Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Canucks Squeak By The Sharks On Saturday

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at a busy weekend in sports (3:00), they talk the end of the Lions season & the Whitecaps winning a playoff thriller to force a third game (6:00), plus they chat a big Canucks win over the Sharks on Saturday (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.

Whoa, wait a minute. Huh? Hold up. What? Oh, okay. Did we just lose the f***ing Canucks? You're listening to Halford & Brough. I think Blackwood got a piece of it set up. And Sooner scores! He fires. He's going deep. DeMarcus brought it in with one hand in the end zone for a walk-off touchdown. I just want to really start out by apologizing to my teammates, really, and to the city. And he wraps him up and drops him at the six-yard line.

Danny Longlegs gets all over Jalen Waddell. Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It's Alfred at his breath 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. Laddie, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. And intern Ethan, here all week on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning to you. Good morning. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda,

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. They recycle.

You get paid. Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We're coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, Orfite, what are you waiting for? Kintec. A lot to get into

on the show today. Guest list begins at 7 o'clock. Yes, that means an entire hour of uninterrupted Halford and Brough right off the hop.

7 o'clock, Mike Tanier, our NFL insider from the 2 Deep Zone. We're going to look at the contenders that won their games on the weekend.

Buffalo looked good. Close one, but they looked good. Baltimore looked good. I also want to focus on the dud teams, because there were a lot of duds that laid big eggs on the weekend, including the Dallas Cowboys. Ha! Take that, Dallas.

We'll talk to Mike Tanier about all that at 7. 7.30, J.C. Abbott is going to join us from Three Down Nation. We will be doing the old toe-tagging of the BC Lions season, which came to an end over the weekend in Regina. We'll talk to JC about that and what the offseason has in store for the BC Lions. 8 o'clock, Kevin Woodley, NHL.com,

Ingole Magazine. We will talk to him about the Vancouver Canucks and their 3-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks in San Jose on Saturday. Look ahead to the week as well. Finally, another giveaway on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Every day this week, we are giving away a $100 gift card to Mucho Burrito. Mucho Burrito.

They have Mucho Burritos. Caller number Ocho, that's number eight, is going to get the gift card. And we're not going to say when. And apparently we're doing this thing for non-live listeners, maybe podcast listeners or streaming listeners. We will give a time so that they can plan to call in, correct? That's what we're going to do. And then caller number Ocho is going to get the $100 gift card to Mucho Burrito.

So 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. So, we have a lot to get into here because all of our local teams, and I do include the Seattle Seahawks in that, all played very pivotal games on the weekend.

Two teams in particular had their season on the line, so let's start with the one that kept their season alive. Yes! Kudos to you, Vancouver Whitecaps. Not only did you get a 3-0 win over LAFC, you also got to lead off the Halford and Brough show on a Monday. Terrific effort last night from Ryan Gould and the Whitecaps last night. Forcing a third and decisive

game against LAFC on Friday in LA. Yeah, it sounds like the Whitecaps, I mean, I didn't watch it because it wasn't on regular TV. Friday's game three will be. You were there. It sounds like the Whitecaps were all over LAFC to start

and didn't really get much of a scare at all. Nope, 3-0, and they were up two within the first 20 minutes, and who else, really? But the feisty little Scotsman, Ryan Galt, kind of running out of superlatives to throw at the guy but let's put it this way in three playoff matches now the whitecaps have scored nine goals which is a lot they've been very good ryan gauld has either scored or contributed to eight of them it's a it's really really impressive what he's doing right

okay so i have some questions let's go skeptical. Skeptical Jason. Let's go. Did LAFC dress their entire star-studded lineup? Yes, including the goalie, Hugo Lloris, and their big three up front of Olivier Giroud, the former French international, Denis Boenga, and Matthias Boguch. They were all

there and playing. Did they try? They tried. Okay. I think they got punched in the mouth early. Right. And then at around the 60th minute, when it was pretty apparent that they weren't going to come back, Steve Trundle, the manager, started making substitutions and pulling some guys off the field. He said, get out of here. You're being Trundle-ed.

And he took them off. And I think that they were ready to pack up and fly back to L.A. for that third and decisive game on Friday. What was the atmosphere like at BC place? It was good. 20,000, just over 20,000 in attendance. Um, if the circumstances were different,

meaning they didn't have that situation against Portland, which did angry up the blood of a lot of fans and people weren't as skeptical about getting anything out of LAFC because they've been pretty dominant. I think there would have been more people there. Still, good crowd and good standing ovations for Gauld at the end of the match because he didn't get subbed off. Fafa Pico got a standing O. Stuart Armstrong, who's been very good in the playoffs

after really not playing at all during the regular season. So it was a good night at BC Place. Final question about the Whitecaps. We've got a lot to get to, and we can talk about the Whitecaps later in the week ahead of Friday's game. Friday's game, they got a chance here? Yeah, they do. I mean, I'm laughing here because it's a very tall order.

