Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Canucks Need At Least Seven More Wins To Get Into The Playoffs

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they preview tonight's Canucks road matchup at Columbus (6:00), plus they chat about fellow Sad Club members in the Buffalo Sabres, with The Athletic Buffalo's Matthew Fairburn (27:40), discussing the topic of how much suffering one fanbase can take.  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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You're listening to Halford and Brough You're listening to Halford and Brough You're listening to Halford and Brough You're listening to Halford and Brough one the other way that's headed out toward right field he's done it again straightaway center field he shoots it deep back at the wall ladies and gentlemen, the weekend. Good morning Vancouver 601 and a Friday! Happy Friday everybody, it is Halford at his broth at his Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studios in beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. Ladi, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough for the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers.

They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by 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. This is the 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec Studio. Kintec Footwear and Orthotics working together with you in step. Got a big show on a Friday. Before we do anything, couple of announcements. One, happy early 41st birthday to the A-Dog.

Oh, thanks. Thanks, buddy. A little understated, no problem. Your birthday's on Sunday. Yeah. But it's been a birthday week. I don't know this for certain, but I bet you're a birthday week guy. Birthday month, actually. Birthday month guy, yeah.

So happy birthday to you, A-Dog. Thanks, buddy. Secondly, Jason got a haircut. Yeah. Those of you who can't, for the buzz cut. For the many of you that aren't watching on the stream right now that can't see it, you gotta high and tight, the kids call it.

The Johnny Unitas. We're trying to convince him to go with a young person's haircut. So like the flat line across the front, maybe some speed lines on the side. A couple speed lines. I won't be doing that. You can get both ears pierced.

There's nothing speedy about me. Something you could set your watch to. It's a big Friday show. I don't care for flat brimmed hats and I don't, I don't care for the line. What do you call that? Your hair basically is a flat brimmed hat. Yeah, flat brimmed hats and I don't I don't care for the the line What do you care basically is a flat burn? Called a widow's peak and a lot of people in Hollywood think they're amazing every hat I have is a flat brim Okay, so they're the only ones that could look good in me. They're the best hats

I know you do look good in the flat brim your hat guy. Why don't you look good in heavy quotations? I don't know. I it is sort of a younger generation thing dude. You're a hat guy, why don't you wear more flat brim? Look good in heavy quotations. I don't know. It is sort of a younger generation thing. Dude, we're like five years apart. Well, what I'm saying is you, you. Hey dog, you're far removed from your younger generation. At best, 14. True. Flip that, 41 right around.

Okay, we got a big show on a Friday, got a lot of guests to get on the program. It's gonna begin at 6.30. Matthew Fairburn's gonna join us from the athletic. He is a staff writer covering the Buffalo Sabres. He had a piece out this week, which given our ties to the Sabres, we thought we had to talk to him about it. How much suffering can a fan base handle?

The Sabres are testing the limit. Amazingly, the Sabres actually aren't that bad at home this year. They're just bad overall. Again, the Sabres are once again the worst team in the Eastern Conference. Once again, they won't make the playoffs. So we're gonna talk to Matthew Fairburn about that at 6.37 o'clock.

Brian Hedger is gonna join the program. He is a Blue Jackets beat writer for the Columbus Post-Dispatch. It is a Canucks game day, game afternoon. Canucks Blue Jackets four o'clock puck drop tonight from Columbus, huge night, not just for the Canucks and their playoff chase, but in the East, you've got Columbus, Montreal, and the New York Rangers,

all within two points of one another. Montreal had a bad loss last night for them. And they're right back at it again tonight. So a huge game for the Blue Jackets and their playoff chances. We'll talk to Brian Hedger about that at 7 o'clock, 7 0 5 actually, to be specific. 7 30 Bob the Mojmar Johnovich is going to join us. We'll talk about the Vancouver

Canucks with him. Check out this lineup from Sportsnet 650 today. If you want to know why we are called your home of the Vancouver Canucks, watch this from 11 to 12 today Canucks. Watch this. From 11 to 12 today, Canucks brunch. From 12 to two, Canucks talk. From two to three, Canucks central. From three to four, Canucks pregame. Four o'clock, puck drop between the Canucks and the Blue Jackets.

After that, Canucks post game all the way till 8 p.m. That is nine uninterrupted hours of Canucks coverage right here on the. What's on at eight? Then it's the Vancouver Giants. Canucks dessert. Yeah. Late night Canucks talk.

We're running out of meals to name after the Canucks. Canucks after dark. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, we could do that. That is good. And we probably will now that you said it out loud. Hey, how's everyone doing? Did you enjoy the game?

What are you wearing? Canucks jersey. Anyway, Moj is gonna join us at 7.30 for some Canucks talk. Eight o'clock, Dolly Wall is going to join the program. What are we talking to Dolly about as the resident Dolly Wall handler? What are we talking to Rick about? The Rick Tockett situation and apparently the Vancouver Canucks were not all that pleased with all the Rick Tockett stories yesterday.

There were a lot. What I love about this show is we can kind of set the agenda and. They must hate us. Are you suggesting we have an agenda, Jason? No, not. What are those idiots talking about in the morning? Not that way. Just like whatever we talk about in the morning

often gets talked about on the other shows because the fan base is starting to talk about it. And they're sheep. And they're sheep. And they're sheep. Surely the connection must realize though that this would be a conversation. You would think. You would think.

