Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Canucks Have A Norris Trophy Winner

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look at the previous day in sports, including Quinn Hughes winning the Norris Trophy (3:00) as well as the Canucks re-signing Dakota Joshua and Tyler Myers (15:00), plus the boys look at the latest stories from around the NHL (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.

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Don't flip that. Ladies and gentlemen, the weekend. Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. 6.01 on a Friday. Happy Friday, everybody. Sweet, sweet Friday. It is Halford and his

Brough for the Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you.

Good morning. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough for the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver Honda is Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, be it sales, financing service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star 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, that's what you're waiting for. We got a big show ahead on a Friday. It is NHL

draft round one night. And we got a lot of Euro stuff over the weekend. We have a million things that went on in the world of Sprott, specifically the NHL yesterday. At 7 o'clock, we'll talk to AJ from AJ's Pizza because it's Ask Us Anything Friday on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. The premise, as always, quite simple.

You ask us anything, we will answer that anything, and the best Ask Us Anything will get a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway, the best pizza place in the world. At 7.05, here's a get. Rick Celebrini is going to join the program. The director of sports science for the Golden State Warriors. Also, the father of the projected, I'll say projected, first overall pick in tonight's NHL entry draft,

Macklin celebrini rick's a local guy mackie's a local kid so we'll talk to them at 705 have you come across rick celebrini at all he was a soccer player so uh i am uh friends with his brother oh okay randy so um i don't meet rick's in golden state so it's not gonna cross paths a lot but um they are both legendary local soccer players rick was a very good soccer player back in the day. And I'm very excited to talk to him. It should be a big night for the family. I was just thinking how incredible it is that Rick Celebrini famously works for the Golden State Warriors.

And San Jose is going to be the team that gets the first overall pick. And his other son was drafted by Vancouver. That's cool. One of his sons gets to play with Jake Wallman now. That's really exciting as well. That is pretty cool. 7.30. I'll never forget where I was when I heard the news.

Bob the Moj. Marjanovic is going to join us on a rare Friday hit that doubles as a postgame hit. The Lions squeaked out a win over the Edmonton Elks last night at BC Place. So we'll talk to Moj about that. It wasn't exactly the most impressive win, but hey, they all count. And the Lions have won three straight. Moj will join us at 7.30 to talk about that.

8 o'clock, Rick Dollywell. I assume you've already been in contact with our intrepid Canucks insider about what we'll talk about today with Dollywell, I assume you've already been in contact with our intrepid Canucks insider about what we'll talk about today with Dolly Yeah, we'll just talk about the signings that the Canucks have done and the ones that they might possibly do, the same sort of stuff that we'll talk about until July 1st

Zdorov, Tanev, but actually the one thing that I find interesting and a bit of a curveball is the what Dolly says in his text to me the quote-unquote goalie situation which is why are the Canucks apparently circling back to talk with Casey to Smith why is that that's very interesting what's that is very interesting thank you I want to get to the bottom you're not even sarcastic even sarcastic. No, no. Why would I be sarcastic?

I'm genuinely interested in that. So Dolly's going to join us today to talk about that and more. Mojit, 730. Rick Celebrini at 705 and AJ at 7. And a reminder, it is Ask Us Anything Friday. Get your AUAs. That's the hashtag into the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650-650. That's what's happening on the program today.

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

What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the 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. Yesterday was a huge day for the Vancouver Canucks and for fans of Vancouver Canucks news. So let's start with the most recent development last night and work our way backwards.

Quinn Hughes. Congratulations to Quinn Hughes. He was awarded the Norse Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman. That's right. Fire up the rap horns. How long have I been waiting for this? Your entire lifetime. Yeah.

I was actually thinking of you when I saw Quinn Hughes get it, bro. It was like the first time in franchise history. The Canucks finally have a Norris Trophy. Not only, I was, before I would have, I would have settled for Norris Trophy caliber. Sure. This one's actually a Norris Trophy winner.

So he was the first ever Norris nominee in franchise history, and it is now the first ever Norris winner in franchise history. So kudos to him, 27th player to win the trophy. He won it at the ripe old age of 24. Here's some audio now on Quinn Hughes saying just how special it is to him to win the Norris. Yeah, it's really special. I mean, something that I was hoping

I'd have the chance to win in my career and to do it at 24, I'm honored. And like I said, there really is so many great defensemen in the league, so it's incredibly tough to win and to, you know, do it through a full season, 82 games.

And so I'm proud. I'm proud of the year. And we had a great team. And I played with great players that allowed me to continue to get better. And, yeah, I'm just, you know, it's a little surreal right now. I'm trying to take it in. But just really happy with the whole year. And hopefully we can continue to get better.

