Halford & Brough in the Morning - We, For One, Welcome Our AI Overlords

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

In hour two, Halford & Brough argue about the merits of artificial intelligence (3:00), they discuss some more NHL news from yesterday (13:00), plus they talk the latest Canucks news with radio commentator Brendan Batchelor (27:10). 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.

["Sailor Moon Theme"] 7.02 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour two of the program. Hour two is Bratty by Jason Hominuk from Jason.mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around

to find the perfect mortgage for you. That's me being facetious. Let him do both those things. Visit him at Jason.mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Have you tried DeepSeek? What is that? The new AI.

I don't do any of the AI stuff. That's your domain exclusively on the show. You don't use chat GVD? Never used it. I don't even know how to use it. Prof's all about the chat GVD. I have conversations with it. I don't use ChatGP? I've never used it. Never? I don't even know how to use it. Prof's all about the ChatGP. I have conversations with it. I know. How does it go? We have good long conversations.

And I'm actually thinking of replacing you with DeepSeek now. The free therapy. Hot dog, we have a winner. It's free therapy. I have never used AI or ChatGP or Deep, what's it called? DeepCuts? DeepSeek. DeepSeek.

It's the new Chinese one that roiled the stock markets yesterday. I don't know what any of those words mean. Why is it so good? Why is it so good? Yeah. It's got personality. Super smart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's handsome. Hello, I'm Deep Seek. Apparently. You're going somewhere with this, right? Other than just asking me? Oh, just curious. If you guys use it, it was a big story yesterday. I saw that, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, what did you see about it? Did you just read the headlines? You were like, this has nothing to do with hacky sack. What you said is like DeepSeek has rallied up the hacky sack industry and caused big turmoil. No, no, it affected the stock market, like $1 trillion or something like that.

It's been insane. It really affected Nvidia. Yeah, yeah, I affected the stock market, like one trillion or something like that. It's insane. It really affected Nvidia. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. One of the hotter stocks and just people wondering who's going to win the AI race. Is it going to be China? Is there going to be the United States? It's essentially the new, not Cold War, but a

lot of people- The new frontier. Yeah, a lot of people think that whoever wins the race for the best AI is going to have a lot of control in this world, but you know, Halfords not interested. So what do you want to do? Halfords watch the sports doc on the

1986 Mets again or something. What? Do you A and I stand for again? It's a baseball stat. Uh, but no, to go back to the question of what is so good about Deepsea compared to like other AIs, is there anything specific? I am actually.

Is it just smarter or. I'm not an engineer, but I think one of the stories and whether or not this is true or not. Does it matter? Is that some very, this is the story that that lab is putting out is that they did this for like $6 million, right? They, they just, and, and, and their version uses

less computing power, which could be good or bad, depending on the way you see it for certain companies, um, and that it's like a bit of a game changer. Now it's coming out of China. So a lot of people don't trust whether or not they really did just spend $6 million on this, which is, you know, a crazy low amount to

create this thing. Um, I doubt that they did and just how they did it because it's all very secretive, but I downloaded it yesterday. It was the top, um, it was a top app on Apple and you know, I and I use these things. I think it's easier than going to, you can ask these questions

and it's great at summarizing things. Is all the information accurate? No, do you have to consider the data about that? Of course, but it's the next, if you're not using it, if you're not using it, you should at least know what's out there. In terms of, it's basically for me, it's my advanced search engine. I don't mind AI as long as it's not artistic.

The AI stuff that bothers me is when it replaces real people for an artistic purpose, whether that be visual art or graphic effects or music or even what we do radio hosts Yeah, so like in that aspect of it I find AI to be very cold and I don't understand why somebody would Like it my for something like what you just said for like a summary of a search engine. Yeah, that's great Because it's just quick information. Well, there's whether it's accurate or not, you know, it's it's hilarious Like all the people texting and really well's going really well in the dump truck. Please don't be a useful idiot. Uh, you know, uh, it's stealing your information

and all that sort of stuff. It was like, like, I understand all this stuff, but I'm like, you should still know about what's available out there and what's going on right here and you should know about this because this is, I'm not saying this is new, the new arms race. Like. But what happens when it becomes self aware?

Have we not seen Terminator? Do we not know what happens in Terminator? This seems very, very dangerous to me. I think what he's trying to say- Don't you think it's fascinating technology? Oh, totally. It's also slightly terrifying. You can ask this thing a question and it can come up with a pretty good answer.

I think what you're saying is that you've got an intellectual curiosity and you want to know. I don't think engaging with the platform equals promoting it. You're just trying them out. You're trying it out. That's it. Cause there's a lot of people. I want to know what's replacing me someday. Right. There's a lot of people and not surprisingly, many of them texting into the show that have really hot, quick opinions that maybe aren't listening to the totality of the conversation. The conversation is this is out there, there's countless users, and you tried it. Now, I get most of my research from an old school platform, which is the microfiche at the library.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Because no one is stealing that information. In fact, no one's using that. So you're the guy. Yeah. There's a single solitary user in this game. Do you remember that? Yeah. The microfiche. We have new periodicals in microfiche. It is really. We have new periodicals and microfiche. It is really incredible.