But I think Tortorella getting fired yesterday kinda took it up a notch. So Dolly Wall is gonna join us at eight to talk about that. A reminder, it is Friday, that means it's Ask Us Anything Friday, and that means we're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Best Ask Us Anything or What We Learn we're giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway.

Best Ask Us Anything or What We Learn. Start getting them in now. Dunbar number text message in basket is 650-650. Don't forget to put a pizza emoji into your text. Hashtag it WWL or AUA. The winner gets a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. That is what's happening on the program today. It's a big show.

We got a lot to get into. So without further ado, laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I'm moving. We know how busy your life can be. What happened?

Missed it? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca Yesterday the Vancouver Canucks did practice, although we have no idea what went on there because nobody bothered to cover it. So after that practice the Canucks went about the business of scoreboard watching.

And let me tell you, not a great night on the out of town scoreboard. The two teams that the Canucks are chasing for the two wild card spots in the West, both won. And this is not a repeat for the St. Louis Blues. That's all the St. Louis Blues do now, is win hockey games. They won their eighth straight contest. They almost didn't though. I know, a three, two comeback victory

over the Nashville Predators, in which the St. Louis blues kind of played like crap They only had 10 shots through the first two periods and they were trailing going into the third But then Dylan Holloway happened and Dylan Holloway has been a revelation for this team a savior if you will Now a great piece of business from Doug Armstrong signing him to an offer sheet in the offseason, but the Blues win again What is a eight in a row for them? Eight in a row for the St. Louis Blues. Did you see what happened at the end of the game though?

They had a goal disallowed. Yeah, they scored. So everyone thought that predators had tied it and they all celebrated and then all it was like two milliseconds after the buzzer. Time had expired before the puck went in the net. Look at this murderers row of teams that St. Louis has played. Minnesota, Anaheim, Nashville three times. Yep.

Nashville three times. And they won. Come on. They won all three. They swept the season series against Nashville. They won all five games against Nashville. Shockingly played the Canucks, of course. Yep.

Chicago and Montreal. You can only play who's in front of you, Jason. Well, thank God on Saturday they have to go to Colorado. Colorado won last night big time against Los Angeles. But now you're looking at it and every time that you get, and this is me speaking from personal experience, you get a little bit of optimism and a little bit of hope, a little bit more hope after the Canucks win a game in there.

You know, meager playoff percentage climbs by a couple. Minnesota and St. Louis come back with a victory. It's gonna take another seven wins probably from the Vancouver Canucks, if not more, to get into the playoffs. And I was very hopeful that Minnesota would continue its skid and continue to tumble down the standings, but it didn't happen yesterday because,

much like the St. Louis Blues, the Minnesota Wild got a much needed victory yesterday. It was Matthew Boldy with the game winning goal, a 4-2 win over the Washington Capitals in Minnesota. That was a pretty good hockey game actually. Very cool moment after that game. Alexander Ovechkin, as his teammates were filtering off the ice and going down the tunnel,

Ovi called them all back onto the ice so they could each singular shake the hands of Marc-Andre Fleury to say farewell after a 21 year career in the national hockey is Flurry the most beloved player in the NHL. I think so like universally So Ray was on the call for this. Does anyone not like Marc Andre Flurry is there one guy here to bore? He's the one guy to say Greg. He's the one guy there is one there's one guy. He's not a player What does that tell you if there's one person I'm talking is one. There's one guy. He's not a player though. What does that tell you? If there's one person. I'm talking about players.

They all love this guy. He's got such a positive attitude. Didn't Lindon do that? Or sorry, Ginnla do that on Lindon's last game back in the day? Yeah, I think he was right. Like they're all skating off and Ginnla was like, hey, come back.

Well, Ginnla was another guy. I know it wasn't him getting the handshakes, but Ginnla was another guy that was like, everyone loved. Yeah. Even Canucks fans who hate the Flames, they're like, nah,, it was another guy that was like- Everybody loved. Everyone loved. Yeah. Even Canucks fans who hate the flames, they're

like, ah, I kind of like that guy. Yeah, how could you not? He's so happy. So Ray was on the call for that game last night. And I guess the studio crew and the announcing crew were taking a back of what was going on. So Ray was trying to explain to them, this is not a very common occurrence.

It has happened in the past, but the idea is. Ray was like, that didn't happen for me. Yeah, right. Almost shook my hand. Tell you that. On the way out. And he went silent and pouted for a bit. No.

Um, he was trying to explain two things, like one, what the, the symbolism of the gesture, but also what you're talking about, like, there's only a handful of players that are this beloved in a generation and Marc-Andre Fleury is right at the top of that. It looks like there's no one, brackets, non Peter De are this beloved in a generation and Marc-Andre Fleury is right at the top of that. It looks like there's no one, brackets non-Peter de Boer division that doesn't like Marc-Andre Fleury.

Just goes to show if you're, if you're happy and positive, you get liked and it's not worth it. I mean, it's just way too much being happy and positive. Not for me. It's not for me. Yeah, it's not for me. So anyway, so the blues win, the wild wins, so they keep their cushion ahead of the Vancouver Canucks.

