Halford & Brough in the Morning - Will Thatcher Demko Ever Return To Full Health?

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

In hour two, Mike & Jason talk the latest around the Canucks with NHL.com & In Goal Magazine's Kevin Woodley (1:09), plus the boys discuss the latest NHL coaching change featuring the LA Kings with Sirius XM NHL's Dennis Bernstein (23:05).  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.

7.04 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford, Bradford, Brad for the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Do you have CRA debt? If you do, Sands and Associates could cut that debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visit them today at Sands. That's trustee.com. We are now an hour two of the program. Kevin Woodley from NHL.com and Ingle magazine is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off Hour 2. Hour 2. is brats by Jason Hamanuck 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. Don't have my reads in front of me,

so we'll do those later. Okay. Our next guest is a presentation of White Rock Hyundai. It is Kevin Woodley from NHL.com in Ingoal magazine here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. What up, Kev? That's the only read that matters.

It's true. It is true. How are you, my friend? I'm good. How are you guys? we're well. It's been a very eventful start to the show. We had a lot to get into from the Vancouver Canucks side of things. A lot to get into from stories around the National Hockey League, but we do want to start with you with the Canucks. And obviously the big takeaway from the

5-1 loss in Seattle over the weekend was the deployment or non-deployment of Elias Pedersen in the third period. And then what both Adam Foote and Elias Pedersen had to say about it afterwards, your thoughts, your takeaways from what happened over the weekend, Kev. Well, I guess. it's kind of been coming, no? Like, I think there's probably a few guys that, that, I don't know. Like, it's, it's kind of hard to know what to do at this point. It feels like you've got another coach who's maybe running out of ideas.

He's talked about their conversations, about trying to get him to play with more pace, about him understanding that he needs to play with more pace. And yet here we are again, right? this is, this is Rick, talk, it's move your feet, right? Like at the end of the day, it's kind of a different variation and took longer to get to of the same conversation around a player that continues to play well defensively,

but you're paying him to do a whole lot more than that. And, I mean, the timing of it around the trade deadline and questions about his future long term here, whether you even could move that contract with. without agreeing to eat a percentage. Like, we're kind of right back to where we started, aren't we? And for a team that's got a lot of big decisions to make, you know, this might be one of the biggest ones.

If there is even a decision to be made, because to make a decision, you have to have options, right? And they've tried to sort of get back to the guy that we remember from two years ago. But man, like, it's two years ago. and the pressure, as we said at the time, when that contract was signed, certainly wasn't going to get any less. And I remember Patrick Alvin being asked about that.

Like, do you worry about that extra pressure? And he said, no. And yet, here we are. And I don't know if it's the pressure or this is just what the player is now, but it's not untenable, but it certainly feels like it's, approaching untenable, no?

What does a good trade deadline week look like for the Canucks? I mean, all the UFAs, pending UFAs have to be gone, no. I mean, if you, there's been too many years where the obvious moves didn't get made, and I don't, not just this regime, but there's been too many times where the obvious moves didn't get made where they were left holding a bag or players that they were going to lose anyways. I think that's the minimum and then finding a way to get assets out of I mean and maybe judging them too harshly

if they don't find a way to get assets out of some of the guys with a little term because those moves can still happen in the summertime as well and if the offers aren't there I guess the one thing I would say even when it comes to the Tyler Myers situation and what comes to Myers

like this is his choice to make and I don't think anybody should begrudge him if the decision is to stay. Like that's his right. Or just not go to Detroit. Right. Right. Like stay or like find me somewhere else that I'm willing to go to.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. Like Tyler Myers does not owe the organization anything at this point. No. And the second part of that that I was sort of just, is we've heard that this was the Detroit Red Wings approaching them, right? And if that's true, like in Myers case it's somewhat unique because like I said there's circumstances here that matter for the person and how you treat people like I've been pretty harsh on one of the problems in this

organization when it comes to culture is how you treat people and how you treat people matters and this is an this is an example of one maybe them wanting to do it the right way by not shopping him but when you hear that they're listening to offers on a lot of the guys that have term as opposed to maybe proactively trying to find ways to turn them into future assets. That's the part that makes you scratch your head a little bit. And again, I don't know how true it is, like how hard they're working, how active it is they are versus teams approaching them. But I would think at this point that you would want to be pretty active in terms of progressively trying to make these changes as opposed to waiting. And at the end of the day, it takes two to tango when it comes to making a trade.

But you can go into it actively trying to be a partner or somebody who's just listening to offers. And I think we're well past this being a team that should just be listening to offers. Hey, Kev, what did you think of Jim Rutherford's comments on the 100% hockey podcast where he said that they think they found the root of all Thatcher Demko's problems? and it's going to be solved with the hip surgery. I hope he's right, right? Like I hope for Thatcher's sake that he's right because we've talked about how, I can't even pretend to understand how challenging this has been.

