touch and front! He scores! Donato cuts it in! I've eaten a lot of that cake. Yes. The answer's yes. And it's wonderful.

Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. It is Alfred. It is Brough. No, wait, it's wonderful. Good morning, Vancouver. 601 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. No, wait, it's Jamie Dodd. It is Sportsnet 650.

We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jamie, good morning. Good morning. A-Dawg, good morning to you. Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda,

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly and knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler. Well, they pay the highest prices in 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. Sore feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec. Well, Jamie, welcome aboard. Thank you.

How are you doing, friend? I'm doing great. I love coming on to the morning show. I love having you on the morning show. Jason Brough is vacationing for the next couple of weeks. So it'll be Halford and Dodd for the remainder of this week. We got a lot to get into on the show today. Is this the first time you two have been working together? No.

No, Andy. When did you work together last? You might not have been here. Oh, you know what? I think you were. So I don't think you had that. And it was wonderful. Yeah.

This was a first. Okay. I got all excited for nothing. This definitely could have been a commercial conversation. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, This is a first. Okay. I got all excited for nothing. This definitely could have been a commercial conversation. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's right. Mike and I did like outside of the station activities together when we were working together. Oh, wow.

I would call it social, but we got paid for it. No, it wasn't. It was not social. We were being paid. Yeah. It was a good weekend, though. It was a lot of fun. So this is the first time you guys...

Correct, Andy. This is the first time we've ever worked together. Guest list today begins at 6.30. David Amber, Hockey Night in Canada Sportsnet NHL host is going to join us. It's Wednesday Night Hockey nationally on Sportsnet. You got the Leafs and the Stars kicking off at 4.30, followed

by your Vancouver Canucks taking on the Hockey Club from Utah. There's five NHL games in all tonight. David Amber will join us at 6.30 to talk about that. 7 o'clock, Frank Cerevelli, Daily Faceoff will join us. If you missed it, the lowly Buffalo Sabres lost again last night. 11th straight loss. This one a 6-1 loss in Montreal.

This one different from the other ones because their owners showed up prior to this one to give them a rousing speech and a vote of confidence. And they responded with a 6-1 loss in Montreal. So we'll talk to Frank about that uh also some news around Capococco who's a healthy scratch for the Rangers yesterday uh 7 30 Matt McConnell my vow today is to not refer to him as Mitch McConnell we'll see how that goes you're going to fail Matt McConnell is the play-by-play voice not a politician whatsoever a play-by-play voice of the Utah Hockey Club,

formerly of the Arizona Coyotes. We'll talk to him about tonight's opponent as the Canucks go to the Delta Center to take on the Hockey Club. It sounds weird every time I say it. The Hockey Club. But I got to say... Utah HC.

HC, you like HC? Mm-hmm. I think I'm going to... Utahns? Let's start calling them the Yeti already. Yeah, let's do it. They're the Yeti. I'm not going to do that.

8 o'clock, Randy Jand is going to join the program. Reminder, Canucks, Utah, 7 o'clock from the Delta Center. We can also ask Randy when we might see Linus Carlson and or Phil DiGiuseppe in the lineup for the Canucks. We'll get into that news in a minute. Also, we are giving away tickets yet again to the PWHL Takeover Tour, January 8th at Rogers Arena. Now, for anyone that's listening live or listening via podcast, or as I said, someone that records it on cassette and then plays it back later on their Walkman,

we're going to give you the information now so everyone can call in at 815 this morning, 815. Caller number five, call the number 604-280-0650. That number again, 604-280-0650. Caller number five at 815 this morning can win a pair of tickets to the PWHL Takeover Tour January the 8th at Rogers Arena. That is what's happening on the program today. Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened.

Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that?

You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools or resources and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. The news yesterday for a Vancouver Canucks team that did not practice and did travel to Utah is that they have called up a pair of forwards, Linus Carlson and Phil DiGiuseppe

from AHL Abbotsford, while also demoting defenseman Mark Friedman and goalie Arthur Silovs to the American Hockey League Club. Jamie. Yeah, a little interesting to see a goalie and a defenseman go down. I mean, we expected Silovs to go down, right, to Abbotsford after Lankanen got healthy, got over the flu.

Friedman had played a couple of games, though, but it's a goalie and a defenseman going one way, two forwards coming back the other way, and my immediate reaction was, this seems like bad news for Neal's Hoaglander. Yeah, it doesn't feel great. Team low in minutes against the Avs, even though Talkett did give him a little bit of a shout out

in his brief post-game remarks after that one. But now with two forwards coming up, and I mean, we know how much Talkett loves him, some Phil DiGiuseppe. We'll see how they play this, but they have 14 forwards on the roster. I imagine they called these guys up for a reason, at least one of them. Yeah, it does not sound as though that this is the classic Vancouver Canucks cap-related move to accrue space under the ceiling that these guys are actually going to travel with the team.

They're going to take part in this two-game road swing that goes through Utah tonight and then Vegas tomorrow and might very well get in the lap. There's a whole secondary story about the NHL's roster freeze, which is actually tomorrow night at midnight Eastern. And I'm sure that part of this has to do with the fact that they wanted to get guys called up and on the road because they have that awkward scenario where they're on the road and they have two games in a row before and after the roster freeze.

I won't bore you with any more of the details, but it does sound as though Linus Carlsen and PDG could feature over the next couple of weeks. Well, yeah, and I mean, the roster freeze goes into effect, I think, tomorrow at midnight. And I don't think it comes out of effect until after Christmas, right? Yeah, it's the 27th. They've got four games in that span in relatively quick succession.

