Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Oilers Are Getting Dusted

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they chat game three of the Stanley Cup Final as the Oilers go down 3-0 to the Florida Panthers (6:00), plus the boys look elsewhere around the NHL ahead of Free Agency, and hear from Elliotte Friedman on where the Canucks sit signings-wise (27:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Good morning, Vancouver. 6-0-1 on a Friday. Sweet, sweet Friday. It is Halford and his breath. It is 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. Halford, breath of the morning is brought to you by

the Dilawri family of Acura dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today by visiting your nearest Dilawri Accurate Dealer today. 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 are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. Sorfi, what are you waiting for? Kintec, that's what you're waiting for. Folks, it is a

big sports weekend on the horizon. We are excited to be here. I cannot wait for the sports weekend. It's going to be awesome. You've got a bunch of different sports, so like the smorgasbord of sports, including a very exciting Sunday, which could have a very good final round of the U. So like the smorgasbord of sports, including a very exciting Sunday, which could have a very good final round of the U.S. Open,

which will be fun as well. Exactly. We've got a bunch of stuff to get into today. We have the Stanley Cup final, which is dusted, if you will. We'll get into all that coming up. Guest list begins at 7 o'clock. AJ from AJ's Pizza is going to join us. It's an Ask Us Anything Friday here on the

Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. It's befitting that AJ is joining us because AJ's went from being a pizza place to a Rangers bar to now a Euro bar.

Euro championships, I mean, of course. Oh, okay. Right. Oh, he's like the Euro dance music? AJ's going to show up with like thick glasses. There's just a big eye blinking on of course. Oh, okay. Right. Oh, he's like the Euro dance music? AJ's going to show up with thick glasses. There's just a big eye blinking on the wall.

No, actually, that's not a bad idea. I think you should lean into that for a night. Just have one Euro dance night. Beginning today with the start of the European championships, Scotland will play the hosts, the Germans. By the way, have you seen all the videos coming out of Munich? All the Scots that have invaded and have been drinking copiously and playing the bagpipes?

I hope there isn't a mob of 500. What was it that they were warning the English about? The mob of 500 Serbian hooligans looking for a fight? Instead of the 500 Serbian hooligans, it's an entire nation of Germans. Well, they've never threatened anyone. No, you'll be fine, Scotland. Have a good time today. Scotland and Germany kick off at noon.

AJ's is one of your homes in the Lower Mainland for the later games in the year. We'll talk to AJ at 7 o'clock. 7.05, Bob Stauffer from the mighty Chud, 6.30, Ched Radio in Edmonton. It's going to be tough times talking to Bob this morning. I assume that he, along with everyone else in Edmonton, bitterly disappointed after the Oilers fell behind 0-3

in the Stanley Cup final last night. 7.30, it's the Moj. Yes, it's the Moj. Bob the Moj Marjanovic is going to join us, the play-by-play voice of the BC Lions. Lions, of course, their home opener is tomorrow at BC Place against the Calgary Stampeders with the pregame concert from 50 Cent. Joining us at 8 o'clock,

it's the man who calls him 50 cents, Rick Dollywall is going to join the program. Check TV, Donnie and Dolly, Canucks reporter, will be joining us to talk about the latest with the Canucks free agents. I'm still laughing at him calling him 50 cents. Plural. There's like a pocket. 50 cents is going to be there? He thinks

just two of them. He's got dimes and nickels in his pocket. It all adds up to 50 cents. We're going to talk to Rick about Elias Lindholm. I believe the Canucks are officially out on Lindholm. At least that's according to Elliott Friedman. We can see if Rick can corroborate that

report. It sounds as though things with Nikita Zdorov are edging towards no, he's gone. But it should be decided within the next few days. So we'll talk to Rick about that at 8 o'clock. A reminder, we are giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's on East Broadway for the best Ask Us Anything. The premise is quite simple. You ask us anything, we answer it throughout the show. I'm doing hand gestures on camera here if you're watching on the live stream on Sportsnet+.

$100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. Get him in now. Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. Ask us anything. I'm not going to work in reverse on the guest list. We're going to get right to it. Laddie, without further ado, 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. The Florida Panthers, at one time a legit prospect for the sad club, are now one win away from their first ever Stanley Cup

championship. Alexander Barkoff and Sam Reinhardt had a goal and an assist each. Another masterful performance from Sergei Borovsky and Nett with 32 saves. And the Panthers held on after a late rally to defeat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Panthers now hold a 3-0 lead. The Oilers are now one game away from being swept. And this series, much like the NBA Finals, has been a bust. Well, it has. I've enjoyed the games, though. The actual individual games have been entertaining. They say hockey is a game of mistakes, and that is true, but it's also a game of forcing

mistakes, and the Panthers do that extremely well, as the Edmonton Oilers learned all too well last night, especially during a six minute stretch in the second period when the Panthers scored three goals to go up 4-1. Well, they won 4-3. So that was a pretty key six minute stretch. Florida's third goal, not necessarily the winning goal, was a masterpiece of forechecking featuring Sam Bennett and Matthew Kachuk.

That goal hurt the entire province of Alberta to watch because not only was it a goal against the Edmonton Oilers, it featured two guys that got away from the Calgary Flames. Granted, in very different circumstances, Matthew Kuchuk was a star, and he forced his way out of Calgary, traded to the Florida Panthers. Sam Bennett was a, what, bust?