The era that we have lived through, you know, I'm born in 76. 1876. Okay. 76. So I remember, like I didn't have the internet in high school. And then I remember in university doing my papers

where it would be a race to the library to see who could get the books in order to do your paper because there are only a certain amount of books in the library that were eligible to be used for your paper and you would get there and be like, yeah, they're all out. You're like, well, I'm out of answers. I have no way of getting information. Now here's a text that ties in everything.

The AI race is going to destroy our planet way before the Pedersen contract is up anyways. You know what? See? They might be correct. I like it. Also, if you're wondering where Ray Ferrara is right now and if we're just filibustering, we're not. This was completely spontaneous, but Ray had a scheduling conflict. So we're gonna try.

Ray-eye? So we're working on getting his Ray-eye to fill in. That's an AI Ray? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it is. I love the paranoid text too. No, I don't. Just curious, were you guys told to talk about this? What?

Yeah, are AI overlords would please mention us. We are Chinese agents. Yeah. If there's one thing we wanted to talk about. This guy's brain is going off. See, I knew this was going to happen, so I didn't tell Halford or Adog or anyone else that I was going to bring up this topic.

I just foisted upon them. When something, just curious, were you guys told to talk about this? Yeah, we often try and promote the thing that will one day take our jobs and render us obsolete. We wanna promote those as quickly as possible. No, no one told us to talk about it. The radio box is talking about the AI. You would be amazed at how little feedback

we get from people about this show. No one tells us to talk about anything. They're just like, read the commercials, that's it. That's the only direction that we get speaking of the show Ray is gonna join us hopefully later in the program and then batches do we got any update on that? I'm still working on things. Okay, so everything-

Ray and Batch are coming up at some point or another. Everything's been moved around. And if I can't get either then we'll just do some AI guests. Eastwood and New West with all due respect, this AI conversation would be so much more entertaining with Taylor and Dolly Wall. Better yet, imagine Moj. No. Can you imagine the five of us getting together and trying to figure out AI?

I could not. I want to hear Dolly Wall's take on it. You should ask him on Friday. No. Can you imagine? Could you? No, I'm not kidding. Please ask him.

Can you imagine how many times he would screw up DeepSeek? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's get back to the sport, shall we? Yesterday on the Amazon Prime broadcast

of the Canucks Blues game, Canucks general manager Patrick Alveen was one of the intermission guests. And while Alveen, by the way, have you noticed he's kind of reverted back into Johnny, after that one interview with iMac where he said interesting stuff, he's now reverted right back into Johnny tight lips.

Well, because that interview had a point. Yep. I still laugh. As opposed to the other ones. Well, the other ones are just like, oh, I got to do this because it's an Amazon broadcast and I don't want to say no to them. So I'll come out and I won't say much of anything,

but that I still laugh reading the transcript of that interview because IMAQ is like, but what about the positives? He's like, enough about the positives IMAQ. Brackets, scoffs. And then he goes on to talk about whatever he wants to talk about.

He went into that interview with a point to make and these guys have been holding their top players feet to the fire and you can disagree on whether it's a good idea or not, but I think it's very much has been intentional and they were looking to see a response from these guys. They've seen it at times from JT Miller, maybe not consistently, but they've seen it at times.

And I don't think they've seen the response from Pedersen. Right. So one of the responses last night was from JT Miller, who in addition to scoring a goal also had a big fight in the first period against Brede and Schenn. Ryan, we've got the audio here.

This is Patrick Alveen yesterday talking about JT setting the tone yesterday and how JT Miller is an old school player. Oh, absolutely. I said to Chris here I like the response from JT early on with Schenner there. Big goal for him and he plays hard for us. He's a hard guy in the league, old-school guy like yourself. They're hard to play against and he's a big part of our team. Chris by the way was Chris Prong, who was also on the broadcast yesterday, in case you're wondering who he's referencing there. And I guess he was talking about

Pronger being a tough piece of business when he was playing and JT Miller being the same. I don't- Al, he's like, Pronger, can you still play? Yeah. We need some help. We need someone on the back end. You fit the hype profile.

You can just come play for us. The thing with Miller is what we saw last night, and it was funny because the Amazon broadcast actually, they're like, well, and here was another previous highlight, and they showed the goals from the Montreal game. And I'm like, now tell them how many games it was between those two performances. Like there needs to be more regular, consistent play

from Pedersen and Miller. It's so cut and dry. Like it's great that you get these flashes. It's great that he has these things to say where he's an old school player and he stepped up and he set the tone and everything. But this team, so often this year, has taken the tone from Pedersen and Miller.