So if part of the thinking here is, okay, let's set our roster before this roster freeze, again, we'll see if these guys get into the games. I think Phil DiGiuseppe, pretty safe bet to get into a game here. Linus Carlsen, I don't know. I was wondering. I mean, look, whenever you have to say who's coming out of the lineup, Nils Hoaglander, not a bad bet. Yeah, that's fair.

Who's going to get demoted, who's going to suffer but i was wondering if there's anyone else beyond that because they did call up the two forwards the other guy whose minutes are trending in the wrong direction and it's kind of awkward is dakota joshua oh you said the quiet part out loud now i it would seem a little harsh to go as far as taking him out of the lineup, considering I think we all understand why it's taking him some time to get up to speed. But the best way to predict who's coming out of the lineup is to look at the minutes, and his minutes are really low right now. So you never know, right?

Maybe there's a way to frame it of, like, hey, this is part of the process, part of getting him back. We're just giving him a game off, whatever. But that was the other thing that occurred to me is would Rick Talkett go as far as to scratch Dakota Joshua? Okay, I'm glad. Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up. I thought about it last night and you're right on the surface.

It's pretty cold blooded. Yeah, it's a guy that has fought back from a very serious medical situation and missed a good chunk of the regular season. So it's not just getting over the medical part of it. It's also getting back up to NHL speed. Now, some people will push back and say, well, he's had plenty of time to do that, and it is a business at the end of the day. Here's the thing, and you pointed this out in your notes,

and it's a very good point. They've already had five forwards come up and play between Abbotsford and Vancouver this season. So if you're looking at strictly in terms of production and minutes are earned and not just handed out, they have internal competition. And two more forwards are about to be added to that pile in Di Giuseppe and Carlson.

And Tuckett spoke about it a number of times this year, that he loves the depth. He loves the guys that are knocking on the door and trying to kick it down. And I think in the last couple games, especially, you've seen depth contributors, two in particular. One was Max Sasson going from undrafted 24-year-old rookie

to top six forward. And the other one was Kiefer Sherwood going from $1.5 million dollar a year depth forward signing in free agency to your most valuable forward in defeating uh colorado on monday night so there's arguments to be made that doesn't matter who you are if you're not pulling your weight right now uh there is a guy you know kind of champing at the bit to get in the well and i wonder if that was almost part of the rationale between calling these two guys up, right? Because

as I mentioned, as you mentioned, they've already had five forwards play for both teams, Abbotsford and Vancouver. Sasson, who's on the Canucks roster already, but Ratu, Baines, Neal Zaman, remember him? He's like leading the Abbotsford Canucks in scoring. Oh yeah, that guy. Neal Zaman and Lucker Mackey,

they're all with abbotsford right now they've all already played nhl games this year you call two forwards up and none of them are those guys and i wonder if almost part of it is a message to the bottom six guys on the canucks of saying like hey we got lots of depth down there there are lots of options for us we're interested in looking at these guys if you're not pulling your weight if you're not producing there's no shortage of options that we can look at uh to replace you in the lineup if we want to do that i think the other part of it is and sasson as you said look he comes up he gets those two assists against florida gets a chance in the top six gets his goal so there's been some bottom line but i do think they're waiting to see, okay, we've got this group of kind of fringe guys who are maybe a little too good

for the AHL, but credible NHL players, but we're waiting for one of them to really step up and be more of in that to step up and say, no, I'm a permanent NHL player. I'm someone you have to keep in the lineup on a night to night basis. Sasson has made become the closest to doing that,

but I think it remains to be seen if he can actually but again I think they're just giving as many young players an opportunity to make that statement and right now it could be Lunas Carlson's Phil DiGiuseppe's not young but we know Rick Talkett likes him but it could be Lunas Carlson's chance to do it next I mean it is such a great and maybe we don't talk about it enough kind of thing that they've got these options available to them. Yes. It was not long ago, as I hearken back to my days as a very very mediocre writer with The Athletic covering the Utah

organization in depth and looking at the lack of available options that they had to call up. Do you mean Utica? What did I say? Utah. Utica. That's ahead of your time. That's going to be a problem today. I thought it was going to be the McConnell thing. Half of it was trying to push Utah hockey for decades now. We've been doing it for so long.

We got so excited when it finally happened. I remember writing lengthy, lengthy think pieces on Zach McEwen being the sort of the lone option that they had to go to when they would call up from Utica. Remember the hype for Zach McEwen's first NHL game? Those were dark times. I feel like I was the driving force behind a lot of that.

And that was it. And part of it had to do with the geography of it. You just couldn't call guys up with regularity. But I'm not going to lie. When they called Sasson up, I knew that they were fairly impressed with him in training camp. And they thought that there might be a

player there. But I looked at it just in terms of the roadblocks that were between him and the NHL. And I was like, you know, it's a great story. I would love to see the guy make it. But they signed three forwards in free agency. They've got guys that they called up in the playoffs that were ahead of them, including Carlson. I had Di Giuseppe ahead of him in the pecking order. And then Aturatu kicked the door down in training camp and made his case for it.

And you almost forget about Archie Baines because he's sort of been lost in the shuffle now. And now that he's come up and done what he's done, I think it kind of harkens back to what you just said. They're dangling the carrot in front of all these guys. Yes. Do something with it. Yeah.

