Halford & Brough in the Morning - Who Should Go First Overall At This Year's NHL Entry Draft?

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

In hour two, Mike & Jason discuss the latest NHL news with ESPN Hockey's Greg Wyshynski (1:32), plus they talk World Juniors with FloHockey Content Manager and prospects expert Chris Peters (26:36). 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.

702 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brum for the morning. Spratted by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal can get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. Visit them online at sands dash trustee.com. We are in hour two of the program.

Greg Wischinski from ESPN is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. Hour two is Bratts you by Jason Homonock at Jason. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at jason.com. We are coming to live from the Kintech studio. Halford, you got to make 2026 your year. I plan on doing that. To move better and step stronger with Kintech.

Custom orthotics. You got flat feet, man. Consider it done. 2026 is my year of getting some arches. Good. Can you do that with your feet? When they go flat, can you rearch them? That's what an orthotic is for.

Is that a question for Kintech? Can they answer it? Yeah. That's what we do. You're not even listening to the commercials, man? They'd look at your feet. They'd be like, oh, good Lord. No, we can't help you.

Just get out of our store. To the phone lines, we go. Greg Wischinski joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. What I wish. So a re-arching from what I understand is when they close a McDonald's and then like right next to it

they build a new one that has like a playroom you know a really state of the art drive through maybe with like two speakers to re-arching from what I understand. That's very well played. How are you doing bud? But also a belated belated, belated Happy New Year. I don't know if we passed the window or the threshold, but happy New Year

anyway. Based on Larry David's rules on Kirby enthusiasm, we did. But like, I'm okay. I'm in sort of a weird professional purgatory right now in the sense that I am actually on leave from ESPN this month for family bonding to be with the boy that was born on Columbus Day. You know, I figure, hey, he should probably know his dad. But I'm also like, I'm also like doing all of the other things I do like the radio hits and the Merrick show and like Puck Soup stuff so it's like

there's a part of me that thought this might be like going to Bora Bora and I'll just like cut myself off from the world for like a month but then I come to realize no it's still I'm still kind of doing the job but it's just not writing much for a month so it's an interesting place to be but yeah

he's sweet and we're going to watch a lot of a lot of TV together are you going to watch Devils games and boo Luke Hughes? He already has watched Devils games, but he actually, he cooed to Luke Hughes. He's a baby, you see. Can you explain that? I was off for a while.

I'm going to do it because... Go ahead, sorry. It's like when your favorite band gets popular and then you see all of these people that have never understood the band trying to like opine on the band and you're just like, man, you weren't there for the first album. I feel like that's how it is watching

the Luke Hughes conjecture from a lot of these national people. First of all, it could very well be an isolated incident. And the isolated incident was he scored two goals for the other team. Right. Okay? So, like, if you have a player who scores two goals for the other team and your team loses by a goal, like, yeah, you might hear it from the crowd. But here's where we get into the devils of it all.

Here's where we get into the institutional knowledge about the top team. He's taken a lot of heat this season because he skipped out on training camp. because of the contract negotiation. And much like we saw with Jeremy Swainman last year with the Boston Bruins, there are players for whom training camp is important, and players for whom, if they miss camp, they don't get off to a very good start. Luke Hughes has not been very good this season.

He's at his moments, especially offensively, but the totality of his game has not been good. And most nights, if you look at the analytics card, he's near the bottom insofar as late game score. He's not been good. There's devil fans that are upset for him being compensated the way that he was on that contract for what they believe his services yet to be rendered.

And there's another part of this that no one seems to be talking about, which is over the years, like Luke has definitely had moments in which he probably should sit or maybe go to the AHL. Like there are definitely been moments during the first couple of years of his career where another player probably would have suffered that fate. And but another player isn't named Hughes. Another player doesn't have a brother who is the franchise player of the team.

team. And so whether it's reality or perception, Devil's fans would watch a guy like Simone Nemich, to use an example, get benched and scratched and demoted and all this other stuff while Luke Hughes never suffered a repercussion. Like, you look at his ice time in a third period in a game in which he scored two goals for the other team. There was no repercussion at all. And so there's a lot of sort of history and weight behind what happened in that game. And at the end of the day, I still kind of think it's going to be isolated incident. I think devil's fans are completely right in doing that for one game. I think you're completely wrong in doing that in perpetuity. I mean, what's the point? But there's a lot more to it than simply just like booing Luke Hughes. Does not getting

Quinn Hughes play into this at all? I mean, how would it though? Like, are you saying that in the list of things that they might boo Luke for, his existence as a defense probably isn't one? I just mean, And maybe some of the frustration with the team is boiling over and sometimes fans lash out. So let me get to that in a second. There was a lot of reporting about the idea that Quinn wouldn't want to come to the devils because it would basically demote Luke. And, you know, I don't know if that plays into it for anybody, but, but I mean, that's definitely a perception that was out there as well. Why would you want to come and Bigfoot your own brother? Of course, that's going to happen no matter where the three of them play, which is why I thought was kind of a moot point.