And my biggest complaint of those two guys, honestly, isn't the rift or the lack of harmony. It's that there's been way too many nights where both of them at the exact same time have really, really quiet, dare I say, non-existent performances. And this team is not built, wired, or set up to have those two guys no show.

Okay, but I feel like this is a bit of an elephant in the room. Right. Um, you know, there's been so much talk about the system, et cetera, et cetera. What about all the trade rumors going on? Do you think it would be pretty tough to come to the rink every day and just have that consistent effort when you know, like you're almost held out of the lineup one night because you're going to get traded. I think that, um, there's been enough moments of like really like old, old Miller,

last year Miller, uh, deemed changing Miller that if you're going to chalk up the trade rumors to that, then I say, why would they ever manifest and show themselves? Why would it not just be a guy that's completely gone in the tank? But, and again, last night it was a fight. Something that you do, you know, it's an emotional investment getting in that fight and he got popped. Like, let's be clear, like Miller got knocked, I

mean, I thought he got knocked out when he got hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was worried that he was going to hit his head on the ice because Shen ripped his helmet off. Yeah. I mean, not really the kind of actions that you would expect from a guy that's got one foot out the door. That's all I'm saying to that. If he was completely flatlined and there was nothing, and to be honest, I think that he's shown more flashes of investment, emotion,

give a crap than Pedersen has. You know what I mean? 100%. So if it was. But it just hasn't been consistent. Put it this way. If you were to tell me what guy's play is reflective of someone that's checked out and is waiting for a move, I'd say Pedersen looks

like, and this is just looks, eye test, but looks like that guy more than Miller. And I think what Alveen said was at times accurate. He is an old school guy and he can be a leader. But I want, and this is why when we spoke yesterday and you're like, what would be the one question that you would have of Rutherford if he came in? I stand by what I said is, is this season salvageable in your eyes? Like, do you think that somehow everything's going to, the ship is going to get righted and you guys are going to be able to go

as far as you did in the postseason last year? And the answer I think would be like, well, if we can get Pedersen and Miller playing how they played last year, yes. Yeah. And then I'll be like, can you, do you think that's feasible? And I'm not sure they're there. I think they still, I think everyone thinks

that the inevitability here is someone gets traded, right? But the season could still be salvageable thinks that the inevitability here is someone gets traded, right? But the season could still be salvageable that way if one of them is traded. See salvageable and. My, my question would be what the hell happened to your team?

Yeah. Bigger picture. But they're back now. Of course. Two wins a row. I like this one. If you want to blow up AI, ask how the Canucks can fix the Miller-Peterson situation, then stand back

and watch the meltdown. Yeah. We're going to need more Nvidia chips. We don't have the computing power to figure out this team. Yeah. Well, it's true. I don't, like, I have no idea what to expect

on Wednesday night in Nashville. I didn't really know what to expect last night in St. Louis, to be honest. Uh, it's been too much one game on, one game off, two games on, two games off. It just, it fluctuates way too much one game on one game off two games on two games off. It just, it fluctuates way too much. I will say this. I was trying to remember a time where I was more impressed with the first period by the Vancouver connects, given their pension for really slow,

lethargic lethargic starts this year outside of the disallowed goal. That was really the only thing that St. Louis had in that first period. Yeah. Shots were 12 to four. It was a good solid first road period. The kind of performance where you're like, can you not just do that more often, with more regularity? And the answer so far this season has been, no, you can't.

They don't have, for some reason or another, and I think the continual dysfunction of is someone getting traded, is someone not, are they on the move, are they not plays a huge role in it for sure. They just have not shown the ability thus far to be able to string together any sort of consecutive good performances. Is this the trip? I hope so because I don't like doing the up down, up down, peak valley, peak valley. But if the 47, 48 game sample size previous to this suggests anything, this is the way it's going to go, which is frustrating. Okay. What else happened in the NHL last night?

Well, Connor McDavid also returned from his suspension last night. I know everyone was focused on Tyler Myers. How did he do? He did score a goal. So too did Corey Perry. Both of them scored in the second period. Oilers rallied to beat the crack in four two for their third straight win. Uh, McDavid obviously back in after a three game suspension for cross checking Connor Garland tied the score to two after they were down to the crack. And as I mentioned, they rallied. So they came back and win a one. The Oilers are on fire. They've now won 11 of 14.