And, you know, if you want to look at that on an elevated level, that's the key for Sherwood's story, really, is it's we're going to give you an opportunity to do something here. We are going to stand by that. It's not just going to be empty promises on July 1 or in training camp. If you show out, you're going to be empty promises on july 1 or in training camp if you show out you're going to get a chance to play with top guys play in different situations you know part i was on with kipper and born yesterday and one of the things that they kept kept bringing up was

like keifer show it didn't just score a hat trick it wasn't just a natural hat trick he did it in very different fashion like there was a net front goal there was a shorthanded goal there was an empty net goal which suggests that the coach is like, hey, you're an all-situations guy for me. That's what this organization is pushing, and it trickles down to all these guys that are coming up and down from Abbotsford. That was Kiefer Sherwood's first

shorthanded goal of his career, right? Because they've given him the opportunity to show that he can kill penalties. I think you're right, just the idea of dangling that carrot, saying, look, there's a spot. There's opportunity available here. Who's going to step up and grab it and just the other note from the roster machinations yesterday, free Mark Friedman going down.

So they have seven healthy defensemen on the roster right now. Assuming Derek Forbort is over the flu and good to go would seem to suggest that Vincent Deharnais is out of the doghouse for now good for we'll see i guess part of that could also be it's a lot harder to trade a guy if he's stuck in the press box maybe slightly easier if he's in the lineup at least i do wonder if the and let's just call it what it is the leaking of the deharnais i don't even know how to describe it i would i would say like trade rumblings but i'm not sure there's rumblings. No one's actually enticed to trade for the player.

At that point, you're just throwing it out there. But I do wonder if that was to light a fire under the player or via the player's agent, because let's be real, there weren't exactly 31 NHL teams lined up to acquire him. Yeah, I think they'd love to trade him, though. I think they would like to trade him. I also think that they realized that some of these guys needed a kick, and DeJarne's played okay.

He was fine against Colorado. I also think that this management group is coming to the realization that a trade to find a blue liner is going to be a lot more difficult than maybe in past seasons, or at the very least, in this current climate, because there's just not a lot happening right now. And two defensemen that you might have been in on, in Truba and Fowler, well, those deals are off the table now because they've already been moved.

And Marcus Pedersen's on IR now in Pittsburgh as well. So there's three guys that really aren't available in the moment. So can you patchwork this thing together? It's a good question, because I think that's what Rick Talkin is going to be tasked to do. That's what he's going to have to do. Yeah. Okay, tonight's opponent, the Hockey Club of Utah.

Not Utica. Those are two totally separate places. The Hockey Club currently sitting fifth in the Central Division, but just a handful of points out of a playoff spot. They've won two straight. They are 4-0-1 in their last five, including a 4-3 win over San Jose on Saturday night in their

last game. How much attention, Jamie Dodd, have you paid to this Utah club? Not a lot. I mean, I watched the first game there, as I think a lot of people did, just to see, you know, the setup and the fans and all of that. I've been kind of monitoring the situation. I know they've got a lot of interesting young talent.

They've been pretty good this year. Their goaltending has really shown out for them. Sergeyev is playing a ton of minutes. So I think if you look at the standings in the Western Conference right now, they're the team to be most concerned about chasing the Canucks. Yep. More so than Calgary. And Calgary's been plucky,

and they're getting good goaltending as well. That's great. But I think Utah has more of a case to go on a legitimate push in the second half of the year. And it's less so because they beat Colorado on Monday, but a bit of a big game for the Canucks, right? If you want to... Your classic four-pointer.

Yeah, your classic four-po pointer here in December 18th against the Utah Hockey Club as we are all as we're all used to. But if you want to give yourself a little bit of breathing room going in to the Christmas break, it would help a lot if you get a regulation win against the I almost call them the Utah Jazz against Utah. That's that's fine.

You know what? Just whatever the Utica Jazz. They're one of my favorites. Do you buy them as a legit playoff contender? Because if you look at the picture in the West right now, you can almost have a bar between the four teams that are vying for that last playoff spot. I think it's Calgary, Seattle, Utah, and St. Louis, I want to say. And then there's a drop-off after those.

And even in that group of four, it feels like you're kind of talking yourself into some of them. Bruff and I did this conversation yesterday, and we both sort of, and you can agree or disagree, but it was like Utah almost by default because they've got games in hand. They're playing better as of late, and they have more young offensive talent than a lot of those other teams. Yeah, I think that's the key.

I buy them as a playoff caliber team i don't know if that means they're going to actually make the playoffs this year i just think it's going to be really tough to crack it in the west right with minnesota going from outside to a no doubt it like top of the conference team so minnesota and nashville flip yeah yeah and but minnesota that makes it difficult for any of the other would-be contenders to jump up. I mean, Colorado's not in a playoff spot right now. I expect them to be fine with McKinnon and McCarr. So maybe it would be the Canucks that Utah would be looking at.

But I could see them missing with like 96 points or something. You know, that is just shy of the bar. But it would get you in in plenty of other years. That wouldn't shock me at all with Utah. So if you're getting up to speed on the Utah Hockey Club, they are paced by a big four forward group led by Dylan Gunther, who you'll remember as the pick from the Connor Garland trade and the other part of it.

We're calling it the Connor Garland trade now? Yeah, we are. I'm rebranding it. I've completely erased OEL. Those three letters don't exist in my alphabet anymore. So Dylan Gunther, who leads the team in scoring, Clayton Keller, who's shortly behind him, Logan Cooley, and Nick Schmaltz.