So there's still room to grow for Quinn Hughes as a player. Heart trophy expert. Well, no. What I'm thinking about is the knowledge that he gained in the playoffs and the knowledge that he gained that things are going to be different for him in the playoffs. It might be different going forward based on the blueprint that we saw in the playoffs of the opponents and how

they play them, play them, play him. It wasn't like he was completely ineffective in the post season, but I think what Nashville did in terms of not just chasing him down, getting some big hits on him. And then the Edmonton Oilers kind of followed that same blueprint. That is an

experience that Quinn Hughes is going to take and he's going to go into the offseason and go hmm I'm not just a regular season player now there will be expectations that my team makes the playoffs and does something once it gets there how can I be better in those situations and some of it's going to be getting rid of the puck quicker or just figuring out different ways to avoid the pressure because I think Nashville did a really good job of getting in on the forecheck and actually putting the body on Quinn Hughes. And I think that carried over into the Edmonton series

and he was slightly less effective in the playoffs than he was in the regular season. I think we can all admit that and there's nothing wrong with it. To give you a historical context, so the award has been handed out for the last 70 years. It was actually the 70th year birthday for the James Norris Trophy yesterday. So 70 times it's been handed out.

Only 27 defensemen have ever won the award, which is kind of crazy. That is crazy. I never thought of that because, like, Bobby Orr won 10 of them. Yeah, and Nick Lidster won a bunch of them as well, right? Hughes dominated the voting. Of the 172 first place votes, I believe it was 87. Sorry, he got 172 votes. I believe it was 87, 88% of those.

So it actually ended up being more of a landslide victory than some might have thought. And that is against a pair of former Norris winners in Roman Yossi and Kale McCarver. So some very stiff competition. Hughes was also named a first team, all NHL all-star, the first to do that since the Sedins got it back in the day.

Just do a quick rundown of who else won the award so we can get, get, get past it. Yeah. So Colorado Avalanche center, rundown of who else won the award so we can get into the news yeah yeah so colorado avalanche center nathan mckinnon won both the heart trophy as the league mvp and the ted lindsey award as the league's most outstanding player uh chicago blackhawks conor bedard was named the nhl's top rookie and it was uh not thatcher demko but con Connor Hellebuck winning the Vesina Award as the league's top goalie.

Demko did finish second in voting, even though he didn't get a first-place vote. Very confusing. I won't go down the road of it, but Connor Hellebuck won it in a landslide, so not really surprising there. And I have no problem. I think that's the way it should have been.

Hellebuck should have won the Vesna, and Nathan McKinnon in... I'm curious if you have the voting in front of you, because I'd be curious to know how close that vote was. It was a landslide for Nathan McKinnon. Isn't that interesting though? Because we went through this whole season talking about this crazy heart trophy race and how close, how many candidates there were. Yeah.

You know, we had, when we talked about Olin, you know, don't forget about Kucherov and Tampa Bay, what he's doing. Overall, it was a terrific hard trophy race, but I think the voters got the right guy. Nathan McKinnon was incredible this season. He really had to put, at times, he had to put the abs on his shoulders and he did that.

He had 137 first-place votes. Kucherov was second with 50. So it was a wide gap between first and second. And then nobody else really got first-place votes after that. McDavid got one. Matthews got two. Panarin got three. Like, that's it.

So it was... Only two for Matthews. I thought he might have gotten more, considering how many goals that he scored. Same. I was surprised that that many first-place votes went to McKinnon. I thought it would be way more split, but it wasn't. So McKinnon wins it in a bit of a runaway.

Did anyone watch the awards ceremony? Did anyone? And how many times did you cringe? What was the cringe per 60? There was a lot of cringe. Was it a high cringe per 60? There was a bit where the host, what's his name? Matt Friend, I want to say his name was.

He wasn't a friend to Nikita Kucherov. He came out wearing a fake beard. I have the clip. Do you? It was so brutal. Okay. I can't believe they greenlit it. It's 30 seconds of complete cringe.

I'll just, okay, let me set it up just in case people don't know what's going on. He kind of did a bit where he was acting. I thought it was supposed to be Nikita Kucherov, but it ended up just being a generic. They had the name bar. It said Nikita Kucherov. He was trying to do a Kucherov impression. Mike, the urologist from Brockville, sent in an early What We Learned.

He said the weird Borat-style Nikita Kucherov interview was a perfect demonstration of how terrible the NHL is at executing things like award shows. Was it Borat? That's pretty insulting, actually, if he's trying to be. We're going to put it out there. Thankfully, Kucherov is super friendly, and he was able to play along. We're going to put it out there.

The listeners can have their take. This is, I don't know what, Borat interviewing Nikita Kucherov with Borat being Nikita Kucherov. Here's the clip from the NHL award show. How we doing, man? We feeling good? You look like number one bull crap. How's it feel man for some reason you sound more Russian on YouTube but anyways this would be your second hard trophy win do you know where you put the other one or what

do you do yeah it's at my office so much enthusiasm from Kucherov I'm loving it up the top man what are your predictions for the next season Nikita what do you like I'll try to up the top, man. What are your predictions for the next season, Nikita? What do you like? I'll try to win the cup. That is such amazing advice for hockey players, man. Wawa wewa. Anyways, when we come back, we'll find out who wins the heart. Nikita Kucherov, everybody. What the hell are we doing here?