And then he goes to Florida, and he turns into one of their most important players, rugged forward, smart, forward, effective forward. It was a good finish last night. Good mustache. Good mustache. We talked yesterday about how the Canucks

may have to address the loss of a big body like Dakota Joshua. Without an effective forecheck, it's really hard to win in the NHL. It's like trying to win in the NFL without a pass rush. You have to disrupt the breakout. You have to. It's not rocket science. It's a trying to win in the NFL without a pass rush. You have to disrupt the breakout. You have to.

It's not rocket science. It's a good analogy. Yeah, you can forecheck with speed. You can forecheck with will and determination or size and strength, whatever you got to do. You just have to disrupt it, and then you see if your opponent can handle it. If they do, if they can handle your forecheck, you're kind of screwed.

But the Oilers haven't handled it and now they're screwed. And I was thinking about why this series has gone the way it is. And I think the number one reason is goaltending. Because as much as I'm just talking about the four check, like Sergey Bobrovsky has outplayed Stuart Skinner. And, you know, Skinner, I don't think necessarily has been dreadful.

Like he hasn't been awful. In fact, there have been stretches where he's been very good. But Sergey Bobrovsky has been great. Yep. He was great early last night when the Oilers had a ton of chance. Like, McDavid had a chance 10 seconds into the game where Bobrovsky had to make a good save.

And that gave the Panthers a chance to take over that game and have that stretch in the second period where they scored a bunch of goals and went up 4-1. The Oilers, to their credit, I suppose, like the Dallas Mavericks, to their credit, against the Boston Celtics in Game 3, fought back to make it interesting in the end. But Boborowski made an incredible save off of,

I think it was McLeod. I've got the audio if you'd like to hear it. Yeah, because this might have been the conspite trophy winning save because I think he's going to win the conspite if the Florida Panthers finish off the Oilers, which everyone expects them to do. This was the key save of the night. Time for one more.

The damage. Good. To throw. Oh, Bobrovsky. What a shot. Oh, Bobrovsky. That looked like the equalizer. Spoiler, it was not the equalizer. Yeah.

I mean, if that, if McLeod would have scored there, that place in Edmonton would have gone. Like they would have honestly blown the roof off. You could have made the argument that this series would have been fundamentally altered. If that goal had gone. If that goal had gone. That one single moment. Yeah.

A three goal comeback against a team that you struggled to score against so mightily would have really changed the energy in that series. But alas, Borowski made the save. So that's the number one reason why this series has gone the way it has. A couple of other ones, though. The Oilers have two of the greatest players in the world, but they also have a bunch of weak links. I think we can all agree with that.

Sure. And the Panthers are their perfect foil because they've got players like Barkov and Forsling who can not necessarily shut down, because, I mean, McDavid does have a few points in this series, Dreisaitl has none, but they can limit those guys and they can limit top players. They also have a team that can force those

weak links into mistakes. If you think about the blunders that were made last night, you know, I know Evan Bouchard overall is a good player. He's had a tough Stanley Cup final. But he's had a tough Stanley Cup final, and he can be forced into mistakes, and Barkov forced him into a mistake, I think, on Florida's first goal.

That was an amazing effort by Barkov, by the way. People were saying, like, you're not going to get a more impressive secondary assist than the one that he got there. Yeah, he's just such a good player. There were mistakes by Stuart Skinner, weak link. impressive secondary assist than the one that he got there. Yeah, he's just such a good player. Yep. There were mistakes by Stuart Skinner, weak link. There was a bit of a mistake by Cody Cece, although that was mostly Skinner on that play where Skinner missed the puck behind the net.

But Cece was there, and everyone looked at Cece. Darnell Nurse had a really tough night. And frankly, if the Oilers miss this series, it's going to be hard for him. It's going to be really hard for Darnell Nurse. And then you just had this team that really, through injury or whatever, they weren't deep enough. Because we should also mention that Evander Kane

didn't even play last night. Yeah, and that was the right call. He was so banged up to the point where when he was on the ice, he was completely ineffective. Then when he was off the ice, he had to stand up at the bench because it was too painful, whatever his injury is, to sit properly. I mean, I understand and I agree with you a lot that the goaltending has been the biggest difference here.

And it's not because Skinner's played badly. The one error last night aside. Bobrovsky's been great. That being said, Edmonton's going to look back because they're done. I'm ready to say it. They're done and dusted. There might be a gentleman sweep or something.

You know what? I would respect the hell out of the Panthers if they just threw game four. Have the Oilers been streaky this year, though? Have they pulled off a bunch of wins in a row? Well, that's what they were saying after. Okay, I'll play the knob block audio yesterday. It'd be nice if a team could just say, like, okay, winning streak. No.

Can I? Honestly? Were they all over the Florida Panthers, all those wins? 16 in a row? Well, you know what? Equally a good team. Let's play the knob block audio now because he wasn't ready to concede really anything

or really give a tip of the cap to the Panthers for winning all three games of the series thus far. Some interesting remarks from Lloyd Braun. Here he is, Oilers head coach, following another loss to the Florida Panthers as his team is now down 0-3 in the Stanley Cup final. Chris, it's a deep hole. How do you keep the belief alive?