So for the athletes and for the team's perspective, you really hope he's right. The caution I would throw to it is they thought that, you know, it was Jim that said last year at the end of the year, you know, whatever, the postseason media sessions that they thought,

and he went on about how a new trainer and made the comparison to Gary Roberts, last season would be the thing that solves Dr. Demko's injuries problem. So at the end of the day, I hope they're right, but we're not far enough. You know, we're not really far enough removed from the surgery, and I would imagine the rehab process.

And for him, again, a second hip surgery, something, I've still yet to find an example of elsewhere to really know if that's going to be the case. What do goalies say about rehab from hip surgery? What's it like? How challenging is it? But also maybe some of the positives of finally getting a hip surgery. Well, a lot of the, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, a lot of the guys, including

Thatcher, when he had the first one, like, it's it just, it frees up your range of movement so significantly. Like, it's a boutique surgery for goalies at a younger age. Like, found examples of kids in their teams having

it to sort of free up and open up their butterfly, widen their butterfly, remove some of the restrictions in there. So on some level, I've had a lot of goalies over the years talk about it being like a quote unquote loop job for your hips. Obviously, this is more significant as you get older and as you've had the procedure more than once. And so I don't know the specifics of exactly what they've found in there because when you have it the first time, like you're, you know, typically you're, you fix the joint.

Like if there's imperfections on the top of the femur head, the nature of the butterfly and the internal rotation it creates within the hips, which is not natural for the human body. Right. can have a tendency to grind away at the cartilage in there and obviously lead to labrum tears, but also grind away at the cartilage. When you fix it the first time, one of the things they do is they shave and round the head of the femur and they make it perfectly round so that that socket no longer has those restrictions, no longer has edges that can grind into the cartilage. So I don't know what exactly within there they're fixing, but we've seen a wide range of outcomes.

from guys that, you know, guys that come back and it's like, I'm me again, I can move properly again, and all the other associated, we talked about growing poles being a common, you know, side product of having a hip issue. Like all those things get fixed for a lot of guys. But then we've, you know, you've had other guys later in their career,

like Tuka-ask, tried, but never really made it back. So you hope for the first outcome. Sounds like they're optimistic. That's what they'll have. but it's not as automatic as you get, you know, later in years and up there in your career. And like I said, the unique nature of it being a second time on the same hip, you know, I think there's got a, I don't know, I just didn't say to go, but I would imagine there's a little more uncertainty. So because do these guys essentially get tight hips?

And because of that, they're going to, they're more at risk of pulling their groin, for example, example because you're trying to get into the butterfly in a different position or a different way? I think that just the range of movement is restricted and if you think of getting into a butterfly, my hips hurt just thinking about doing that. Well, it's not like you ease your way into it, right? Like you're not like it's a pretty violent motion. Yes. You know, as a matter of fact, I think I can remember where was Bauer or CCM has a study where they equate the force

created by a butterfly drop is the equivalent of an Olympic clean and jerk. Like there's so much force every time you drop. It's two times your body weight, basically force being applied to your knees and your hips. And so if you've got something that's sort of limiting your full range of movement, it's not like that thing stops and two inches. It's not like you can stop the butterfly two inches before you get to the ice. you're on your way down.

It's like, oh, it's not going to internally rotate anymore. So I better just hover here. Right. You keep going and you push through that end rate of motion. And once there's no much, once that motion is sort of cut off and restricted through the hip joint and then internal rotation, it starts to pull on other parts of the chain, right? Because it's essentially a chain from the ice, from the skate blade, through the ankle, knees, and hips. And so once one part is restricted,

start tugging on the other parts. Kev, what do you think is going on in Edmonton right now? Tristan Jari hasn't seemed to solve their goaltending issues. No, and it's funny because you mentioned you talked about the Rutherford conversation. You know, there's a part in there about wishing the goaltending was a little closer to what it was before. And that one stood out to me a little bit because the environment isn't anywhere near close to what it was before. and so to expect the goal of tennis to perform similarly behind a defensive play that is nowhere near the same, both in terms of the analytics, but also in terms of the reads and the breakdowns of the unpredictability of the environment,

is borderline absurd. I think the same thing is happening in Evanston. Like, man, like, they don't give a rat, pituitia opponent defense right now. Like, they keep paying lip service to it. and a lot of the times it starts with their top guys and those guys have played a lot of hockey and I can understand and they're incredible offensively and so it would be nice not to have to play defense

because it's a lot of work but as the table setters as the example setters is the guys that are out there most often like it seems to start and stop quite often with them and so if they're blowing the zone and they're not coming back like they're a tire fire defensively right now in Edmonton. And yeah, the goaltending hasn't been good enough, but when the

goaltending was good enough, and that includes Stuart Skinner right before they traded them, it's because they were back to resembling the team that went to the Stanley Cup final each of the past two years. And that team was a defense first team. As much as all we saw was the offense from Drysidal and McDavid and the incredible power play that they ran out there, I mean, it was almost automatic. Their underlying numbers defensively, the first year they went to a cup final were top five in the league. and the metrics that matter most to me, which is high danger chances against,

especially five on five. Last year they sagged, but then leading into the playoffs, it's like, you know, at the risk of triggering Kinnock's fans from, I guess it's been more than a decade,

so maybe not. They flipped the switch. Like they flipped the switch defensively, and just turned it on and ended up in another cup final. But, man, we're 60 plus games into this, and it feels like that switch

is going to be really hard to flip for them. They've made some changes on personnel, Jake Wormann does a lot of great things. Be predictable in his own end defensively. He's not one of them. So it's like, listen, I'm not taking the, in both cases, Vancouver too. Like the goaltending can be better, for sure. Same with Edmonton.