I will say this. There have been a lot of upsets in the opening round of the MLS playoffs. The defending champs, Columbus, they're out. They lost to New York Red Bulls. Messi and Miami got forced into a game three as well because they lost a stunner over the weekend to atlanta so it's not out of the realm of possibility however it's an entirely different animal playing in la which is a very difficult place to play and you got the home cooking obviously but go caps get a win on friday

well the bc lions season is over after a 28 to 19 loss in Regina to the Saskatchewan Rough Riders forget playing in the Grey Cup which is being hosted at BC Place this season the Lions didn't even play once at home in the playoffs they finished third in the division they had to go to Saskatchewan they didn't beat the Rough Riders but if they had they would have had to go to Winnipeg and beaten the Blue Bombers to get to the Grey Cup. Just a wildly disappointing way to end a season that started with so much promise, not to mention an actual good record to start. They were 5-1 to start the season, which means the Lions went 4-9 in their final 13 games. Is that bad? They brought back Nathan Rourke. It didn't work, and they had to go to Vernon Adams eventually. Matthew Betts, they brought him back. I don't know how effective he was. I don't know if he was effective enough,

given the hype around his return. I really don't see Vernon Adams being back next season. He threw three interceptions against Saskatchewan. You know, for me, there are just so many parallels between Vernon Adams and Geno Smith, who we'll talk about in a bit. They just, they just like, you know, they have the ability to do some good stuff

and you've seen them play really good games. You don't trust them though. Yeah. Trust with a quarterback is so important and look you know you can make excuses for both the guys neither offensive line was very good uh Vernon Adams was in a position where he was trying to make some plays down the stretch but you know the second interception he threw was just badly underthrown. Geno Smith, we'll get to him in a bit, and he has a horrible offensive line too, so you can have that argument, but I just think Nathan Rourke is going to be the starting quarterback

next season. He's too talented, and maybe this is the big one, too marketable to move on from. Adams will play somewhere in the league, and he might have a lot of success, but I think even he knows it won't be in BC. I also have to wonder about the head coach and co-general manager, Rick Campbell. The team did not look right, obviously, this year. And even Rick Campbell himself said that the team did not handle adversity well. And that can sometimes reflect poorly on, you know, the leader, the head coach. Amar Doman, the owner, does not strike me as a super reactive owner. Like, he's not like, fire everyone after a bad game or anything, but if I were him, I'd be pretty upset.

He invested a lot of money into this season, and the Lions really were not close to good enough uh we'll chat more about what's to come with the bc lines with jc abbott at 7 30 on all these topics that we're talking about text into the dunbar lumber text line 650 650 the bridge street dunbar lumber and ladner has moved progress way in tilbury's industrial park. More room, more product, more awesome details at DunbarLumber.com. We've got an open segment on the other side of this segment to really delve into the Dunbar Lumber text line and read your text. Very busy weekend in sports and it included a

Vancouver Canucks win. They squeaked out a win in San Jose. Pugh Suter of of all players, played the hero, scoring twice on the night, including the winner with just 26 seconds left after a great offensive zone shift by Suter, Garland, and Elias Pettersson. I don't know how many great passes Connor Garland has made from down low this season, but it's been a lot. Good for Jake DeBrusque too. He scored his first of the season when he ripped one home with less than five minutes left to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead. Besser had hit the post

just a few seconds earlier, but the Canucks regrouped quickly and Quinn Hughes, always making great plays out there, gained the zone, made a great pass to DeBrusque in the slot, and he fired it home. But we know the Canucks have not been the same team with the lead this season as they were last season, and the Sharks tied it a couple minutes later with six tackers when Michael Granlin was

pretty much given all the time in the world to creep in from the sideboards and fire it past Lankanen. It was a really nice shot from Granlund. He picked a spot, he hit it, but also some, I would say, tentative defending by the Vancouver Canucks. At the very least, if they're just going to stand their ground and stare at Michael Granlund, they have to shut down the shooting lane, and they didn't do that. At any rate, they got the win and Tockett seemed pleased with the response after Wednesday's

embarrassing home loss to New Jersey. Laddie, let's play some Rick Tockett audio here. This was mostly, he was happy with the win. Quite a back and forth game tonight. How does it feel to pull the win out in this one? Yeah, I thought we played well. I mean, it was a good, I thought the Sharks played really well too. It was a good up and down hockey game. You know, obviously, Puse with a big game for us and Garland with some nice plays. So yeah, it was nice. You know, we didn't crack after they tied

the game. So I got to give the guys a lot of credit. How does it feel to just see Jake DeBrus grab that first goal, kind of just get that monkey off his back? Yeah, hell of a shot. I mean, that was dialed. I mean, that's probably the only place he could have scored, and that's a goal scorer's goal, so good for him. Something you guys wanted to see is a full 60 minutes from your team. Did you feel pretty close to that tonight?