And are you more psychologist than coach over the next 48 hours? I don't think there's much to be said. I think there's a lot of belief. You look at our season this year, and we've had two eight-game winning streaks. We've had a 16-game winning streak. When things go well, we can really turn it up. And, you know, I think we've showed that we can beat this team. I think there's a lot

of belief in that. It's not like we're getting outplayed and we're just, you know, that team's better than us. I don't think there's anything that I need to say to the team and convince them otherwise. you know i think everyone in that dressing room feels the same way i do follow-up question for chris have you watched the stanley cup final at all i don't know how i do know how the goals are 11 to 2 it's the coach's job to stay positive i get that part of it, but this team has done nothing, nothing across the board that

resembled the success they had during the regular season. They're 0 for 10 on the power play in this series. Maybe that's what he's saying, though. If we can get the power play going, something along those lines. If they were scoring power play goals through the first three games and still lost, then you could say,

at least we are doing the things that we did that led to these eight-game winning streaks. The big quintet of Dreisaitl, Hyman, McDavid, Bouchard, Nugent Hopkins, they're five leading scorers. Do you know how many goals those guys have in the first three games of the Stanley Cup Final? Zero. That is unbelievable to me.

And I understand. Dry cycle's playing. Who have been the Oilers' scorers? It was Warren Fogle, Broberg, Ekholm, and McLeod. Those are their four goal scorers over three games.

And if you're saying, well, awesome, they're getting depth scoring, I'm like, no, that's their front line scoring right now. That's not depth scoring when they're the only one scoring. Those are their top guys. You cannot tell me that this Edmonton team has shown anything through the first three games that suggests that they're ready to flip the switch. If anything, I'd be gravely concerned

that this thing's going to end in four because the power play to me is the big one. I would never have imagined that this team, with everyone there on the power play, all the usual guns still firing, the guys that we saw score at will against the Canucks in the first half of that second round series, still there, still gainfully employed as Edmonton Oilers.

0 for 10. They had opportunities last night. They were 0 for 3 on the power play last night. It's just not happening. And a lot of the things that they were doing, like even just the screens in front or the chaos and traffic, where's Zach Hyman in this series? He's had a few chances.

He's had chances. But for a guy that scored 50 during the regular season, I mean, I understand that the 50 goal total might have been inflated a little bit. Like, he's not really a 50 goal scorer. My word, you've got to do something at this time. Is Bobrowski in their head? He's got to be.

He's got to be. Do you remember, I hate to bring this up, but do you remember how it didn't feel like the Canucks were ever going to score on Tim Thomas? Yeah. And they were overthinking things. Tim Thomas was so good in that series. Tim Thomas was a 967 in that playoff run. Is that it?

And in the cup final, Borowski's 984. Best all-time. Best all-time save percentage in the final. Here's the thing. When Florida went to the Stanley Cup final last year, I think we all can agree that that series was over before it started because they were being held together by athletic tape and tortle, basically. And they were getting blown out,

and they lost 9-3 in the last game and everything. Outside of Kane clearly being hurt and Nurse clearly being hurt, and I guess Dreisaitl's playing injured, but I'm not getting the same vibe that they're just limping their way in. They just can't figure out how to score on Florida. Because you're right what you said earlier. Florida exposes probably the two biggest issues on this team. And one of them is that the Edmonton Oilers are prone to the big mistake.

And the way that Florida suffocates you and chokes the life out of you, they make those mistakes happen. And they did it twice last night. The other one, the end of that game, watching Aaron Eckblad single-handedly kill, what was it, 25 seconds at the end of the game, just pinning the puck in the corner. That was incredible.

The Florida Panthers are a harder, I'm going to say it, they're harder than Edmonton. Yeah. They just are. That was a real cross-check-a-thon in the corner there. But it did not get the puck away from Ekblad. Yeah.

Well, I think Forsling was doing half of it. Well, Forsling was, yeah. I mean, but that's a good point to bring up. Because in a moment where the referees are like, you see these silver things in our hands, the metal things, the whistles, we're not using those. It was just like it was frontier justice whoever wanted whoever wanted to decide the game was going to decide the game in

that moment and florida choked out 25 30 seconds the end of that game was so anticlimactic like you could hear the whistles go and the horn blowing there was no noise because everyone knew they're like well florida has sort of out-toughed us here there were so many times last night that the crowd was so so excited and then there was a big mistake that the panthers usually forced it wasn't just out of nowhere but the crowd was just like oh and it went silent in there. The goal, obviously the Stuart Skinner blunder behind the net came in the face of the Oilers playing really well. And then the Oilers kind of lost it for a bit. And then Bennett and Kachuk, and that was

mostly Bennett, that whole play. I mean, Kachuk made a nice pass to Bennett, but Bennett was on the forecheck. I think Bennett was the one that got the stick in on Darnell Nurse, turned it over to Matthew Kachuk, who gave it back to Bennett and he scored. That was, you know, that was, that was a good play by the Panthers, but it was also a complete failure of a breakout by the Oilers. Darnell Nurse made a bad play, but his teammates kind of bailed on him. They were like, all right, we're good to go. Let's go.

They were like, let's get the puck out first. And then another goal by the Panthers was 4-1, and the place was just shell-shocked. Yeah. And again, credit the Oilers for making it close. They got a couple of goals from unlikely players to make it 4-3. But even as a guy that was, like, I know I was cheering. I said I was cheering for, you know, a game seven.