They're back in first place in the Pacific division, one point ahead of Vegas who didn't play last night. Speaking of the Pacific division, I do want to point out that the Los Angeles Kings wobbling as of late, they fell five to to the Detroit Red Wings yesterday. So they are now two five and one of the last eight. So two wins in their last eight. You look at the standings right now, they are only three points up on Calgary. They're only four points up on the Canucks. Now granted they've got games in hand on each, but that, that run that they

went on in December was basically after you remember the Kings started the season with a really lengthy road trip because they were doing renovations of crypto and they kind of get, it was a mediocre start. Then they got hot. They played really well. They got out to a nice cushion. They were actually challenging for top spot in the Pacific. They've come back to earth lately, as I mentioned, just two wins in their last eight. Um, so it's, it's interesting to watch where they're going to end up because if you've got

Calgary and Vancouver right on your heels and you're not playing well, you might slip into that first wild card spot. So we'll see on that one. Also cool moment in that game, Dominic Shine. Do you know who Dominic Shine is? No. Dominic Shine. Did he shine? He did. He's 31 years old. He made his NHL debut last night. Oh, that's awesome.

The ripe old age of 31. That is awesome. Yeah, for the Detroit Red Wings, he has spent, I believe, eight consecutive seasons playing for Grand Rapids. Did he get up in the NHL? I was like, this is fast. I was like, oh my God. That was way too fast.

So it was funny. He's Todd Mc, so they had a bunch. Too old for this league. They had a bunch of injuries. Teresenko got hurt, Kane got hurt, and JT Comfort got hurt. So they needed an emergency call up. So they brought a guy who's

been, you know, plying his trade for forever, 31 years old, never played in the NHL. Todd McClellan had no idea who he was. He actually said, he's like, I had never heard of Dominic Shine until this morning, when they announced that they were calling him up, because he's new to the organization as well, right? So 31 year old dude finally gets to play in the National Hockey League. He had just under 10 minutes of ice time in a win for the wings last night. So that was pretty cool. What else you got from last night?

Well yesterday, did you see this story out of Ottawa? I did see a story about Quebec City, but I need it to be explained. Laddie and I were talking about this this morning. So, uh, you know that the new sends owner, Michael Andlour, uh, at one point was a part owner of the Montreal Canadians. I don't know if a lot of people know this, but Michael Andlour also grew up in Quebec. So on Monday in Quebec city, Michael Andlour held a

news conference, uh, confirming that the senators were gonna play a couple exhibition games in Quebec next fall, right? First blush, like no big deal, you know, just a couple exhibition games. Exhibition games, who cares? Quebec, what's it called, the Videotron Center? Something like that, yeah. Videotron, I don't know, anyway.

Blockbuster Square. Deep Seek Center. Now don't know, anyway. Blockbuster Square. Deep Seek Center. Oh, don't anger the listeners. When are we gonna get an AI sponsored arena? Oh, it's coming. I've got a call with China later today. Good, just checking. So no big deal that you're playing exhibition games

in Quebec, they've always had exhibition games. They love getting exhibition games. They've got an NHL arena. Where things got dicey were on two fronts. Ann Lauer, and I think maybe this is a bit of naivete from him, because I don't think he understood how on edge Sens fans are about the state of the franchise. They're always worried about the franchise leaving,

or they think that they're gonna get a new arena and then they don't. Eugene Melnick, like I know he's passed away, but I think he left a lot of residual scarring on that fan base for, we might like, you always feel like you're on edge, like things might go bad at any given. He legit threatened to move the team at one point. Right. So there's always that. And they still don't have a new arena plan. But right. So there's always that, that fear that they might be on the move. So They still don't have a new arena plan.

But right. So there's always that, that fear that they might be on the move. So Ann Lauer kind of acknowledged that it might not just be exhibition games that we're going to play in Quebec. We might play some regular season games there as well. But what was the thing that put the fans over the edge? Well, there's one thing you can't do in Ottawa and that's mess with the mascot and the logo. So the Sens put out a photo of their mascot, Spartacat.

Did not know this existed until he was, did not know he was a thing, had no idea. On social media, there was a picture of Sparty wearing a half Senators, half Nordiques jersey. Oh. It sent the fan base over the edge. They went ballistic. They were on tilt.

Did they think they were gonna share the team? Like Montreal and Tampa were gonna share the race? They were freaking out. Freaking out. gonna share the race. They were freaking out. Freaking out. They said it was basically when the bleep hit the fan. Yeah. And to the point where one of my favorite names in the NHL, Cyril Leder. Not to be confused with Cyril Sneer. Same first name, different last names. Cyril Leder, who is the COO president? He's the president.

The president of the Ottawa Senators had to take to social media to offer an apology, not for suggesting that they're going to play regular season games in Quebec, but they dressed the mascot up in a dual logo jersey. So it was half Senators, half Nordiques? Yes. Did it say like Senediques or? No. It was just, not the words, just the logo, but I appreciate your creativity.

And you know, it's. The Nordators. Ha, the Nordators. So this is, this is the, it was so earnest too, from Cyril, sends fans for clarity. Number one, the team is not moving, period. Other than hopefully downtown. Right.