Yeah, I did. I think it was a really good effort, and, you know, it's a good one to win that game. That's some good effort from some guys. And, you know, got a couple days for the next game. Ray Farrar, loving that full 60 question. Full 60. Full 60. Taka wasn't pleased with everything.

He noted there are still too many odd man rushes against. And he put the blame on the third forward on the forecheck. They call him F3. Got to be better, F3. F3, the one who's supposed to stay high and play the safety, essentially. Too much diving in, says Tockett. My old elementary school basketball coach

used to call it selling the farm. Ah, sold the farm. So they'll probably watch some more video on that. Maybe they can bring in Mr. McEwen as a guest coach for that. He was a good basketball coach. I guess we should mention, and you'd probably want to mention,

another solid outing for Lankanen who improved to 5-0-2 with a 9-19 save percentage. The Canucks have only lost twice in regulation. Who was in net for those? Seelovs was in net for both of them. Seelovs also lost in overtime in the Canucks' first game against Calgary when they

blew, well, he blew, a 4-1 lead. We should also mention that the power play failed to score again. 0-2 on the night. That's now four straight games without a Power Play goal for the Canucks. Just two Power Play goals in their last seven games, both of them coming against Chicago. So in their last seven games, six games they've failed to score

with the Power Play. So we said it on Friday. Sometimes the schedule gives you a gift. And in this case, it might be two because the Canucks now will go play another not very good team in the Anaheim Ducks. And the combination of a good effort, not a perfect game. Someone in the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket just pointed out might have resembled more of a finger painting than an oil painting. But the NHL schedule will give you gifts from time to time i don't know if you watch the sharks side of the postgame remarks or not but their head coach ryan warsofsky visibly pissed at his team

not happy with their performance at all i thought they played hard for the sharks that's what i thought but he was he said quote we cannot have the brain lapses that we have the line changes that we have the puck play that we have, and think we're going to win hockey games in this league. I mean, when you think about the two goals that went in in the third period, they were just clean looks. One from Nebraska and one from Suter. So he's not going to be thrilled with that, I suppose.

But I think the bar is so low for the Sharks. For me, it was like, wow, they're giving the Canucks a game. Good for them. They had won a few in a row as well. I was like, hey, they're doing good things down in San Jose. But the schedule on occasion does give you some gifts. And actually, if you look at the Canucks schedule over the course of November, it's not exactly a murderer's row of opponents.

So coming up, they've got two more. Hasn't been that tough to begin with. No. I mean, you want to count who are the good teams that they've played against so far. New Jersey, Carolina. Tampa. Tampa. And then you count Florida.

Lost all those three. The husk of the Florida florida yeah without barkov and kachuk so you look now you've got anaheim on tuesday in anaheim la on thursday that's a good team there in la so you finish up that road swing with a tough game then you come home for a bunch of games you get the oilers without connor mcdavid you get calgary who's kind of hit the skids the islanders weren't good the blackhawks weren't good. Nashville has been poor. You look ahead, the first half of November, you're going to play two, I would say, tough games against LA and the New York Rangers.

And one of those is at home. So you also want to look at that too. You're still not getting any back-to-backs for a long time, which you mentioned with Lankanen coming in. There's absolutely no reason to not play him other than the fear of burning him out. But it's early in the season, and he's probably still got some energy and some juice.

He's making like 800K. Who cares? Just ride him. Just ride him till he... Get all the money you can out of that guy. Honestly, you're at a point now where you're obviously figuring... Don't you have to be mindful

that factor demko still hasn't come back and we don't know if he's we don't 100 know that he's going to be able to i think that if they're going to do that they may have to look at doing a flip and bringing up patera and just seeing what's there as opposed to going to i would agree with that because right now i've got to imagine i do feel bad for Seeloff's because we've I mean me especially been dumping on him routinely throughout the first few games of the season he needs to go back down to the AHL and find his game I would imagine his confidence is shot right now because not only is he struggling in the games that he's in but when his counterpart goes in it's just wins. Or at the very least, not losing in regulation and not allowing five or six goals a game.

I just prefer not to worry about it. In the wise words of Bruce Boudreau, we are going to be fine. The Canucks also sent Nils Amon down to Abbotsford. Amon had to clear waivers, and fortunately he did. Now this is interesting. It leaves the Canucks with just

four centers on the roster, which means it'll be difficult on Tuesday against the Ducks, unless they recall Nils Amon. I think he played again. He played last night for Abbotsford. It'll be hard to reunite Suter with Pedersen and Garland because they're, again, four centers on the team. Suter's one of them, Pedersen, Miller, and Bluger. So that line was, or that combination was really good to finish the game. And I know a lot of fans do not like Baines with Petey and Garland. And, you know, it's hard to disagree with their frustration, especially with what Suter showed with Garland and Petey.

But here's the thing. I don't think we'll see Baines much longer anyway because Dakota Joshua is close to returning to the lineup and he's probably going to slot in for Baines. I wonder if Joshua could be ready to go for Tuesday. You know who does like Baines? Talk it. Talk it.