But last night I was like, come on, Panthers, let's go. I didn't feel particularly nervous because it just felt like the Panthers were going to kill that off. I thought when – They just know their game. When McDavid, we played the Bobrovsky save where McDavid had the centering pass to McLeod. And I actually think he was trying to bank it off Bobrovsky.

I don't think he was trying to put a reverse pass megging through Bobrovsky out front. But that was probably the only time where I was like, oh, I wonder if they've got the juice to make a push here because they were pushing. And I thought that 4-4 was a possibility. But as the third period went further along, you could see Florida almost say,

I think we dodged a bullet there. Like that play and that save was their best opportunity because it was. After that, they had nothing. Someone texted in. I swear to God, this is a real text into the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket. Hi, Halford. Have you watched the games?

Who has outplayed the other team in seven of nine periods? I'm sorry. Is there someone out there that is honestly going to tell me that the Edmonton Oilers, who are down 3-0 in the Stanley Cup final, and who don't have a goal from their five leading scorers, have outplayed the Florida Panthers in seven of the nine periods that have been played. Yeah, that's why you just got to stay away from natural stat trick, right?

Because a lot of it is score effects or that's just wrong, though. That's just wrong. Even if you outplayed. The Panthers won all three periods in game two. I'll give you a couple of the periods from the first game. But what are you looking for? A participation ribbon? You lost three nothing.

You did not beat Sergei Bobrovsky in game one. I mean, there are a lot of issues right now. If I was, put it this way, if I was an Edmonton Oilers fan right now, I would be bitterly disappointed because the things that we have built ourselves upon, high-octane offense, dynamite power play, top-heavy scoring, has just gone completely silent at the worst time of the year.

And I know that the Florida Panthers have a lot to do with that, but there's got to be, like, for Connor McDavid to not have a goal in the Stanley Cup final, to me, is a very glaring thing. Well, dry side on not having a point. And being minus three last night. By the way, speaking of of no i think he i think he approved it to minus one oh okay because i was i love plus three at once i love i love plus minus it's my favorite stat i'm hoping we can bring it back um i believe darn darnell nurse went into last night at minus 14 and i think he exited at minus 16 which is a truly remarkable thing

for a top flight defenseman on a team that has won enough games to go to a Stanley Cup final to have that bad of a plus minus like it just doesn't happen yeah I love plus minus as a stat it's a lot of fun okay Bobrovsky is going to win the consummate is there anyone else that could possibly

probably not guys more important than the goalie Gustav Forsling at this point might win it. It's Bob. But it's going to be Bob. That's exciting. That stat you pulled actually I think might have been before the two goals. No, I think it was posted last night.

Really? Yeah. Best to save percentage. Was it posted after the game though? It was posted. It was after the game, though? It was posted... I think it was after the game. Okay. This is the radio that everyone tunes in for.

Oh, no. It was posted halfway through. Thank you. Thank you. Now you have to say the important part, Bruff. You were right. Yeah. That's the most important thing.

We got a lot more to get to on the Halford & Bruff Show on Sportsnet 650. There's actually a lot of NHL news that we need to parse through from yesterday. We've got audio lot more to get to on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. There's actually a lot of NHL news that we need to parse through from yesterday. We've got audio and updates on Zdorov and Lindholm, courtesy of Elliott Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast. An old friend, Jalen Chatfield, got paid yesterday. The Utah Hockey Club, that's a thing now.

Patrick Laine wants out of Columbus. Are the Jets open to moving Nikolai Ehlers? And another old friend, Lawrence Gilman, is out in Toronto. So we've got a lot to get into on the other side of the break. You're listening to 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 demand through your favorite podcast app. It is disappointing being down 3-0. We've got to let that reality sink in. I'm not too sure what the stats are coming back on it, but if anyone can do it, it's the oil. 6.30 on a Friday. Did he just go third person singular? The oil?

Talking about himself. That was Stuart Skinner, goalie of the oil. The oil are really upset right now. The oil feel they can come back though. No, they got this. This actually isn't an Ask Us Anything, but it's a really good text into the Dunbar Lumber text line.

And if you've got any texts or Ask Us Anythings on this Ask Us Anything Friday, text into the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650-650-DUNBAR-LUMBER with three stores to serve you in Ladner on Bridge Street, Dunbar Lumber Express at Ladner Center, or Budeson, Vancouver, online at DunbarLumber.com. How interesting is next year going to be with the Oilers? Can't wait to see the Oilers lose again next year and watch McDavid walk or get traded.

Yeah, the offseason, which is pretty close for the Edmonton Oilers, barring a miracle comeback in this Stanley Cup final, they've got some issues. They've got some problems on their books. Like, what are they going to do with Jack Campbell? He's sitting there taking up $5 million of cap space. I mean, this isn't coming from a position of ha-ha. Like, the Canucks have their own issues, right?

Like, they've got the OAL buyout to contend with going forward for a number of years. But the Darnell Nurse contract is a problem, given the level of play for him. And not next year, but the year after that, Bouchard's going to need to be paid. And that's going to be a problem. Matthias Ekholm has only got a couple of years left on his contract and he's getting a little bit older. So they need some help on their blue line. Their blue line is an issue right now.

