Halford & Brough in the Morning - There's No Wasted Time In The NHL

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports, they discuss yesterday's Canucks loss to the Sharks (3:00), plus they chat all the top hockey news of the day with Sportsnet NHL host David Amber (28:34). 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.

You're listening to Tullabilo, done, dun, da da da da da da da da. You're listening to Halford and Brough. Third for the line beats Tolapilo, Sticks side, and the sharks make it five to one. Do you feel like you have the guys ready to play tonight? I mean, I don't even know what kind of question that is. Dahlene's sending it to the empty net and he's going to score. He gets the hat trick on the empty net goal. Coming to the near circle, sinners.

We make her six to one on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Brough. It is SportsFed at 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful favor of slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Ladd, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brub of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have payday loan debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at sands dash trustee.com. We are in hour one of the program. Hour 1 is brought to you by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle you get paid. Visit them at

1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming live from the Kintech Studio Make 2026 your year to move better and step stronger with Kintech custom orthotics. Big show ahead on a Wednesday. The guest list today, also known as the Doick Morning Drive,

brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. It begins at 6.30. David Amber, Hockey Night in Canada, SportsNet, NHL host. is going to join the program. Busy night in the NHL last night with 10 games. Not so much this night. Tonight. Just three games, including the abs taking on the Sends in Ottawa at 4.30.

That's the sports net game tonight. David Amber is going to join us at 6.30. Talk about all that. 7 o'clock, Frank Sarah Valley, our NHL insider from Victory Plus, is going to join the program. We'll talk about yesterday's big off-ice news for the Vancouver Canucks.

Thatcher Demko being shut down for the year to undergo hip surgery. Frank is going to join us. at 7 to discuss that and more. 7.30, Nathan Rourke is going to join the program. Quarterback for your BC Lions, the Lions announced an extension for Rourke

on Tuesday. The New Deal takes the Victoria BC Native through the 2028 season. Nathan Rourke is going to join us at 7.30. 8 o'clock, Randy Jand is going to join the program. Connock's color analyst here on SportsNet 650. As mentioned,

another bad performance at home for the Vancouver Canucks last night, dropping a 5-2 to to Macklin Celebrini and the Sharks at Rogers Arena. Randy will join us to break it all down at 8 a.m. Speaking of 8 a.m. Yet again, every day this week, we're giving away a $50 gift card to the big football party at the Clayton Public House. Sunday, February 8th, Sportsnet 650 is hosting.

If you want a seat at the table, email them at info at the clayton pub.com. If you want to win the $50 gift card, be caller number 5 at 8 a.m. this morning, 604-280-0-650. That's what's happening on the program today. Laddie, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No.

What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? Missed it? You missed that? What happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies

of best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCSA.com.ca. Macklin Celebrini, just a casual goal and three assists last night. That's four points. San Jose beats the Vancouver Canucks 5'2 at Rogers Arena on Tuesday night. Okay, there's a lot to unpack from yesterday. So we'll kind of start with the news that we actually hinted at right at the end of our show yesterday. I said a little birdie told me that there might be some Thatcher Dempco news today.

Yeah, and there were some pretty big Thatcher Dempco news in that he was shut down for the season. he's going to have hip surgery and hopefully be ready for training camp next season. And then the Canucks played a game against the San Jose Sharks and Kevin Lankan got pulled real quick. And it made me remember the start of the season when the Canucks were going to have arguably the best goaltending tandem in the league. Some people said that. And they weren't necessarily out of their minds to say that.

But there were some big ifs and the biggest if was if that, was if Thatcher Dempco was able to stay healthy and it hasn't exactly turned out that way. No. Next season, the rebuilding Canucks will have $13 million in cap space tied up in goalies. In theory, they could have a very good tandem if Dempco can get healthy and stay healthy and find his game. If Lankan can tighten up his game a little bit. and I think maybe most importantly of all,

if the skaters in front of whoever's in goal can play some semblance of team defense. But right now, right now, right at this very moment with Thatcher Demko, headed for surgery, Kevin Lankinen, kind of struggling. And again, for me, most importantly, the team in front of them looking like they have, they're either clueless in what's going on defensively or terrified of what's going on defensively.

Right now, it looks pretty dire in all three of those categories. And that's why the connects are dead last in the NHL. It's one of the big reasons, at least. I wonder if we are going to have another offseason of goalie coach gossip. There's talk that Ian Clark could be brought back into the fold. I wonder what Demko wants in his reason. rehab. Part of the time I'm like, does Demko, like he respects Ian Clark, but does he like, does he like, is it, is a lot of work? Is it too hard? I don't even understand like the dynamic. Sometimes it's not the thing you want. It's the thing you need.

Ooh, that's probably a good way to put it. You know, so, you know, we've had goalie coach gossip and other off seasons and it's crazy that it gets to this point. Always some of my favorite. This market is, you know, pretty still. pretty passionate about its hockey team, and right now the goaltending, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even try to make a prediction on what it's going to look like next season. No. I have no idea. No idea. It's a major, major wild card. A big part of that would be trying to predict the future of Thatcher Demko's health. There's got to be significant red flags if there wasn't already within the organization. And I'm not talking about his ability to rehab and get back to playing form. it's keeping that form for any sustained length of time.

