Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Canucks Without Quinn Hughes Are An Adventure

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

In hour two, Halford & guest host Thomas Drance look ahead at what's next for the Canucks without Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson (3:00), plus the boys tell us what they learned (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.

🎵 801 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford, Brough. No wait, it's Thomas Drance on Sportsnet 650. Woo-hoo! You are listening to the Halford and Brough Show. Quick reset here. It's going to be Drance and myself today, obviously.

Tomorrow we'll be doing this same song and dance. Last show of 2024. Song and Drance? Yes. Hey! All of the dad jokes today. Sorry. That was great.

You never apologize. It was a layup. Never apologize. We'll be doing our last show of the year tomorrow. Same time, 7 to 9. And then we'll set you up for tomorrow night's game. The Canucks finish up their 2024 with a game in Calgary against the Flames. Halford and 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. The final hour of this program is brought to you by Campbell & Pound, real estate appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today. Tell the good people one final time, Thomas, about Kintec footwear and orthotics.

Yeah, we're coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sore feet, what are you waiting for? Kintec. You know what else we're waiting for? What we learned submissions into the Dunbar Lumber

text message ambassador. Might be waiting a while. Just keep sending them in. Look, I know you're listening. I know you're listening right now. There are dozens of you. Dozens. Send them in.

650-650. It's your chance to be on the radio. We're going to need a furious rally here. We're going to need a furious rally here. We're going to need everybody to channel the Seattle Kraken and submit their What We Learns. I will even allow What We Learns for the World Juniors.

That's right. I got takes. W in What We Learn for World Juniors. Yeah, I know you do. I know you do. I got takes. Hockey Canada, get it together. So we could do some of that.

That's all in the final half hour of the program, but please get them in. Hashtag it, WWL. Real quick, for the Vancouver Canucks, the schedule upcoming in case you're wondering, they are going to reportedly have a brief practice today before flying out this evening to go to Calgary.

Then it'll be a game. I'd love to spend my New Year's Eve in Calgary. It's the best place in the world, especially on the 31st. Party down in Calgary. So there to spend my New Year's Eve in Calgary. It's the best place in the world, especially on the 31st. Party down in Calgary. So there'll be the New Year's Eve game in Calgary. Then it'll be a game against, which is now a full-fledged rivalry after what happened on Saturday.

The rematch, the grudge match against the Kraken on the 2nd. There's a game sandwiched in there. It's a back-to-back. They go from Seattle home to Rogers Arena to take on the National Predators the night following. And then there's a game sandwiched in there. It's a back-to-back. They go from Seattle home to Rogers Arena to take on the National Predators the night following. And then there's a, I would classify it as a daunting trip. A daunting trip.

I think so. Out east. So run through it real quick because it begins with a game in Montreal. Although as Laddie pointed out, who's the new hotshot goalie in Montreal? Jakob Dobesch. Do you know anything about him? Came out of college. Really big, big goalie.

I like him. And they've finally given up on Caden Premo. Which goalies do you not like? Caden Premo. Catching strays on Vancouver radio. Caden Premo's like, what am I doing here? What's nice about this upcoming Canucks road trip, right, is that Montreal game falls on a Monday.

Which means I get a full weekend in Montreal. Good for you. which means I get a full weekend in Montreal good for you love that love a full weekend in Montreal that is the most important takeaway of the connect schedule right is that Drance gets a full weekend in Montreal agreed uh then Washington this Washington team by the way they're the they're the most bizarre team in hockey very strange they're super fun to watch. Ovi scored yesterday, bringing him to 870 on the career. NHL.com and the NHL, by the way, are so fully aboard the chase.

Was it an empty netter? No. Okay, good. It was a 4-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings, I want to say, actually. I think Patrick Kane had a goal in the assistant.

I love the look on Caps players' faces when someone else scores into an empty netter. Yeah, don't do that. They're all mad. Yeah. So good.

Those don't go to you. Those go to Ovechkin. And if he's not on the ice, you wait until he gets on, and then you give him the puck, and he scores into the empty net. So 24 to tie now, 25 to break the record. So, I mean, obviously it won't happen when the Canucks visit Washington on January the 8th. But keep an eye on Ovi as we go forward.

So backtracking a bit because the conversation that we had prior to going to break and the reason that we're laying out the next week and or weeks is that one the very good chance that quinn hughes won't be playing in any of these games that we just talked about he's definitely not playing i hope he's back by that cap scheme but week to week implies that this could be weeks-to-plural. Multiple weeks, yeah. Not week-singular. You're right.

Elias Pettersson is week-singular. Quinn Hughes could be week-to-week. Do you have – I don't even know why I asked because I know the answer to this. You know some jerk Canucks fan, by the way, is about to text the inbox and be like, yeah, week with an A. Yeah, right. I was waiting for that one. Sorry.

And Drance got it, which is good. You just stole someone's What We Learned. Yeah, my bad. No, that's fine. We can use it later. This show is very repetitive. I know that you have some thoughts, dare I say hot takes, the ability to try and fix the puck moving issues that plague this team.