That's where the majority of the offense comes from. The story on their blue line is that they suffered a couple big injuries early in the season, including one to Sean Dursey that's basically knocked them out for months. So they've leaned heavy, heavy on Mikhail Sergeyev, who plays Quinn Hughes-like minutes for this team. He's basically at 25 and a half minutes a night. And he's a very good defenseman.

He showed his offensive prowess as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning and is doing it again right now. The other really big story for this team, and Laddie, we talked about this yesterday, was that Connor Ingram came into the season as the sort of unquestioned number one goalie. And you floated it out there yesterday, was kind of getting some love as a potential Team Canada member. That all went pear-shaped for him.

He was not good in the early stage of the season, got hurt. And now it's our boy, Carell, don't call me Veg Melka, Ve Melka, who's taken over with a 9-15 save percentage. And I think he looks to be the starter tonight as well. Do you know the outlook on Ingram at all? Because I know there's a combination of poor play and injury that's cost him the number one job. Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon. They're probably going to give him more opportunities, but it hasn't been good.

Statistically, he's been one of the worst goaltenders in the league. And Vemelka on the other side has been one of the top goaltenders in the league. Vemelka on the other side has been one of the top goaltenders in the league. And then the players they've called up, Stauber, got a shutout. Jackson Stauber. And then the goalie who's been carrying the load for their AHL team while Stauber was called up had the two-game shutout streak.

I feel like they're pretty well set with goaltending. And Ingram's got some challenges with the other goaltenders in the system there. So it's funny, you called them the Utah Jazz earlier. So they share a building with the Jazz. It's a basketball city, first and foremost. And we were talking to Ray yesterday because Ray worked the opener. And he said there's this weird sort of dynamic at play

because you forget that the team and the sport are new in Utah. There's a lot of people getting up to speed with all of it. I saw there was a tweet that kind of went semi-viral yesterday. Someone grabbed it from the Utah Hockey Club's Facebook page where someone was outraged at the fighting. They just couldn't believe that they would resort to such violence on the

ice and they weren't sure they wanted to go back to another game. So that's kind of the dynamic that you're working with. That team, though, is not a new team. No, but it doesn't feel like it a little bit. We're all like, wow, this expansion team is pretty good. It's like, wait, no, these guys have all been in the league. But we just like the story was always this team is a joke.

These players could never succeed in Arizona. So you could like intellectually be like, yeah, well, Clayton Keller's good, but you knew it was never going to matter in any way, shape, or form. And now all of a sudden it feels like a completely new group of players, even though it's not. Because it had Seattle and Vegas vibes going into it. But it's been so dramatically different. Part of it, I think, is that the national media never really caught on

beyond the first game at home. As they did, like Vegas became a story right out of the chute. You'll remember it was unique. It was Vegas, which was a big part of it. And they won and had success. They were good. Seattle was a little different in part because I think COVID really wreaked havoc with their launch.

Seattle also felt like the NHL media trying to recapture the Vegas experience. So like, it's going to be just like that. And it's like, nope, actually, it's going to be more like other expansions where the team kind of sucks. Right. And that's a very Nope, actually it's going to be more like other expansions where the team kind of sucks. Right. And that's a very good point is you were always in the shadow of Vegas. And as much as the NHL tried to push you out of it,

you were always in Vegas's shadow. The Utah thing is just, it's different. I don't really, that's why I wanted to talk to Matt McConnell coming up at seven 30 on the show today, play by play voice. Cause he actually moved with the team from Arizona to Utah.

So who better to kind of do the juxtaposition between markets and get an idea of what it's like having this existing team going to a new city. And that's honestly what I'm most curious about. I want to talk to him about the team as well, but just like what do people in Utah think of hockey? Like how's it going? Don't even ask him about the team.

Just be like, what's Utah like? What are your favorite things to do there? It sounds like it's pretty nice. How's the weather? A lot of land. Ryan Smith's building and buying. What's Utah like? Yeah. What are your favorite things to do there? It sounds like it's pretty nice. How's the weather? A lot of land. Ryan Smith's building and buying everything. Great national parks. Yes.

Crown jewel of Utah. Don't you guys want to ask about the hockey team? Nope. Okay. So there's a lot more we need to get into on the program today. We're going to save all of the NHL stories for our next guest, David Amber, Hockey Night Canada Sportsnet NHL host. We'll talk to David for about 10-15 minutes and then we'll pick up

on some of these other big stories. Sabres are a mess. Rangers lose again. Penguins are streaking in a good way. So too are the Ottawa Senators and of course the Leafs got a major injury blow in net with Anthony Stollers who's going to be out for 4-6 weeks. That started as day-to-day. Have you

guys all heard about this trend that's going on in Toronto this year where they announce. That started as day-to-day. Have you guys all heard about this trend that's going on in Toronto this year where they announce everyone's injury is day-to-day, and then they come back and they're like, actually, it's going to be a lot longer than that? You're just setting up for disappointment. They saw the Canucks and they're like, hey, they're on to something. These guys know how to do media relations. They know what's going on.

The Leafs just had Lamorello for like a decade. Matthews was day-to-day and he flew to Europe to get like some, some procedure or treatment or something. Hair transplant. Yeah. It's happened time and time again. We live day-to-day. It's a mantra that will live forever. Day-to-day.

Anyway. So we got a lot more to get into on the program. We're here until nine o'clock. You're listening to the Halford and Brough show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything

Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the post game show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. Thank you. 6.31 on a Wednesday. Halford, bruh. Oh wait, it's Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. I don't know

what this song is, who made it, why it's unlicensed. We've played it before. I know. Well, I know why it's unlicensed. If I heard this, I would be licensing it.