But if you're saying, is Luke Hughes a lightning rod for the frustrations of fans overall on this team, it's possible. As was noted the other day, James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks and the Rangers, not exactly the most media friendly guy, has spoken to the media more in the last like three months than Tom Fitzgerald has. Like, should that be how it works? Yeah. Should your general manager, even after like not landing the biggest trade of the season not be heard from? but that's been the case. So I think there is a lot of frustration in Jersey about the construction of this team

and the fact that no one seems to be answering for the issues that the team has. Wish I know you have thoughts on the Zane Porek story. You must have thoughts on this and we were kind of laughing earlier in the show and going like he wanted to be outspoken

because, you know, hockey players are all robots and then he literally just turned into an apology robot and did the one thing that he probably hated hearing from hockey players and that was going back on something that he clearly felt fairly strongly about. Yeah, I talked to him at the rookie combine over the summer. I thought he was a delight. I thought I'm like, oh, my God, like, who isn't falling in love with this kid in the NHL as far as, like, personality goes?

It's the same kind of thing you get when you talk to Matthew Schaefer. Um, you know, he, the difference though is that, that Schaefer is never going to say something akin to all of the players older than me have no personality in a robot. Look at like there, there, there, I, I, the first reaction I had was how, what a self-fulfilling prophecy it is for the media to complain about all these players being robots, have a young player point out that all these players are robots, and then shame the player into becoming a robot by having him address those comments. media do that? Did the media really shame him or did the flames, did the flames say something? Where do? Okay, so, so do you know more than I do? Like, do you think the flames put him in front of a mic to say you've got to make do on this? No, I don't. Do you think that his teammates? That's my question. I don't know. I mean, whether it's, well, I think, I, I think, I, I think, there's an Eric Francis story up on sportsnet.com. It's like the lead story on sportsnet.com. And, uh, there is some, um, hints that they did have a word with them. Sure. Okay. So whether it's the media asking about it or the flames using their good boy in the media patting his head, giving him a treat to put that out there, it's still hockey culture

writ large crushing this kid for saying something that's completely right. And it, you know, it's whenever I see something like this now, whenever I see somebody's personality crushed by this stupid draconian hockey culture that we have that demands the logo on the front and more than the name on the back and all of the nonsense

that has held back the popularity of my favorite sport for my entire life, I will always now think of it existing in a post-heated rivalry world and think about how there are countless people

coming to this sport right now using these books and that show as an entry point and doing so because they are drawn to the players and their personalities and sometimes putting their own their own fiction on those personalities.

Are that they're going to be wildly disappointed? Oh yeah, like, look, it's completely, look, there's a for many reasons. Insofar as that level of fandom goes. But like the bottom line

is that they're drawn to the sport because of the players. And when they come to the sport, they're going to find out that these players are all programmed to not be interesting and they're going to be like, I'll just go back to my books, man. They're cracking jokes in the books. They're having fun in the books. A lot of fun. But, you know, it's so frustrating now to think that we're in 2026 and still having these conversations making a kid apologize for having the audacity to point out the obvious. My God, this is the franchise that

used to employ Sean Monaghan. They had Sean Monaghan. Yeah. And you're going to get upset about somebody saying that someone's robotic? That was the whole joke. Yeah, boring Sean Monaghan. That was one of the funniest accounts on social media. What did you think of Gavin McKenna's World Juniors? I mean, it's tough to knock a guy with the numbers that he had. He piled up the points. Well, this is this thing, though, is like it's easy to knock the guy

when the numbers didn't necessarily come in the most important game of the tournament. And, you know, I think the impression that you're going to have of Gavin, you know, in that tournament is, yelling at the referees and not partaking in the handshake line because he couldn't because he wasn't allowed to get kicked out of the game. I'm interested to see what the follow it is. I know that my colleague, Rachel Kreishek, is going to have a story coming out this week that looks at the draft impact of World Juniors. And I know she's writing about McKenna.