He dropped a wawa wewa. You know what? I did like the wawa. I actually like the wawa wewa part. Yeah, because you love Borat. I do love Borat. Right in front of his face. That's terrible. And Kucherov's sitting there just stone-faced the Wawa. I actually like the Wawa. We Wawa. Because you love Borat. I do love Borat. Right in front of his face. That's terrible. And Kucherov's sitting there just stone-faced the entire time.

Why does the NHL succeed in making us cringe so badly? Number one, cringely. Is it the combination of kind of okay talent, but not elite talent, not star level talent. And I'm talking about the hosts combined with the fact that hockey players never want to play along. Like they never want to play along. No, no. I don't know why they do it. I honestly don't.

I don't even try. Okay, so they parsed it down last year. It was an hour-long program. They cut out half the awards they normally do. So like, sorry, Lady Bing winner, you don't get the big stage. They tried to fire through it faster. They cut down the amount of skits, but they still tried. And I think this is Homer Simpson advice time.

It's like, the lesson is don't try. Never try. Like, just give out the awards. Give out the awards. No one, and I mean no one, is going to miss the NHL award show. Do the other leagues have award shows? Oh, yeah. The NFL has a big glitzy one.

Yeah. Really? Like, I never remember that. I never can't even think of that. I can't even think of a single time that I've watched the NFL. Well, there's a great Norm MacDonald bit. I think it was. That was the.

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That was the. That was the. That was the. That was the. That was the. That was the. That was the. That was the ESPYs. That was the ESPYs. Right, right, right. Yeah, that was the ESPYs. The NFL has a very glitzy award show. Okay. It's better than this.

Yeah, yeah. But it's also an award show at the end of the day. I just think that... But the players never want to play along with this thing. Not really. They're embarrassed. And some of the responsibilities on them, like we all know hockey players have that too cool for school kind of attitude sometime. You know what I mean? At any rate, let's move on to what the Canucks did

yesterday because it was significant and we will start with Dakota Joshua re-signing. The Vancouver Canucks signed Dakota Joshua yesterday to a four-year, $13 million contract. He was slated to become an unrestricted

free agent on Monday, so kudos to the Canucks for getting that one done just under the wire. According to Frege, that's Sportsnet's Elliot Friedman, Frege reported late Wednesday night that the Canucks circled back on trying to sign Joshua right after they traded Ilya Mikheyev to Chicago. And it didn't take very long after getting Mikheyev's money off the books to come to a deal with Dakota Joshua. The quote from Canucks General Manager Patrick Alveen, Dakota had a strong season for us and took some big steps forward in his game. We really like his size, speed, and physicality.

He fit in well with our system and the way we want to play hockey. And I think it's worth noting that on the day that dakota joshua re-signed we were talking to his line mate that had also recently re-signed teddy bluger so the third line the third line the third line is back baby the whole thing is back and i couldn't be more excited now they're going to trade garland to make cap space don't trade garland just let us have this for a little bit well i wonder what the expectations will be for Dakota Joshua going forward. Will he be tested out in the top six? Of course, that will largely depend on what

the Canucks do in free agency and trade wise and how everything shakes out as they head into training camp in the fall. But, you know, it would be easy enough and fine if the Canucks just keep Dakota Joshua in that spot where he excelled. I mean, he was a $3.2 million player this year. No question about it. Yep.

So you hope that he maintains that level at the very least and he comes into camp into shape in shape because that would be one hint if he doesn't come into camp in shape and the only reason i say that is because rick talkett was a little disappointed with dakota joshua and his fitness levels at training camp so if he comes into camp in shape that's great. Right? That means he's not going to be like, well, I got paid. Now I can relax a little bit. Because we all have to remember just how hungry Dakota Joshua was coming into this season, or should have been.

The fact that he didn't come in shape really was a little bit confusing to me. But regardless, he played really well well and he finally got paid he hadn't made much in the nhl until this season and he's not like 22. so 28 he's 28 years old and this was his this was his big pay day you know if he's if he's careful with his money now he's set for life he really is right if you can get 10 million bucks out of this contract with Tack, well, he probably won't, but you still are set for life. But now you're going to be expected to play a big role. Now you're not just a good story in this found money.

Now you're a guy that the Canucks have made a commitment to, and you're going to have to be, at the very least, a really good third-line player. And sometimes you're going to be asked be, at the very least, a really good third line player. And sometimes you're going to be asked to go into the top six. You're going to have to continue being a really good penalty killer. And you're going to continue, you're going to have to continue being a physical present on a nightly basis. Every time you're on the ice, you're going to have to be expected to be consistent because

it's not like, well, he's just a guy who's, you know, up, who's, you know, bounced around the HL. Sometimes he's in the NHL. Now you've been paid like a regular NHL or, and you have to,

you have to bring it every night. Yeah. I think that's going to end up being the biggest challenge for him. I've seen this before in the national hockey league where we've covered it for a long time. There's guys that get these sorts of paydays where they go from being fringe guys, making less than a million a year to getting that big payday. There is an inherent pressure to elevate your game.