This is the part that got me. Number two, the team is not moving, period. Other than hopefully downtown. This is the part that got me. Number two, putting our beloved Sparty in a SensNords jersey was wrong. Today was a good reminder that our logo is sacred. As CEO, I own this one. Now, hopefully we can all focus on Washington. Could you imagine you're the CEO of a billion dollar enterprise.

You're dealing with high level real estate transactions, massive player contracts. You're employing over what, 200, 300 people in the organization. And then you're also like, I need to address the mascot issue and the Jersey that we dressed him in for one single social media post.

Yeah. And that was what Serial Leader had to do yesterday. The Melnick, the Melnick legacy lives on. The fans have insecurities in Ottawa. There's no other way to put it. Yeah. You can't live on edge for that long and then just not have any residual scarring.

Like it's, it's too much. We know all about scarring here in Vancouver. We're a scarred fan base. Okay. Uh, updated lineup batch is going to join us next. We'll talk about the Canucks, uh, win last night in St. Louis and look ahead to the rest of the road trip continues on tomorrow in Nashville and finishes Friday in St. Louis and look ahead to the rest of the road trip continues on tomorrow in Nashville

and finishes Friday in Dallas. And then Ray Ferraro, who double booked himself. He's such a popular guy. Two weeks in a row. Double booked himself. Not a good planner, Ray Ferraro, but a great hockey analyst, he's going to join us at eight o'clock on the Halford and Bruff show on Sportsnet 650.

Uh, before we go to break, I need to tell you about the Clayton Public House. You can still get reservations for the big football party hosted by us, Sportsnet 650 at the Clayton Public House. Visit them online, claytonpublichouse.com. Clayton Public House, good food, good people, good times. You're listening to the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Mick Nazar. Have your say and join me on the People's Show with big takes and even bigger bets weekdays 3 to 4 on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. It's his friend and bachelor, bachelor, bachelor

Live from Rogers Arena, Carlinka, Knox Games It's his friend and bachelor, bachelor, bachelor 7.33 on a Tuesday, happy Tuesday everybody, Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650 Halford Brough for the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service or parts. We are in hour two of the program. Brendan Batchelor is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour two of this program is brought to you by Jason Homonuck from Jason.mortgage. If you love paying too much for your mortgage,

then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit him on the internet at jason.mortgage. The Dunbar Lumber text line right now is a mix of political takes on artificial intelligence, the Ottawa senators, and the short-lived CBC cartoon, The Raccoons. Raccoons. He still can't say it. It's so funny.

We're even getting some AI texting in. AI is awesome. Talk more about it. Especially the Chinese version. Sometimes I wonder. It's amazing. I wonder what happens when the next show comes in and looks at the inbox and they're like,

what did they do this morning? I always think about that. What did they do? So out of context. How? This is so weird. How? The other, the rest of the inbox is just like

underrated Serial someone pointed out that serial snare was an aardvark. I didn't even know that really yeah Oh, yeah, I guess he is raccoons from before my time. I mean I know what they are you just called it raccoons Why can't you use why can't either of you say? raccoons raccoons either of you say raccoon. Raccoons. Raccoons. I love the raccoons. So in this morning, what can I work?

You're putting the emphasis on the wrong salable to the phone lines. We go. Brendan Batchelor joins us now on the Halford and Bref show on Sportsnet 650. What a batch. Good morning, gentlemen. How are you? Good, sir. We're throwing into the middle of this. We'll just focus on the game. Don't need to wait into any of this. I was a good performance second in a row for the Vancouver Canucks.

First consecutive win since December 1st. It's a shocking, shocking figure, but it was a good performance last night in St. Louis. Yeah, it was. And it's been even longer than that since they had consecutive regulation wins. That's right. If I'm not mistaken, both of those wins were in overtime. So a good, a good couple of games here. and now the question is going to be can they turn it into three or four or five and find some consistency to their game but you know a big

win against the team that was chasing them in the in the playoff race so they have a little bit of breathing room from St. Louis they've still got a couple of games in hand on them and they climb back closer to the Calgary flames. So all in all, I thought a pretty good performance. They got some timely scoring from guys that haven't been scoring very much lately. So you hope that that, you know, gets them off the Schneid a little bit and we'll see if they can carry that through into Nashville and the rest of the road trip here throughout the rest of the week. We're staring at each other. Okay. Um, that was hilarious. We both pointed at each other. Their batch. If only you could be in studio with us right now. Um, I can't do that.