So I'll be intrigued to see her take on whether or not this impacts a player who already seem to have a kind of a tenuous grasp on the first overall pick based on some of the what some of the draft hundantry was saying about him so we'll see what this all adds up to what are the chances I know I'll probably just have to wait

for the article here but I mean you talk to a lot of people can you handicap his odds of going first overall I still think they're pretty high because I do think that people feel that he's a very special player but if he doesn't

I do think that it's going to be a fascinating autopsy don't you like the world junior impact the Penn State is not good there like I mean he's not even good there and on top of that I mean it's not as if Penn State is an all-star team or anything like that so like it'll be interesting to see the advice he was given the paths he's taken and these moments along the way that may have added up to him not going first overall I mean I don't know Shane right

but I still think that there's enough people Greg, I'm going to cut you off there. We're going to have to drop the call temporarily. We're getting some bad reception here. We are talking to Greg Wosinski from ESPN here on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. We'll try and get Greg back and on a proper connection, but we're going to be short on time. I want to ask Greg about the American Olympic roster and the philosophy of USA hockey and the decisions to leave off guys like Jason Robertson because I haven't spoken to Wish

since the Americans announced that because they announced that on January 2nd I think all the other rosters are coming out now but the American strategy in how to essentially beat the Canadians

yeah right that's that's the key what did you think about what he said about Luke Hughes it's an interesting dynamic I wanted to ask him mostly because I wasn't 100% up to speed on exactly what happened I saw a lot of discourse in the

aftermath about people admonishing the devils for booing a young player like that. The really interesting part was that there's this sort of unspoken shield around Hughes that maybe if the name plane on the back was different, there would be different treatment. We got Greg Wushinsky back now, Greg Wushinsky from ESPN, rejoins us on the line. Greg, I know we're tight for time here. So we'll just jump straight back into it. Jason had a question about your thoughts on the U.S. Olympic roster, the way they built it out, the guys they went with, and maybe more importantly,

the guys they didn't go with as the Olympics got underway in February. You guys are breaking up on my end, so hopefully I'm all right. You're good. Okay, cool. I appreciate that, Jason. Speaking of Jason's, I've waited a year in which the U.S. would have a depth of talent in order to complete skill. Just bring the hammer down.

Like, just let's get your best goal scores, your best point producers. put them all on the team. You know, hopefully you can learn to play a role that you believe they need to play and go from there. And so the idea that Jason Robertson is not on this team is hard for me to stomach. Adam Fox on of this team is hard for me to stomach.

I think that in the end, you know, Bill Guerin and the Brand Trust Team USA did the same thing that they did in Sochi and the same thing that they did in Vancouver and they've opted to try to... and leave players that could conceivably for a goal or generate a goal in an overtime against Canada back home watching on television.

And so that was my fear. I'd love to be wrong because I'd love for this team to win gold. But I wish, I'm sorry. We're going to have to drop this again. We're having some technical difficulties here on the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Also, Greg had to be gone by 720 this morning. So we will very abruptly and,

Unfortunately bid him farewell right now. Greg Wischinski from ESPN here was on the Halford and Brough Show on SportsNet 650. I got about a third of that answer talking about it. I don't think he was that happy with the decisions. I think that if you're not learning from the decisions and part and parcel with that is mistakes that you've made in the past, then you're bound to repeat them, right? I don't know, man. Sometimes I think it cuts both ways.

I think this team Canada at the world juniors, you look at what happened last season. They left the scorers off, you know, and then they couldn't score. And then this year they're like, fine, we're bringing all the talent and it's going to be an offensive team. And then you're defensively bad.

Like there is good reason to build teams the way these guys do. They're not idiots. They might at the end be wrong, but is it wrong if Canada wins this tournament or Sweden wins this tournament and the Americans don't? I don't think, I honestly don't think, that the right move is to just be like, well, here's our, you know, the highest skilled players will go up against Canada. But I don't think that's the debate here. Roberton is pretty stupid

The debate is that in the four nations tournament specifically in the final there was a saw off between the top six forwards in Canada, the top six forward in the U.S. and that final and they essentially played each other to a stalemate when a lot of people are suggesting is when it came time to find a goal from an alternate source They were relying on Brock Nelson and Chris Kreider

And don't you think the Americans would take that overtime against Canada for the gold medal That situation just to be in that situation again Like, I don't think they did badly at Four Nations, do you? I don't think they did badly at Four Nations. But when you're leaving home, you're leading point getter. Yeah, I understand. There are degrees.

Yeah. There are degrees. But, like, Adog, we have this battle sometimes, right? And Adog's just like, look at the stats, take the guys with the most points and put together your team. Like, I think that is bound to fail. Yeah. I really, I really do. I think that's bound to fail.

Yeah, I mean, like, for example, I think here's the- Going against that, though, and trying to have a more balanced approach doesn't always work, though, in these short tournaments, when you just need a goal, right? Well, sometimes you need to defend. Did you watch Canada at the World Juniors? Yeah, well, you know, they got a lot of goals.