Is there something either via recall, or is there something out there in the abyss that is the trademark? I honestly don't think so. I've been thinking about it long and hard, thinking like one thing about the Canucks search for a defender, right, is, you know, I've sort of been calling it the Tyler Myers line, right, which is a higher line than the old Mendoza line in baseball. Okay, so the Myers bar, if you will. The Myers bar.

Okay. the old Mendoza line in baseball. Okay, so the Myers bar, if you will. The Myers bar. Okay. And the problem with the Myers bar, right, is you actually have to be pretty good to clear it. Okay. You know, as much as... I know what you're saying. As oft maligned as Tyler Myers is on these airwaves and among Canucks fans...

Saturday didn't help. The truth is that it's pretty hard to supplant a 6'7 guy who moves the way he does and squeezes the blue line as well as he does and earns as much trust as he does in terms of actually bumping him down the line. He's a high five for a reason. And if you're the Canucks,

the cost of acquiring that type of player is A, prohibitive, and B, there's just not... We're talking Mike Matheson, we're talking Marcus Pettersson. Do either of those players even cross or jump over the Tyler Myers bar? It's debatable at best. If he doesn't necessarily jump over the bar, though, might he do it in individual facets of the game, say puck moving? Right.

Maybe you bring in a flawed player, a misfit toy that does that one thing, one thing, which is move the puck up the ice with regularity and efficiency. Well, we've already seen with Brandstrom, especially in the first 17 games that he played for the canucks like what a massive sigh of relief it is just to have a guy with some get up and go on the back end relative to this club's lack of secondary puck moving without brandstrom in the lineup or you know i think it's a door of Zdorov's completely wild forays carrying the puck into the offensive zone. God, I miss him.

I miss him so much. I miss those wild forays more than you could imagine. I think the Canucks do too. You just didn't know what was going to happen. I don't think he knew what was going to happen. No, he didn't. But he knew he was going. He knew he was going, and he was probably going to take

a bad angle slap shot at the goaltender. And you know what? Sometimes it was going to work, and it was going to be very cool. Sometimes it was on Stuart Skinner and it was going to be good. And we all loved it. And so, you know, now we've seen this management group, like when Carson Soucy got hurt, they moved quickly to acquire Zdorov last season.

So we've seen them make, let's call them a band-aid trades sure band-aid trades like let's just put a band-aid on this uh gaping wound for the short term thing about the puck moving player type right the the Brandstrom player type relatively affordable and and in greater abundance than the credible top four option ideally with term who actually leaps over the Myers line. This club probably still needs big picture, but if you wanted to try and bring in a player like Travis Dermott was claimed off waivers by the Minnesota Wild not too long ago. Those players do kind of come available.

Could the Canucks consider that? Sort of looking at expiring players primarily, I don't think there's very many good options. You'll be shocked to hear this. There's not very many good options on the trade market for blue liners. But also, are any of those players that you'd bring in going to leap over the, let's call it the Kirill Kudraevsev line? Oh, man. Is that where you're going?

I thought it was going to be a Wolanin. Very popular line. Wolanin, Kudrausev, Mark Friedman. You have some guys who can skate who are just a recall away. I'd at least consider it if I was the Canucks. I have time for this only because their dips into the American Hockey League thus far with Abbotsford have been good. I think Max Sasson is a great example of... Is it Sasson?

That's an ongoing one. I think it's Sasson. I'll have to get clearance on this after the show because I think we've come... Yeah, we'll take Shorty. I think we've come to a conclusion on this. We say Sasson, but we also jokingly say Sasson. Sasson. I think you're closer with Sasson.

I think your joke, I don't think it's Sasson, to be clear, although RDS will definitely be calling him that on the Canucks visit. We will now refer to him as Max S in the interim. So Max S. It's illustrative of a couple things one what you can do with all the sort of hard work and determination and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps that you could make yourself into an nhl player and a viable one in the short term uh the other part of it is like it's reflective of how deep the depth needs to go

sometimes totally defined and so when you're going into your farm system it shouldn't be and what i It's reflective of how deep the depth needs to go sometimes. Totally. And so when you're going into your farm system, it shouldn't be, and what I think it has been in the past for both the organization and fans of the organization, is desperation. Like, oh God, we have to call this guy up. As opposed to, okay, let's give this guy a shot because we have good depth organizationally. So Kudriatsev or Wol land at this point i think some people's

eyes would either get really wide or have single tears falling out of them that this is what it's come to but i'd say i'd add mark friedman in like friedman's good i'm pretty confident friedman's good the thing that gets me right now is that this management group either hasn't or won't make the move that they've made in the past. The hallmarks of, especially Rutherford and Pittsburgh, was in signs of duress or times of trouble, he would make the move almost sometimes to his detriment. Sometimes it wouldn't work.

They don't always. You don't bat a thousand in these deals. So you're saying having found himself in times of trouble, he's letting it be? Yeah. God, I hate you. I apologize. You know what?