And then, yeah, this offseason is going to be interesting because as soon as July 1st hits, Leon Dreisaitl is technically allowed to sign an extension. And as soon as he doesn't, it's like, well, what's going on then? What are you going to do? Now, is he going to wait for Conor McDavid to see what Conor McDavid wants to do? Because Conor McDavid can't technically sign an extension until next summer. it's the same with Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh right as soon as July 1st goes by if he hasn't signed one as soon as that date hits then you're like what's going on here I also think this summer is the first time that Jeff Jackson who's now the CEO of hockey

operations it is going to be the successor to Ken Holland. I think this is where he gets to make his real mark on the actual physical roster. I think he had a lot to do with the dismissal of Jay Woodcroft and then bringing in Chris Knobloch. That has Jeff Jackson's fingerprints all over it. But now I think you're going to see what a team in his vision looks like as opposed to the Ken Holland team,

which obviously was constructed and got to a Stanley Cup final. You'll give Holland credit for that, but also has some very inefficient contracts, specifically the ones he's going to be known for in a negative light on the Jack Campbell contract and the Darnell Nurse contract. So it'll be very interesting to see what Jeff Jackson does

and thinks about those going into the offseason. This does dovetail nicely for us because we're going to move off the stanley cup final which let's be honest it's done right no one's coming back from 03 down in the stanley cup final i don't really need to litigate this or relitigate that i would like to move on because the stanley cup final will be over relatively soon to offseason news because once the cup has been handed out, we can start focusing on all the other 30 teams that are just waiting to do business, including your Vancouver Canucks. Now, in the latest 32 Thoughts podcast,

Elliott Friedman had on updates of sorts on where the Vancouver Canucks are at with pending unrestricted free agents, Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zdorov. Take it away, Friedge. Here's what he had to say on the most recent episode of 32 Thoughts. As you know, I feel they've conceded on Lindholm. I think we're going to know in the next few days

if there's any hope at Zdorov. Like I said, it just appears unlikely, but someone reached out to me and said, that one's not over yet. It just seems, I would say the odds are less than 50%, but someone reached out to me and said, it's not over yet. Now, they told me it might be over soon, but they said it's not over yet. So yesterday came news that Jalen Chatfield, remember him?

Oh, yeah. Signed a three-year, $9 million deal with a bunch of signing bonus money included as well. Very favorable contract for a 28-year-old who has played well in Carolina, but has not been an integral member of that team. I think his average ice time this season was something like 15 minutes. Played a little bit more in the playoffs. Yep. But if you're any pending unrestricted free agent, especially if you're a right shot defenseman,

you're looking at that contract that Jalen Chatfield just got. $9 million Jalen Chatfield plus bonus. Again, he's a good player. He's turned into a good player for Carolina. He's a third pairing guy. Maybe he's a number four. Sure. Maybe. And you're going,

huh, I'm going to get rich this offseason. What are you getting at here, bruv? What are you getting at here? bruv? What are you getting at here? I just think all free agents, frankly, must be tempted at the very least, unless they

really, really, really, really, really want to stay with their team to at least see what they could get on July 1st. Do the Canucks have any unrestricted free agent defensemen? I was even thinking like Tyler Myers, who everyone was saying, okay, he's going to take a hometown discount

because he wants to stay in Vancouver and they'll figure that out. I'm not saying this is happening. I'm not saying this is happening. But is he at least having second thoughts? Like what if we go to free agency and someone gives me, I don't know, four by four?

I mean, something like that. Put it this way. Everyone noticed the Chatfield contract yesterday. Myers probably would because they were teammates not that long ago. The 2020-21 season, which I'll get into in a second. You bring up a good point. It was well- was well deserved i think for chatfield who's really had to scratch and fight and claw to uh break into the national

hockey league establish himself as a bonafide nhl defenseman and get paid to this degree um he actually had pretty good production numbers for the limited amount of minutes that he played i think he had eight goals and 22 points or something like that like right but he's not he's not being paid for his production they're not going to expect no no but what i'm saying is it's like it's not here's the thing it's not crazy that he got that amount of money like i don't want to make it sound like oh my god it's an egregious overpay or what the hell the carolina hurricane's doing paying him that money like he's earned it yeah he's earned it within the landscape of there aren't a lot of bonafide NHL right shot defensemen under the age of 30 that we're going to shake loose in the way that he shook loose. Right.

Because when Carolina picked him up, he was one of those weird group six free agents. They signed him to a two way deal when they signed him and they signed him well into free agency. He was signed on. I think it was July 29th. So they kind of took a flyer on him and it's been a great investment for them. And now they're rewarding him accordingly, but also they think that he can play for another couple of years.

I looked now, I remember when Chatfield play here and I remember thinking, okay, like it's a nice story that he made the NHL. Yeah. A few people would be like, yeah, there's kind of a,

kind of a Chris Tanev in there, maybe a little bit. But I remember him kind of getting walked by Austin Matthews in one particular game. And just really, you just didn't think that he was going to, I don't know, cut the mustard at the NHL level. Maybe he'd be like a seven.