I think I saw a stat floating out there that he's appeared in 36% of Canucks games since 2022 when the injuries first started bubbling to the surface and he underwent the first of, I've lost track of how many surgeries now or how many different rehab stints he's gone on, but he just can't stay healthy for any length of time. Yeah, this is a big surgery though. Laddie, what are your thoughts on the surgery? What's the goalie community saying? Do they, is this one of those things? Could this be like, uh, all right, fine.

Like we've dealt with all this. Not little stuff, but stuff that we hoped would rehab. Forget it. Let's shut them down. Let's take care of everything now. We'll get the hips. Does it all start with the hips? Is that, does it all start?

Yeah. Well, if you're getting a ton of groin injuries, usually it's because like the root cause is there's something wrong with your hips. And that's causing kind of like a chain, chain reaction. And so yeah, you got to get it. Usually the guys wait until the off season to get it cleaned up. A lot of guys will play through sort of hip problems throughout the year. Get it cleaned up in the off season and be ready to go for the regular season.

But obviously with what he's dealing with, it's gotten to a point where he just needs to get it done now. And then you can kind of turn the page and move on. And it's certainly not a death blow for goalies nowadays. It's not like, you know, back in the day Tommy John surgery for pitchers, it was kind of like, oh-oh. And now today, it's everyone gets it done. It's kind of the same thing for goalies. Where hip surgery, it's not the end of the world. It's not great.

It's not what you want to see, but it's not, the guys certainly come back from it. So it's, it's tough. It's a tough one to swallow if you're a Canucks fan. So the Canucks and their press release made sure to note that this surgery is unrelated to the injury that he had previously. Unrelated to his nine other injuries.

But this is nothing to do with the other seven injuries. But the other one was the knee, right? The popliteus. The popliteus, and this is the hips, and I'm kind of like, when they put that out there, I was kind of like, I understand why you're clarifying, but it doesn't make it any better. It's like worse. It's like a domino effect, like each injury leads to another one. It's a kind of CYA from the Canucks, right?

They're saying like, this is not us forcing him to play on his old injury. this is this is a this is a this is a new thing that has has cropped up yeah because because they know they know that everyone or a lot of people in the market are like hey what's going on medically with you guys yeah and i understand the as you put it the c y a element all of this but anyone with half a brain a quarter of a brain can look at this and go through the injury history and be like whether it's related or not if you want to take yourself off the hook for what's gone on, that's fine. But the bigger and more pressing issue remains

is that you've got a goalie that's about to enter a three-year extension at $8.5 million per that has over the course of the last three years shown little to no ability whatsoever to stay healthy. Not from a lack of trying. That's one thing I want to get out there. I do feel bad for Demko

because he's worked incredibly hard to come back from these injuries multiple times. And secondly, you can tell every time he talks about it, he does not want to be typecast as like the human bandaid. Well, too bad. I mean, that he is. And, but yeah, so. It's unfortunate.

It's like Bill Buckner didn't want to be remembered as the guy that let that ground her through his legs, but. Yeah, sometimes you are where you are. I get it. He was a hell of a ball player, but that's what people will remember him for. I just, I do notice there are other professional athletes who will not bristle at the questions about their health or where they're at their rehab

and like Demko very much pushes back against that like this isn't me being injured this thing happened I rehab that I'm good to go and he just doesn't want to be typecast as that guy unfortunately he's typecast as that guy okay the game

last night first off I'll start off by saying I'm not surprised or anything by what happened last night and I realize the Canucks are rebuilding and want a better draft pick, but we've still got to go back and look back at these games. Sure. Right?

I know Halford, you enjoy a good Kevin Lankinin critique. Right? Yeah, you do. And I'm not saying he's been good, but the Canucks are really bad defensively. And don't take it from me. Take it from Tom Vlander, young defensively. who said all our details were bad.

Yep, last night. Back to me saying it. They don't manage the puck well enough. They get caught running around all the time. It's really shocking how badly their structure has broken down. Yeah, they've got some young defensemen playing, and that's part of the reason. But even the veterans seem unsure of where they should be on the ice or what they should do with the puck when they're they get it. That goes for the forwards too. Like on San Jose's first goal, maybe keep an eye on that

Celebrini guy, Drew O'Connor. Because Celebrini, yeah, he's pretty good. He's probably the first name on the top of the old whiteboard. We're like, hey, you got to stop this guy. He's got a lot of points. You know, the Connox are like, well, I've never heard of him. What number is he? You know, it shouldn't be easy for Celebrini to get wide open and stay wide open. But that's exactly what happened on the first goal. Now should Lankinen have come up with that save? Maybe. But that Celebrini guy works on his shot.

It's a pretty good shooter too. The next goal started with a giveaway by Hironic. And it looked like he was kind of like, he had the puck, maybe flubbed it a bit, a little bit, but was he sure of where he was going with the puck? Were the forward sure of where they should have been going to get a pass? Didn't look like it. The third was another coverage breakdown with Tyler.