It's been totally on the rails this morning. It's been really good. Uh, you mentioned a couple of timely scores there in Pew suitor specifically. What was it? 23 games without a goal. Uh, you know, it was actually, it's, it's funny because if you look at the funk that the team has been in over the last little bit, there have been some guys that were clicking early in the season that weren't. And I do want to turn this conversation to what we've been talking about a lot

this morning. They got really good goaltending for a second consecutive game. I know it wasn't like a barrage of shots on Kevin Lankin, but if you talk about timely scoring, I think there were some very timely saves in that game as well. And this isn't meant to throw dirt or shade at that or Demko, but it just feels like especially against Washington last night,

that they're getting those timely saves that they weren't necessarily getting with Demko. And lo and behold, two consecutive wins. Yeah, for sure. And you know, the Washington game in particular, I thought Lincoln was good early to hold the minute so they didn't put themselves behind right off the bat. Like, you know, has happened relatively often this year. And this is a different team when they can score first and play with the lead and especially when they can build on that lead like they did last night. You know, so the goaltending is important. I think, you know, the the defensive environment for the goaltenders is also really important so that they're not, you know, under a constant barrage of chances as has been the case at times when this team doesn't play the way it needs to but,

you know, I think over the last couple of games anyway, the back end has been pretty good. I thought Tyler Myers was really good last night and helped settle things down at times in their own zone. And, you know, take into account that this is a blues team that doesn't score very much. You know, they were tied for the fewest home ice goals in the NHL going into the game last night. So, you know, you could only play the competition you're facing. But you know, at the

same time to have a couple of wins to get some good saves to feel confident about the guy playing behind you. And again, I'm not trying to throw shade at Thatcher Demko either, but, you know, at least within the context of this season, Kevin Lankin has been a guy that has stolen games for them and given them confidence and given them chances to win games when they otherwise might not have had them. So to have him play a couple of strong games to get back to his game is good. And I think the interesting thing about going forward with the goaltending is on one hand, you know, Rick Taukett's talked about wanting to get Thatcher Demko on a roll and try and get him on his game. But at the same time, you know, we Talkett's talked about wanting to get Thatcher Demko on a roll and try and get him on his game.

But at the same time, you know, we're, we're getting into the stretch run here where you need wins and, um, you need to find a way to get points to try and claw back in that playoff race and get back into a wild card spot. And at least based on recent performance, Kevin Lankin, it appears to be your best option to do that. But also we've seen that when they play Lankin in too much, to be your best option to do that. But also, we've seen that when they play Lankin in too much, that is also problematic for his game. So, with no back-to-backs before the Four Nations face-off, I'll be really interested to see how they manage the goaltenders and like,

for example, whether Demko gets in tomorrow night against the Predators or whether they feel like they should go back to Lankin and how that plays out with games against Dallas and Detroit on Friday and Sunday. Batch, I saw you arguing with people on Twitter yesterday and first of all, come on man, you know better than that. But second of all, I guess since you were arguing about it, I'll ask you about the argument you were having. What do you think about the current debate between is it the player players fault or is it the

coaches fault when it comes to the Canucks inability, forget last night, to generate scoring chances and score goals? Well, the thing I think about people that want to accuse the coaching staff, and I see a lot of this in my mentions with people criticizing the Lions but people will say oh it's Tockett's dump and chase system or his low event style of hockey and to a certain extent that's true they've never been a high shot volume team under Rick

Tockett and they did benefit from an unsustainably high shooting percentage, especially early last season. But anybody that spends any time listening to Rick Tocket talk about the way he wants his team to play has to understand that the way they are playing is not the way he wants them to play on most nights or at least that's been the way it is this season. You know, you asked the question the other day about are they deferring to the point too much and he said absolutely yes, we want them to go to the middle of the ice when one of the biggest criticisms I've seen of his system is that he doesn't, you know, that's the way he wants to generate offense is the low to high play and you know, you spend two minutes talking to him and you realize that's not what

he wants at all but that's what his guys are doing because they're deferring and you know whether it's you know lack of courage or lack of willingness to pay the price to get to some of those scoring areas that to me has been the big issue with the Canucks you know struggles offensively and I think it's just disingenuous to look at a team that had so much success last year. And again, to a certain extent that was fueled by high PDO and all of these other factors, and they were very healthy and obviously they haven't been this year. But a head coach doesn't just go from winning the Jack Adams one year to being a coach that isn't capable of managing his bench the next year. So, you know,

would you look at all of the factors that have led to the Canucks struggles this year? I'm not saying Rick Tocket is without blame. I think there are some things he could have done better. I think the way they approach training camp where they emphasize rush offense so much cost them defensively early in the year and probably hurt his group's confidence to a certain extent, but to sit here and say that, you know, this is all on target when we can also see obvious flaws with the roster construction and the defensive group he has at his disposal in particular,

I just don't see it that way. Again, when things go wrong for a team, it's multifaceted, it's complicated. There are a variety of things that have caused this group issues this year and I just think it's an oversimplification to blame the head coach for all of it and I see way too much of that in this fan base, especially on social media. How much do you think they've missed Dakota Joshua and his size and his ability to get to the middle of the ice? Oh, hugely, right? Like not just Dakota Joshua, but his role on that third line that drove play for them last year, because, you know, with some of the injuries they've had, they've had to play Garland higher up in the lineup. So they haven't had like a three headed monster in terms of the lines they can roll out there like they did last season where, you know, we all remember whether it was suitor

or Bluger or Lindholm on that line. Rick Tauke it through that line out in almost any situation and they delivered for him last year and a big part of that was Dakota Joshua and his ability on the four check and you know, his size and physicality and the goals that he scored or the offense that he contributed. And obviously through no fault of his own, even when he was in the lineup this year, he wasn't able to play that way and was still getting up to speed.