Yeah. That would bounce up back and forth. Then I went and looked at the team that year, and I was like, maybe it's got to do with the parts that surrounded Jalen chatfield that person that's that year and that was the uh abridged 56 game season due to the pandemic the north division where all the canadian teams was a horrible season for the holy cow that wasn't that long ago i don't know if i just blocked it out because i was trying to forget a lot that happened during the pandemic and hockey goes right into it here are some guys that played you know a significant

amount of games for the Canucks that year do you remember Tyler Gravac yeah kind of he played I think it was like 15 or 20 games for the Canucks that year remember Jace Harluck? Yeah. See? Yeah. We did this exercise before you came in this week. I just remember because I had to look up how to pronounce his name properly. He played a bunch that year. Matthew. Dale Howarchuk?

No. No. Like Howarchuk without the goal scoring. How about Matthew Highmore? Remember him? Went out and acquired him. Those guys all played. He came from Chicago, right? I think he went to Chicago. Oh, okay Went out and acquired him. Those guys all played. He came from Chicago, right?

I think he went to Chicago. Oh, okay. Did they send him back? They're like, just go back. It's not even a trade. Just go back. And you know what else happened? Future Deciderations, which is.

That was also the year. Remember the 2017 draft class? Everyone remembers it because of Petey, right? But after him, it was, why is nobody taking Cole Lind? We're going to take him. Gajevich, Petrus Palmu,y di pietro all these guys that was actually the season where a bunch of those guys got some reps in the nhl and everyone was like maybe it's not as great a draft class as we thought it was gonna be because colin played a handful of games that year all i remember about watching

colin was it was like i'm not sure that's an nhl player and there were a lot of guys that year. All I remember about watching cool in was, it was like, I'm not sure that's an NHL player. And there were a lot of guys that year in that sort of forgettable 2020, 2021 season. That was also the year that Mark McHale is one of your favorites of all time played. He played 15 games at the NHL level. That was also where Jack Rathbone got a spin. And you were the same thing. You got to look at a lot of these,

and I'm using air quotes, prospects. And you're like, I don't like the prospect of these prospects because it's not looking so good. And it was just a potpourri of the types of players. It's a good way to put it. And that's actually like a really nice way of saying it. It was an eclectic group of players.

A kaleidoscope of talent. And you're kind of like, what role are they going to play? Well, we'll see, I guess. Yep. And the answer is AHL Farmhand for most of players. The kaleidoscope of talent. And you're kind of like, what role are they going to play? Well, we'll see, I guess. Yep. And the answer is AHL farm man for most of them. At any rate,

I think the Jalen Chatfield, uh, contract raised a lot of eyebrows. Um, and, and, and I realized someone texted in and said some, some analytics company had Chatfield at four by 3.675. Fine.

You know, but I think the point is, is that there is a lot of money floating out there finally. And if you are an unrestricted free agent and you're at least tempted to see what the market has for you, you might lean into that temptation more than you had in the last few years when it's a when it's been a flat cap and you're like i'm gonna get the money now if i can from the team that owns my rights until july 1st because we did hear that the canucks and tyler myers were talking contract and that was like a couple weeks ago and we were kind of like oh that'll be easy

they'll take care of that he wants to stay in stay in Vancouver and the Canucks want to keep them. Now, maybe they've got something in a drawer somewhere that's done and they just got to do some other things. Like I'm not worried about the Canucks losing Tyler Myers. My whole point is that really, if you're one of these guys that's kind of like, ah, tempted because I like Vancouver, but I just kind of want to see what I could get because the Canucks are not going to give you the market. They're going to ask you to take a little bit less

to stay with the Canucks. I think that's the case with Zdorov. That's the case with Dakota Joshua. That's the case with Elias Lindholm. If you want to go out there and maximize your value, then you're probably going to do it on another team. But that maximizing of value could be a big number. So according to Freege's reporting and audio that we just played,

it's farewell to Elias Lindholm. Thank you for your service, Lindy. And then are we ready to say that that's it for Zdorov? No, I'm not ready to say that's it for Zdorov. So we're not saying thank you, super dude. Not quite yet, though. No. There's so many balls in the air with the Canucks defense, right?

I think the way the Canucks are looking at it right now is we've got to focus on Hronik. We've got to get that finished. Or we've just got to have a resolution on that situation before the draft and before July 1st. Because they'll still own Zdorov's rights and Meyer's rights through the draft until July 1st, but they need to figure like if they lose Heronic in that they, they're like, we can't come to together on a deal and

we're going to trade you. So they trade him. They're probably not getting a right shot defenseman back in that trade. I don't know what they're going to get back in that trade. I have no idea. It doesn't really matter for the sake of

this conversation, but if they don't have him, then all of a sudden, maybe they're willing to pay Zdorov a little bit more money. Maybe they're willing to bend a little bit on that. Maybe they have to get real aggressive with a guy like Kristanov or Dylan DeMello, you know, out of Winnipeg who played. Brendan Dillon too. Well, Brendan Dillon's a third pair guy

but Dylan DeMello did play top pair minutes with Josh Morrissey in Winnipeg. So that could be a fit. At any rate, I just think that the Canucks have to deal with the Hronix situation first before they deal with anything

else, especially on the back end. So other news from around the NHL yesterday, it's official. The Utah Hockey Club is now officially a thing. There's no timeline on when the permanent branding logos will be revealed for the Utah Hockey Club. But yesterday they announced that the color scheme of light blue, black and white is not just going to be for next season. They're going to keep it whenever the new name is announced.