Tafoli left open in the slot and a Kinnock player right beside them but didn't check them. The Kinnucks looked paralyzed for most of the first period. And again, I mean, it's not like I'm surprised or anything. They're the worst team in the league by a wide margin. Yeah. But it is crazy how far they've fallen from the structure. Remember the big, but it was part of the marketing campaign structure. Yep.

that they display during that one good season under Rick Tocke with Adam Foot on the bench running the defense. Yep. There have to be questions at a certain point this season. If they haven't already been raised, and I know a lot of our texters have, about the continual mistakes that this team has in, I'm going to use big air quotes on coverage and the system

and start asking, like, do you need to take whatever this system is, crumpling into a ball and throw it in the trash can. Are they even listening to the system? Are they even, or can he explain it properly? I don't know. Again, obviously it wasn't in the building last night. I was listening to the post game show.

I talked to a couple of people that were there. They said a lot of this is not for a lack of effort from the team. Like the one thing, like it might not be the most inspired performance in terms of guys running around and hitting and fighting. We're going to ignore the fight part of it. But, you know, there's never a night where you're pointing around the room being like this guy didn't show up or this guy didn't try this guy gave up right what's happening is there's these huge lapses and huge breakdowns and every time adam foot comes to the podium in the

aftermath he points out several not one or two several big loud egregious mistakes that end up in the back of the connect's net and here's the problem there's no course correction for any of them the next night he comes up to the podium and there's another fairly long soliloquy identifying in detail about all these individual errors. Like last night he pointed out the Horonik one on the giveaway, and he's like, it's a mistake that a veteran guy usually never makes. He also pointed out Drew O'Connor on the first call. He didn't name him.

But he said, you know, we had a forward that went where he shouldn't have gone. It's like he went into a haunted house. Don't go in there. You're never going to come back. So when you throw it out there as a coach, I think someone's going to take a look at what you're saying. I mean, like, there's two things you can do here. you can either correct the mistakes that are happening with regularity

or take a deeper look at the system and style you're playing and be like, this isn't working. The guys aren't getting it. It's not giving us adequate defensive coverage. We need to change it. Right now, they're in this weird middle ground, and part of it has to do with the fact that they're in a rebuild, where they're allowing losses that are expected to cover up what I think are very,

very important issues, which is there's no wasted time in the NHL. There's no time to just sit back and kick up your feet and be like, it doesn't matter. These are still valuable minutes for veteran guys to prove, quite frankly, that they still belong in the league. And young guys to learn their craft and learn it in an environment where there are stakes, there are standards,

there's a mandate set by the coach that has to be followed to a T in order to find success. And right now, there are a lot of guys that are just swimming blind on the ice. Does it give a lot of our listeners the desired result? Absolutely. The team is horrific standings-wise. The team is 5, 17, and 3 at home this year.

Think about that. They have five home wins. And they are, what is it, a minus 35 goal? differential at home, which through this stage of the season is the worst goal differential at home that a Vancouver Canucks team has ever had in the 80s. No matter when, like what the, the entirety of this franchise, you've never had a team that's been this bad at home. But at least for the people that bought tickets, they got to see Celebrini last night. And that's fine. Like I get that. I mean, maybe you're joking. Maybe you're not. I'm not. But eventually. I mean, a lot of people

last night there was like, do you watch the Hockeyham? Yeah. Well, I watched Celebrini and the Canucks happened to be on the ice too. And if the marketing campaign is going to be like, come watch the other team and get cheap tickets, that's great. Like, that's fine. But if you care about the trajectory of the team, then I do think it matters that they are looking like a floundering mess in their own end. Well, offensively, they're not exactly rolling either. You know whose production has fallen off a cliff? And we haven't really talked about it much, Connor Garland's. At times, he's been the Canucks best forward where you notice him all over the ice,

winning battles, making plays. He had a few of those moments last night. But you gotta wonder what he's thinking about the state of the team and where he's at in his career. I know he said he likes Vancouver and he feels a connection to the city, but I like Vancouver too.

I feel a connection to the city. I'm not sure if I choose to be on the Canucks right now. And if you're the Canucks, you can look at the player right now and see an opportunity to move a contract that may not be so efficient in a few years because you are trying to plan a rebuild and as part of planning a rebuild

you have to look not just to next season but years ahead and your plan isn't going to go to perfection right? You know, you make a plan God laughs, etc. But there still has to be a plan. Do you want Connor Garland on this team

at 29 years old and about to start a six-year contract extension or do you want to try and move him? Because what the Canucks end up doing a lot of the time is like, no, we'll keep that guy and let his contract go bad. Oh, okay. Let him mentor the youths while he gets older and his contract gets worse.

Yeah. You mentioned it earlier, lots of scouts in the press box. Presumably some of them to watch Evander Cain who didn't do much of anything before attacking Timothy Liljigrin at the end of the second. He did. I was actually wondering if Kane was going to do something to get some attention right before that. I was thinking that because the Canucks didn't exactly set him up for offensive success.

They gave him Ratu and Hoaglander as linemates, fourth line. And then that five on three, not that I'm advocating him for him to be on that, but the Canucks had a very lengthy five on three, almost two minutes. And he didn't get any of that. And then right after he goes out and he, quote, unquote, fights Timothy Lildegren. Yeah, I'm sure the rest of the league was, you know, really standing on attention that Evander Cain beat up Timothy Lildegren. He of the zero career fights prior to this.