If there was any good news from the out of town scoreboard yesterday, it did come from the Calgary Flames, who despite firing a whole bunch of pucks on Casey DeSmith, 48 to be exact, the Calgary Flames fell 4-2 to the Dallas Stars in Calgary last night. So the Flames, their season was really going to come down to these next few games where they had to run the gauntlet

against some pretty good teams, including essentially the class of the central division without Winnipeg. But they've got Dallas last night, they've got Colorado coming up. This is the second consecutive game where Dallas went into an Alberta-based franchise, gave up a ton of shots, got roundly outplayed, but came out with a victory. They did it against Edmonton last night, sorry, two nights ago. They did it against Calgary last night. So a very damaging loss for Calgary.

Calgary did put a pretty spirited third period comeback underway, but unlike their previous four games, which they all won in a comeback fashion, they weren't able to do it last night. So they dropped some standing in the Western Conference playoffs. previous four games, which they all won in a comeback fashion. They weren't able to do it last night. So they dropped some standing, uh, in the Western Conference playoffs. Okay. According to Money Puck, these are the playoff odds.

Minnesota 92% chance of making it St. Louis all the way up to 73.1%. Uh, Vancouver's at 19.2%, Calgary's at 18% and Utah is pretty much done. They're at 0.8% chance. So. Speaking of Utah. Yeah.

They went out in spectacular fashion yesterday. If you want to point to the exact moment and toe tag them time of death on the autopsy, you could point to Thursday night for Utah, Thomas Drance's beloved hockey club, ate nothing. A loss they suffered at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning yesterday. Poor Karel Vegemelka, our boy Vegemelka, who in his 15th consecutive start, finally said,

please, no more, I'm so tired, let me go. Gave up four goals on 11 shots before he was mercifully pulled from the game. Jackson Stauber came in and promptly gave up four goals on 10 shots. So it was not a good night for the goalies or anyone otherwise on the Utah hockey club. They lose eight. Nothing. This is the third time this year, by the way, that the Tampa Bay Lightning scored eight goals in a game.

So that's it for Utah. It's now four teams in the race. I don't know if you want to consider Minnesota quote unquote in the race, because they've got a 92% likelihood of making the playoffs. But it's St. Louis, it's Calgary, and it's Vancouver. And at this point, the margin of error for the Canucks is getting close to nil. Like this is another game tonight where one point really might not even do it.

They gotta somehow emerge from this game for two. And at this stage of the game, you're just trying to keep it alive. You're just trying to get to, and I know it sounds so trite and so cliche, but it's true. You win one game and you feel better. And then you hope that something goes right on the out of town scoreboard.

Now the problem for the Canucks in the last week is that nothing has gone right on the out of town scoreboard. Any momentum that they've gotten from the consecutive gutsy wins against the devils and the Islanders hasn't really been followed up by any good vibes aside from maybe Calgary losing last night, but Calgary is not the team that you're chasing. The team that you're chasing is St. Louis and yes, while the Canucks have games in hand on the Blues, it's tough to see the Blues slowing down. They will lose a game eventually. That I am confident of. The St.

Louis Blues will not win the remainder of their games. Well, their next game might that I am confident of. The St. Louis Blues will not win the remainder of their games. Well, their next game might be a loss in Colorado. However, they're going to need to lose three, four or five in a row in order for the momentum to really change. And for Minnesota, you know, I guess they're going to ride that 18-4 and four start out and

probably make it. They needed to lose last night and then set them off on a tailspin because they've got a couple back to backs against New Jersey and some tough games coming up. But. So I want to talk a little bit about what happened in the East too, cause the West is

a little depressing. Um, Montreal, that was a bad loss for them. Losing to Philly. Um, Philly playing well on the day that torts gets fired. The Bradshaw era is underway. Classic Bradshaw bump. In Philadelphia.

Um, so Columbus today is feeling like they've got a massive opportunity because they've got a game in hand on Montreal and they're only two points back. So if they beat the Canucks tonight, they're tied for a playoff spot with Montreal. I actually don't know who would have the tiebreaker there because, uh, Columbus has 23 regulation wins and Montreal has 24. So, um, mixed in between Montreal and Columbus are the two New York teams. The Isles one point back in Montreal, but they don't have a game in hand on the

Habs, the Rangers one point back in Montreal but they don't have a game in hand on the Habs the Rangers one point back in Montreal and they played a game extra compared to the Habs so this is a huge opportunity for Columbus who have been struggling lately although they are coming off a win so we'll see that you know Rick Tocque keeps on saying we're going into desperate buildings but they've gone into desperate buildings and played see, you know, Rick Tocke keeps on saying, we're going into desperate buildings. But they've gone into desperate buildings and played pretty well, you know? Their last game against the Islanders, the Islanders were desperate,

and the Canucks came away with the win, and they deserved to win, even though Demko had to hold them in early. Can we just talk about how mid that playoff chase is in the East right now? Look at the records in the last 10 games of Montreal, the New York Islanders, the New York Rangers, and the Columbus Blue Jackets. And I guess to a lesser degree, the Detroit Red Wings. Yeah. The Islanders are all the hot team at four, three, and three in

their last 10. They've won four of their last 10 games and they're the hottest team in the chase. All of them stink. Like Montreal this week is at a lousy week. They got blasted by the Blues. Last night they had another bad loss. They're still sitting in the second and final wildcard spot. You go over to the West and you can't make up any ground. The second place right now in the East has 75 points to put that into context. The Blues have 85. Yeah. So the second and final card, second and final wild card in the West has 10 more points than the East. So Al from Nelson texts in, wow, the losses to the Rangers and St. Louis really sting. Rangers more so.