And that's one thing I think we've seen with Joshua, with JT Miller to a certain extent, because he missed a lot of the preseason battling an injury with Thatcher Demko, with Philip Horonich, who was out for 21 games in the modern NHL with the pace the game is played at and how taxing it can be if you miss training camp or you miss the preseason or you miss an extended amount of time it's hard to get up to speed and you know I I I feel bad for Dakota Joshua because

he was such an important factor of this team. And unfortunately this year through a variety of reasons, through injury, and obviously through his cancer diagnosis and subsequent recovery from that, he hasn't been a factor for this group and they've missed him and they've missed having a third line that can drive play. And I also don't think it's a coincidence that since Rick Taukett spread out the offense a little bit or spread out his top players over three lines, right? Like he's had Miller on one line, he's had Garland who helps drive play on another line, and he's had Pederson on another line over the

last two games, that they've had a bit of success here because that was such a big part of how they performed and how well they were able to do and how they were able to keep momentum and change momentum in games last year was the fact that that third line did that for them on a night in night out basis. And that's something they haven't had this year. You know, another guy that would create a lot of high danger chances at five on five last season or have them on his own stick was Nils Hoaglander. And we all know what's happened to Hoaglander's game.

I think some of it is he's a little bit snake bitten. Others it's just like, he doesn't really know his spot in the lineup. Sometimes he's been healthy scratched, but he had 24 even strength goals last season. He's got three goals this season. I know he's not top of the table in terms of talking points, but you know, you mentioned that third line and the consistency that it had, that it was a momentum changer. I think Holglinder is equally as big as that

storyline, that third line and um, and his whatever's going on with his game and his inability to keep a consistent role in the line of 24, even strength goals is nothing to sneeze at. No, absolutely it's not. And you know, I think he has been a victim of some of the added depth on the wing that this group brought in because last year, you remember, like it was a rotating cast of characters

in the top six and he was a part of that rotating cast of characters. And I think it was, it was around this time last year, maybe a week or two later, but they moved Hoaglander into the top six and he stayed there for the rest of the season, basically until the playoffs and you know he was eventually a healthy scratch for a couple of games in the series against the Oilers. But because of the lack of winger depth and lack of top six options, Niels Hoaglander was deployed more often than not as a top six winger last year, and that has not happened this season because of you you know, the addition of Jake Debrusk, for example, and some of the other guys that have performed better this year. And that, you know, we always hear about internal competition. That's what this

is all about is saying, okay, you know, as they said, coming into the year, we want to raise the bar from last year. And certainly it's been a struggle to do that with the way the team has performed on the ice, but that meant more internal competition and it certainly meant more internal competition on the wings because they've had a consistent problem where guys couldn't keep their spot and couldn't deliver on a consistent basis in the top six. And so, Hoaglander, you know, I think kind of fell out of that conversation and ended up on the fourth line for most of this year. And you're right, has been healthy scratched,

has been in and out of the lineup at times. And, you know, hasn't been able to find any traction with his game. And I think more recently he's been better. And even before he scored the one goal, I think it's what, one goal in 40 games now, you know, we were seeing chances. and I think in the last couple of games playing with Pederson and Carlson, he's sort of adopted a

four checking role and has played pretty well in that regard. But that's kind of the way he needs to play night in night out. Rick Tauke has always said this, you know, dating back to last season is doesn't matter whether he's on the fourth line or the first line, we need the same deals Hoaglander and we don't always get it. And then I think as has been the case with multiple players under this coaching staff who, you know, haven't had success or who have fallen by the wayside, some of the defensive issues and the lack of understanding of where he has to be in the defensive zone or, or the coverage he has to fulfill in his own end of the

ice have meant that he hasn't been trusted, his ice time has been decreased, and opportunity has been taken away from him. So that's what I've seen from a hoganander this year is a guy that still has all those tools to score those goals, but the puck hasn't gone in for him and he's had some defensive issues and as a result, he hasn't been a top six winger he's been a fourth-line winger for most of the year and you know you look back at his ice times in games and I think he went something like 30 plus games consecutively under 13 or 14 minutes so it's hard to have an impact when when you're not playing very much either although not only did he score 24 even strength goals last year, he was a tremendous rate score.