But I think he just, I don't. He did something. He did something. He needed to do something. I wonder if he, I wonder if the Canucks should have put him out there on the five on three, you know. But Lechromackie was out there. and he got lots of powerplay time and I certainly wanted to see him on the powerplay

so I don't know who I would have taken off but he had multiple chances to score off one-timers him and Pedersen and Pedersen was looking for Leckermacki on the one-timer he found him a few times should have scored probably at least once but no dice ultimately but I think it was it was fine from Leckermackie

two points for Petey both assists his first multi-point game since November So that's something. I put out something rather kind of positive on Pedersen on social media and a lot of people didn't have much time for it. Really? Yeah, I was like, because I honestly do think that I'm not saying he's back. I ain't saying he's back. You know, if you want to compare last night, Pedersen to Celebrini.

Yeah. That's a one seat. Brough. Pedersen is back. That's a franchise player. Get the video ready. But Pedersen, I mean, the bar is solo, right? It's just like, yeah, he doesn't cough up the puck or.

You know, he doesn't look super, super nervous when the puck's on his stick. And he made a nice play to Tom Velander on the first goal of the game. And then he set up proenic for a one-timer for what, the last goal of the game? Like, book in, desist for Elias Pedersen. He's actually driving play and trying to make things happen. People keep asking if I'm back. And I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm making progress.

Yeah. He is not driving play. He is not driving. Well, for him. I mean, in comparison to what he was... In comparison to what he was doing, like a year ago. It's like a crossing guard. He's directing...

He's directing... Yeah, directing play. He's directing some play. Don't say he's driving play. Okay, well, he's making... He's trying to make things happen. You don't drive play on the power play. I'm just saying in general he's trying to make things happen.

I'm trying to be positive about him. He's showing some offensive flair. It's never been our thing. Watching Celebrity last night, and I know the guys were talking about this on on the post game show and how you need some luck in the draft lottery

or in just in your picks right? I mean, Quinn Hughes was the seventh overall pick. They got lucky that other teams didn't take them and Quinn Hughes fell to the Canucks. The Canucks need they need the man. Like they need something

look, when I was a kid and I first started watching, watching the Canucks, they were totally aimless and one of the worst teams in the league in the 80s after they went on that Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup. They were terrible. And then they drafted Trevor Linden, and that was the first bit of hope. And Trevor Linden gave the team life. And then soon after that, they found Paveaubury. And then all of a sudden they were kind of a serious team. You know, yeah, they got Pat Quinn in there. That was a big deal as well. But you know, it all started with getting Trevor Linden.

And then some other stuff fell to them. Pavel Burry, finding Kirk McLean, you know, finding some good players in trades. And then they nearly won the Stanley Cup. You know, the Canucks drafted the Cedines. And yeah, it took a while for the Cedines to become the guys on the team. But eventually they did. And they set the culture and their play was incredible. And the Cinnock nearly won the Stanley Cup.

You know, right now, I know we can talk about some of the young players. Zeev Boullium, I don't know, maybe he can be the guy. Sure. But, you know, we'll see. What I really think is they're just going to need to find these guys in the draft. And whether it's Stenberg or Gavin McKenna or, you know, Keaton Verhoff, I don't know. But they're going to need to find it. Kutz is maybe going to be a good player.

I don't think he's got the talent. Proved me wrong, Coots. Talent to be like the man. But the bar is high. And that, you know, look at who's going to win the Stanley Cup this year. Probably Colorado, right? Nate. McCar.

You know, those guys. You know, who's the team that we talk about all the time? The Edmonton Oilers. McDavid, dry saddle. Like, you know, celebrating last night. The sharks would still be horrific. Celebrini's got a guy on his line, Colin Graff.

Yeah, Steffie Graff's kid. It's not. But this guy is an undrafted kid out of Quinnipiac, who's piling up points. Out of where? Playing with Celibriene. Quinnipiac. It's Bob's College, right?

You know, like, and that's what these great players do. They not only play well themselves, they elevate other players. You know, the Siddins, I love Burroughs, but the Sidon's elevated Burroughs. Yes. And Burroughs help them, for sure. But that's what happens.

All of a sudden you get, when you have a great player or a great forward, sometimes you get an additional good player out of that because that guy is so good that he can elevate someone else. Yeah, and when you talk about getting the first overall pick, like there's some luck involved with that too, and it's the draft year you're in, who you end up choosing.

The last three have been great. Schaefer, Celebrini, Bedard. The three before that, Slavkowski, power, Lafranier. Sometimes it conspires against you. You get the number one pick in a year where it just doesn't go your way.

And you don't get what you're talking about, the guy. You just get a lowercase guy. And that's not what the connects need right now. They need a difference maker in a major way. We are way up against it for time. We got to go to break. When we come back, Hockey Night Canada, SportsNet NHL host, is going to join the program.