I can allow it. It's a good one. No, but honestly, this group, I just, and especially after last year where, and I know Zdorov was maybe right place,

right time. All the pieces fell into the appropriate like spots, but I just feel like, you feel like I keep looking at it and poking them like, do that again. Let's make that happen again. Let's find that solution or some comparable solution out there. It seems wild to me that such an active management group has sat on his hands since the Brandstrom acquisition. So I think, though, you've bumped into a pretty rare moment

here where the price of defenders just happens to be massively inflated over the course of the season like we've we've seen that play out where like jacob truba's contract has a brutal next year on yep it's bad and it's tough. And the Rangers still got positive value in getting off of that trade. You think about Jureczyk netted the old Ricky Williams package. He got a full draft class, plus another good young defenseman

from the Minnesota Wilds. You think about even Timothy Lilligren. Timothy Lilligren's on a bad contract. Timothy Lilligren's on a bad contract. Timothy Lilligren is on a bad contract and does not jump over the Tyler Myers line. Yep. And he netted multiple draft picks. But it's never supposed to be easy.

Ole Matta. It's never supposed to be easy. Ole Matta got a third round draft pick. I know. You know, like, a couple years ago when the Canucks got ethan bear it's like they took on lane peterson's contract and paid a fifth to get ethan bear and we're just kind of in a different world like do you know what teams do you know how many teams in the league

right now could use an additional like top four capable defenseman it's totally understandable totally understandable i count four complete blue lines around the entire league. Yeah. Four, you know, like every, every team, every contender,

every pseudo contender needs these guys. And so I think what, what sort of happened is I think the Canucks built a defense, frankly, that was incongruous with their efforts to evolve offensively. Okay. And I think they've, they, they always were sort of treating it like an experiment, I think pretty explicitly.

They were going to kind of wait till Christmas, see what they had. They wanted to double down on the way that they played defense the year before. We know that Vinny Deharne was a favorite of the coaching staff when they decided to sign him sort of later in the day on July 1st. It hasn't really fit. It hasn't really worked out. The club's really struggling to get out of their own end. And yet the market that they're trying to buy in now,

or that they've been trying to buy in for a while, I just think the prices are massive and the quality of the players are extraordinarily low and it's just like a perfect storm where i think they're really reluctant to make a reckless move especially given the fact that you know i think they like what they have coming yeah and i'd add this like this team hasn't played the right way consistently enough to sort of warrant the sort of spend. So it's almost like just a perfect storm that I think has created an uncharacteristic level of passivity from a super aggressive front office to this point.

I'm still not sort of counting out a bandaid trade here because man, the Canucks need a puck mover. So let's say, yeah, but are they going to do that if the management's like, ah, this isn't our year? What's the point in giving up assets? I mean, I still think they're going to be confident that if they can get everyone back healthy, they can peak at the right time.

It still could be their year. Yeah. What I'm sort of interested in short term here, especially with sort of the softness of the next four games and then the difficulty ramping up massively for the rest of january is this team just doesn't have margin for error right they're eight in the western conference by um points as it sits today seventh by point percentage but you're you're a four point game but you're a four-point game. You're a regulation loss away from Calgary. To being on the outside looking in.

To being on the outside looking in by point percentage, which is what matters, of course, in real time. And so this team can't afford a skid. None of us can ever afford a skid. No, they're tough. You want to avoid them at all costs, mostly. In light of that, though. Not the, mostly. In light of that, though. Not the skids.

In light of that, though. Yeah, you don't hold skids to the light. Throw them in the laundry. In light of that, the goaltending. And I do want to get back to this because I am, I mean, we talked about jokingly, brackets, not jokingly, talking about getting Dave Pratt out of retirement because we can all see the goalie controversy on the horizon. And we talked about, jokingly, brackets, not jokingly, talking about getting Dave Pratt out of retirement

because we can all see the goalie controversy on the horizon. We don't want to be that inflammatory, and we don't want to be that salacious and over the top. But everything seems like, I don't want to call it a perfect storm, but all the pieces are aligned that we could be having one of those conversations on a game-to-game basis now about which goalie not that you want but you need to put in net because you need to stay afloat during this time when Hughes and Hronik aren't in the lineup like if you're playing this blue line and you're not going out and making a band-aid trade

which I think we've kind of you know crystallized that it might not happen because the market's not right for it this is your blue line. This is your defense. Maybe there's an addition of a Wolanin or a Kudriatsa, but this is it. So you have to make do and make chicken salad out of this. If that's the case, what goalie are you rolling with? Yeah. So right now, anyway, I mean, Kevin Lankanen is the more informed Canucks goaltender.

Is that debatable? I mean, he had the Pietrangelo goal against, which wasn't pretty. So I went back and looked at it. So you go back to his last few starts, and let's just start with that one in Vegas. Sure. He was fine. He made a really nice save on Mark Stone in that game. It was a fantastic save on Mark Stone.

But 18 to 20, so 18 saves on 20 shots. It's a quality start. The goal again, I mean, you've got to allow these goalies the odd one where they're just not at peak form. And the Petrangelo one was exactly that. Is it a stoppable puck? Yes. No, you don't want that goal going in.