You can make money off this. We gotta make a theme song out of this. Yeah, it's great. Halford and Brough of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers How many people listening right now are doing a very, very slow chair dance like Jamie? All of them People are definitely bopping their heads in the car

Yeah, it's good Vancouver Honda has 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. David Amber, Hockey Night Canada Sportsnet NHL host, is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour one. Hour one is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal.

Northstar Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. To the phone lines we go. David Amber joins us now on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650 morning David how are you Jamie Mike good morning fellas I was trying to put my finger

on that song and it's like it's an interlude during some sort of goofy scene in an 80s movie like Beverly Hills Cop and Eddie Murphy is about to go into a jewelry store and that's the music they play as he's walking in or something like that, or Weird Science

or one of those movies. A listener texted in a Jean-Claude Van Damme training montage. That works. That's good, too. That could be it. Wednesday night hockey tonight, David. It's a doubleheader on Sportsnet.

You've got the Leafs and the Stars followed by the Canucks and the Hockey Club. Every time I say it, it sounds weird, but I'll press on. Let's start with that second one. What would you expect? What are you expecting from the Vancouver Canucks tonight? Because on a night-to-night basis, it's very difficult to gauge what you're going

to get from this team. Great against Florida last week. Awful against Boston over the weekend. Great again on Monday night in a win over Colorado. I don't know what to expect tonight. Curious for your thoughts on this one as the Canucks go to Utah.

Well, isn't that the NHL, guys? Isn't that the NHL sort of what it is on a night-to-night basis? Unless you're Buffalo. Yeah, unless you're Buffalo. They're the most consistent team in the league. You know what you're going to get with them. Yeah, I mean, I expect good things from Vancouver.

I think it's a good talking point for, you know, shows like this to sort of what are we going to get. But, you know, at the end of the day, Vancouver's put together, they haven't played their best hockey. They were missing, you know, one of their star players in JT Miller. They were missing their number one goalie for for almost you know the first what 26 games or whatever it was and here they are they're they're in the first wild card they have 16 wins they're they've played pretty well I think I I mean well for a team that's had to face some

turmoil early in the season uh you know Rick Pocket I think hit it on the head a few games ago when he just said the guys need to be emotionally invested from the first minute on. And I do think that is something when you look at the most successful teams in the last four or five years, Tampa and Florida and Colorado,

I think you're being able to see teams that have players that are high passion players and guys who bring you into the fight right away and i think the you know getting jt miller back that's a good person to have to get that emotional iq where it needs to be right at the opening puck drop so that's one thing i'd like to see tonight i'd like to see the team looking like they're playing with purpose and ready to go at puck drop yeah that that has been one of the most confusing things, right? Because there's been some games where, I mean, against the Colorado Avalanche, it was JT

Miller opening shift, you know, a few seconds into the game, taking the puck right to the net, you know, using his speed and power and kind of getting the team into it. And then other games, it seems to take them to, you know, the second or sometimes the third period to really wake up and start skating. I imagine it's frustrating for Rick Talkett, but it's kind of a double-edged sword because on the one hand, it's so frustrating, but then when they do play, when they do have that effort from the jump

and they kind of play up to their potential, you can see why this team took the Oilers to game seven of the second round and you start to kind of have that hope back a little bit for them. 100%. When you get the Canucks best game, there are a few teams in the league that can match that best game.

And when you, you know, certainly when you factor Demko into the equation as well. So that, listen, the Canucks are a good team. They got to find their footing. I'd rather have the issues they've had in November and,

and, and October and into December at times than have those issues in April when you need consistency, right? And I think you could say that about most teams in the league. You know, Winnipeg got off to that 15-1 best start in NHL history. They're 8-8 since then. So, and that's not to say the Jets haven't played well, but my point is that's sort of what we have in the NHL. It's a very muddy middle there's some elite teams at the top I would include Vancouver in those teams you know there's probably 10 or 11 teams that are really consider themselves bona fide championship hopeful teams and the Canucks are

one of them but I think the the challenge for Rick Tockett and his group is to find that a game on a more consistent basis and to play with purpose on a more consistent basis but again it's salary cap era 82 game season these are the dog days really right it's leading up to the break after the break it's leading up to four nations and then after that it's leading up to the trade deadline we'll have the truest sense of these teams guys is once the trades have taken place and the final rosters are in place on march 2nd, then we can really say, okay, let's separate the contenders and the pretenders. And what are the teams ready to make that stretch run and really make some noise come April and May?

And we saw that with the Oilers last year after that horrible start. They finally found their footing. They came into the playoffs with incredible momentum. And as you saw, it was able to carry them all the way to the Stanley Cup final. So I think if I'm Rick Talkett and I'm the Canucks I'm like let's just keep building in the right direction and there's been so many good storylines and obviously none may be greater than Kiefer Sutherland Kiefer Sutherland Kiefer Sherwood you know he has had a dramatic you know impact on the team so I think it's great I think it's stay, and I would say what you want to start seeing now

is a bit more consistency from this group in general. We're speaking to David Amber, Hockey Night in Canada, Sportsnet NHL host here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. You mentioned the first of the two games tonight. It's Toronto. It is Dallas, and Toronto begins life without Anthony Stolers, who is going to be out for four to six weeks after, and I'm just reading this off the story from Luke Fox on Sportsnet.ca. life without Anthony Stollers, who is going to be out for four to six weeks after, and

I'm just reading this off the story from Luke Fox on Sportsnet.ca, they found a pebble behind his knee, a loose body in his knee that they're going to need to take out surgically. This went from being day to day to four to six weeks real quick. So two questions here. One, how different is life going to be for the Maple Leafs without Stollers and Ned, who's been Vezna caliber this year? And then two, what's going on for the Maple Leafs without Stoller's and Ned, who's been Vez in the caliber this year? And then two, what's going on with the Maple Leafs medical reporting? Yeah, well, I'll start with the first of those questions.