Sometimes they needed a goal, and sometimes they need to get the bloody puck out of their own end. It doesn't mean you cut the guys that are only defenders. Like, you have to have a balance still. I'm not saying you just load up on offense, but like you can't. Well, you are sometimes saying, You can't ignore your, like, top goals scored. But this is almost like, you know. No disrespect, but this is sort of a forced disingenuous argument

because you're suggesting that Jason Robertson can only score goals in his atrocious defensively. Which I don't think is, no, no, no. No, but the argument itself, there's the argument, yeah. The flip side of it is like, J.T. Miller's on the team. Does J.T. Miller deserve to be there on merit, or is he there because he's J.T. Miller? And I think you all understand what that encompasses is that,

there's something about J.T. Miller's attitude and persona and veteran presence that maybe has one of the team. Now, if you want to talk about the defensive prowess of a forward, I think you can make the argument that there might be nobody more liable to make a mistake in a big moment than J.T. Miller, because we've all seen it play out. And part of it has to do with, you know, his brain switching off in certain moments. Part of it has to do with the fact that sometimes his give a bleep meter seems low. But you bring him to this turn. He has some give up in his

game. Right? And in a big moment that's a risk as well. It's a short tournament you take the best players and you hope they go. It's not complicated. But Adog, it is. When you say, can you, okay, well, good counter argument. But it's like, it's a quick tournament, just get the guys together. But a best

player is how do you determine that? Like, I think that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to bring the best players for the roles that they're going to play. Orbers is not there. Or the roles that they're going to play. And sometimes I feel like, like, maybe this is unfair

but sometimes I feel like you look at things like this guy's got 100 points this guy's got 70 the guy with 100 points is better and it's that simple how many like was Patrice Bergeron what's the most points that he ever got

with Barkoff what's the most points that he's ever got there's so much more But Robertson would be in the role of a goal score but Robertson wouldn't be playing I mean you would hope he wouldn't be playing on the third line he'd be playing on one of the top lines Well maybe he wouldn't be Maybe they look at it.

Well, how do you know? How do you know? One of the best goals scores. But you're leading off one of your best. It's just a huge risk. So is Connor Bardard. So is Connor Mard. Well, there's no room for him.

Butard is a little younger though. So, I mean, I get that aspect of it. Like, if Baderd was a few years older, he'd be there. Like, the next Olympics, he'll be there. The people that are taking umbrage with this election are saying, why him or why not Robertson and why Vincent Trocheck. Why, why J.T. Miller. And I think there's a valid. They're loading up on these old guys.

that are going to be just left in the dust. And then when I look at the Canadian roster, like it was the conversation we were having yesterday. I'm like, in my estimation, you can make a valid argument that Sam Bennett should be on that team. Now, I don't think it's as cut and dry as some of these other ones because you're talking about...

Who are you going to take off then? Well, I would have taken off a Horvette or Sorrelli. Right? Sorelly for sure. And my logic there would have been if you're asking a guy to show you what he's got on the biggest stages and the biggest moments

into build his resume and he does it, I'm not sure what more you can ask of a player to get on. Now, at the end of the day, it's one person's selection. It really is. And it's more confusing because he's a big game player. And I know there's a small cadre of individuals that make up the selection process,

but it's very small, right? There's only a handful of people. And you get a different handful of people in the room and they might go with a different opinion, right? That's just that standard team building how it has to be done. is if you were to, you know, gauge all of Canada and take a countrywide poll to see who should be on the team,

you know, you'd probably get a more democratic process, but you wouldn't get a team built, is what you're saying. Like, I'm not disagreeing with you, brof, in the sense that, like, I do agree, like, there needs to be balance and there needs to be, like, you got to have guys like Patrice Bergeron on the team, like, you need, I legit. Oh, so Patrice Bergeron thanks you for being on. You've got to have a guy like one of the greatest two-way forwards

of all time. Of all time. But what I'm saying is, you need a guy like that. You need that balance, but I think sometimes these guys

overthink it a little bit and you leave off a guy like Jason Roberts and you're just like what are you doing? Like it's such a no-brainer. But it's more complicated when you're not the favorite.

Like you've got to go in there and go, how are we going to win this tournament? Like back, okay, let's go to soccer. Okay? So Canada, back in the day

when they would go into a tournament like the gold cup. This is pre this current Canada, which is a pretty good team. Call them the Dark Ages. You go back and that gold cup that they won, right? They're not like, we're going to give our best players against, you know, Columbia's best players or whatever, and we're just going to go, we're going to go head to head. Yeah, you find a way to win.