Even Laddy won't defend that. He's just shaking his head. Okay, but you're going to allow that perfection is basically unattainable. If they're going in every game, problematic. The Petrangelo goal, I was more than willing to like, okay, that happened. Those are going to happen over the course of the season. The Ottawa game, statistically, was kind of a nightmare for Lankanen.

Yeah, but I mean, so I would say that one I would absolutely defend him on because the Canucks defending was appalling I mean all of those goals were off the rush lots of them including cross seam movement beforehand as a goalie myself though it's like you allow five in a game you're like I didn't have a good night oh yeah

it's one of those and you're probably the same way Laddie certainly not perfection we'll put it that way but if you allow five like no matter even if you had no chance on the five you're like i didn't have a great yeah as a team you're frustrated but personally i think you see it as a failing as well but that's just because goaltending is the most frustrating position in the world that was that was a classic though that was a classic though where the canucks got a point out of that game and and it was clear that they'd gotten away with one yeah i would say that they didn't play well yeah especially defensively just in case anyone heard what they clear that they'd gotten away with one. Yeah, I would say that. They didn't play well. Yeah, especially defensively.

Just in case anyone heard what they think that they heard, I will make this crystal clear. That was not on Lankanen whatsoever. No. I'm just saying that there is a world where you come off the ice or come off the field as a goalie where you've allowed five, and you're like, that wasn't a great night for me. That's just the nature of the position.

He was great against Florida. Yes, great. He was good against Tampa Bay, and he stole them two points against Columbus. Okay, so now let's do Demko against San Jose and Seattle. Right off the hop, it's eight goals over the course of two games. The Seattle one, there was a lot of issues there. I think that's fair to say, right?

Yep. I mean, the Baneers long distance. Did that go through his glove? Yeah, I think so. I think you got a piece of it. Yeah, I was like, you know, it's the old second baseman. There was a hole in my glove. You look at his glove? Yeah, I think so. I think you got a piece of it. Yeah. I was like, it's the old second baseman. There was a hole in my glove.

You look at it afterwards. Yeah. We've all been there. Most of us not on the same stage that Demko did it on, but it's not a good feeling. He's got one quality start in six games.

So I would agree with your initial assessment that, yeah, Lankanen's the more informal. At the end of the day, we look at Lankanen's last five games. Look at Lankanen's month of December. Yep.. Like, at the end of the day, right? We look at Lankanen's last five games. Look at Lankanen's month of December.

Yep. And he's given you four quality starts, basically, across, what? I guess it's seven starts in the month. Demko's given you one in six. So, all I'm saying is Lankanen is the informed goaltender. For now. And Demko's been the goalie of record in five of the last seven

in each of the last two. So, he's gotten the lion's share of the work Yeah And Fair enough Like this team should be Focused on Congealing into this sort of

Dark horse contender Come playoff time Right I mean Could you argue that this team Peaked too early last season Yes Right I mean Clearly

100% So You know Not the worst thing to go through. Like, at least it's not May now. Right? At least you're going through it and it's January. You know, or December, late December.

You know, this time of the year, the Canucks were first top of the table. No problems. Sunny days. And the latter 33 games of the year were an absolute slog. And then they could barely generate a shot on goal in the playoffs. They barely were able to buy a goal and that was with Stuart Skinner ritualistically sacrificing himself during the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So the big picture here is playing Demko in the lion's share of games and

focusing on getting this goaltender who is probably one of the highest ceiling puck stoppers on the planet. When, when he's healthy and on his game, getting him to the level where you can play him every other night in the playoffs should be this team's top priority. And yet on the other hand, right now, I'm pretty confident

that the Canucks are going to struggle to control 45% of shots five-on-five. With no Hughes and Hronik in the lineup. Yeah, well, for the next two weeks, I mean, even if they had Hronik in the lineup, I'd be like, they're going to really struggle five-on-five. They're going to get caved in most nights. Even against teams like Nashville.

Even against teams like Calgary and so given that like how do you how do you overcome that well you play low event defensive hockey we know this canucks team is capable of it and you play your most informed netminder you and you get crazy good goaltending and finish your chances you know that like that's it can you could you like conceivably though let's say Lankanen goes out okay hell let's say he plays tomorrow night in Calgary yeah

I expect it I'm telling you I expect it has a blinder right like I say you know solid

whatever the case may be that he's back on form similar to that form that he showed against Florida do you then start allowing like

okay we're gonna have like you get the ball and you run with it philosophy for the goalies? You play until you lose? Can you do that? Can you do that with Demko? I don't think so. Not right now. If there was another goalie dynamic

where it wasn't clearly defined as like, Vez and the finalist a year ago. Coming off unprecedented injury. There's so many layers and wrinkles to it where you just don't want to let him sit in mothballs. And I don't think

that they would do that. No. However, there is a case to be made that this is the most precarious time with all the other things that have gone on this season.

This is the most precarious time for this team because the weakest part of the team, the blue line, has been hit as profoundly as you can be hit. Yeah.

I can't think of another team that had a the blue line, has been hit as profoundly as you can be hit. Yeah. I can't think of another team that had a weaker blue line going into the season that has lost to number one and number two guys. Yeah. Point to a team that's had it happen to them. No one can really survive losing their top pair for any length of time, their entire top pair for any length of time.