Yeah. That's it. Clearly. I don't mind his game. I think he's been elevated in the lineup a little prematurely at times. He does have good speed and there has been, I think he's looked, and I don't think it's reinventing the wheel with this analysis.

I think he's looked more competent, better this year than he did in that cameo last year. I think talk and just trust them defensively too. I think that's a part of it. I was a little bit surprised just with the machinations with exposing someone to waivers that they decided to make that choice because you could have easily done the inverse and sent baines down you would have been fine but oman didn't get plucked so it's it's kind of a non-issue there uh okay let's finish off this first segment and again we're going to revisit all of this in the second segment with some texts from you into the Dunbar-Limmer text line at 650-650. The Seahawks lost their

fourth straight home game. And I have to say, some of these losses have been horrific losses. And I know they made it to overtime yesterday and good for them to get it to overtime. But I would count that as a horrific loss to a division rival. This one was just as disastrous of any of the others. They lost to the Giants, a bad team. They lost to the 49ers for like, I don't know, the hundredth straight time. They lost to, what was the other? Buffalo. God, that was awful too.

It's honestly crazy that the Hawks still had a great chance to win this one given all the dumb mistakes they made on the day, but they lost and they deserve to lose. Seahawks fans now have two weeks to worry about the future as the team goes out on its bye week with a 4-5 record, last in the NFC West. This is a team that started 3-0 bye week with a 4-5 record, last in the NFC West. This is a team that started 3-0. They are now 4-5.

It's getting harder and harder to picture the Seahawks sticking with Geno Smith beyond this season. He might, but it's getting harder and harder to picture it. He's been a good story overall. I think we can all admit that. And there are lots of times when you think, okay, that was a really good throw by Geno Smith there. Wow.

And in fairness to Geno, you also have to concede that the offensive line is horrible. There are many times where he just does not have enough time. He got sacked, what, 40 times yesterday? It seemed like that. Yeah. But the terrible mistakes are getting hard to accept three interceptions i know on the second one you know he got the someone got an arm on him he said he was trying to throw it out of bounds i guess i'll choose to

believe him although it looked like he was going for someone in the back of the end zone to me it feels like Seahawks fans are ready to turn the page to whatever's next at the quarterback position again I realize it's not on Geno Smith it's not all on Geno Smith but some of it is some of it is I am I'll jump in here before we play Gino's apology, because I've got some major, major red flags with Mike McDonald right now. Major red flags with the rookie head coach. OK, the last two games, there have been a number of mental and just sheer physical mistakes across the board that are indicative of a poorly coached football team. Not being able to figure out the center to quarterback exchange two weeks in a row is a huge red flag. That's coaching and that's a personnel thing

where if a guy can't do it, you find someone that can. Because snapping the football is a real basic level, entry-level thing that you do. Two weeks in a row, they've had massive problems trying to get the ball into Geno Smith's hands. Yesterday, 12 penalties for 95 yards. The week prior, against the Bills, all they talked about was the unnecessary,

undisciplined penalties. And they came back with 12 for 95. The interceptions, yeah. Geno's got to own some of that. He also threw for three touchdowns and 363 yards, so it's not like he had a clunker of a day. He had a clunker of a day, man. He threw for three touchdowns and 363 yards. Three interceptions were a problem.

Three interceptions were a huge problem. Yeah. But this team has huge him clunker status on the day this team has huge problems like they make mistakes everywhere everywhere yeah i agree with you on that i just i don't know it's very difficult to pin it on one guy and it the reason that we do it is because he's the quarterback and the leader and he owned it well you know who pinned it on him jano smith himself you know of all, I just want to really start out by apologizing to my teammates, really, and to the city, to the organization.

You know, they put a lot of trust in me with my decision making, and, you know, when they put the ball in my hands, when my teammates play the way they played today and, you know, give us a shot to win the game, I got to make sure we do. And, you know, the things I did today, mistakes that I made, you know, they affected us negatively. And, you know, it really cost us the game today. You know, me knowing myself, I know how much, you know, this is going to hurt. I'm going to step it up, though.

You know, that's how I feel about it. I'm going to step it up. So, the Vancouver Whitecaps had a big win over LAFC at BC Place Stadium. That's good. But the BC Lions season is over. That's bad. The Vancouver Canucks got a win against the San Jose Sharks. That's pretty good.

But the Seahawks lost their fourth straight at home to the Los Angeles Rams and they're now last place in the NFC West. That's not good. That's bad. That's bad. Yeah. So what's the takeaway of that weekend? Are you positive?

Are you negative? That's good. Neutral. But it's also bad. I don't know. Football bad. Everything else good. Football bad.

Non-football bad. But football, European football, good. Because Man City lost. Yeah. I'm very confused. We have so much more to get into on the program. A reminder, as Jason mentioned off the top. If we get into AFC Bournemouth, that's good.