You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. It's Canucks Central on SportsNet 650. From exclusive interviews to insider scoops and post-game breakdowns, we've got it all. Tune in weekdays 4 to 6 p.m. on radio and on demand through your favorite podcast app. It is time for David Amber. He is on the hotline, baby. It is time for David Amber. He will talk some hockey maybe.

It is time for David Amber. He is on the hotline baby. It is time for David Amber. He will talk some hockey maybe. I'm on the hotline, baby. I'm righted in the shrooms talking. I remember what I was doing at 23, pooping in my pants.

There's a massive butt coming here, guys. No one's fighting Rick talking. No one wants to fight Rick talking. I'm on the hotline, baby. It is, it's David. It is, it's David. Amber, it is, it's David. He's on the hotline.

634 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brub of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates. Are you getting collection calls? If you are, Sands and Associates could cut your debt by up to 80% and stop the collection calls. Visit them today at sands dash trustee.com. Still in hour one of the program, David Amber, Hockeynake Night Canada, Sportsnet, NHL host is going to join us. In just a moment here, the highlight of hour one.

Hour one is brought to by North Star Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. North Star Metal Recycling, they recycle, you get paid. Visit the Middle 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. To the phone lines we go. David Amber joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Morning, David. How are you? Gentlemen, still digging out.

We had like five feet of snowfall in one day. It was crazy. So you, Jonas Siegel, and there was a third guest from Toronto that we had as well, Luke Fox, have all shared with us tales of Wintergetten going on right now. This seems like it's a real big thing here, David. Polar Vortex. You guys are like, what, in your speedos, just surfing. Every day, brother.

Yeah. Driving an hour to Whistler to ski. I mean, you guys, I see why the real estate is so expensive out where you guys are, because that's where people need to be, including me, it feels that way. I'm looking out my window right now, and there's cars, you know, when the cars, you guys don't know this, but when the cars, so much snow falls that you actually can only to see the side rear, you know, side view mirrors of the cars because the whole car is covered in snow. That's what I'm staring at right now.

Well, we feel like we've been buried under something here in Vancouver. Losses. Yeah. Did you catch the Celebrini show at all last night or was that too late for you? No, I did. I, full disclosure, I fell asleep in the second period. It was four to one and I started nodding off and I said, I think I know how this movie ends. So I went to bed. But, you know, I thought last night in Toronto, they celebrated the 50th anniversary of Daryl Sittler's 10-point games. And when I went to bed, I thought,

I'm going to wake up in Celebrini at 11 points. Like, it wouldn't have shocked me. Man, he is good. He is, I can't believe he's only 19. Yeah. I mean, we're witnessing, and I know, like, the Canucks, it's a struggle right now, but Celebrini is doing that to every team he plays, right?

I mean, he's, he has to be in that MVP conversation when he is 40 plus points ahead of the next. guy on his team. He's just so friggin dynamic and it's cool and it's cool. You know, he's a local guy for Vancouver. It's cool to see one of your local guys go out there and do what he's doing. Okay, well let's talk a little bit

about the Leafs because they had a, that was a statement loss against the Buffalo Sabres last night and the statement might have been we need to sell heading into the trade deadline because this team is probably going to miss the playoffs. What's the talk in Toronto this morning? Yeah, I mean, that's the popular narrative.

You know, they went into the five-game homestand, and people said, well, this is a make or break for the least. If they can get six or seven points, you know, they're right there. They're right where they need to be. And they got one out of ten points. And they lost, and every time it was like, Mitch Marne is returning, this is a huge game. You know, oh, okay, they lost that one. You know, the next game, it's a huge game.

And they just laid an egg, laid an egg, laid an egg, laid an egg. And, you know, the math isn't mapping for them, gentlemen. If you need to get to about 97 points, they need to go, you know, 20 and 9 the rest of the way. This isn't a team that's showing you they're really going to go on a run like that. So, you know, the math isn't there. And quite frankly, last year, the backbone of this team was Wall and Stolars and Net. They had one of the best save percentages in the league. They were this great tandem, and they covered up some of the least defensive liabilities.

And this year hasn't been the case. They've been injured. They've been missing time. They haven't been as good. And it's not to put it on the goal-tending because the defense in front of them has been abysmal, especially since Chris Tenev's been injured, guys. So it's a mess. And you're right.

I think all the narrative right now is the likelihood of the least buying as opposed to selling is far greater. You know, there are eight points out of a playoff spot. So it's not just a matter of you need to play well. You need some teams in front of you to stumble. And the way Boston and Montreal and Detroit and some of these teams are playing, you're asking a lot for that to happen. Is there any way that Toronto would look at their roster and, you know, go, man, we need to rebuild the defense.

That's going to be hard. Some of our forwards, you know, even our taught, we lost Mitch Marner. Our top guys are taking a ton of criticism in the market. Would they ever do like a preemptive, like let's just rebuild this thing now? Because everything is pointing at, things are going to, if they keep trying to just like, okay, we'll make some moves around the edges and try to make the team better next season. We've still got, we still got Matthews, we've still got Neelander, DeVaros can still produce, and we've got a couple of young guys, I suppose, that are playing well.

we still got Matthew Nyes, maybe we can get into the playoffs. It's just like, I know what that looks like, and it usually doesn't end in a good spot. I think these are the conversations that are happening, you know, at a Brad Trade Living level and maybe above him as well. You have to look big, big, big picture. You know, a lot of teams, they don't just want to try to win a Stanley Cup. They want to be a good team for a long time.