But if this makes sense, elevate, but not change, right? They want you to do all the things that earned you the $13 million. They just want you to do it better. Right? So here,

for example, Joshua finished with like 250 hits during the regular season and he was like third in the league still at the end of the playoffs even though he only played two rounds with 74 hits in the postseason none of that can go away but they're had you also has to add elements to his game like you can't start sacrificing physicality to chase points exactly exactly but some guys have a really hard time wrapping their head around that because there's pressure involved now you're a three million dollar a year guy speaking of three million dollar a year guys tyler myers is now one of those tyler myers also signed yesterday the veteran d-man agreed to a

three-year deal for nine million collectively that. That's $3 million AAV. And I want to address, there was some pushback, which I thought was odd, including right now into the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket. Do you think it's odd that there's pushback that Tyler Myers got a three-year deal considering his tenure in Vancouver? The term I could see some people having a little bit of issue with,

but for $3 million a year going down from six, looking at what the defenseman market is, my my answer all these people like what did you expect what did you honestly expect that he was going to take because he could have gone to market and i guarantee you there would have been teams that would have paid him more more yeah i mean it's just the reality of the open market right now you nearly said the reality of the situation the reality of the open market there's not a lot of defensemen of the situation. The reality of the open market. There's not a lot of defensemen, period, right or left-handed. There's not a lot that are out there. It is crazy, though, that looking back even just a year ago,

when people were looking at Tyler Meyer's contract and going, only one year to go. Sure. Only one year to go. And a lot of people were going, well, okay, the signing bonus has been paid. Maybe they can trade him now. They were just looking forward to the end of it and now there's three more years of tyler myers albeit at a different cap hit half the cap hit that he was under percent decrease and i thought uh especially in the playoffs i thought he played really really

well they signed ian cole last year for one year, $3 million. At any point, did you consider that cap hit to be onerous or inflated? Even when Cole was struggling, I was like, $3 million for a reliable veteran. Number five defenseman. That's fine. Look around the league. Myers basically had Jalen Chatfield's contract, right? But it does put pressure on

the Canucks now to go and find a defenseman that keeps Tyler Myers in that third pair role. Or at the very least, it's the bottom four, right? If you're going to keep Hughes and Hronik together, and I

think that's a big if because I still think that there's elements in the organization that they say, we should break this up if we can. But Tyler Myers needs to be playing 16, 17 minutes a night. Once he gets into the 20s, then it becomes problematic. He was at 19.30 last season, I want to say. And in the playoffs, I think I got closer to 20.

In the playoffs, sometimes it's different, though, because if you look at the averages, overtimes are baked into those. But I'm fine with that deal. I really am. And I understand that people will side-eye it based on... And fair enough, the majority of Tyler Myers' initial contract in Vancouver was a disappointment. I think it's fair to say that.

I would also say... But he was being asked to... You know, his first season in Vancouver was a disappointment. I think it's fair to say that. I would also say... But he was being asked to, you know, his first season in Vancouver, his average ice time was 21.30. There's a significant difference between that and the role that he played last season. Yeah, and I don't even think it's recency bias. I think that you had a head coach and, more importantly, a guy running the blue line in Adam Foote that kind of understood what they

could get out of Myers and asking him to do what he can. I think more importantly, not asking him to do what he couldn't. That's a big part of this. And telling him what to do. You know? God, who was that? Oh, it was Ethan Baer.

Before he left the organization, was talking about what went wrong with the Canucks, not for him, but just the team. And he basically insinuated that the guys weren't being given much direction and they didn't know where to be on the ice and what plays to make. And Rick Tockett came in and he said, I'm going to tell you exactly what plays to make. And there was less freedom in terms of how to play and what to do with the puck and what to

do in certain situations you know that whole thing like Bruce just lets them play that was the problem yeah some guys that was that no no that was the problem for the whole team sure and I think listen management was right you need a structure you need need a hard and fast structure that you can turn to when things, you can turn to at any time. Right. Especially when things are going tough for you. You got, it's like your security blanket. And that's what some of these players needed. That's what Tyler, you didn't want Tyler Myers going back with the puck and going and Bruce yelling from the bench. I believe in you. Yeah, right.

Right? Like, you can do it, but what should I do? That's up to you. That's where you find the magic turnover, right? I think that was a big deal. Once those players were told, this is what we do, this is how you play, go do it, you're going to play more confidently because you just go do what you're told to do uh coming up on the halford and brough show on sportsnet 650 uh we've got

the connect stuff out of the way we can still focus on it but we can also focus on some of the big news and notes from around the national hockey league last night uh significant trade a couple significant signings sweden and finland have both named their first six. Yeah, that's right. We're already talking international hockey here for the four nations face-off. We'll get into all that coming up next on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet at 6.50. It's 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 6.31 on a Fiesta Friday here on the Halpern and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Fiesta Friday, hour one. You know what? All of Fiesta Friday is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's muy caliente destination for Honda

customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing service, or parts. As mentioned, we are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal.

North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid, visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. Did you see it was salsa night at the Blue Jays game yesterday? I did not see it was salsa night. They gave away a bowl. You can put salsa and chips in it. Oh, actual salsa. But they were also doing like salsa.

They were just throwing loose salsa at people. Yeah. Big ladle. We got to rethink this. They figured out a little lately. Oh, God. It's in my eyes. It was a good thing the Jays won.