It is good. They beat Man City. Text into the Dunbar-Lumber text line at 650-650. We'll get into that and much more in the next segment of the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. It's Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah, your destination for everything Canucks. Exclusive interviews, inside info, and even the postgame show. Listen 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays and on the Halford & Brough Show. Halford & Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda,

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 1 of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by Northstar 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. Again, I'm not sure it's the music I'd play to raise the energy on a Monday morning. However, it's a rainy Monday. It is a rainy Monday. I like this. A-Dog came in this morning just drenched.

Oh, really? Just drenched. Oh, really? Just drenched. What, did you walk here? I forgot my umbrella. You have to do one of those full body shakes. Yeah. Like a dog? Yeah, I really did that.

Yeah, soak the intern. He was just right away. All right. We said we would dive into the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket. Are we about to do so? Because there's lots of people weighing in. As we mentioned, it was a good and bad weekend. Whitecaps win.

Lions lose. Canucks win. Seahawks lose. One guy wants us to talk about the Vikings. Not going to happen. Congratulations. You beat Joe Flacco. Yeah.

On Sunday Night Football. We were monitoring it on our phones at the game just for, you know, gambling-related purposes. And I'm like, why is it still 7-0? Why is nothing happening? Why is the football game so boring? Well, sometimes I would be like, it's, it's, it's actually hard to get a signal sometimes at

BC place. It's possible. Yeah. Maybe that was it. No, it wasn't. It was just the game. Nathan and Poco texting in about the Canucks. He says, uh, the team is clunky right now, but

I'm not concerned every year is a story of ups and downs. And unlike last season where we started hot and faded, I'd much prefer to see them come together more as the year goes on. Yeah. Tuckett says they're still working things out. You know, he said they spent a bit of time

watching video on the forecheck and he was just like, we were not forechecking correctly. It wasn't like, there's a few things we got to clean up. It was just like, we were doing it wrong. So I think he was happier with the forecheck against the San Jose Sharks, but he mentioned that they're still giving up too many odd man rushes. The Sharks could have tied that game

with like two seconds left. I think the puck hopped over someone's stick. So the defensive zone coverage is another thing that i hope they're watching some video on because you know odd man rushes against will kill you do you remember in the torts here there's a lot how many because because they couldn't figure out the pinching their pinching was just terrible they were yeah they would go at the wrong time wasn't they were overly aggressive it was just every read was wrong. Yeah, I think they were overly aggressive, though,

but they were just not comfortable doing it. It was like asking Dan Ham Hughes to invest in something that wasn't like municipal bonds or something like that. He was like, oh, this seems risky. I'm in here, but I don't know. I don't like being activated. I'm a defense that doesn't like them deactivated. That was easier for him.

What about municipal bonds? Never mind. Cam from Delta, Texan. Still haven't seen a good enough Canucks hockey game yet this season. Nothing remotely close to last year. That San Jose team doesn't belong in the same conversation as the Canucks. And I guess

you can build off a win of any kind, but man, they need upgraded defense. Okay, just hold on, Cam. They're not a very good team, San Jose, but they had won three in a row, and they weren't dog crap opponents.

They beat Utah, LA, and Chicago. They were wins. They're not great. Canucks can't beat good teams. The NHL is the NHL. It's a tough league. There's good players across the board. Teams can play.

Some are worse than others. Got to beat the top teams, though. You also have to beat the bottom teams. Sure. But you're expected to do that, though. You're not. Yeah, you are. You're killing me here.

You are expected to be better than some teams at the beginning of the year. But every game is a grind for a different reason. There's only a handful of layup games, especially when you're on the road. You shouldn't be struggling against the Sharks, though. They won. So they didn't struggle. They won. I'm not saying that it was a perfect game.

I wouldn't say they struggled against the Sharks, either. Yeah. They got off to a really good start. They didn't blow them out of the water. But I wouldn't say they struggled against the Sharks either. Yeah. They got off to a really good start. They didn't blow them out of the water, but I wouldn't say they struggled against the Sharks. Can I also explain? A little too close for comfort, but maybe that's a better way to describe it. Can I explain something to you and to Cam and Delta

and to everybody else is that when the Canucks come to town or play you this year, it is a lot different conversation than when the Canucks came into town at the beginning of the season last year. It's a different team. They got more recognition. They're more recognition. They're more regarded. They have the Norris Trophy winner and the Jack Adams winner in their employ.

It's just a different vibe. It feels different because it is different. They might get a tough game from Anaheim on Tuesday because Anaheim just got embarrassed at home by the Blackhawks last night. Chicago went in there and beat them 4-2. And they've also got a pretty good young goalie. I don't know if he's going to get the start against the Canucks.

I imagine he will. Lucas Dostal. Dostal, which sounds like an off-brand champagne. Break out the Dostal. It's not bubbly at all. The Gibson. I did want to read that last part, though, from Cam from Delta. Man, they need upgraded defense.