But I do think the Canucks are uniquely positioned to have a glass jaw here. Like, this is a punch they cannot take. Some teams can mask over it. They've got either the depth or guys that have the ability to step into elevated roles. And on Saturday, granted, it was a small sample size and everything, but we saw some pretty glaring things, both in terms of who were getting

the minutes, more importantly, who wasn't at what times, and what that might look like moving forward. Well, if at any point you're like, man, you know what this team really didn't do enough of? They didn't play enough of Eric Brandstrom in the highest leverage defensive minutes. If you're at the point where that's an actually valid point of criticism. A sentence spoken aloud.

Yeah, not just a sentence spoken aloud yeah not not just a sentence spoken aloud but like something that i actually think is fair to note that's a tough spot yeah you're in tough okay uh we gotta go to break when we come back we'll do some what we learned continue to send them in what did you learn over the last 72 hours in sports nfl stuff college football stuff world junior stuff if you want to get into the footy as well we can do that Dunbar Lumber text line is 650 650 hashtag it

WWL what did you learn over the last 72 hours in sports let us know myself and Drance will be reading on the other side we'll do some of our own what we learned as well maybe even the

dogs will do some what we learned you got to stay tuned to hear it all though you're listening to the Halford and Brough show featuring Thomas Drance on Sportsnet 650. Heyord & Brough Show featuring Thomas Drance

on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. Get your daily dose of Canucks talk with us weekdays from 12 to 2 on Sportsnet 650

or catch up on demand through your favorite podcast app. Now for my favorite part of the show. What'd I say? Talk to the audience. Oh, God, this is always dead.

It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. It's what we learn time. On the show. 833 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Brough featuring Thomas Drance on Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda,

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff. They can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in our three of the program. It is what we learn time. This hour is brought to you by Campbell & Pound Real Estate Appraisers. Trust the expertise of Campbell & Pound. Visit them on the internet at campbell-pound.com today.

How were the guest hosts when it came to hitting the post? Not good. No? You're the only one who does it. I wasn't here. That's where I'm a Viking, hitting the post. It's the one thing I do well on the radio. Friendly reminder to get your What We Learns in.

We're going to be doing the humanoid submissions in just a moment here. Hashtag them WWL. What did you learn over the last 24 hours in sports? Let us know. I'll bang out a couple here because there were a lot from the National Hockey League that we didn't get a chance to get into. We did mention that Ovi scored goal number 870 over the

weekend, so now he's 25 away from breaking Wayne Gretzky's record, 24 away from tying, so we'll be keeping a close eye on that. Of course, the Canucks are going to be in Washington on Wednesday, January the 8th. So the end of that road trip that starts in Montreal,

I don't want to say it's like a cupcake game or anything, but it's obviously the easiest of the five. They go Washington on Wednesday, January the 8th, a very difficult back-to-back going Friday in Carolina, then Saturday in Toronto. Then they get a few days off and they finish the trip in Winnipeg, which has just been an absolute buzzsaw of a team. That's the tough one.

The Winnipeg on top of it all is tough. Finishing a road trip where you're like, I just want to get home. I'm tired. I've been gone for close to two weeks. Got to bus into Winnipeg. Yeah. How many Winnipeg games have you watched? How many Winnipeg games have you guys watched this year?

So many. Yeah. They are difficult to deal with. Gabe Velarde at the net front. Yeah. You know what Winnipeg has a lot of? Winnipeg has a lot of things on their team that I'm just always excited to watch. Gabe Velarde at the net front has some throwback Thomas Holmstrom

slash Luke Robitaille vibes in terms of just the way that he's always batting pucks. And it's so noticeable that it's actually fun to look for. I love watching Kyle Connor work to get open. I will say,

Besser's got a little bit of it. The goal against the Sharks where that's Susie set up or yeah that yeah yeah um where he stops you know like the quote-unquote right play the one that you tell less intelligent goal scorers than Brock Besser to make is to go to the net right but Besser just like perfectly sits in that anyway Kyle Conner's the best at it in the league and I love watching that and then Nikolai Ehlers just cooking through the neutral zone

is there anything else that Winnipeg has that you might like watching you know perhaps the best goalie in the entire league that guy I like watching them insist on running Hellebuck into the ground in the regular season so that he's not good in the playoffs. It is a lot.

They're killing him. He's still fun to watch when he's healthy. They're killing him for the Four Nations faceoff, which is good, right? Because we need him like being brought down a peg

or two. He does look like he has a force field behind him sometimes, though. It is uncanny. He honestly reminds me more than any goaltender in the league right now

of Roberto Luongo. Yeah, I see it. I see the comparison. Including that they play him too much in the regular season and he's not at his best in the playoffs. It almost looks like he's not trying though, right? It looks like he's just out there for a stroll. Oh, he's stopping every puck in the process. His streaks of dominance though are the, like his peak level is the highest in the league. There might not be a team that's going to benefit more

from a high-profile Four Nations snub than Winnipeg and Mark Scheifele. Because Scheifele's clearly pissed that he didn't make the team. And he's been on fire since he got snubbed. And all the guys on the team were talking about it. Like Morrissey was saying he felt gutted for him. So obviously he's made it known that he's pissed he didn't make the team. So he's going to get the break when they're there, right? He's going to be playing with his hair on fire up until the tournament

and then probably in the immediate aftermath. So, yeah, that's a very good situation for Winnipeg. Tough for the rest of the league. I hope he puts out the tweet. I hope he puts out the Phil Kessel tweet. Yeah, that would be good. I want all of the guys. He's doing something right now.