They're responsible for a lot of dry cleaning. Yeah. It was a good thing the Jays won. They were responsible for a lot of dry cleaning. Yeah. It was a good thing the Jays won handily because they worked as perfect Frisbees. And if people figured that out later in the game, if the Jays were losing, then... The salsa plate? The salsa plate. And here come the Frisbees. Yes.

Would have been a whitey-whacker moment. Did you want to get to something? Yeah, we need some more Ask Us Anythings. Send to the Dunbar Lumber text line and include the pizza emoji if you want to be entered into the contest for best Ask Us Anything. $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza, the best pizza in town. Dunbar Lumber text line, Dunbar Lumber with

three stores to serve you in Ladner on Bridge Street, Dunbar Lumber Express at Ladner Center or Budeson Vancouver online at DunbarLumber.com. So text in 650-650 is the number. Include the pizza emoji. Jay has an Ask Us lumber.com. So text in six 50, six 50 is the number include the pizza emoji. Jay hasn't asked us anything. Okay. Have,

have either of you ever had a radio or television hit as regrettable as Biden's performance last night? Yeah. Well, yes, most mornings, most mornings. Yeah.

Most mornings I got the same level of energy. Yeah. And a cohesiveness and, yes, most mornings. That was something else. Most mornings. Yeah, most mornings I got the same level of energy. Yeah, and cohesiveness. At any rate, I— You're the sucker. You're the loser. I mean, I think the highlight was when they started arguing about their golf game. That was incredible. That was pretty good.

I don't think I've ever seen that before. Yeah. Can't hit the ball 50 yards. It's like, should we just settle the presidency with a golf game? With a long drive competition. Yeah, yeah. That would be incredible. Right?

I don't think anyone would complain about that. He's got more weight behind his drive, though. I don't know. That was Joe Cap versus Angelo Mosca, minus someone getting paid with a cane. Oh, my God. That's exactly what it was. The best part about that fight.

One of them's fairly feisty, but they're going at each other. That fight, he swings the cane, and it somehow takes the glasses off, but it doesn't hit him in the face. My favorite stat is when Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he was younger than they are right now. These guys right now. Well, yeah. I mean, sorry, he was these guys.

What? I had the sad in front of me. I forgot. I'll get back to you on it. It was a good stat. I just got to reword it. Well, he's... So is he younger than them right now?

He is younger than them right now. That's what I'm saying. He is younger than them. The way that you say that one is Bill Clinton ran all the way back in 1992. He was younger than them in the past. Today, he's still younger. He is today still younger. That was a good George W. Bush impression, though.

Thank you. Yeah. We won't get fooled again. Now watch this drive. Now watch this drive. Okay. So this summer, when you all yell at us because it's the dog days of summer and there's no content and it's slow. Don't blame Sportsnet 650.

Blame the National Hockey League. This week alone. I just want to point this out this week alone the NHL has crammed the following things into a five day spin they handed out the Stanley Cup in a game seven after the game seven

they announced the Hall of Fame inductees I know it's not the NHL but you get what I'm talking about they have the draft they have their award show Announced the Hall of Fame inductees. I know it's not the NHL, but you get what I'm talking about. They have the draft. They have their award show. And just for good measure,

they're making the four countries involved in the four-nation face-off announce their first six players today. Like, why? Why would you do it today? Was there a rush? The tournament's not until next year. Why not do it in August when we have nothing going on? And I understand that everyone wants to go on vacation and go to Muskoka or whatever. But, like, the Finns and the Swedes aren't doing that.

You know? I don't get it. So, anyway, on top of everything else now, and this is a damn shame that they crammed this in here because we would have spent, I don't know, at least a in august talking about how elias pettersson got snubbed from sweden's first six that came out this morning by the way just in case you're wondering sweden announced its first six dare i say core six players for the four nations face-off that's going to be held next february okay Who is it? Victor Hedman. Fair enough.

And Forsling, too? Yeah. Gustav Forsling got it. So they did three forwards, three defensemen. Okay. They did Victor Hedman, Gustav Forsling. Okay. Hold on a second.

Oh, they did three defensemen? Three defensemen, three forwards. Oh, okay. Right. You don't have to go two, three, one, right? The Finns did name a goalie. Okay. But anyway.

So Eric Carlson and then up front, Rantanen? He's finished, so it would be difficult for him to make the team. I always forget that. Yeah.

It would be difficult to make the team. But it would be a surprise. We didn't see that coming. Forsberg? Philip Forsberg is one of them. Not Petey? Not Petey is one of them.

Okay. Tell me who else. William Nylander is one of them. Okay. Um, tell me who else, William Nylander. Oh, right. Him and Miki Zabinijad. I forget.

I forgot Zabinijad, but Swedish. Yeah. This exercise didn't go exactly how I thought it was going to, but, um, so I'm looking at this. I'm saying it doesn't matter.