And we're going to find out. They have Joseph Wall. This is going to be a trying time for the Leafs in the sense of they have three back-to-backs in the next two and a half weeks. So you can't just ride one goalie and wait it out over four to six weeks uh it's not just going to be Joseph Wall who we're going to see in that tonight but they have a back-to-back this weekend and we're going to get you know probably Dennis Hildeby who's a 23 year old he's only played I think three NHL games uh a big six foot seven kind of beast physical guy, but they're going to hope, you know,

he can play a role like Arthur Shelaw's played last year for the Canucks, where you get a guy and gets this opportunity and runs with it and can kind of hold forward as they need him to do. So it's going to be an important stretch for the Leafs, but I think bigger picture guys, this was the one big question mark with the goaltending. Stolarz has been a great goaltender when he's had the ability to play when he's been healthy enough, but he's never started more than 24 games in his

career. And he's 30 years old. So he has never been thrust into like, you're the number one guy, we need to ride you for an extended period of time. And the Leafs clearly have ridden him the first two months of this year. But you know know he's up to 17 starts and now he's injured joseph wall it's the same thing this is a guy with only i think 50 career starts in his nhl career right and he has never proven to be healthy throughout an 82 game schedule he's never started more than 20 plus games in a season so that's the big question mark can you ride this tandem can they stay healthy uh long enough and certainly at the most important time of the year come april and may so that's the big question mark here we're going to find out tonight against dallas you know how life is without anthony solars um there's not

a ton of concern right now simply because joseph wall has been very good and he's been healthy since returning from the injury at the start of the season so everything's fine now but with wall going to get the bulk of the starts moving forward, that's a big question. And as far as the medical reports, it seems like it's a bit of a cat and mouse game, and the Leafs are not alone in this. I mean, there's a lot of clandestine, you know,

well, it's a mid-body injury, it's an upper-body injury. There's zero sort of information, you know, presented to the media in general. I do wonder if that's going to change. We're in an era of professional sports gambling and, you know, you want to have some level of transparency for the fans. You also need to probably have it if you're going to have professional gambling attached to your betting, attached to your sport. So I do wonder if we're going to get there because there does seem to be a lot of cat and mouse. And we see this with a lot of different organizations

and you don't really get the information until you get the information. But, you know, I will say Brad Treliving was incredibly transparent yesterday. He was discussing the nature of the problem and the procedure and he was filling in all the blanks, but it was sort of maybe a week later than some Leaf fans had hoped.

So we've already touched on the Buffalo side of things from last night's game in Montreal, a 6-1 win for the Habs. Let's focus on the positive part of it here. And that's Patrick Laine, a hat trick last night for the Habs, played a standing ovation, hats littering the ice for a guy that's gone through a lot. And since he's come back, it's been pretty impressive. Six goals, now he's up to six goals in seven games played.

What were your thoughts, your reactions, your feelings upon seeing Laine with the hat-trick last night and that win over Buffalo? Well, Mike, and I know you don't want to talk about the Buffalo side, but that was shocking, quite honestly. It's absolutely shocking to see the lack of response after the owner strikes up the private jet and as a face-to-face if that doesn't wake up your team in some fashion my god so there is something

you know i wonder what the next shoe to drop is for the buffalo sabers i tweeted out um last night you know watching that game i'm loving this i love it on a personal level we've had these conversations before and even when jt miller went out and it was just like, man, like these guys are, they're, they're, they're human beings. They have, they're, they're, they're sad. Like the rest of us, they're frustrated. Like the rest of us, they don't have perfect days. Like the rest of us, Patrick Laine went through a really dark period in his life. And the fact that he's able to smile again and enjoy himself again. And this has been therapeutic to helping him sort of feel better about his life getting back on the ice and getting back to the passion and the joy of

hockey and then to see him succeed on such a high level and the way the Montreal fan base has embraced them it's beautiful last night was just a beautiful thing and you know obviously I'm hopeful for Canada to go into the four nations face off and win the championship. And, you know, the other storyline that would be really cool. Imagine if somehow Finland gets their way into the championship game and somehow Patrick Laine scores the championship winning goal. Like that's a really cool story that, you know, maybe could play out. It's just nice to see right he's got incredible skill incredible talent and he's obviously struggled through some incredibly tough times and then here he is now

back to living his best life and it was just so much fun to watch last night uh wednesday night hockey on the network just five games across the national hockey league tonight on sports night you'll see the leafs and the stars uh 4 3030 puck drop our time, and then at 10 o'clock Eastern, 7 o'clock our time tonight, it's the Canucks in Utah to take on the Hockey Club. David, enjoy the games tonight. It should be a lot of fun. Thank you, as always, for doing this.

We really appreciate it. I don't believe we will be doing this next week because it will be December 25th. So with that, I say to you, happy holidays and all that good stuff. Thank you very much for everything you've done this year. It's been a blast. And enjoy the games this evening.