I think he was one of the best goal scorers in the league at even strength in terms of goals per 60 minutes. So, um, you know, it just hasn't gone in for him as regularly this year. And, and unfortunately, that's, that's, you know, kind of affected his overall game at times, I think. Uh, so in the first period yesterday, Batch, it looked like it was gonna be tied at 1-1 when Tyler Tucker's shot went past Lankton, but it was called back rather emphatically by TJ Luxmore

for goal interference by Dylan Holloway. I know Randeeb said on the post game show he thought that the call was gonna be overturned. Did you think it was gonna be overturned as well? I did, yeah, just cause I thought Hughes had guided, I believe it was Dylan Holloway into Lankton. And oftentimes we see that if, if there's a defender that guides the player in through the

crease or into the goaltender that, you know, we see those calls changed and those goals stand. But at the same time, like we have a running joke on the broadcast that we have no idea what goal tender interference is. And every time we think we know what it is, they call it the other way. And you know, that happened again last night.

So I've completely given up trying to interpret this rule because it's interpreted differently on a nightly basis. And in this case, it benefited the Caducks and they were able to score on the power play and it ended up being a big momentum turning moment in the game. See, that's why I thought that the challenge was crazy. Like I actually think that Montgomery might've been right, but based on everything you just said and everybody knowing that and the fact that

Luxembourg so definitively called the goal off, I was like, look, there might be interference there, but you need almost like a smoking gun to overturn it. And with goalie interference, it's never that because it's so arbitrary. The decisions I just thought it was a crazy challenge, especially since this penalty kill is so bad to begin with. Like, why would you even risk giving the Canucks another power play? Yeah, you know, I could certainly see it that way as well. And, you know, with Goal Tenor Interference, if I was a coach or a video coach that was in that position of having to make the decision

about whether it was going to be challenged, I would have to be pretty close to 100% sure on Goal Interference in particular. Obviously, offside challenges are very different and teams can have a very consistent and high rate of succeeding in those sorts of challenges. But, you know, goal interference, it's a complete mystery to me at times. And it's such a, you know, a vague rule that can be interpreted in so

many ways. And also, I think, you know, you're right to point out that especially when the call on the ice is no goal, it's going to have to be so definitive for that official to overturn it that you got to be certain, certain without a doubt that it's going to be, you know, a situation where they look at it on the video and say, Oh, you know, there's, there's no way that we can call that back. And obviously that wasn't the case. So, you know, yeah, it's a tricky one. I don't

really know what the NHL could do about it in terms of whether it would make sense to rewrite the rule to be more specific about some of these things. But, you know, there, you know, I can't even count the number of times that I've been sure one of those challenges is going to go one way and it goes the other way. It's something that I can't pin down and I think many people feel the same way. Batch, thanks for doing this bud. Have a good call on Wednesday. Sounds good.

Thanks guys. Thanks. Brendan Batchelor, play by play voice of the Vancouver Canucks here on the Haliford and Bref show on Sportsnet 650. Okay. I got a couple of things to pass along. We're going to talk to Ray in about 10 minutes. One, Cam Robinson, a reporter that works for elite prospects.

And has been doing quite a bit of reporting lately. Just tweeted out, sources indicate that many teams expect Brock Besser to be available at the deadline, barring a serious Canucks turnaround. If he does stay through the season, he'll likely be available on July 1st and a healthy group will be vying for his services on a long-term deal, something the Canucks appear wary of doing at this time.

So none of that should come as a shock. Although when you read it like that, you're like, oh my God, Brock might not be with the Canucks next season. So that's one thing to think about if you want to text into the Dunbar Lumber text line. Another thing, I think there's going to be an interview with Jim Rutherford coming out in the Globe and Mail and I think he might say some

stuff. Gary Mason, who was a long time sports writer here in Vancouver for the Vancouver Sun, now writing for the Globe and Mail and he has actually written a little bit on the Vancouver Sun, now writing for the Globe and Mail. And he has actually written a little bit on the Vancouver Canucks for that paper. Um, reached out to Jim Rutherford and I think he's asked him some questions about what has

happened to this team. And, um, Gary DMed me and he said, called it a very revealing interview with Jim Rutherford. So we'll see what Jim Rutherford has to say in this. It was funny because Gary DMed me a couple days ago and he said, Jason, if you were to ask Jim Rutherford any question or one question, what would it be?

And I gave him a few knowing full well that he wasn't just like kind of like, hey, I'm curious to talk to you, right? So my first, my question to him was what has happened since Elias Pedersen signed that contract? So maybe that's a question that Gary Mason asked Jim Rutherford. And that interview is apparently going to be

up on the Globe and Mail website pretty soon. So we'll see what Jim has to say in that interview. Before we go to break, I need to once again, remind you to reserve your spot for the big football party at the Clayton Public House hosted by Sportsnet 650. Visit theclaytonpub.com for more. The Clayton Public House, good food, good

people, good times. Ray Ferraro coming up next on the Halford and Breff show on Sportsnet 650.