PD is going to be on the team, but it is rather interesting. Purely from I would love to get behind the scenes on why he wasn't one of the first six. Because the other six guys were currently playing better than him. I guess. I guess that's just what it comes down to. And some of it would have been a tip of the cap to the veterans like Eric Carlson. Yeah. Don't you think? Well, and also a tip of the cap to a veterans like Eric Carlson. Yeah, I mean...

Well, and also a tip of the cap to a guy like Gustav Forsling. It kind of gives you an idea of just how good he's playing right now. Right. Right? Good on the Canucks on that one. So did the other teams do it or just Sweden? Sweden and Finland have done it. Okay.

Canada and US are going to be announced at 8.30 our time this morning. Have you got Finland in front of you? I do have Finland in front of me. Okay, so I think Rantanen made it. Yeah, R rantanen made it yeah i heard he's finished sebastian ajo sebastian ajo made it okay the most obvious one of course is the first ever finished captain to hoist the stanley cup which happened on monday oh yeah that guy alexander barkoff sounds russian yes he didn't make russia's team also r Russia not participating in the Four Nations face-off. Also Russia, the reason we're having this Four Nations face-off.

Right. Finland went a little bit more classic. They went three forwards, two defensemen, and a goalie. So you see Soros, and we'll get to his contract in a moment here. He gets the nod in net for the Finns as part of their first six. They named the Dallas Stars finished defensive pairing of Issa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen as their defensemen. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

Lindell is an underrated player. He plays a lot. Yeah, he does. And, you know, that's a little bit more traditional. Again, the only reason I bring this up is because i was actually when it when it was announced yesterday they were going to do this the first thing that popped to mind was oh i wonder if pd will be on the first six because let's be honest it was a very trying second half of the season for at least i didn't notice i didn't i didn't comment on that just kind of

glossed over the whole thing and i was like you got to pay attention to this man this pd thing is a story i think we need to talk about it you're like whatever there's so many other exciting things to talk about but let's stay positive yeah positive and now it's you know it's a feather in the cap for the six that named it now I will say this someone on Twitter I apologize for not having your name in front of me in the moment mentioned that they did a sort of version of this prior to the Salt Lake Olympics back in 2002 is Canada was forced to name a first eight players. And there were some rumblings at the time that Patrick Waugh, who was not named to the original eight. And you'll eventually remember it wasn't even on the team when they went to

Salt Lake was actually aggrieved. He felt snubbed that he was not one of the core guys. Cause here's the, here's what it is those are the top of mind guys so all you're really doing is saying hey when it came time to picking our team and everyone goes like elementary school style you just pick the best players right away yeah and then when you get to the end you're like uh fine i'll take wendell right but at the top you're getting your best guys first. So what this is, is a grown-up version of, well, here are our six best guys.

And then there are the rest of the guys over there. So Petey wasn't one of the best six. He wasn't the first draft playground guy, right? Can you imagine if this Four Nations tournament ends in a Sweden-Finland final? I could see it. I don't know how seriously everyone's going to take it. I know it's international competition. I know everyone's talking about it like it's an international competition.

But the NHL and the NHLPA are obviously dreaming of a Canada-US final. Yeah, that is probably... We could see some interesting officiating. I don't know. To try to steer things in the right direction. The Finns are always tough in any competition. And they got some seriously high-end players. And the Swedes, when you look at their roster,

it's hard to find a weakness. Yeah, both are loaded. Yeah. And it could very easily be, I mean, any permutation of the four in the final, right? But obviously, because it's an NHL production, they want Canada-US final gold medal for the Four Nations Trophy or Cup or whatever the hell it is.

They especially want the American team in it because the final is going to be played in the States. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of an over. They want it on ESPN. Yes. And sports net. Yeah.

But if you're the NHL, you really, really, really want to lean into the American team because this might be one of the only times where you look at the American roster and go, I think that team might be better than Canada. So the goalie for the Finns, UC Soros. Big news for him yesterday. Multiple reports, including one from our good buddy ESPN's Greg Wyshynski, said that he is on the verge of signing an eight-year contract extension with the Nashville Predators.

The deal technically can't be signed until Monday because that, of course, is July 1. But Greg's source confirmed that the deal is worth just under $62 million over eight years. That's a lot of term. That's a lot of term. Now, Sar is a very good goalie. I actually walked away from that first-round series against Nashville maybe even more impressed than I was with his body of work before. The Shaq quote, I wasn't that familiar with your game.

You were very good in that series. Cap hit will be about $7.75 million, just a shade under eight. Is he one of the smallest goalies in the NHL? He might be the smallest goalie in the NHL. Okay, so do you remember Corey Schneider made some comments about the trade of Jacob Markstrom to the New Jersey Devils, and he kind of said, not with us, by the way.

He made these another time. He said, you know, when you get these big goalies, they're less likely to be successful playing into their late 30s break down yeah is sorrows the right kind of guy if you're going to give him a contract like this where he's going to be well into his 30s by the time the contract is over is he the right type of guy to give that contract or do you do you do you disagree with it's cory schneider's theory on that no i agree with his theory but it's almost like pick your poison because every goalie is going to run into health problems i think at some point with their hip and

their lower body but it's certainly easier for the smaller goalies to last a bit longer he just plays a very aggressive style as well like he plays a way that's very taxing on your body doesn't have as many moving parts as a guy like Markstrom, but goaltending, it's like being a catcher in baseball. It doesn't matter what you do, you're going to get dinged up at some point. So eight year term for any goalie is scary in my opinion.