You have to be like, okay, we're going to get these guys who can defend, defend, defend, and hopefully we're going to get a counter attack. chance and we're going to bury that chance. Because that's the only way we'll win. If we try and go head to head with these guys and just go run and gun, run and gun, there's a hundred percent chance we're going to lose. If we park the bus and keep a bunch of guys behind the ball and maybe that one counterattack opportunity that we can score on, we've got maybe a 3% chance to win. You're going to take the 3% chance to win. It's very different when you go into these tournaments as not the favorite.

It's easy for Canada. Canada just goes, yeah, let's take our best players and we're just going to play the way we play. There's going to be no tactics. You know, it's just like, go out there and play. The other teams have to have tactics. The Americans can't match the talent. I get what you're saying.

And they have to be like, what are our best odds to win when we've got to play a more defensive grindy game and just hope for the bounce. But you also need guys that are going to score goals. And once in a while you need a big goal, especially if it's in an overtime. And then not have your best goal score on the team in that big moment when you need that one big goal, I'm not saying Robertson's McDavid, but the McDavid goal, for example, like you need to give the opportunity to your best players to be your best players because it might just be a one bounce, one goal game.

It could very well be that. I mean, the states are a bad team. Like, they're still a very, very, very good team. But to not have your best goal score there is very strange. Okay, we got to get to break here. for time. On the other side, the hockey talk will continue of the world junior and prospect variety. Chris Peters from Flohockey is

going to join us. We'll put a bow on the world juniors. We'll talk some Gavin McKenna, some Ivar Stenberg and all of the top prospects that participated at the WJC. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drance. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks.

Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on SportsNet 650 or wherever you get your podcast. 733 on a Tuesday, happy Tuesday, everybody, Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brub in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Get out of the penalty box of debt and back into the game with a financial fresh start. Visit them online at Sands. We are in hour two of the program.

We're at the midway point of the show. Chris Peters from Flohockey is going to join us in just a moment here. Hour two of this program is brought to by Jason Hominoch at Jason. If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at Jason. Don Mortgage. To the phone lines we go, our next guest is a content manager at Flow Hockey. One of our show's resident prospects experts.

Chris Peters joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Morning, Chris. How are you? Doing well, guys. A little tired, but otherwise ready to go home and happy to get through another world juniors. Yeah, congrats on covering yet another world juniors. Tournament wrapped up yesterday, Sweden capturing gold in the final. Big picture, what did you make of the entire tournament tip-to-tail now that it's done? Yeah, you know, it's really interesting.

I think that there were a lot of teams that, you know, had a chance in this tournament, you know, so I think the parity continues to grow. Obviously, it's still a bit of a different tournament with no rush in it. And, you know, I think we're now on like five tournaments without them. So, you know, it's been that adjustment. But I think it's open the door for a couple more countries. And certainly in the last few years, we've seen the Czechs and Latvia. And, you know, other countries kind of rise up a little bit more.

and make some real competitive games. So I think that that was a big factor. You know, I also think the best team ended up winning the tournament. Sweden was undefeated the whole way. You know, I thought that they played the best most consistently of any country here and certainly earned it. But, you know, you got to give a ton of credit to the Czechia as well, knocking off Canada for a third straight year in the playoff round.

And really, given it, they're all playing until the end, you know, almost getting a chance to come back with a couple of extra attacker goals in the gold medal game. You know, I just think it was a really compelling tournament in terms of the way things went, but also, you know, just a lot of fun to see this level once again deliver some really great games, great moments and a lot of fun hockey. Chris, we've been having a rather heated debate about roster, how you put a roster together for these tournaments, whether it's the World Juniors, or we just had a big argument about Jason Robertson being left off the American Olympic team.

I wonder if you have some thoughts about the Canadian team that was assembled for this tournament. And maybe if you think it's appropriate to juxtapose it with the Canadian team last season, that Canadian team had trouble creating scoring chances. This one didn't, but defensively not so good. Yeah, you know, It's always tough, and I think there were a couple of things. We talked to Alan Miller, the GM, you know, like the permanent GM that Hockey Canada has for the program of excellence and certainly the World Junior team. And, you know, I think that he didn't mince words about, you know, that their defending needs to be better.