So an upgrade on defense. It was interesting that against the Sharks, they went with Forbort who returned to the lineup and they kept Branstrom in there. They moved him over to the right side. And that means De'Arne and Juleson, a couple of righties were in the press box. I think it's perfectly fine to have concerns about the right side

of the Canucks blue line. Because right now, a guy is playing the third pair and we had, you know, we didn't even think about him in the off season because he wasn't with the Canucks. The Canucks essentially picked him up off the scrap heap. Colorado signed him, then was like, oh, I don't want this guy. Traded him to the Canucks. And I'm sure the Canucks were like, there's something about him that we might like.

Maybe we want some more puck moving ability, even if he's down in the AHL, to have that option to bring him up. But right now, Brandstrom's a guy that doesn't look like he's coming out of the lineup. And Day-Arne and Juleson, I think they both, if you want to use the word struggle, A-D the lineup. And Darren A and Juleson, I think they both, if you want to use the word struggle, A-Dog,

Darren A and Juleson have struggled in their appearance. Those are right-shot guys. And above that spot is Tyler Myers, and we all know that Tyler Myers and Susie have had their issues to start the season. Again, thank goodness for Quinn Hughes. The guy is playing unbelievable hockey. That was a great pass he made to Jake

DeBrusque in the slot. He was able to gain the zone after a regroup just seconds after Brock Besser had hit the post. I think it went Hronik to Hughes, Hughes back to DeBrusque, and it was in the net. Like that's what Quinn Hughes can provide you. I think Hughes is the only defenseman who's what Quinn Hughes can provide you. Yep.

I think Hughes is the only defenseman who scored a goal this season for the Canucks. He has two, I believe. Yep. You know, the back end does have issues for sure. I still am obviously worried about Pettersson, although that was a great shift. But if you look at his point production, I mean, Kaprizov has, there's like three guys in the

league right now that have 21 points. Petey has four. It's not good. Right? It's a problem, right? Adam Gaudet has six goals. Petey has one. It's still a problem.

He needs to produce. It's great that he's playing great defense. It's great that, you know, he's found some chemistry with Garland, but let's be honest, Garland's doing a lot of the heavy lifting out there. He was the guy who was down low on that final play and made the great pass to Pugh Suter, and doing a lot of the heavy lifting out there. He was the guy who was down low on that final play

and made the great pass to Pugh Suter. And Suter was the one who confidently ripped it home. If you want to talk about just regular counting stats, October is the month where you pile those up because everyone's still playing a lot of summer hockey or river hockey or whatever. Some of these totals are off the charts. You mentioned Kaprizov's 21 points.

You didn't mention he's done it in 11 games. He's averaging two points a game, essentially. So for Pedersen to not produce right now, the thing you have to keep in mind is that the league gets harder as it goes along. Scoring goes down. Defenses get tighter. Penalty kills get better people start realizing that we have to play defense now we should try and kill a penalty every now and again i mean this is

what happens so for him to get off to this slow of a start that's when you start looking down the road and you're saying well it's not ideal because if you don't find your groove early it's it's a lot more difficult to find it in january and fe and February and March when things get more difficult. I was going to say something positive, but then I got peaty sidetracked. That's okay. I still do like the look of these forward lines, especially once Dakota Joshua back. Yeah, and now that DeBrusque is scoring, forward lines are good.

That was nice to see him get off the side. It looked like it was going to be the winning goal, but it wasn't. Hell of a shot, too. It was a great shot. Yeah. He needed that in a real bad way. And, you know, I am going to be curious to see when Joshua is going to be back. You know, get him in there as soon as possible,

because I would like to see a line of, and this is the way, this is how it's looking. It's looking like it's going to be Dakota Joshua with Pedersen and Garland. Okay. You know, because you've got DeBrusque with Besser and Miller. Fine.

And then I don't think you're going to break up that third line of Bluger with Sherwood and Heinen. And then you've got a fourth line that's centered by Pew Suter, who you can bring up into the lineup if you need. Like that's the thing. So if you look again, you look at this

forward group and you're like, it's a good forward group. And frankly, you look at the Canucks record right now, it ain't that bad. They've got two regulation losses in 10 games. That's not terrible. They're five, two, and three.

Had they looked like they'd been playing great hockey? No, because they haven't been playing great hockey. But they also have not been playing disastrous hockey. No. And if you want to go glass even more full on this one, I would say that oftentimes the mark of a good team is a team that can win and get points on the board when they're not at their best.

That's what the really good teams in the NHL are able to do, is have an off night or maybe not be close to 100%, but find ways to win games. Okay, we got a text in here. Yep. Do you think we will see Alekha Ramaki and Ratu call up here to see how they perform since we sent down Nils Amon? Also curious to hear what you think about Besser.