After 20 initial options, the six finalists for the Utah Hockey Club's future name are Blizzard, Mammoth, Outlaws, Venom, Yeti, and, interestingly enough, just keeping the name Utah Hockey Club. Laddie's shaking his head. Doesn't seem to like anything I just said. Honestly, that whole process of not naming the team and then waiting just sits so weird with me. Why is that? It's like the Washington Commanders thing

when they were the Washington Football Club. It's like, what a waste of two years of merchandise sales. It just feels like I know they need time to come up with stuff, but is there no way you can speed up the process a little bit so you don't have to deal with this generic Team Utah stuff? The Washington Football Club allowed all teams to do this. I hate it. I hate it.

Honestly. Because the Women's League, too, took a year, right? I like the Yeti. That's the one I wanted from the beginning, so I hope they pick Yeti. What do we think of the colors? They're okay. It's kind of like the old Hockey Den Canada colors.

Do you remember those powder blue jackets that they all used to wear? So that's called Mountain Blue. A little crackety. To represent the sky and the state's winter sports history. Rock Black. That's the black. Rock Black. Rock Black. For's the black. Rock black. Rock black.

For the darkness of night and volcanic rock in the desert. Oh, that's cool. They have night in Utah? Salt white for snow and famous salt flats. Looks like the old Kootenai ice jerseys from the WHL.

Someone had one of the Winnipeg ice jerseys and they look... Same color. Yeah, same color scheme. Here's the thing. I know that a lot of the aesthetic jersey nerds out there um on twitter you know which ones they are i don't need to call them out publicly uh we're all up in arms about it's too basic and there's no chances being

taken and you know going with simple and classic and clean is just code for we have no imagination whatever i don't care i don't have time for any of this. I feel like I've already wasted valuable show time even discussing it. They're fine. It is interesting, though, the way they're approaching this, right? Because I don't remember any NHL team doing this. I also don't remember NHL team being declared inactive. So this whole thing is bizarre to me.

That's the other. You talk about. Andrew in Sun Peaks has a good text in here. The year one Utah jersey will become a cool collector's piece for hockey nerds. Just like a misprint hockey card. You mentioned the Washington Football Club. Washington Football Club gear is kind of a collector's item now because it was so short-lived. So is Redskin stuff.

Does that make it good? You don't really want to wear it out. It's also very short-lived in the sense that no one wears it anymore. But I think with this, it's just sort of whatever. It was such an unprecedented time. When you talk about opening the door for leagues to do stuff with the Washington Football Club opening that door, has the NHL not allowed teams to just, you know,

why don't you just go inactive? And then we'll move your franchise to a new city. We'll allow you the opportunity to try again in a few years. And why don't you just sit this one out for a bit? Why not? I mean, once someone does it, all you need is one person to do it. You just need a precedent to be set. Just take a break.

Take a breather. Yeah. And then apparently, according to Craig Morgan, they're doing all their layoffs this week the coyotes right i mean that's the sad part of all this is that the rank and file they're going to get screwed over because the guy can't run a proper franchise or win a land parcel is that land clock still going that's that's a that's a jason brough thing that's not i heard i heard they shuttered their uh i heard they shuttered their website, though. Let me check, see if the land clock is...

Well, while you do that, I'm going to get up to speed with another bit of NHL news, and that's Patrick Laine, which we actually missed a couple days ago, because a couple days ago, hockey insider Pierre Lebrun reported that the Columbus Blue Jackets winner Patrick Laine are looking for a mutual parting of ways this summer. It, of course, stems from the fact that line a doesn't want to be there anymore.

And it also probably stems from the fact that when the Columbus blue jackets learn this, they're like, yeah, we can start working towards that. So line a for McKay have one from one. Is that what's going on? Well,

do you think the land clock is no more, man? I think the auction is June 27th. So there's three others still excited about that. New bidders got signed up for it. I'm going to bid. I want to open a water. I'm going to open a excited about that. Three new bidders signed up for it. I'm going to bid. I'm going to open a water slide. You're going to go down there for it?

This water slide is all jagged and rusty. I bid $5. What are you going to do? So far, the $5 guy is the leader. We spent most of the money on the actual land parcel. The Blue Jackets and Line A. This is an interesting one because Line A entered the player assistance program last year and has actually not been removed from said program

and didn't play a lot of hockey at all last season. He's carrying a price tag of $8.7 million AAV, so that's per year, and there's two years left on the deal. Now, it's an enticing add for any team because you know that Line A can score goals and when healthy and motivated in the right headspace, he could be an asset. But you don't know what you're getting because there's been health issues. He did enter the player since this program. So you're not really sure where he's at with regards to that.

And you have to take on a fairly big ticket at $8.7 million. I do wonder if it'll be... I guess it's bad money at this point. Bad money for bad money. pick it at 8.7 million. I do wonder if it'll be, um, God, no, I guess it's bad money at this point. Bad money for bad money. Like you trade us your problem.

That'll be it for sure. Or if the Columbus blue jackets will have to retain some salary in a deal. I also think that might be a possibility as well. Now, Andy brought up, I was kidding. Of course, I don't think that will happen. Uh,

McKay for line. I went for one is exactly a fair trade. Anyone who's out there, A-Dog, is like, would that work for the Canucks? I'm not saying this would happen. Sure, we'll throw in a sweetener. First of all, the Blue Jackets wouldn't do it. But I mean, just saying like, yeah, no, not a chance. I did throw out the possibility of Utah.