And, you know, I think that the player pool being what it was, what was tricky. You know, I think they waited until the very end, hoping that Sam Dickinson would be made. available, which never happened from the San Jose Sharks. Obviously, they were never going to get Matthew Schaefer. But, you know, I think that the, it was, we knew the depth was going to be a bit of a problem on the defensive side. You know, even though they have, you know, guys that are first round draft picks and really talented players, you know, I think that they had so much of a much more offensive-minded

team. And even, you know, their shutdown pairing had, you know, Kishon, Aitchison, who is very offensive. player in junior in the OHL. You know, Ben Danford was kind of their primary shutdown guy. But, you know, I think they also just needed more from some of the guys like, you know, Harrison Brunick, you know, didn't have a strong tournament, had a pretty tough game against the checks, you know, and that's a guy that played in the NHL this year and they needed a bit more from

him. And, you know, I think as good as Zane Perak was offensively, you know, setting the Canadian record, you know, I think that we still see some of the the complaints that Scouts had about his defensive game. And, you know, they just had so many of those players. And the fact that they had to have two 17-year-old defensemen on their roster in Carson Carls and Keaton Verhoff was another indication that, hey, you know, this isn't the strongest group of defenders overall. You don't want to have to bring, you know, one, let alone two underagers.

And really, you know, I don't think that they ever gained enough trust to play those guys regularly. And then they had to dress eight defensemen. So in terms of roster construction, I think the pool was what it was. I don't think that there were any defensemen that they left off that they should have brought that would have changed things for them. You know, so that's the other factor involved. But, you know, I think that was a team that was going to have to win on their skill. And in the end, they played a team in Chequia who was much more prepared to defend against that, forecheck against that and nullify some of the skill and transition game that Canada was really

thriving on earlier in the tournament. Yeah, when you mentioned that they had their shutdown pair of these guys, I was like, they had a shutdown pair? Didn't really look like they had a shutdown pair. It looked like there's a lot of times they got beaten one-on-one and they were just running around in their own end. And, you know, look, I know there's a lot of people out there that think Canadians freak out every time Canada doesn't win rural juniors gold and there might be some truth to that but you know that's that's the cross we bear is the hockey power and and you know until someone knocks us off our perch I think we should keep a high bar and I think we should go into these tournaments expecting to win and the fact of the matter is over the last three years

won bronze medal at the world juniors and that's not good and We can recognize that the rest of the world is catching up, but I don't think they've caught up. You know, you look at all the players that were in the NHL because they're too good for the world juniors. You know, I think that says something. But I still think that Canada should go into these tournaments as the favorites.

And right now, maybe you'll agree or disagree with me, I feel like hockey Canada, at least at the world juniors level, has kind of lost its swagger. like it doesn't know what its identity should be. Yeah, you know, that's a pretty good way of putting it, I think. You know, I think that there has been a little bit of that. But I also think the evidence of that is that no one is scared of them anymore. Yes.

And that is, you know, yeah, like that is become so obvious in the last few tournaments where a lot via fields, hey, we can beat them. Chekiya was like, hey, you know, Veslov Nestra still said, after the game, he's like, well, you know, we beat them three years, you know, two years in a row, so why can't we do it a third? You know, like it's like, you know, they have the confidence. I think that, you know, at the world juniors, there was always such kind of a mystique about Canada.

And I think back to when they were winning, you know, five in a row and different things, it's like, how is anybody going to win? and we're talking about what is the worth of this tournament and all these other things that, you know, when one team's dominating, you kind of think. And, you know, I think part of it, you know, to your point, yes, you're missing guys for the NHL. And if you get, you know, there's always going to be years

where you can't necessarily put your best roster on there because of the NHL or because of injuries or because of this, that, the other thing. And, you know, more countries are having that issue where, you know, they aren't going to have their best players available. But, you know, and I think it, I don't know if it's necessarily so much that Canada has lost its swagger just as much more as the other countries feel closer to being on equal footing. And I think, you know, especially the U.S. I remember, you know, I worked at U.S.A. hockey years and years ago. And it always seemed like, you know, when they played Canada, they were gripping their sticks tighter.

They were a little bit. And now they're much more on their toes. They're, you know, they don't feel like that's, you know, that they have to have that reverence. Um, and, and I think part of that is a mentality switch among these other nations, but yeah, I mean, you know, if you're, if you're hockey Canada right now, you have to find ways to, you know, build throughout these, these other tournaments, the under 18 world, Lincoln Gretsky, World's Under 17 challenge. And, and try and find a way to get that back. But I think that that's, that, you know, maybe that's past and, and everybody else, it won't matter. But, um, definitely the, the swagger issue. seem to rear its ugly head once again here at the World Juniors. We're speaking to Chris Peters from Floh Hockey here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Chris, of course, is our resident show prospect expert here on the Halford and Brough show. So I got a thought exercise for you here, Chris.