The Leifs have been a good team for 10 years, division titles, and, you know, nine straight playoff appearances is the longest stretch of any team. Like, they've been good. They obviously haven't had the playoff success that any team would want, but they've been a good team, certainly a good regular season team.

But if you look at their farm system, if you look at their elite prospects, right? And we just saw Vancouver trade Quinn Hughes to basically bulk up their draft capital, their prospect capital. The lease don't have that. The Leafs don't have a first round pick this year, and they don't have a first round pick.

pick next year. So, you know, they don't even have things to dangle when you talk about being a buyer or being a seller. Can they really be a buyer where you don't have cap space? You don't have prospects to trade. You don't have draft capital to trade. How do you do that? You know, Brad Tray Living is wrestling, you know, is arm wrestling without an arm. I mean, it's hard to win these things. So they've got work to do. And these decisions maybe are right in front of them and they maybe try to delay it, delay it, delay it. We still have Matthews. We still have Neelander. We still have this good veteran group of defensemen. Well, it just hasn't worked out this year.

And, you know, there's no shame in sort of identifying that and sort of saying big picture, what are we going to do? And I think that seems to be the growing narrative, this five-game slate of which they lost all five games at home. They gave up 25 goals. So it was like horribly defensively. Maybe it's painted the picture. Like they've got to be sellers and see what they can get to sort of build up the draft

and prospect capital. organization. You know who else is looking unlikely to make the playoffs right now as the Florida Panthers? We've all just assumed, well, you know, they'll go on a run at some point. But they don't have bark-off and that's massive and they've had other injuries and they've played a lot of hockey. You know, there's six points out of a playoff spot right now and I know they've got a few games in hand on some of the teams they're chasing but it doesn't feel like they're going to all of a sudden put it together. What do you think?

Well, I said when Barkoff went down, I said, I don't think Florida's going to make the playoffs. I just think Barkov is that good. And I knew Kachuk was down for an extended period of time and Kulikov and, et cetera. They had a whole series of injuries, right? And I also just felt fatigue was going to play a role. They played more hockey in the last three years than any team in NHL history, right?

And I just thought at a certain point playing all of those hard minutes, all of those hard situations was going to catch up to them. And maybe this is the year that happens. So, yeah, I think it's a really big hill to climb. Six points, again, doesn't sound that daunting. But again, you need to go on one of these epic Buffalo Sabre-type runs and have a couple of teams in front of you falter to pick up that ground because there's so many three-point games.

So Florida is in a tough spot. And here's the other thing, guys, half their team are going to the Olympics. Like I think they have 12 players going to the Olympics And I think that's a great thing But I also think the amount of emotional energy And physical energy and possibility of more injuries, etc., presents itself. You know, part of Washington having such a good second half last year, you know, and it was on a smaller scale

because it was only, you know, the four nations. But they didn't send a single person to four nations and they came out of four nations and they ended up with the top record in the NHL last year, or second best to Winnipeg. And they were just flying. Guys were rested. They took sort of those 10 days and sort of hit the reset button.

I'm just wondering if Florida's players are going to be able to do that and leave the Olympics, whether they're victorious or not, depending on whatever team they're on. And then hit the reset button and get back to work and try and get themselves back into a playoff spot. It's hard to bet against them only because of what they've done. done in their track record. But if anything, I'm with you.

I think they're actually in a legitimate amount of trouble, and it wouldn't shock me if they don't make the postseason. Speaking of teams making the playoffs or missing the playoffs, how much conversation are you guys having at Hockey Night about maybe a grand total of two Canadian teams being in the postseason field this year? Edmonton, Montreal. If it was to end today, it would be Edmonton and Montreal, and that's it, which is a far cry from when we had as many as five in the playoff field from Canada.

Yeah, I was on your guys show at six, seven weeks ago, and you said, well, the over-under is 2.5, and I'm like, come on, you guys are so negative. And I'm like, maybe the over-under should be one point five. I was going to say, we dropped the total since six to seven weeks. You know what, David, we're negative, but we're often right to be negative. No, you guys hit it on the head. Listen, I'm sitting here. I'm preparing for tonight's game. The senators are playing. And I was telling you how bad the math is for the leaves. Well, the math is worse for the Ottawa senators. Like, as a show, shocking as that is, they're going to have to go on an epic run. And that was a team, you know, as much as I picked Florida to miss the playoffs, I took Ottawa to win the Atlantic. So, you know, I'll admit my mistakes when they happen.