Yeah. I hope the guy turns it around. But I'm not sure he's the complete sort of player that winning teams commit significant cap space to. If you're going to bring aboard a guy like Line A, typically a winning team will be like, okay, we'll give you a million bucks. It'll be a free agent deal or something along those lines. I don't know man like if you if you have line a on your team and even if even if columbus is retaining half of it then you've got a guy that's like making four million dollars that may not be worth it like his game fell awfully low yep in columbus yep can say, well, he played like this before, but until you know he can do it again,

it's really tough to bring him into a winning environment. When you're a team that doesn't have expectations, you can be like, yeah, sure, we'll roll the dice on a guy like that. That might be like a high-value bet to make. It might ultimately pan out in a really big way. If we could salvage the career of Patrick Laine, but other teams, like the winning teams, don't really have, they don't have the space to make that.

And if you have a hierarchy already that you're bringing that into, it just throws everything off. That's all. If you're not interested in former Winnipeg Jet, Patrick Laine, how about current Winnipeg jet patrick liney how about current winnipeg jet nicolai eelers according to darren drager i think that's a potential fit in vancouver winnipeg wants to try and extend nicolai eelers who actually had a pretty good year last

year he was healthy for the first time in a while which doesn't happen very often for a guy that's chronically injured he finished fourth on the jets and goals with with 25, third in assists with 36. He's going in to the last year of a deal that's got a really nice cap hit at 6 million for what the player brings. Now, health has been an issue for sure. They want to extend it, but they've got the Kyle Connor extension that is going to tie up a lot of money,

given they've already given big money extensions to Mark Scheifele. I like his speed. Ehlers' speed, that's something that the Canucks need. The one that got away, man. The one that got away, man. The one that got away. Well, there's a few that got away in that draft. Okay, one of the ones that got away.

I think an Ehlers first, but I mean, Ehlers is good. Don't get me wrong. He stayed healthy last year. I mean, I keep bringing this up. He played all 82 contests for the first time since 2018. And he's a guy that, as you mentioned, has speed. I think he presents an interesting option on a one-year if you're a team that maybe doesn't necessarily want to commit to him long-term

but is interested in maybe just bringing him aboard for the season and then after the season be like, let's see where we're at. I don't know. I don't know what the price on him is going to be. That's the challenge. We talked about this with Drance yesterday. It's cheap. It's free, actually, to sign Jake Gensel in terms of acquisition costs.

You just have to, like, I don't know, buy a pen and be like, sign this. Please sign. But if you shift to the trade route with a guy like Nikolai Ehlers, you've all of a sudden got an acquisition price. And the Jets are going to look at the Canucks and be like, yeah, we'll trade him. You got a first. Have you got a good prospect?

I don't know if I'd want to do Lekker or Mackey or Willander for Ehlers. How else are you going to get him though that's a good player and probably the jets are going to want eelers to sign an extension with whatever team acquires him and maybe this is a trade that goes past july 1st so they can actually do that because that's going to be worth more to that team and possibly more to the winnipeg Jets in a trade. I like Keillor's as a player, but I don't know if the Canucks are going to be able to pull that one off. And finally, speaking of mutual parting of ways,

Lawrence Gilman and the Toronto Maple Leafs have decided to mutually part ways. His contract serving as the club's assistant general manager was going to expire next month, but they decided to break ways. Now he had been with the Leafs since 2019. So six years on the job actually survived the departure of Kyle Dubas and worked under Brad tree living. Remember this Lawrence Gilman while in Vancouver, old heads will remember he was the first one to sort of start playing around

with LTIR and figuring out how to stash guys and get some money. So you could go into the playoffs and then have this expansive roster because there's no salary cap in the playoffs. He was also the first one to ever call me or you. Yeah, back when we were just noobs as they used to call us back in the day. We were bloggers.

Then all of a sudden we heard that Lawrence Gilman wants to talk to us. What do we do? Oh my God. What do we do? Hey, Gilly here. Yeah, no, I was like, what do we we do it was like getting in trouble from your teacher i was like oh crap what does he want but he was he was an awesome dude you know what it was about you know what do you

remember it yeah i think it was about us always talking about we were always talking about how the canucks were taking advantage of the system. We're writing about it on the Curtain blog. And he called and he said, hey, guys, love your blog, but it would be great for us if you could tone that down a little bit because we already have a bullseye on us from the NHL head office. We were saying the quiet part out loud. He was like, please stop doing that. Yeah. And it's a good thing that the NHL never got their revenge on the Canucks.

They never got their revenge and they never figured out how to close the loophole. We're now 14 years later and they're still trying to figure it out. So anyway, happy trails to Lawrence Gilman. Hopefully he finds work somewhere else in the National Hockey League. Okay, coming up on the other side of the break, second hour of the program,

AJ from AJ's Pizza is going to join us. That'll be the kickstart to giving away a $100 gift card to AJ's Pizza on East Broadway. For the best, ask us anything. We're also going to talk to Bob Stauffer after the Oilers fell behind 0-3 in the Stanley Cup Final. And at 7.30, Bob the Moj Marjanovic, play-by-play voice of the BC Lions.

Tomorrow, the Lions will have their home opener at BC Place with a pregame concert from 50 Cent. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.