Well, St. Louis too, because that was a two point swing. Yeah, for sure. Because the Blues got two and the Canucks only got one, even though Brock Besser tied it up late. So that game, I guess, could have been worse for the Canucks, but the Rangers won hurt just because the Canucks deserved to win, but they made a few mistakes and you know, they couldn't

put the, put the Rangers away early, even though they absolutely dominated play. So they lose in that one. But here's the thing. If you go back on the Canucks season, like you start with game one. Yeah. There's a lot of if you go back on the Canucks season, like you start with game one. Yeah.

There's a lot of games you're gonna look back and regret and you add up all those things and you're like, well, you know, they maybe don't deserve to make the playoffs. Like you can say like, oh, that one and that one and that one. Yeah, you're collecting a lot of games where the Canucks should have done better.

And I always like to look at goal differential. And if you look at the teams in the race, St. Louis is a plus 16 goal differential. I mean, a lot of it's, a lot of that's been put together in the last eight games, but some team, I mean, they didn't have to get hot if you look at the Eastern race, but you know, if one team got hot and took advantage of a soft schedule, then they were going to pull away on this.

And St. Louis, as much as I don't want to say this, they deserve credit, right? They won eight in a row. That's pretty good. The Canucks have had soft schedules. It was early in the season they had a soft schedule. Couldn't take advantage of it. Lost to teams like Buffalo at home.

They lost to Buffalo at home. You know what's going to, so it's funny, I did this exercise the other night, Nick, you always try and look for those particular segments of the season where you point to and you're like, they lost it here or they lost it here. And it's difficult with the Canucks because they never really had any huge extended losing streaks. Conversely, they never had any huge winning streaks either. But that stretch where they came out of the four nations break, remember that they started on the road and they lost back to backs in Vegas and Utah.

And it was when Demco wasn't in the lineup and Hughes wasn't in the lineup. And they, so there was a nine game stretch out of the break where they only won three games, but they didn't push any of their losses to overtime or shoot out either. stretch out of the break where they only won three games, but they didn't push any of their losses to overtime or shoot out either. They lost in Anaheim, they lost in Seattle. The Anaheim, honestly, if you want a point,

and who was that that just texted in talking about- Al from Nelson. Al, if you want to look at two games that really killed them, getting zero points out of trips to Anaheim and Seattle, two teams that are way out of the playoff chase, those will end up being ones that you circle on the calendar. There's a handful of other ones too. The home record. The home record. Home record was terrible.

15, 13 and 7 this year. Unbefitting of a playoff team. So the Canucks have played 35 games at home. They've only won 15 of them. Yeah. So there, I mean, there's a handful of reasons why. I don't know if you'll ever be able to point to one consecutive stretch, but that was the one. And of course it coincided with injuries to two key guys, two key guys who not coincidentally are back now as the Canucks have now won five of their last eight. As we went to, did we cover everything in the East? We did.

I want to talk about Edmonton for a minute here because Edmonton got absolutely blasted 6-1 by the Seattle Kraken last night. Now I know that every Edmonton loss right now comes with an asterisk because Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisaitl aren't in the lineup, but the Kraken scored, I believe it was five goals in a 12 minute span to absolutely annihilate the Oilers. One disallowed too.

Yeah, Pickard got chased Olivier Roderique a guy I was not familiar with I don't know whose father Sylvain is a famous No, maybe not famous, but he's a goalie coach within the Oilers organization famous is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, but Your goal well known in the goalie community, right? Okay. Glad he has a lot of goalie coach posters Coach shrine I got a signed Ian Clark. Why wouldn't I put that on my wall was stretcher a forward last night? Right, okay. Glad he has a lot of goalie coach posters. It's like a goalie coach shrine. I got signed Ian Clark. Why wouldn't I put that on my wall? Was Stetcher a forward last night? I don't know.

I saw, so I wasn't paying a ton of attention to the game because it was kind of a blow. He lost it on the bench. Stetcher did? Yeah, he went over and was smashing his stick and was going crazy, but I don't know if he... He's listed on Daily Faceoff as right wing on the fourth line. Is it because he had to play as a forward and he was so frustrated by it? Yeah, he's like, we gotta get in on the forecheck guys, come on. The fact that if that is true, that Troy Stetcher played up front.

Well, they might've just played 7D. I'm not sure exactly. But anyway, they lost 6-1 last night to the Kraken. Is it a burn to say like, you guys aren't a playoff team without McDavid and Dry Scythe, or is that just kind of like obvious? Like there's, some would say that's the two best players in the world. Yeah.

Those, those two. So you don't have them in the lineup. Is it even that, is it even that bad? It's like, yeah, we're not very good without the two best players in the world in our lineup. Okay. I'm glad you mentioned this. So I was watching, I was watching the game on

a Wednesday night against Dallas and at the intermission, they had Mac T Craig McTavish, uh, Jean Prince Bay was doing it and, um, Bob Stoffer, the three of them were talking and they were talking glowingly about the first period that the Edmonton Oilers had and all these things were going right. And all these guys that had stepped up, Matthias Janmark and everything, the Edmonton Oilers were losing, like things that were going right and all these guys that had stepped up at T.S. Yandmark and everything,

the Edmonton Oilers were losing. Like they were losing that game one nothing. And it's, I know what the guys were trying to say, but they didn't really ever couch any of their remarks with the fact that of course, the Edmonton Oilers are still losing this hockey game and they have not found a way to score yet, despite all these great things that were going on.