Let's say that you're the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks. No, wait. Let's say you're the president of hockey ops of the Vancouver Canucks. And you win the draft lottery and the first overall pick at the 2026 NHL entry draft. Who are you selecting for the Vancouver Canucks with the first overall pick at the draft? Are you taking Gavin McKenna? Are you taking the kid that scored the final goal of the World Junior Tournament, Ivar Stenberg? Oh, man.

Yeah, it's a tough call right now. It is, you know, I think it's not a good year to have the first pick as what was, you know. I don't know if that's what I'd get up to the podium and say. I was like, oh, boy, you know, I guess we'll take this guy, you know. It's an interesting time, but yeah, just, you know, the quick answer at this point, you know, I think it would be, it's so tough. Like, you know, I guess, yeah, I mean, let me give the rationale first, and then I'll tell you what I think I'd be hilarious if someone went up to the mic and did this. Yeah, the first overall pick, we'd like to explain our rationale. Yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah, thanks to, thanks to everybody.

for, you know, all our fans back at the thing. Here's, you know, sorry, this is what we have to do. You know, yeah, so basically with, with, with this decision right now, like I think it comes down to, okay, Gavin McKenna has as much skill as anybody in the world. He's tremendous talent. You look at all those things. You know, is he playing a winning brand of hockey right now? And I think the answer is no.

I think that that is, that is, it's not, you know, not a lot. two perimeter, two outside, you know, we still see some of those things, you know, can that change? Can you get him into that mode? Because Evar Stenberg is the opposite. Evar Stenberg does play a winning brand of hockey. He's extremely aggressive. He goes hard to the net. He's not big, but he's still strong.

He's got, you know, he's got skill. He's got speed. But I think the competitive edge goes to Stenberg. And I think, you know, the more and more I watch this tournament, the less content. confident I feel this tournament or really anything this season, the less confident I feel in Gavin McKenna as a true number one prospect. And so, you know, I think if you were to ask me today, the answer would probably be Stenberg. And, you know, and that's, and I haven't come to that lightly because I think we talked, what, last week I had, I said, I don't know if anybody's really caught him. But at the same time, you know, I think that this is a really tough year to have the first pick because of, you know, Gavin McKenna is the name that most people know. know and are familiar with and they're like well he's CHL player of the year I mean look at all those points that he scored maybe he's not having the best season but like body of work and all those

different things and it's it's way more than that I mean the eye test right now is not helping Gavin and and it is for Evar Stenberg who's also having a historic season in the Swedish hockey league is professional so you know and and I think you don't want to be in a position where you're you're debating between two wings for the number one pick I mean you might also start looking okay do we take one of the defensemen? Do we think he can be a number one? Do we think there's a center out there that can be that? So I think that the debates are going to continue through this,

but, you know, has Gavin McKenna been caught for number one, there's a number of guys that are on equal footing. So if you ask me today, the answer is Stenberg, but, you know, I think that hopefully everybody's going to get a little bit more information here as the season progresses, and maybe we see McKenna turn it up, or, you know, maybe he can lead Penn State to greater things or what have you, but right now, you know, the evidence is mounting that this is not a number one prospect. I wonder how many teams are going to be frustrated that there aren't more centers that are potentially going to be picked in the top five or the top 10 just because of really the lack of centers in the NHL right now. It seems like everyone's looking for centers.

Yeah, and yeah, they always are. And, you know, this year, you know, Time and Lawrence, from Muskegon Lumberjacks. He's a big time center. Oliver Savanto, who is here at the at the World Juniors with Finland, Caleb Malhotra, you know, those are the players that you're kind of talking about. But, you know, again, it's still not feeling, you know, Savanto is probably a top 15 pick. I think Lawrence could be a top five pick.

Malhotra maybe a top 15 pick, you know, so we're not talking about the best prospects in the draft, but, you know, we've seen teams, you know, go for that. because of the premium position and the need for it. But, yeah, I mean, I don't think you're ever going to see Gavin McKenna playing center. You know, I don't think you're going to see Yvars Stenberg playing center. So that's going to be a real debate in those rooms. And I also think that that puts the defenseman in the driver's seat to potentially go higher in the draft

just because it is a premium position. And you've got a lot of options, maybe not great ones, but you've got options for guys that might be top four. top pairing, that kind of thing, and that may win the day for those teams. Now, I know I might be throwing you on the spot here because he didn't play an awful lot this tournament, but what did you make of the tournament that Canucks Prospect Braden Coots had for Canada? Yeah, excuse me.

You know, I think it was pretty uneven. Obviously, the usage, you know, I think he was in the right spot based on what we had seen, you know, in terms of being the fourth line center. You know, I think he's going to be a much more integral point. part to the team next year. You know, I don't anticipate him. Like, you know, I thought him making the Canucks out of camp was more a bad sign for the Canucks than a great sign for him as a bunch of I think.