Yeah, happy holidays, guys. Have a safe and great time with your families and be well. And look forward to being back with you guys in the new year. So take care and be well. Thanks, David. Appreciate it, bud. That's David Ambrose, Sportsnet NHL host here on the Halford & Brough show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. So we ended there on a positive note from last night's game because it was nice to see Patrick Laine score not once,

not twice, but thrice in a six one win over the Buffalo Sabres. Nice for everyone except the Buffalo Sabres. And what a, what an indictment of the team last night. I think everyone knows the backstory and the backdrop to this. And if you don't, the Sabres went into last night's game having lost 10 straight. And we're on the road in Montreal.

Things were so dire, so dire for the Buffalo Sabres. But their owner, Terry Pegula, flew up to Montreal and met with the team. And according to multiple sources, and we'll talk to Frank Cervalli about this at 7 o'clock to get confirmation, it was to give them, I guess you can call it a vote of confidence. It was at least to calm the waters, right?

You know, hey, we're not panicking here. The phrase that Frank used in his reporting was, the solution is in this room. And then they said, no, it's not. We do not have the answers here. You're looking for the solution in the wrong spot. Wherever the solution is, it is not with these 23 players. Or this guy behind the bench.

I feel awful. I don't even, I'm not a huge Lindy Ruff fan. Like I don't dislike him, but it kind of felt like the NHL's coaching recycling program when he came back to Buffalo. But I feel bad for him because he is flummoxed with this group. It reminds me actually a little bit of the Canucks at the end of the Travis Green, Jim Benning era, right? Where the first two months of that season were just a disaster and everyone could see where it was going.

Dead men walking. The similarities are, you know, you have this young group of talented players that you think should be so much better but it's just not working and it just seems like you're banging your head against the wall and there's no path forward and something has to change the only difference is it would be as if going into that season the Canucks had rehired a lamb and yo you know what I mean it's like well wait but we just hired this like in the Canucks situation it was clear it's like okay everyone, wait, but we just hired this. So in the Canucks situation, it was clear. It's like, okay, everyone must go. We're starting fresh, clean slate. Let's see what we can do with new management, new coaching staff.

As you said, they just hired Lindy Ruff. So you can fire the GM, but is he going to then be able to come in and hire his own coach? Not for at least another year, you would think. And the problem is, which of the players are you really excited to trade? Do you think it's actually going to make the situation better? They are just in a brutal, brutal spot right now. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Jamie,

because this does harken back to a Monday conversation that we had extensively on the Halford & Brough show. And I don't really want to go down the road of rehashing the PD for Dylan Cousins cousins bow and byram because one it's we i think we've pretty much milked that cow we've got everything we could out of that conversation i think there's a spin-off conversation here though about picking at the carcass of the call of the buffalo the buffalo sabers and what you would want what you would really want and and then the risks involved.

Because we've seen the upside before. Ryan O'Reilly, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, teams that have done very well at taking advantage of the Buffalo Sabres. It's been a championship formula. Just grab a guy, win a Stanley Cup, everyone's happy, brackets except for Buffalo. This feels a little different in part because, well, it's the same kind of speculative thing where you're looking at

young guys that have a bunch of promise and potential, but you're not sure what it's going to look like outside of Buffalo. Where are you on all this? I mean, I like Dylan Cousins as a player, not as the centerpiece for an Elias Pettersson trade, and he's also already making $7 million. Now, you could say that's

going to look better if he gets back to something close to his form. I think the interesting player in all of this is probably Bowen Byram. He's their only really young, high-upside player who's not already signed to like 2030 or beyond. He's an RFA after this year. So if they did feel the need to do something, Byram is probably the starting point and i know there's always been a ton of interest in bowen byram in this city right of course playing

for the giants and being you know so amazing for them his draft year was here in vancouver he's from bc all of it right there's always been a fascination with the player and he's awesome i don't know that he is the bona fide no doubt about it top four guy that the canucks are looking for i like i just don't know if he's going to come in and immediately be a horse for this team who plays big top four minutes um i i apologize for not listening to canucks talk this week i have a very busy nap schedule during the day. But where did you and Drance land when that trade? How do we classify what Freach did? The trade bomb?

Idea. The trade idea bomb. Yeah. Was dropped on Monday and then everyone got to parse through it. Where did you and Drance land? Basically, like, no. Sure. Not doing that.

You know what I mean? I just don't think there's the upside. If you were actually going to trade Elias Patterson, and i don't think that's on the table right now but if you were going to actually do it but if you wanted to do it the number one thing you need is somebody who has at least a chance to be either as impactful as he can be or at least very very close to it i don't think either of those guys do like i think you're trading for the upside of a second line center and like a number three defenseman or maybe a number two in Bowen Byram. Right. You need

if you were to make that move, you need a piece that you think can either be bonafide number one center or bonafide number one defenseman coming back. Right. I guess the argument I hate speaking for Brough when he's not here is that right now you would have Pedersen. I hate putting it this way, but masquerading as a 1C.