You know, I mean, I things that were going on. I understand that the team still should be able to put forth good efforts without McDavid and Dreisaitl, but at a certain point, you do become so reliant on those guys, because as you pointed out, you could make the argument they have the top two players in the NHL, and that's a big, big loss when those guys aren't in. Stuart Skinner, save percentage, 894. Well, there's another issue there. Calvin Pickard, save percentage, 894. Well, there's another. Calvin Pickard, save percentage, 898.

I don't know what the future has in store for Stuart Skinner with the head injury that he suffered on the Miko Ratnan knee to the head the other night against Dallas, but Calvin Pickard certainly wasn't the answer last night. Maybe it's Olivier Rodrigue. I don't know. Now here's the thing.

If goaltending is an issue for them in the playoffs this year, they have to make big changes in that position, right? What's Mikko Koskinen doing these days? What is Mikko Koskinen doing these days? He's in Switzerland. The Canucks, for what it's worth, the Canucks are only seven points back of the Oilers in the

standings, in the division, right? Like they're not going to catch them or anything like that, but realistically Edmonton shouldn't be a third place divisional team. They should be right there with Minnesota and St. Louis battling it out for the wild card. They have the exact same amount of points as Minnesota and they're only two up on the blues.

I'm sure that they'll be able to coast their way in, but I do wonder if this continues to go the way that it's going. They've only lost two in a row. They're five, four and one in their last 10, instead of maybe holding dryisaitl and McDavid out for a longer period of time, if they do kind of rush them back into action with maybe like a week to go in the regular season. Uh, Matthew Fairburn's going to join us next.

He's, uh, he's a writer, uh, for the athletic that covers the Buffalo Sabres. And he did a story that basically asked the question, how much more can a fan base take? And he talked to a lot of fans, season ticket holders for this piece, and he just talked to them about their experience being Sabres fans. And it generally talked about where the Sabres

are as an organization right now, where, what Buffalo sports fans think about them. So we'll tell you, we're going to talk to Matthew for a couple of minutes and then, uh, we can come back from that interview and maybe dip into the Dunbar lumber text line, uh, and answer some of your ask us anythings. Don't forget to use the pizza emoji if you want

to be entered into a hundred dollar gift card, uh, to AJ's pizza, that competition. And, uh, maybe if we have time, we'll talk for two or three minutes about Laddie already being defensive about the Toronto Blue Jays. We are one game into the season. What did I say? It's true.

You're getting a little bit defensive on the chat. We'll share it with the listeners in the next segment. Nothing to defend about that game. Yeah. See, you're getting defensive on this segment right now. You're listening to the Alfred and Brev show on Sportsnet 650. It's Canuck Central with Dan Riccio and Satya Arshah, your destination for everything Canucks, exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the post game show.

Listen four to 6 PM weekdays and on demand through your favorite podcast app. Is this Fiesta music or is there going to be a duel? I feel like there might be some gun blazing. 6.33 on a Fiesta Friday. This man is my enemy. Right? I don't even know where this song is going. Oh, it's going to violence. This town ain't big enough for the both of us.

Yeah. I'm going to save the senorita. Okay, okay. HR line one. It's mellowing out. 6.33 on a Friday. It is a Fiesta Friday. You are listening to the Haliford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. Haliford and Bruff in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable

staff that can open anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Matthew Fairburn from The Athletic in Buffalo is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour one of this program 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 Palast Street in

Vancouver our next guest Recently authored a piece for the athletic and the headline is the Buffalo Sabres are Testing the limit of how much suffering a fan base can handle. Speaks near and dear to hearts here. It feels like they're trying to do it. Yeah, actively. Let's find out more, shall we?

Joining us now from the athletic in Buffalo, Matthew Fairburn here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Matthew. How are you? Oh, good morning, guys. I'm doing well. So, a little background here. We here in Vancouver have a certain soft spot and affinity because the Sabres and the Canucks are aligned in many ways,

including my co-host, SADD Club, which the short explanation on what that is is teams in the National Hockey League that have been around for 40 plus years that don't have the Stanley Cup. And right now the SAG club has two members, Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres. So we thought, you know, this is perfect. Let's talk to Matthew about this piece because you went the extra mile and talked to a lot of different ticket holders about the experience of being a Buffalo Sabres fan over the last decade or so. What sort of findings did you learn

from speaking with these people? Yeah, it's gotten pretty bleak in Buffalo. Sort of the genesis of this story idea was just year over year kind of seeing down near the bottom of the attendance rankings, you know, you've got the savers in terms of percentage capacity and being in that building on, you know, weeknights and seeing how many empty seats there are and you start to do some of the math, you know, they don't release season ticket

numbers but you can tell based on the preseason data like where they're at and you know, obviously in Winnipeg, they kind of sounded the alarms on attendance last year. And I feel like Buffalo, through really no fault of their own, and in terms of the fans, like, you know, the attendance has struggled and who could blame them, right? You know, you talk to some of these people and it's amazing to really get the human stories

from the people that are in that building every night because I think you could look around and be like, wow, there's only 13,000 people in this building. But there are some nights that I look and I say, I can't believe there's 13,000 people here to watch this team. Like they've struggled so badly. And some of these people are so connected to it. You know, one season ticket holder I talked to, you know, 30 years he's been going to games and he's done. You know, he's leaving his seat empty.