And, you know, they just haven't been good. They haven't been good defensively. Well, actually, I shouldn't say they haven't been good defensively. They've had historically bad goaltending, which we've talked about on the show before, like generationally bad goaltending this year. I wonder if Linus Almarch is going to start tonight. He backed up the last game. If Allmark can somehow find it in himself to,

to regain a little bit of that Vesna form. You know, we all know he's had mental health issues he addressed, and, you know, let's just hope he's feeling better, and this would be a great way for him to, you know, regain some confidence professionally to go out there and perform for Ottawa. Maybe they can go on one of those great runs, but it just doesn't, the match just doesn't look good. You know, I'm staring at Winnipeg and, you know,

obviously Vancouver's, you know, staring at a first overall pick, not the playoffs, same with Calgary. So, you know, It's going to take some sort of St. Louis Blues type run, some sort of Buffalo Sabres, 10-game winning street type run for the likes of Toronto, Ottawa, or Winnipeg at any shot. And the likelihood of that is not great. So, yeah, we're probably staring down potentially just two Canadian teams

in the postseason come April. Okay, before we let you go real quick, it's a very light night in the National Hockey League, but there is a Wednesday night game, and you mentioned it there. Ottawa is hosting the Powerhouse Colorado Avalanche. Yeah, it's a great. Listen, if you get a chance to watch Colorado,

just like if you get a chance to watch Macon Celebrini, you should do it. Last time, about three weeks ago, Colorado just spanked Ottawa, 8 to 2. Josh Manson had the rare opportunity to have the double Gordy Howell Hattrick. I don't even know if that, I'm making that up. Have you guys heard of that? We have two fights, two goals, and two assists in the game. Never heard of that, yeah. Yeah, well, he almost had it.

So we'll see how he follows that up tonight. you know Ottawa this is just incredibly important there's the margins are so small for them they're going to have to play essentially their best hockey to have a shot against the Colorado team that's just been so so so good this year so that's our matchup tonight and um you know we're excited for it at colby armstrong uh will be on the panel with luke and jennifer and uh we're going to also talk about you know on the on the it was the 50th anniversary of sitler's 10 point and we're going to talk about what were some of the most memorable one game performance in NHL history, and there's a few that come to mind, you know,

Lemieux coming back from cancer and Lemieux scoring five different ways, and there's all sorts of, you know, kind of take a little walk down memory lane as well. So there'll be some fun stuff nostalgic-wise for the viewers as well. Sounds like it'll be fun. David, thanks for doing this, man. We appreciate it. Guys, thanks for having me on. Enjoy the week and enjoy the beautiful weather. Thanks, buddy. That's David Amber Hockenank, Canada. Sportsnet NHL host here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, I'm going to test you right now.

One game performances, amazing performances by a Vancouver Canucks. Is there anything that immediately pops to mind? Ooh. You know where mine went right away, which is, I don't even know if people will remember this. There was a game Kirk McLean played in Montreal. Yeah. It was unbelievable. He even got a standing ovation from the crowd at the forum.

Yeah. The Luongo, yeah, there's nothing that, you know why? That's sad that there's nothing that really jumps to front of mind. It's going to see one of the ones where Luongo had the, was it the what game did he have the most saves in a contest it was an overtime game

in the playoffs but it's not jumping out like I don't remember the number wasn't there a Kessler game against the Preds in 2011 like I mean I know he was great that whole series but wasn't there like one specific game

I seem to recall where it was just like it felt like he was on the ice the whole night like he played the whole 60 minutes I wrote about I wrote about this and if you actually go back

and look at it there's not one definitive moment in that series it's funny like a consistent performance. Trott said afterwards that Kessler won the series. Yeah. He made it like, he's like, there's one guy that we couldn't stop, and it wasn't either of the Cedians. He's like, we could not figure out Kessler. And he was unbelievable. It was one of the best single series performances by a Vancouver Canuck ever. A lot of people texting in Daniel's four goals versus Detroit and Henrik's game to clinch the Art Ross. Yeah. We had four points. Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty high bar to eclipse.

the 10 point night by Daryl Settler. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, but no, honestly, nothing really jumps to front of mind, which is weird because... I'm sure there are moments. I mean, our brains are kind of mush right now. Yeah, but I think to that point is there's not one definitive one, like what we're talking. Like, no one knows the Lemieux scoring a goal every conceivable way and Sittler scoring 10 points. God, I remember when Sam Gagne scored nine points in a game.

And I mean, like those ones, I mean, they jump off the page. Yeah. But anyway. Okay. So I watched quite a bit of hockey last night And I realized one thing And this is kind of out of left field But we do not give David Posternak

Enough love on our show It is 900th career point last night And he's unbelievable I mean I know Morgan Geeky has Also unbelievable But like how much of that We talk about We talk about great players

Elevating others How much of Morgan Geeky's success is predicated by playing with David Posternak. Probably a lot of it. You know, on Geeky's goal last night, you know, Posternock took on three opponents and got the puck to Giki. He's like, sweet, I'm open, because you took all those guys. And then Posternak went and scored in overtime.

And the Bruins are looking good to make the playoffs right now. Yep. They got the second wildcard spot. So they are six points up on Florida. Now, Florida does have a couple of games in hand, so it's a little closer than it appears. But the Bruins have a plus 12 goal differential, and the Panthers are minus nine.