Yeah, all of the guys that think they should be there that aren't there should get together and have a big social media party. The moment, if Canada was to stumble, right? And whatever goalie feels like he got snubbed, he should be saying something. This perfectly leads me to my what we learned if we want to transition. You know what? Let's do it.

Let's moo cow. Moo cow that transition. What do you got, Greg? Speaking of snubs, we had Andrew Crystal in Langley last night with the Kelowna Rockets in town. He had a little bit of a bee in his bonnet. He should be in Ottawa right now, or at least he thinks so. Oh, you mean with the Canadian World Junior Hockey Team?

Yes. I also think so. Okay. Well, they need a little bit of offense by the looks of it. They have nine goals. They've scored nine goals in three games. They've really struggled five on five where Yes. Where you need that creativity. For comparison's sake, okay?

The United States, Sweden, and Czechia, in their three games to open this tournament, have averaged between them 20.3 goals. I mean, yesterday against Germany, for the bits and pieces that I watched, it was a tough, tough watch. Yeah. It's a struggle, tough watch. Yeah. It's a struggle to score goals for that team.

So after the 3-2 loss to Latvia, Sportsnet posted the score graphic, and a few players decided to like it on Instagram. Zane Parekh, Michael Misa, two of the bigger snubs of the World Junior team. In terms of offensive snubs. Good Keres Del Boy, though. They liked the posts, so they're thinking about it. Did Andrew Crystal? Not the screenshot that Iubs. Good cares, Del Boy, though. They like the posts, so they're thinking about it. Did Andrew Crystal? Not the screenshot that I saw.

Good cares, Del Boy. Stayed off social media. Good cares, Del Boy knows. He learned. Stayed off social media. Play a few posts as well. So shop at Hills. Best of peace, Red Onion Burger.

Okay, look. Oh, with the non-melted cheese and they would give you a red onion with your bill at the end it was great okay uh while we go down memory lane here we should take it back to the present this tournament right now um in case you haven't been following along uh it's been it's been tough for a lot of individuals, entities, broadcasters, people doing the coverage. I think that there is some World Junior fatigue going on. The tournament is not new anymore. There's nothing new to it.

There's new players that show up every year. The World Juniors is happening? The coverage has remained largely static. Sure. The analysts have as well. And the people throwing darts at it, it's the same darts, right? It's snubs from Team Canada.

Are there too many teams in the tournament? Are there too many blowouts early in the tournament? It just doesn't feel like there's anything really unique, original, or I'm going to say it, exciting. And I know that this tournament is always about that. And the lead up is towards, one, the New Year's Eve game where Canada plays the U.S. And then obviously the medal rounds. I feel like the last time I was invested in this tournament was the Vertanen one. I think that's the last time I remember really caring about it.

And ever since then, I don't know. No, the Halifax one was sick. I don't remember that at all. So sick. And this is, you I don't know. The Halifax one was sick. Some of them, so sick. And this is, you know, I was in. I was in on that, like the Bedard overtime winner. That was only two years ago. That was incredible. I just think

I just think fundamentally, like, I'm more interested right now in watching Sweden and the US. I'm way more interested in following those teams. Those games have been fun. I don't like the approach that Hockey Canada has taken here. I feel deprived, frankly.

And honestly, I wish that Hockey Canada would aspire to more than sort of taking like, just, here's my take on what what hockey canada's done here so excited right now i think that hockey canada has confused getting away with it with mastering team building okay like because canada has so much talent at the u20 level you can get a little funky with it you can galaxy brain your team, you can get a little funky with it. You can galaxy brain your team construction. You can bring a bunch of third-pair caliber defenders or third-pair caliber prospects while leaving guys like Zane Parekh, who, by the way, could play NHL games right now.

Right. Right now. And you still might win. This team still might win. And you can get away with it. They could very easily win the tournament. And then at the end of it, everyone will pat themselves on the back

and be like, hey, we know how to win. And it's like, no, you have the best pool of talent, and you still selected it suboptimally and got away with it. It's a good point, because I was trying to coin the term Canadian exceptionalism. And in this instance, it should be that we had this one thing.

The World Juniors, it was Canada, cared about it more than everyone else. They promoted it and broadcast it better than everybody else. And they would go and they would win the thing. And it was great because it was like, yeah, sure, it's a tournament that maybe a lot of other people don't take it seriously, but who cares? We show up and we win it. And that's how this thing works. Right.