I think these people are just running out of ways to express their frustration, right? And some of them, the only way they know how to do it is to stop showing up. And no team has ever gone this long without making the playoffs. And I think there's a lot of frustration with ownership considering they're the only team in the NHL that has had at least $6 million in unspent cap space for each of the last five seasons. Since the pandemic, they haven't come close to spending to the cap. There's just a lot of frustration from the fan base and it's sort of this vicious cycle of, you know, the lack of strong attendance hurts the bottom line and the lack of spending

from ownership makes it so people don't want to go to the games. It's just, it's really rough and they need to make the playoffs really to change it. I think people will come back and support a winner in this town. There's no doubt about it, but this has been a pretty uninspiring team this season. I want to talk a bit with you about the owner, Terry Pagula, because I remember back in, I guess it was 2011 when Terry Pagula bought the team and he was a savior at the time because the Sabres were in all sorts of

financial trouble. And I remember one quote he had, he said, if I want to make money, I'll just go drill a gas well, which is what he does. Like he's in the, I don't know, energy business. And so the message that he seemed to be sending was like, I'm a really rich guy. I don't care if I make money off this team.

I just want a winner. And of course now some of that spending in hindsight that he did, uh, turned out to be bad, like the Ville Lano signing, et cetera, et cetera. But it sounded like an owner who had bought the Sabres as a bit of a hobby, like a rich guy hobby. So what happened there? What happened to the guy that didn't care if he

made money or not on the Buffalo Sabres to the point where people are complaining that he's cheap? Yeah. How long do you have? I mean, it's a, that is sort of the question, right? So you mentioned Billy Leno and there was Christian Erhoff. There was a few of these early signings where he thought I think he could throw money at

the team and fix the problems. And then he realized that didn't work. Some of those signings really blew up in their face and some of the other money they tried to throw around, they couldn't get guys to come and different things. So then they tank to the bottom and think that they're going to build it that way. And that didn't really work either. But I think if you talk to people that have worked for the Sabres or even worked for the Bills, like when he bought the Bills, I think some things changed. Talking to people that have worked for the Sabres, they said, you know, when he bought the bills, it started to feel like the bills were more important,

and everything bills was a little bit more important to him. And then, you know, I get the sense that, you know, the oil and gas business is probably not thriving the way it was. Not to say that he's hurting for money, but, you know, it's not probably as simple as just drilling another well. Since the pandemic, the last time he spoke and answered questions from the media about the Sabres was 2020 when he hired Kevin Adams. And he said, you know, the organizational mission, essentially, was to be effective, efficient, and economic. And he really started to, you know to trim down the scouting staff.

They were talking about video scouting. They were talking about all these things, just such a dramatic shift from him. Since then, they have not spent to the salary cap ceiling. You could probably excuse it for a couple of years when you're really rebuilding. With young players, last couple of years, they're talking about win now and they haven't spent to the salary cap. And so I think there's a few things that there's definitely part of it where some of that spending early on burned him a little bit. And

then I think there's the fact that, you know, he's building a new football stadium, you know, with the help from the county, but, you know, a lot of that's coming out of his pocket. And they have separated the Bills and the Sabres. They're not sort of under one umbrella the way that they were a few years ago. And so I don't think the Sabres are making them money because they haven't had... Think about this, they haven't had playoff revenue in a full season of Terry Pagula's ownership. They made it a few months after he bought the team and they haven't made it since. I mean you

guys know how important that is to the bottom line of a franchise and then you have the attendance thing that's going on now and that's more money that they're they're bleeding. So I think it's a matter of you know trying to get this team you know back in back in the green and I don't know I feel like you need to spend money to make money and I feel like you need to spend money to make money. And I feel like some of that guy needs to come back, the guy that was just drilling other well and throwing money at guys because you think about what $6 million of unspent cap space could have gotten them this season. You know, another veteran or two that maybe

helps them and maybe stops that losing streak that they had. And it's, it's really a big point of frustration for people here is that he hasn't spent and it seems to reflect to the fans, a lack of commitment. If they hadn't had the issue with Jack Eichel's injury and the disagreement over what to do about the injury and Jack Eichel was still a Sabre, would that have made a difference or is there such

an overriding culture issue with the Buffalo Sabres that Eichel even at the top of his game wasn't going to be able to lead this team out of where they are? Such an interesting question. I feel like if they had Jack Eichel, they would be a playoff team by now. If they had let him get the surgery he wanted, if they were able toichel, they would be a playoff team by now. If they had let him get the surgery he wanted, if they were able to keep him happy, that's probably the big

variable. Could they have kept him happy? He didn't want to go through another rebuild. And so part of that was probably tied into this idea that they were going to tear things down again. It's hard to imagine a lineup with Jack Eichel, you know, Tage Thompson, Rasmus Dallin, not making the playoffs, right? Like I feel like, you know, what they have gotten Owen Power, you know, there's all sorts of domino effects. Right. Right.