Do they sign him long-term or maybe trade him? Let's table the Besser talk for now. Let's talk about Lekker Amaki. But let's talk about Lekker Amaki and also Ratu because Lekker Amaki has four goals already for the Abbotsford Canucks, unless he scored more and I missed them last night. I saw he had two goals in the game,

and one of them was off a terrific Atu-Ratu hit on the forecheck, cleared his guy out, puck turns over, and eventually Lekarimaki taps it in for his second of the game. And his first, it looked like it was on the power play, and he ripped one home from the left side, basically Ovi's spot. So basically he's Ovechkin, but pretty much,

you know, I, I do wonder, um, I do wonder if we'll see both of those guys at some point. Ratu right now might be the most obvious call-up because the Canucks only have four centers on the roster and they might want to use Pugh Suter as a winger. Again, those with Suter, Garland, and Petey were put together late in the game and they looked really good. In fact, the three of them combined to score

the winning goal with just a few seconds left in the game. And it would be tempting to go back to those three. The only problem is right now, again, they only have four centers. Lekker and Mackey, if they have, if they keep having trouble on the power play, frankly, they

might have to call them up. They just, the power play right now, you know, again, I, I'll pick on all of them. You know, Miller's not getting the job done. Petey doesn't even look like he wants the puck. He's like, well, you passed it to me. I'm going to pass it right back. There's never any attacking motion from him.

There's never like he gets the puck and his feet are moving. And, you know, he's just distributing it. Like he's like, all right, now you take it. Well, it's funny. Okay, so i'm glad you mentioned that because what the reason lechermack he's had so much success over the last four games in abbotsford is that he's shooting the puck with reckless abandon like one of those guys in the nba where they're like just keep shooting from three man like you can keep just

keep shooting so it's been i think 24 shots on net over the last four games, maybe 26. I can't remember the exact number. But if you bring up a good point, if you're looking for a trigger man on the power play, you need someone that's willing to pull said trigger. And he's that guy right now. Also, the line that he was playing on was centered by Nils Oman last night because he played in his first game back with Abbotsford with Ratu and Lekarimaki. So it's a not, I mean, NHL caliber in the sense that two of the three guys have NHL experience

and you're assuming Lekarimaki will get it soon. So I would be, I'd be intrigued by the idea because I think it would be a lot of fun to watch. I'm not sure it's practical because you've got joshua coming back and i just don't know where lecker mackie would fit but i'll hear at the end of the day i'll say this this is a nice problem to have this is a nice problem for the canucks to have guys that are in the a in the early 20s that are knocking on the door and making a push and maybe showing that you know and i know for lecker mackie it's early but you want him to show like he's almost too good for the league or that he's got the skill set that needs to be elevated.

You want him just being confident and aggressive down there and letting it all hang out. Sonny with a text in, let's hope the Canucks figure it out by November the 9th

and that is the game against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. Now, here's what's coming up for the Canucks this week. Tomorrow, they're in Anaheim. Then they get Wednesday off. Thursday, they're in LA against the Kings, a team that they're kind of neck and neck with right now in terms of standings. And then they keep playing divisional opponents because they play the Oilers without Connor McDavid at home on Saturday and

then the Calgary Flames who have kind of come back to earth lost to the Oilers in fact last night are on Tuesday at home so the next four opponents all divisional opponents in San Jose. I guess you'd make it five. Anaheim, LA, Edmonton without McDavid, and Calgary. This is a stretch where the Canucks can get some more wins, even if they're not playing their best hockey. Go even further. I mean, it is the first half. Oh, yeah.

Islanders, Blackhawks, Nashville. The first half of November is soft, and it's a lot of games at home, and there's no back-to-backs. I like it. You should have read Sonny's other text, by the way, because he was talking about David Pasternak. Yeah.

What's going on there? Pasternak got benched. The Bruins had a good weekend. They had back-to-back shutout wins. The goalies had a good weekend. You know what Bruin didn't have a good weekend? David Pasternak. He was benched for the final 20 minutes of a 2-0 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Saturday.

And then when asked about benching his star player, head coach Jim Montgomery had two words for the media. Coach's decision. That's all he would say. So someone was, and it was Sonny. Sorry, Sonny. I'll throw you under the bus because quite frankly, I don't want to take responsibility for it. He asked when or if Rick Tockett would do the same with Elias Pedersen. One key, key difference here is that Pasternak's been dogging it defensively

and has been turning the puck over with regularity. And I don't think you can say those two things about Pedersen fairly. Like for as maybe listless as the play has looked offensively. He's turned the puck over offensively. Yeah. The ones with Pasternak were leading directly to chances the other way. I think it was a little reckless with the puck, especially in the neutral zone.

That's JT Miller. Right. JT's saying he's allowed to do that stuff because he's the emotional heartbeat of the team. So you look at this. He's a gunslinger out there. But you gotta love him. It's like the meme

like JT turns over the puck. It's like, oh, you're sweet. Petey does it. Ah, human resources. Yeah, pretty much. So I do think... Get that damn cat out of here.

Yeah. I do think it's interesting to monitor Boston in a vacuum. Like, don't try and compare it to what's going on here. But monitor Boston in a vacuum because right now we and compare it to what's going on here, but monitor Boston in a vacuum because right now, we are one-eighth of the way through the season

and Montgomery has already gone after Brad Marchand and David Pasternak. Now, that can go one of two ways. The players can either sack up and say, I need to be better. My coach is right.