That's a difference. I'm starting to look at playoff matchups right now. And the one team in the West that I hope ends up playing either Vegas or Edmonton is Utah. Because Utah is cooking right now. they're one of the hottest teams in the league their goal differential is

one of the best in the league it's plus 21 you know that's better than minnesota's it's better than Vegas it's better than Edmonton and first place in the Pacific division could very well mean a matchup with the Utah mammoth

and finishing second in the Pacific might actually be the preferred first round because then you're going to get, what, Anaheim, maybe L.A.? Can you mention if L.A. gets Edmonton again? It's very possible. Very possible. It is. Now, it could be the Sharks, but I'm still, I watched the Sharks play and I'm like, yeah, Celebrity's good. He's going to really have to drag them into the playoffs.

I get Kiever Sherwood in the mix. Well, maybe they're improving as the season is going on. San Jose, by the way. I mean, they dominated the Canucks last night. San Jose and Randy mentioned this on the broadcast. The 650, Sports Night 650 broadcast, the radio broadcast. They have the second easiest schedule in the entire national hockey league following the Olympic break. The San Jose Sharks do based on strength of schedule opponent and the amount of games that they've got at home. Now they're tied dead even on points with the Kings and the Crackin for the second and final wildcard spot in the West, like you mentioned. But between that, like the strength of schedule and what they've got last.

the way Celebrini's playing, the Sherwood bump, which I assume he will give them. Now, it's always dangerous to assume those things, because sometimes these trades just, they just don't work out for whatever reason. But I kind of like San Jose to be ahead of schedule, and this is the year that they sneak in.

Maybe a la what Ottawa and Montreal did last year. You know, they were a little bit ahead of schedule, Ottawa, I think especially, because, you know, if you want to talk about progress as a team not always being left, linear. And now Otto is taking a step back and they're most likely going to miss this year. That three spot in the Pacific Division is very interesting.

By the way, this is one of the worst years for the Pacific Division in recent memory. It is not good at all. The top team is Vegas who is having a very underwhelming year by their standards. Yeah. They're on 63 points. They only have 18 regulation wins. They're a 606 win percentage, which is fine. Points percentage, yeah.

What did I say? Win percentage? Yeah, points percentage. But they should not be a top of division team. I mean, if you put them in the east, they're on wildcard territory, right? Even in the West and in that Pacific division. But again, you look at it. And I hate hammering away because I know we've made this abundantly clear, but the Canucks aren't just bad this year.

The Canucks have the potential to be historically bad this year. There's no guarantee this team is going to get to 60 points. They're on 39 right now. There's no guarantee that this team is going to be able to keep it below a minus 70 goal differential. We are talking about one of the worst regular season performances in the NHL over the last decade is what they're putting up. We've had some bad teams in the NHL over the last few years, no question. If you look at the teams that have been at the top of the draft board and you go back and look, they got there on merit. They were, they stunk.

but the performances at home with another long home stand coming up the Kinecks could easily easily have one of the worst single season efforts and by that I mean points and wins that they've ever had in franchise history I think if you're bad enough you shouldn't have to do the draft lottery

you should just be awarded first overall just go right to the top once it's bad enough right to the top you have to hit a threshold but once you get there they're just like here's first overall I think a lot of you know what When everyone says Vancouver won't survive a rebuild, it's not ready for a rebuild, the fans won't stomach rebuild. I don't think that's it.

I think what it is, is it's new. And you learn things along the way. And what we're learning right now is how truly bad you have to be to be right at the bottom. Because the Kineks have been bad before. They're very good at it. Good of being bad. But this is like to be, to have the stink lines coming off you and everything, you have to go right to the bottom of the NHL.

And they're getting worse. You have to be 32 of 32 and you have to do it sometimes by a wide margin. And they're doing it right now. They are awful, awful hockey team. And if you look at some of the worst teams of, let's just say the salary cap era, which starts mid-2000s, a lot of the teams that have these truly awful records, they were trying to be bad. Yeah.

That's another thing that I just keep coming back to. This was not the plan for this year. So AP and Langley writes in, why are you guys spending more time on the upcoming draft? Because it's January. That's why. The draft is in late June. There's months, months.

And we've already done a ton during the world juniors. It was all McKenna talk, Stenberg, Keaton-Verhof. It's January 28th. There is no way. stomach except for the biggest sickos on the planet to do six months of uninterrupted draft talk. You just can't. Right?

You can't. I'm sorry. But there's a product that's going out on the ice every second night that you are the, I mean, you have to cover it. And you have to talk about it. Yeah. You can't, and this is what I was talking about earlier in the show. You can't just fast forward this party. You can just be like, well, throw the remaining 30 games in the toilet.

It doesn't work like that. every game in the NHL matters to somebody on some level if it's a player that's trying to break in or if it's a coach trying to save his job or if it's a kid trying to learn or if it's a veteran trying to show these still like the games still matter you can't just go well let's just fast forward to the draft

wait for the draft lottery it just doesn't work like that if I want to focus on one thing it's not the draft right now it's the guys that are making the picks well that's a big part of it too there's been I guess confidence shown in the the management group but how how how

has any bet that this management group has made on this season or in the past few seasons has any of those bets worked out one of them has one of them worked you know the players that they signed

the trades that were made the coach that was hired anything no find one thing that they bet on and got right We can try and do it at the break. We're up against it for time. You're listening to the Halford-Imbroft show on Sportsnet 650.