You know, who would be here, who wouldn't, but, you know, they would've had Casey Middlestadt still, they had some of these pieces in place. So to me, it seems like they would be in the playoffs. Maybe Reinhardt doesn't leave, you know. I think there's a lot of variables at play there, but there's no question that when you have a rare talent, two really, and Eichel and Reinhardt, two of the best forwards in the NHL, and you let those guys get away, it sort of, you know, ruins the whole idea of like get to the bottom and get these high picks. I think Kevin Adams has framed it as like they had no choice in the matter

but the fact of the matter is the organization is what got them to that point. So to your point about the culture, maybe they wouldn't be here because at some point those guys would have gotten fed up. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten to the playoffs. And, you know, the culture is part of the problem. But they're getting to another delicate point because they were in a good space, I think, for a few years where guys were happy to be here. They were in this honeymoon phase of the rebuild where they're exceeding expectations. Young guys are playing really well. But when the expectations rose and when there was pressure, this team hasn't lived up to it. And they're about to regress for a second straight season under Kevin Adams as GM. And now some of that culture stuff, the lack of

leadership and, you know, guys questioning the direction, that's inevitable. You know, you have guys like Alex Tuck that are inevitable. You know, you have guys like Alex Tuck that are in the later part of their career wondering if he should sign on for the rest of his career to play here. You know, is he gonna be able to make the playoffs? You know, Rasmus Dallin has gone through this for seven years. You know, how long can these guys lose before they get frustrated? It's as much a question about the fans, right? Like how much losing can a fan base take, but how much losing can these guys take?

Cause they have such a short window in their primes and I think that culture is a big piece of it. So it should be a really urgent situation heading into the off season for that reason. I know the Sabres have fired a lot of people along the way, whether they're coaches or general managers. Is Kevin Adams next? He's five years into this, so it would, I think, be justified, even though to your point,

they've fired a lot of people. But I don't have any reason to believe it's getting to that point. It's hard to predict what Terry Pagula will do because when he fired Jason Botterill, you know, a few weeks before that, they had said they were sticking with him and then they fired him a couple weeks later, but they had a season ticket event, you know, on Wednesday night, I believe it was, where Adams and Ruff spoke and took questions from fans and they posted about it on their website. They wrote a story about it on their website. He made the big deal in Cousins Trade at the deadline. I don't know if you let a lame duck GM make that trade. Everything,

the way he's spoken and the actions of the organization suggest that he will be back. There's not a major reason to believe that he won't, but man, five years with no playoffs is a long time to get, especially when the last couple of years, like some of the pieces were in place and there wasn't a ton done. So it's risky, I think, keeping them on, frankly, because they have Bo Byrom, JJ Paturka, Jack Quinn, Ryan McLeod, Devin Levi, all RFAs. Alex Tuck is eligible for a contract extension this summer, has one year left on the deal after this one. Like, these are some big organizational decisions and building blocks.

And clearly, there needs to be some change to the roster as well. So big decisions need to be made beyond just the cousin's trade they made at the deadline. It feels like a roll of the dice to stick with him, frankly. And I don't know what he's done in the five years to necessarily earn the extra, the sixth year to try to fix what he's essentially broken. But all indications right now are that he will get that time. And I think that more than anything is what is frustrating fans right now. They've been very vocal at different points throughout the year and there's been a lot of

fire Adams chants in the arena. And he's certainly been sort of the target for a lot of people's frustration. Just one more question for you. Uh, Lindy rough, they bring them back cause they're all out of answers. So what about the guy that had some success long time ago now? Do you ever think he's like, I shouldn't have done this. This is a bad call.

I can't, I can't fix this and now I'm trapped. this. This is a bad call. I can't fix this and now I'm trapped. I think there's been moments where his facial expressions, his body language has suggested that that's maybe crossed his mind. I mean, he's such a competitive guy and he cares so much about this franchise that I do believe him when he says he wants to get this right and he wants to see it through and he cares to see it through, and he cares deeply about it. I think, you know, he did mention when he got hired that his initial answer was no, and he had to be talked into it.

My guess, my feeling, you know, being around him and being around the team is that he did not realize how much work needed to be done with some of these guys, like how much needed to change with their habits and the structure that they play with and how, like he said the other night after the game, you know, you get a look under the hood of the car after not driving it for a while and you realize what needs to be done. I think he realized there was a lot more work that needed to be done than maybe he thought looking at it from the outside because you see the roster on paper and you think they're pretty close but you know the culture issues that

you mentioned you know those are tough to fix and so yeah I think he's probably at 65 years old wondering what did I get myself into but he just cares so much that I do think he really does want to see it through. The article is the Buffalo Sabres are testing the limit of how much suffering a fan base can handle. It's up now at the Athletic. I recommend you all go and read it. Matthew, thanks a lot for doing this today, man. We really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me. Have a great day, guys. YouTube, thanks. That's Matthew Fairburn from the Athletic in Buffalo here on the Haliford and Bruff Show on Sportsnet 650. We got an unsigned text here and I think it's a pretty good question. I think it's a fair question to ask after

the season that Canucks have had. Okay. Are you guys willing to discuss how this management group has fared in the people management department? I think a lot of fans, me included, like most, like most of the hockey moves, but are frustrated by how much drama management stirs up through their messaging.