And you were right. And really, yeah, yeah. And honestly, that is often the case when, when players outside of the top five picks make their NHL roster. You know, so that's the way, you know, it kind of goes. But I think the thing about Brayden Coots is, and now, you know, he's got a new opportunity. And the W.H.L. We'll see, you know, kind of how that goes with the trade and everything else and pushing for a championship and whatever else he does. But, you know, I think he's such a tremendous two-way player.

You know, he was a young guy for this tournament. They had, you know, centers that were going to be much more useful to them in the top six. And, you know, I think there's still plenty of time, plenty of runway. I think he's a great player for, like, the identity of a team on top of that. Is he going to be a superstar player? I don't think so, but I do think he's going to be a very effective NHL player, a guy that does play the middle of the ice and can play the middle of the ice, I think, at the NHL level.

And so there's positives there. You know, I wouldn't, there are certain guys where you say, you know, what can we really take away from their tournament? His is more, let's see what happens next year because I do think that he'll be a very integral part of Team Canada at the next world juniors. Chris, go get some rest. It is well earned and well-deserved. Excellent job covering this tournament as you do every year.

And thanks for joining us. I'm sure we'll be calling you again real soon as we get closer and closer to the draft. Yeah, it sounds great. Yeah, I think you guys are going to need to. So we'll chat. Anyway, thanks as always for the time. Really appreciate it. And I hope you guys have a great rest of the start of the year here.

Let's get it going. Yeah, thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Peters from Flohockey, content manager and prospect expert here on the Halford and Brough show on Sportsnet, 650. So speaking of centers, a couple of centers have signed contracts in the last little while and I've noticed there's been a bit of a knock-on effect in Vancouver. Christian Dvorak, who the Canucks were after, signed a five-year extension with Philly,

signed a one-year deal with Philly and then is like, yeah, I do like it here. So he signed a five-year extension cap hit of just over five million. He's 29 years old now. And then it was Alex Wendberg, who re-signed with the San Jose Sharks cap hit of six million there. So the Dvorak one, I think, is more interesting of the two, more because of how it played itself out. I didn't even realize this. But when you sign a one-year deal in free agency, you have to wait until Jan 1 to extend. I didn't realize that.

So apparently they had been talking for weeks about wanting to get this done. Like this is how big of a priority. I will remind you, like, DeVorex is a nice player and he's having a nice year, but by no means a star or a superstar, but they were clamoring to get him back with Philadelphia to the point where I think this deal was done prior to whatever date they announced. Like this thing had been locked up in December. And it kind of lends itself to that conversation about how thin the center. enter market is and how a guy like Devorak, half a season with Philadelphia made himself

practically invaluable. Like we have to keep him around. So the question that's being asked in Vancouver is with all this desperation for centers, is Elias Pedersen a trade candidate now? And I noticed a lot of people were talking about it on the show yesterday. Sat was talking about it. Sat's been hinting at it pretty strongly that there might be some interested teams in Elias Pedersen. Yeah. And it's all, I mean, they're very much, sat and bicker very much. They always have that phrase like facts only and based in logic.

And if you listen to them, explain it. We could probably play the clip on the other side because we're not going to have Landon till 810 very much as like, just look at the most obvious things that have happened here. There's no centers available either on the trade market right now or coming up in free agency. There's a lot of teams in the NHL that thought their young centers were going to take a step or make that next progression in their revolution. and they haven't.

There is a... There's no ready-to-play center in the draft. And Ladia, I know you've been noticing that, is it Tyne and Lawrence, who's probably going to be the first center off the board? He's going to college next year, right? No. Oh, he's not?

He's going right now. Oh, okay. That's the breaking news, is that he's leaving his junior team that he's the captain of in the USH. He's leaving Muskegon. He's scoring at almost a goal per game rate at 17. Okay.

And he's going to start his college career now. That's pretty incredible. And he assumed he's going to be there next season, too, right? He's not just going to go for a couple games. You never know. He's like, I'm here for the parties. Yeah, you go, you party, you win a Natty, then you're like, I'm going to the NHL. So we'll play some audio on the other side.

You know, this is probably going to be one of the storylines. Are the Kinnock's going to keep Elias Pedersen or are they not as they head into this hybrid retool? You're listening to the Halfer and Abrupt show on Sportsnet 650. Before we go to break, I need to remind you that this segment of the show was brought to you by the Duick Auto Group. Find out why nobody beats a Duick deal and nobody has since 1926. Visit Duick GM on Marine Drive. Visit them downtown. Visit them in Richmond and visit them online at the duik Auto Group.com.