But they build their teams without picking the best players available, which seems like an unusual strategy. I wish we could have our, like, brilliant orange moment, you know, which was like the Dutch soccer team that made it to the final and lost to Spain. And they played super negative football, like very different from

the, what's the Barcelona manager? That they all Where does Ajax play? You're the guy who knows this stuff. You love young boys. Ajax is in the Netherlands. Is that Johan Cruyff? Yeah, Cruyff. They like didn't

play in the spirit of Johan Cruyff and the country, despite them having one of the most successful World Cup runs in the history of Dutch soccer, kind of rejected the team and rejected that ethos. I feel like Hockey Canada needs its brilliant orange moment. That's a good... I mean, it's a deep, deep cut. This is exceptionally deep.

But I get what you're saying because there's more. The Babcockification of Canadian hockey must stop. I mean, Brough talks about that at length because he was in Sochi for 2014. Right. And it was clinical and a defensive masterpiece. It was. But it was nowhere near an oil painting. And it wasn't exciting. No, they were a machine as opposed to a hockey masterpiece. It was. But it was nowhere near an oil painting, and it wasn't exciting.

No, they were a machine as opposed to a hockey team. Yeah. All right. That's not fun. Muko all that. By the way, I also just want to throw there one NHL story that we missed, but that really drew my attention, is that Jeff Skinner's now a healthy scratch in Edmonton.

Yeah. Both Skinner's in tough. Yeah, it's a tough time for Skinner's in Edmonton. Yeah. So... Both Skinners in tough. Yeah, it's a tough time for Skinners in Edmonton. That's... So it's funny because... There's the Simpson strop we got to have ready for this moment. No?

The third Skinner? Skinner? Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong. Both those Skinners have a lot to prove right now. Let's go. There was a sentiment from those in Buffalo that covered the team on a daily basis that Skinner's go. There was a sentiment from those in Buffalo that covered the team on a daily basis

that Skinner was washed. There was a sentiment from everyone else that once he was freed from the shackles of Buffalo, that he was going to be great. And what better place to discover that than in Edmonton? It worked for everyone else. Yeah. So here's how washed Jeff Skinner is.

That everyone else that escaped Buffalo went on to have fruitful NHL careers. Sam Reinhardt and Jack Eichel are like immediate winners. Ryan O'Reilly? Yeah. You can add him to the list as well. Wow. Skinner on pace for 14 goals and 28 points. I, like,

it is, um, I know it's not. For a guy that provides zero defense, that's not a good look. I know it's not totally shocking because there were some people that thought he was watched, but I was very much of the mind that that and Arvidsson for them were two of the better pickups. Yeah. Early.

I liked it. I was the time I did too. I liked it because it was affordable and no risk. Right. Exactly. I did worry that Edmonton lost too much speed with McLeod and Fogle moving on and sort of replacing them with Arvidson, who I expected to get hurt and miss a bunch of games,

which has happened. That's Victor Arvidson in a nutshell. Skinner, who's not super fast. Pod Colson, who's not super fast. The one issue that I do still think Edmonton's had is they get Kasperi Kapanen from the Blues, and he immediately goes into the second line, and you're like, wow, that's exactly what they were missing.

That maybe suggests that they should have been a little bit more mindful of their team speed, especially because that warp speed style that they were able to play was really tough to contain for everybody. Okay, Mook, how about that? Fire up the dot matrix. Print out some humanoid what we learned. What we learned, humanoid edition, brought to you

as always by AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. I was there on Saturday night as I was watching the Rams and Cardinals, and the Cardinals falling just short of keeping the Seahawks season alive. You were signing autographs at AJ's, weren't you? That was the rumor. There was lots of dedicated Halbro listeners in the house. It was great.

It was a very nice evening. No selfies, though. You're not a selfie guy. Did I bring a Sharpie to sign 8x10 glossies? Maybe. Try AJ's mini Detroit's, Andy. It may be mini, but it's a lot of pizza. 22 bucks in-house only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays,

so you know what to do tomorrow and the day following. Visit them online at ajs.pizza. Love AJs. Also, don't sleep on bar pie. We had the upside-down bar pie. I like the upside-down bar pie, but I still think everyone goes for the Detroit, and those mini Ronis are unbelievable, and everyone should hit them. But the upside-down Sicilian is the play.

I swear that that's the play. Your commercial for the upside-down one is great. It's great. I was upside-down while eating it. That was method acting. It was acting, all right. I was standing on my head eating pizza. I was hospitalized shortly thereafter.

Yeah, I didn't feel good. Not to bring this back to football as I'm wanting to do. No no do it. Tomorrow by the way at the official conclusion of the fantasy football season I'm gonna I really think we should do some fantasy football segments tomorrow we're going to and yes ruin the entire show

by talking. Drance and I are in the same dynasty league and we will spend at least 55 to 60 minutes discussing. Ah yes, nothing the listeners love more than hearing about mine and Halford's complicated fantasy Dynasty League. It is very complicated.

Okay, so we printed everything. It's right up there with Ruff talking about his golf game. Sorry, can we, I need to read the long time listener Jay has texted you twice about your JSN DK Metcalf sort of one guy eats so the other guy can't. Yeah.

And he's outraged by it. He's been outraged by your take. I saw this. Read it. That's good. So he said, the assertion that somebody has to eat on each team is completely wrong.