Sure, absolutely. Right? That's fair. So exactly what are you trading? Are you trading the concept of the player at his ceiling, or are you trading what he's giving you in reality? Now, I'm not going to go down the road of trying to discuss where Pettersson's game is at currently because there's a lot of people

that will push back and look at the point totals and say, what more do you want? And then there will be a lot of people that will push back and look at the point totals and say, what more do you want? And then there'll be a lot of people that will push back to that and say, we want a lot more. So I'm going to leave that part of it. Conceptually, if you look at it, I totally get what you're saying is that you would be getting the second and third best players in a three player trade. That's usually a recipe for losing. I was listening to, Bic did something on the People's Show where he pointed

out what an indictment it would be. So you listened to the People's Show, alright. It was on Twitter. I see how it is. You guys need to clip more stuff and put it in. The 4U feed, it just shows up. Anyway, there was a very interesting point made about

what an indictment it would be on a management group that gave out one of the largest contracts in the 50 plus year history of the team and then moved it six months later. Never mind. Don't care for this. Now, there's wrinkles to that. There is the fact that when you sign them to that deal, you do give cost certainty to the acquiring team. There's also the fact that for some reason or another, the first year of that deal was lacking trade protection. Well, that is by rule, I believe. Right.

It would have been an RFA year, so he can't have that. So it wasn't like they bargained for it. It's just that's the state of things in the CBA. Yeah. That's the state of things in the CBA. Yeah, there would be something also hilarious about signing your, you know, drafted and developed theoretical number one center to this eight year massive deal. And then because of a technicality, he doesn't have any no trade protection. You send him to Buffalo. Yeah, three months in three months and like not just trade him specifically.

It's like, hey, remember that eight year deal you signed? Guess what? Welcome to Buffalo. It is still an eight-year deal. However, the parameters have changed in a major way. Because Wish was on the program a couple days ago, and he wrote a big think piece after Kevin Adams' now infamous press conference with the palm trees and everything.

And he said, part of the way that you get talent in the door and you work around the we're not a free agent destination and we're on a bunch of people's no trade list is acquire guys or go after guys that don't have trade protection yeah they have term yeah go after younger guys where you force them to live in buffalo which is a great way of putting it but that trap them yeah like you're here forever now you said you signed deal somewhere else. Now we own that deal. You're stuck here. I hope you like wings.

And that, to me, does add an interesting wrinkle to it. At the end of the day, though, when I look at it, like if I take my personal opinion out of it and look at it purely objectively, it's hard to think that a team that was, that's in its competitive window, that was one win away from going from the conference finals last year, and is trying to get back to that stage this year,

and is in a playoff position right now, would make a move in season of that magnitude. No, even if you buy into the full maximal version of the P.D. Miller drama, right? The disconnect and the discord. Even if you are all in on that, it's still an after-the-season thing. You don't have to do it in-season. You do it when you have a chance to take stock,

when it's easier to make a big deal. If you think you have to go down that road, you don't do it on December 18th when you're sitting in a playoff spot. Yeah. Right? For Dylan Cousins and Bowen Byram. You know what I mean? Like, there's no urgency this season.

Again, if you're like, oh, no, they'll never win with these two guys. You know, Petey's not a talkative guy. Got to move him before the no trade protection kicks in. It's like, well, let's still it after the season thing. The only wrinkle that I'd throw into it right now being in in season, is how desperate or how despondent Buffalo gets. Yeah. Who are they willing to open the door to? Because what might end up happening.

PD for Tage Thompson. Well, now you're talking, right? Where it's like. Now that I would consider. No, no, no. But, okay. It's not a bad thing to throw there because it's been thrown out there. It's.

That's like to Jamie's point. Like that's the kind of guy I would have to be. Yes. To be like, okay, at least we're getting an amazing player back. At least we're getting someone who has a chance to be a top of the lineup stud. Because when you're looking at it, you're saying how

dysfunctional does it get in Buffalo where they're willing to entertain this. Wild things. Or this. And if you can see me on camera right now, I'm putting my hand higher and higher to sort of reflect how far are you willing to go? Right. How, what are you willing to do for this? And I do wonder what stage it might get to in Buffalo because they can't win hockey games. Yeah. And you brought

up the dynamic there where it's like, well, you can fire the general manager, but they've tried that and you can fire the head coach and they've tried that and it's not working. It's not getting results. I also think there is no bigger Josh Allen and Buffalo Bills fan right now in the world than Kevin Adams. Just like, you guys keep winning, go in the Super Bowl, keep the owner's attention off me as long as possible, let me stay in this job. If you're Kevin Adams, it's like, what?

You're going to save your job by trading Owen Power? What's he supposed to do? I know, but that's it. He is kind of in a box right now. He really is. I mean, what other cards can you play if you're the Buffalo Sabres? The owner came in and talked to the team. You've run out of things on the checklist, you know?

They allowed a goal 17 seconds in. They have healthy scratch players. They've had the come-to-Jesus talk. There's been leaders in the room that have stepped up and said, we need to be better. You know, rough is decreased guys' ice time. They've switched the starting goalies. They've done every single thing short of making that big shake-up trade.

And we'll see if it – Maybe they should make the big shake-up trade. See, and I know we're up against it for time, but I go back to what I said earlier with O'Reilly, Eichel, and Reinhardt. Well, especially it's like, wow, we don't have palm trees here. It's like, you traded Sam Reinhardt to Florida. He didn't leave. You traded him to Florida. What are you

talking about? Okay, we've got a lot more to get to on the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650. Hour 1 is in the books. Coming up on the other side, Frank Cervalli from Daily Faceoff is going to join us at 7 o'clock. We'll get into some trade rumblings from around the NHL. 730, Matt McConnell, the play-by-play voice

of the Utah Hockey Club. A reminder, it's the Canucks in Utah tonight. 7 o'clock, you can hear it all right here, pregame, postgame, and the actual game on Sportsnet 650. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show featuring Jamie Dodd on Sportsnet 650.