I got to be better. I have to perform better. Or they can go to their agents and smear the coach in public and have him fired by December. And I'm going to tell you what the more likely one is. If you're going to tell me

who's going to win the battle between Pasternak and Marchand and Jim Montgomery, I will tell you that Jim Montgomery ain't winning that battle. You got to pick your battles really carefully if you're an NHL head coach because you are a disposable figure. Okay, we're going to have some football talk coming up in the next hour. Mike Tannier is going to join us for his regular Monday NFL hit.

We'll go through all the NFL stories, including Geno Smith's bad day against the Los Angeles Rams, although Halford said he was good. How many touchdowns did he throw for? I don't even think you know what a clunker is by definition. If he threw for no touchdowns and three interceptions and 146 yards, that's a clunker. Three interceptions is a clunker.

But he also threw three touchdowns and almost threw for 400 yards. Clunk, clunk. He made a clunker. Three interceptions is a clunker. But he also threw three touchdowns and almost threw for 400 yards. Clunk, clunk. He made a bunch of mistakes. Yeah, hence the clunking. But he also made a bunch of good plays. J.C. Abbott is going to join us at 730 to toe tag, as Halford put it, the BC Lions season.

And Gary Maple Ridge takes in on the BC Lions. He says, we recruit a quarterback that hasn't played a real game in three years. We pay him the highest on the BC Lions. He says, we recruit a quarterback that hasn't played a real game in three years. We pay him the highest in the CFL. He is a flop. Bad offensive line, poor play selection. The new guy is now carrying a clipboard, $750,000 sitting on the sidelines.

We go to Saskatchewan and we now have wasted the Grey Cup in Vancouver. Yep. Our first string quarterback isn't playing. If I was the owner, I'm thinking WTF just happened. Yep. Can I just say one thing here? I would be thinking that too.

I felt bad for Vernon Adams this season, including going into that game in Saskatchewan. I know what he is as a quarterback and maybe what he isn't. I think he got put in an impossible situation. And at the start, through no fault of his own, he lost his starting job to injury. And then I think the coaching staff really, really let him down by letting him sit and letting his game atrophy for so long

before they're like, okay, Vern, it's your turn again. Yeah, with one game left. A meaningless game in Montreal where he got some reps for sure, but he did not get the kind of opposition and fierce competition to maybe even just prep him to deal with what they dealt with. Also, hanging that entirely on the quarterback on the weekend, it's not right because that defense didn't do nearly enough to win a playoff game, I thought.

I thought they were there in spirit. The Lions are, we're not a good team. Not a good team. They weren't a good team. Right. And there, there's going to need to be a lot of honesty and accountability when looking back at that. And maybe, um, they need to bring in some new leadership for this organization.

And we'll talk about all that with JC Abbott at 7.30. And then at eight o'clock, we'll talk with Kevin Woodley. And it's probably a good time to get Woodley on just to talk about all the goalies essentially for the Canucks. Thatcher Dumko, it's now November 4th.

Apparently some people got some video of him practicing down in California. So they were trying to like Zapruder film that and trying to figure out what's going on there. Zooming in on his popliteus. Yeah. They're like, can you turn around? You know, we are into November now, right? And do you remember at the beginning of the season, it was kind of like, all right, well, you know, he's not going to play in October, but maybe November. We've had a couple of reports here and there

that he's two to three weeks away, but we'll see if those come to fruition. Talk about Kevin Lankanen. How much can you play this guy before you start risking doing exactly the same thing they did to Demko, which is wear him out. Ardur Silovs, what do you do with this guy right now? Doesn't look like you can play him in games.

He is really struggling. He's got a save percentage not below 900, but below 800. In the modern NHL, you can go below 900. You can't go below 800. You can't go below 800. So do you do something like call up Yuri Patera, give him a game,

send Silovs back, get his confidence back in the AHL? What do you do, essentially? So a good opportunity to talk with Kevin Woodley. Thanks for all your great texts into the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650-650. We'll talk to Mike Tanier for a bit. We can go back into the text inbox. We'll talk to JC Tanier for a bit. We can go back into the text inbox.

We'll talk to JC Abbott for a bit, and then we'll go back into the text inbox, and then we'll talk to Woodley. Don't forget to get your What We Learns in, and I'm going to make the call. 815 is when you call into this station for the Mucho Burrito $100 gift card. Don't call earlier.

Don't call later, but especially don't call earlier. 815 if you're listening on the stream or on the podcast. Ocho Uno Cinco. Yeah. Okay. You're listening to the Halford and Brough Show. What color is it, sorry? It's going to be the number eight.

Ocho. Ocho? Andy asked what Ocho meant when we came in this morning. Yeah, just had to verify. He's clearly never seen Dodgeball with ESPN 8, the Ocho. Every Ocho. Every day is what we learn for A-Dog on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.