Boudreaux, Besser, Tuckett's Contract, the list is getting long. I think that is a completely fair question to ask about this management group because a lot of the drama, if you want to call it that, has been self-inflicted and it has been management, whether it's Alveen or Rutherford going to the media and saying some pretty controversial things that were, you know, in the case of Jim Rutherford going to the Globe and Mail, preparing the team to, or preparing the fan base

to trade one of JT Miller or Elias Pedersen and it ended up being JT Miller. And when you think about some of the comments that Patrick Alveen has made to IMAC calling out players like Elias Pedersen. And then there's, I guess the issue that's currently going on right now, which is Rick Tuckett not having a contract, long-term

extension, you know, why didn't this get figured out last off season, right after he won the Jack Adams and you go back again, as the texter mentioned, Bruce Boudreau, you know, there's one thing I've been thinking about lately and I don't know if everyone's gonna remember this, but Elliot Friedman reported a few months ago that, this was a while ago actually,

more than a few months ago, that the Canucks had kind of tasked certain players and I think it was Quinn Hughes and JT Miller The Canucks had kind of tasked certain players, and I think it was Quinn Hughes and JT Miller, with, do you remember this? Toughening up Elias Pedersen. Do you remember that? And they were like, we don't want to do this ourselves, we want the players to do it.

Yep. Well, how'd that work out? Not great. They probably shouldn't have asked Miller to do it. Yeah. Probably was the wrong guy. Okay, so with this text, the question was, are you guys willing to discuss it? Answer, yeah, absolutely.

I think that the press, this all starts from Boudreaux. Let's just get this out in the open and let's just make this like as straightforward a conversation as we can. Let's just get this out in the open. Let's just make this like as straightforward a conversation as we can. That was the first real salvo from this management group about how ruthless and cutthroat

and it is to a certain degree tone deaf. They were willing to be, I think they were cognizant of everything they were doing. I don't think any of it was accidental. They were more than okay with letting the Boudreaux situation play out how it played out. Oh man, that was bad too. But they were okay with it.

Rutherford set the tone for them. I remember that sort of infamous, um, after hours hockey night in Canada interview that he had where he just, he, he skewered Boudreaux on TV. And he was still the coach. And it was. Still the coach.

And they were okay with it. Organizationally they were fine with it because there was a end game and the end game was talk it. But if you wanna ever separate the actual individual, the end game was, and I think that what a lot of people took from that was, cutthroat, ruthless, cold hearted, cold blooded

in the pursuit of excellence or in the pursuit of achieving a goal, right? And you know, we live in a society where a lot of people are lauded for that. You can't have friends in this, in this industry. You don't worry about feelings. It's all about the end result. It's all about, you know, getting your objective

and attaining your goals. So everyone was like, okay. But you have to attain your goals. There's the big part of it. All of this behavior is not necessarily accepted, but accepted when you're winning. When you're out of a playoff spot and kind of middling and muddling along, suddenly people start to take the receipts and they're like, well, is the way that you treat people worth it? Because maybe, maybe it has had an effect on your organizational culture or the way that

everyone goes about their business. Those are valid questions to ask when you're not winning. When you are winning, it's great. They had an opportunity post-Boudreau to change that narrative a bit with the way that they handled people. They don't opportunity post-Boudreau to change that narrative a bit with the way that they handled people. They don't really seem interested in doing it.

It seems like whenever there's a big decision on the horizon, that's when Rutherford's like, all right, it's time for Jim to talk. I mean, I look back on it now. And the two biggest moves that you could say that they've made are the Boudreau dismissal and bringing in Tauket and the JT Miller trade. And what were both of those proceeded by?

The president of Hockey Ops very loudly and very publicly stating his displeasure with the current situation that they were gonna fix it, right? You can draw the parallels between those two. The Boudreaux firing was months in advance, months. Yeah. You know, he was a dead man walking for a long time. Sometimes I feel like that was an issue that

like management was telling ownership, like we need to fire this guy and they needed to get the okay. And I think. Cause you remember, do you remember in the off season before that Boudreaux season where things got nasty, Rutherford was like, I didn't know he had an option. Mm hmm.

Right. And then he was back. So someone had made the call that Boudreaux was coming back. Yep. And then. But Rutherford clearly didn't want him back. And Rutherford did what he did.

Yeah. Go to the JT Miller situation. I mean, that interview that JT Miller did with iMac recently, it's funny and you can look at this any way that you want. But JT Miller still insists that his rift with Elias Pettersson was not as big of a deal as everyone made it out to be, including Jim Rutherford.

And then Rutherford reached out to Miller and they had a conversation about it. Like I had to do what I did. I had to go out before the trade and say, this situation between you two is unresolvable and we got to make a trade and it's got to be now. That's why we're going to take an L on this trade. And I, you know, if you talk to Miller right now, he'll still say like, he probably thinks it never got to the point where a breaking point where you had to make

a deal. Well, he does, but it wasn't just over Petey. No, I know. He like, yeah, Miller wanted to be traded ultimately. Uh huh, for sure. But I think. But the way. But I think.

The way that it was framed was. It was all about the Pedersen issue, right? 100%. And I don't think it was. I don't think it was. You're listening to the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650. We're going to talk to AJ from AJ's Pizza

for a couple of minutes coming up. And then Brian Hedger, who covers the Columbus blue jackets, big game tonight for both teams, Canucks and blue jackets in Columbus. Columbus got a bit of a, a window opened a little bit last night when the Montreal Canadiens lost to the Philadelphia Flyers. So Columbus is probably going to be pretty up for this game tonight.

We'll talk to Brian about the season, the season all Canadians lost to the Philadelphia Flyers. So Columbus is probably going to be pretty up for this game tonight. We'll talk to Brian about the season in Columbus and maybe what's gone wrong in the last little while, because Columbus was such a great story. And then unfortunately I hopped on their bandwagon and they fell apart. You're listening to the Halford and Bruff

show on Sportsnet 650.