The Kansas City Chiefs have a bunch of wide receivers at the table and all they do is win championships. He then adds, what we learned, what we learned, the Chiefs don't need anybody to eat solo unlike other nfl teams do so the assertion that one wide receiver has to eat is just wrong chiefs throw the ball to anybody and everyone thanks yeah no that's okay i think he might

have misconstrued i would i hate the chiefs offense with the passion of a like million sons yeah so i i would i would note like if the Chiefs had Rasheed Rice all season... He would be eating. Who happens to be on my Dynasty team. Yeah, but he's injured. All season, because Patrick Mahomes threw the dumbest pass of the year

and then took out his wide receiver's knee. He's like, how can I make this worse? He'd be getting 15 targets a game. And by the way, the Chiefs offense wouldn't have been so incredibly dusty to the point where they have like a 14-1 record. No one's even talking about Andy Reid for Coach of the Year.

They should be. Absolutely they should be, but everyone knows that the Chiefs have been getting away with it with Isaiah Likely's foot on the line with like a dozen weird special teams plays. That is the issue. Not the problem, because it's not Reid's fault, but that is the issue with this Coach of the Year candidacy.

Yeah, we've all watched these games, and we know that this team is incredibly mid. The worst part about it is they get Hollywood Brown back, Nuke's like fully integrated. Yep. Noah Gray's actually secretly pretty good. He's very good. He's very secretly good.

He's slowly taking the fork out of Travis Kelsey's back and propping him up. Samajit Piran? Yeah. I'm just kidding. Stop naming random chiefs. Look, I get what the text is saying. They are coming together to be annoying again. But I don't think he understood.

The context that I was talking about it was just in Seattle. Right. If I said it otherwise, I apologize. But all I was saying was in this particular instance, it sure feels like there was only enough football to eat. And in order for JSN to eat, DK Metcalf had to starve a little bit. Absolutely. That was it.

And I don't mind his analogy with the Chiefs because this year they have sort of piecemealed it together by throwing it everywhere. Yeah. Right. However, you bring up a good point if Rice was there he would he would have eaten and the team would have been better off for it like that that more than anything is is the key like the Bengals are better off for Jamar Chase having 12 targets a game you know stop him yeah T Higgins gets three touchdowns on Sunday because Jamar Chase has 12 targets a game.

Sam Darnold gets to throw to Justin Jefferson a lot. Right. And because Justin Jefferson is going to eat, you know who else can eat? Jalen Naylor. Yep. Okay. Cam Akers. Stop naming random.

Johnny Munt. He's doing it still. Derek in the Ridge with a What We Learned. Dan, ask us anything. Are the Los Angeles Kings a wagon? No, but they're good hockey team.

They're damn impressive. Yeah. You know, you know, shout out to Mikey Anderson. Mikey Anderson, I think is become the most underrated player in

hockey. Like one a with a bullet caliber nhl defenseman mikey anderson if you thought we'd be here 18 months ago you're lying and he's done all of this while still going by the name mikey i know which is quite remarkable for for a 25 year old man yeah i don't at what point you just it's mike anderson now we went through this with frankie corrado yep are we still going through it with Frankie Corrado Frankie Corrado still going through it with Frankie he's not Frank Corrado right

I don't think he is we can start calling Sarah Valley Frankie Frankie Sarah Valley that's it's yeah hey Frankie Frankie Sarah Valley yeah no I'm not I'm not there for that that actually I that scares me the kings are the kings are very much a wagon at Crypto.com.

They are 12-2-1. Here's the thing. You can't be a wagon if your absolute ceiling is winning two of seven games against the Edmonton Oilers. So that's the thing. I think this is great for the regular season. We saw it exposed last year in the playoffs. The last three years right if the tempo

gets turned up and the heat gets turned up and you need to score to match with someone like say edmonton you just don't have the ability to do it i don't have the star power yeah well and also it's like everything you've predicated your game on you can't just flip it there's there's no flipping of the switch when you play that defensive analysis. They've allowed, what? I think it's 95 goals this year. They are as stingy as it comes in that

division, and they are as good defensively as you can get in the NHL. But I don't think they're a wagon. They need to be the team that poaches a star player from... They're a wagon think they're a wagon. They need to be the team that poaches a star player from, like, they're a wagon if they're the team that's able to be like, Nashville, you're trading Phillip Forsberg.

Or, you know what I mean? They're one star away. And then we'll get into wagon territory. Okay. We got to get out of here for today, but we will be back tomorrow. A friendly reminder. It's me. It's Drance.

It's the final show of 2024. 7 o'clock starts tomorrow. It's just a two-hour show. 7 to 9, we will do all sorts of Canucks talk. Maybe we can look back on the year that was. We'll read more of your texts tomorrow as well. Don't forget to get them in. Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. Start sending your What We Learned in now. Hashtag

them, WWL. This has been fun. Drance, thanks for doing this today. Really appreciate it. Anytime, buddy. Signing out for now, I have been Mike Alford. He's been Thomas Drance. He's been A-Dog, and he's been Laddy. This has been the Alford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.