So what about that top notch young prospect that they had in the system, a star off? Like what are they, what happens now? He's going to ask for a trade. Yeah. There's no way he's going to sit there and be like, congratulations, UC.

He's ready to start in the NHL, let alone back up. He's waiting for an opportunity somewhere, and it's obviously not going to come in Nashville. Per Frank Cervalli of Daily Faceoff, the Preds and UC Sorrows closing in on an eight-year extension. Word is that Nashville is actually looking for a backup to UC Sorrows on the NHL roster because they plan to put Askarov back in the American League with Milwaukee.

Well, they have Kevin Lankanen, too, right? He played for Chicago for a little while. They've got a few names in there that are worthy, but Askarov is the ticket. He's the guy that's going to get them something in return if they do decide to move. I wonder if they will take a run at Casey DeSmith. and if they try to i wonder if casey to smith will be like no i'm returning to the vancouver canucks what did we all make of the report from rick dollywell that the canucks and i forgot patrick johnson corroborated it as well that the canucks were kind of uh thinking about maybe bringing casey to smith back well i want to hear laddie's

theory on this because you suggested earlier in the show that you might have an inkling on what's going on here. Well, he's buddies with Demko. I think it's simplified reasoning, but I think Demko likes having DeSmith around. They're guys that go back to USA Hockey. They know each other for a long time. They like training together, clearly. They like working together. Have you heard this behind the

scenes? Have you heard this in the goalie chatter? But have you heard that this is the reason why? No, i wouldn't say that's the reason why the team's going after him but it would be high on my list of if you came to me and ask why are they thinking about doing this this would be the reason why so people started to worry when they heard this not because they don't like casey to smith they're worried about well wait a minute has something propped or popped up Factor Demko's health status? Are they concerned about his health status going forward

that they want to make sure that they have a veteran goalie in the mix? Because although they have Silovs and although they, you know, Silovs performed very well in the playoffs considering the situation that he was thrown into, he's still a young guy and you don't want to put him into a role where, oh, Demko's not healthy. So Silas is suddenly the starting goalie for your team for weeks on end. And then, you know, the pressure gets to him where he's not used to doing that. And all of a sudden you've got a problem. Do you remember a few years ago, or what was it, two years ago, when the Canucks were in this situation, Demko goes down,

and they've got, God, who was it? Who was it in goal? Oh, it was Spencer Martin. Spencer Martin. And Colin Delia. Right. And Rancho Cucamonga in there. Just say Rancho Cucamonga. And you had this combined 50 games of NHL experience or whatever.

And guess what? It didn't go well. So do you think that could have anything to do with that? Is there partially an insurance for Thatcher Demko and an insurance that Archer Seelov might still need some time in the AHL? I think he needs time working out his consistency for sure. We saw a good run in the AHL. I think he needs time working out his consistency for sure. We saw a good run in the playoffs, but to be a backup, you need to be thrown into some tough scenarios and you need to perform

in that time that you're given, which isn't a lot as a backup. I think in a perfect world, you carry three goalies. I think most teams want to do that these days with the load management of their goaltenders. Ideally, you'd have all three of those guys up on your big club and you'd swap them in and out when you needed to.

And Seelovs can go up and down. Seelovs has that ability to go up and down. They just lost Sochenko. He's not coming back to the team, so they're down to two goalies in Abbotsford. We'll see if they go out and grab another one, but ideally you want three ready-to-go NHLers on your roster when it comes to goalies. So what's the goalie situation in Abbotsford right now?

Well, Sochenko left, so it's just Tolopilo and I'm assuming Seelovs. Se goalie situation in Abbotsford right now? Well, Sochenko left. So it's just Tolopilo and I'm assuming Seelogs right now. Yeah. Unless they go out and get somebody else. Okay. There was another trade of note yesterday. Tai Young too. Sorry.

I should mention there's a prospect coming in. Tai Young. Okay. There was a trade of note yesterday. So we've got the Washington Capitals cooking already and it's not even July 1 yet and Calgary continues its tear down Andrew Mangiapane eat bread was traded to the Capitals on Thursday relatively low acquisition price just a second round pick in the 2025 draft and it was actually one that originally belonged to the Colorado Avalanche so they just flipped the pick on to Calgary this trade for me me is more about what's going on in Washington

because they're loading up. So this is two trades in the span of a week where they get Pierre-Luc Dubois and Andrew Mangiapane, and I suppose this is a nod to we're not just going to try and be the team where Alex Ovechkin scores his record-breaking goal. We're actually going to try and be competitive in this window. I don't know. I thought about Calgary more, to be honest with you, in this trade. Are they just pinching pennies now?

Yeah. Are they concerned about their revenues going forward to the point where they know that they're not going to be a very good team and attendance might suffer? It's the last few years in the saddle dome and they are rebuilding. So let's get rid of as much salary as we can. I'm sure that's something to do with it. There's not, there wasn't really a road forward for old Manji Apani.

Like he's in the, okay. So after next season, he's an understricted free agent. So he would have been probably a rental anyway at the deadline. So at that point, you're saying if you're Calgary, you're like, well, is it worth having him to play for us for three quarters of the season before we flip him at the deadline? Granted, you probably could have got more than a second round pick, but contract wasn't great. I mean, I was shocked when I saw that he was making $5.8 million.

That was a rather egregious overspend from the former GM Bradtree Levin who inked that deal. What are they going to do in Calgary? They're going to be terrible this year. They're going to be terrible this year. I just look at their cap situation and the Huberto contract.

Huberto contract was a massive mistake. What's he got? Massive mistake. He's got seven years left on that thing? Yep. Seven years, he's 31 already. It was a massive, massive mistake. What's he got? Massive mistake. He's got seven years left on that thing. Yep. Seven years. He's 31 already. It was a massive, massive.

And his cap hit is 10 and a half million dollars. You know, if I were them, I'd be doing everything I could to get Nazem Kadri's contract off the books. He's 33. He's got five years left at $7 million. Yep.

You know, even the, the, the, one of the guys they got in from New Jersey, Sharon Govich, he's got one year left before he's an unrestricted free agent. Now he might want to stay in Calgary cause he's like, well, there's a lot of cap space and these guys got to keep me. So I'm going to make a lot of money here, but he could also be like, I don't want to be part of this. I'm out of here. Yeah.

They, I mean, they just, they're just, they're going to be just so, so bad. Someone had a picture on Twitter yesterday of all the flames jerseys that they had collected over the years. And it was all these guys that have left, right? They have had such a thorough Exodus over the last two years. They just need,

they they're in the same situation as the Canucks were like a decade ago, without the memories of going to the Stanley Cup final. They've got very little in their system, and what they need are some high-end blue-chip prospects that can be the next era of the Calgary Flames. And maybe they find some of them in the draft this year. They got two first round picks. One of them, of course, belonging to the Vancouver Canucks that came in the Elias Lindholm trade.

But the Huberto contract to me is just such an anchor. It's going to make things so difficult going forward, not only from a cap perspective, but also just a culture perspective. They need to build something new in Calgary. And meanwhile, Bradshaw Living's in Toronto going like, sorry about that. I put you in a really tough situation.

And now I'm going to try and put the Leafs in a tough situation. Okay, before we go to break, we do need to mention there was a game last night in the Canadian Football League. Your BC Lions narrowly defeated the Edmonton Elks 24-21 Before we go to break, we do need to mention there was a game last night in the Canadian Football League. Your BC Lions narrowly defeated the Edmonton Elks 24-21 on Thursday night at BC Place. Not a good game from the Leos. And we'll talk to Moj about this at 7.30. It wasn't a good start.

They were off kilter. Things weren't happening offensively. They were stuck on teens and points up until the fourth quarter. But they managed to get it done late, and they send the Elks to 0-4 on the year. So under the head coach, Chris Jones, they are 8-32 since he took over. And not that I really care that much about the Elks, but their downfall in terms of Canadian sports has been pretty pronounced and is a big deal in Edmonton because that team does mean a lot to the city and really like the province of Alberta.

The CFO in Alberta right now is very down. Calgary's attendance is down. They play in a terrible old stadium. Nobody's excited about the stamps. And that's why I wanted to bring up this thing with Edmonton. It has been season upon season of not losing, but losing a lot of games. Here about the stamps. And that's why I wanted to bring up this thing with Edmonton. It has been season upon season of not losing, but losing a lot of games. Here's the thing.

They're 0-4, and the majority of their losses have been by three points. I think collectively it's been 19 points cumulative they lost the four games. Were all their games like last night's? That was pretty gross at times. No, no, no. In terms of the quality? They had a really high-scoring game against Toronto. so if you equate high scoring to exciting it was 39 36

it could have still been sloppy football i did not watch the elks argos game i will admit that on the catch that one no i didn't catch that one but uh they now have 17 days off and there's talk that there could be some major changes including one on 17 days off they're like should we even come back can we just stop we're owing four i know that puts us in third place in the standing but still you can still win the great yeah right we're still in this one we are still in this one so anyway the lions now move to three and one so after that rather disappointing start to the season against toronto they've rattled off three states three straight we will talk to moj about this coming up at uh 7 30 on the other side of the break we're going to talk to Moj about this coming up at 7.30. On the other side of the break, we're

going to talk to AJ from AJ's Pizza on his Broadway. Reminder, it's Ask Us Anything Friday. And then at 7.05, we're going to talk to Rick Celebrini, the head of sports science for the Golden State Warriors. He's going to join us to talk about his son, Macklin Celebrini, who will go first overall tonight

to the San Jose Sharks at the NHL entry draft. Speaking of the draft, all NHL draft coverage on Sportsnet 650 is brought to you by Oxygen Yoga and Fitness. Oxygen Yoga and Fitness, not your typical yoga studio. Hour 2 coming up. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.