But, I mean, we just saw this at the Olympics. Like, we have the ultimate examples of how important, maybe more important than ever. Maybe this is a criticism of goaltending. Maybe goaltending is so coupled to defensive play. The amount of guys. that can actually outperform horrendous environments is tiny. But we just saw Connor Hellebuck be the best goalie in the world

and then give up, what, a five spot when he comes back? Because when he played for the USA, there were two backdoor plays. And one of them, he got a stick blade on Devon Paves and the other one Nathan McKinnon missed. Well, to expect him to be the same guy in Winnipeg when you're giving up six, seven, eight of those, not the same. And Jordan Biddington, get the overtime of the goal.

old metal game. Pose was like a what, a 9-17, made several spectacular saves. It's got an 864 in the National Hockey League. Environment Matters. And right now in Edmonton, the environment defensively, much like the Cox here in Vancouver compared to last year, looks nothing like the

team that was having success. It's a totally different environment. And especially for Jari, he's trying to figure it out behind that. He's trying to make reads behind it. Like, okay, I know this guy's supposed to be here. This is what the system says. better just square up on the shooter, but, man, like, he hasn't been there the last six times,

or when he is, the puck still gets through. So maybe I need to shallow out my left side. Maybe I need to flatten out, not square up on that shooter so that when I make that push across, I can be on angle. And all crap, I just flattened out, and the guy sees it and he picked the corner because I'm not square to them. Like, those are, that's tough for a goalie to figure out who to trust in a system where quite often it doesn't look like in Edmonton, you can trust anyone.

Hey, Kev, before we let you go, and I ask this because I've seen a bunch of stuff online, I actually heard it this morning driving in guys talking about it. What is the future for Sergei Bovrofsky in Florida? Funny because we've talked about this, like I've talked about this on the station, you know, surrounding the Bennington talk heading into the Olympics. Like, it would have been interesting to see if Russia was playing which way they went because you got Bob coming off two straights down the cup championship. but for the third straight regular season,

like he's been below expected. And that's not just this year. The difference is this year is much like Bennington, it's fallen off a cliff. And so, again, the environment's not as good as it used to be. They've obviously dealt with a ton of injuries, much like Boston losing Bergeron to retirement, losing Barkoff for a season sort of changes the entire identity

of your team defensively. But much like Bennington, and there's still a baseline. We still can measure how bad they are defensively, and he's badly outperforming it. He's actually outperforming it at Bennington levels, like near the bottom of the league. My expectation,

and I've heard this, you know, around the league from a lot of people, including some close to it, I think the expectation going into this season was Bob just stays there and signs a contract closer to $4,000 or $5 million a year, like gives them a break on the deal. But I wonder, as this regular season has gone on,

Teresov has, you know, he's dipped here a little lately, but for large stretches of the season, and so did Anthony Stollers and so did Alex Lyon, like the backup outperformed him in the regular season. But it's a big difference between relying on that guy for, you know, a start every 10 days and turning him into the guy. And I think Teresov's also a UFA at the end of the year. So I don't know what they're going to do.

I think the expectation around the league was Bob just stays at a much smaller price tag. Like, I think five was the number that I had that I'd heard going into the season and that that was kind of, I don't want to say baked in, like, done, but that was almost the indications you were getting out of there. So I still wouldn't be surprised if that's the case because regular season Bob and playoff Bob have actually been a thing for each of the past two cup winning years for them.

But when it gets to the extreme, like Bennington this year, when it gets to this level, you do start to wonder a little bit if this is the beginning of a drop-off that might make them think twice about that type of arrangement. I doubt it. I still think he just signed at like half of what he's making now,

but I guess we'll have to wait and see because it quietly has been a really, really bad year for Sergey Bobrovsky. Kev, thanks for this, bud. Enjoy the game tonight. Thanks, guys. Kevin Woodley on SportsNet 650, presentation of White Rock Hyundai, visit the showroom on King George in White Rock or

White Rock Hyundai.com. It is time now for the one to watch, brought to you by Limitless AV, Vancouver's most trusted audiovisual integration experts. This one's easy. Who are you going to pick? Leas Pederson, see how he responds. I was going to do Tyler Myers off the board to see the one to watch if he's actually going ever play again for the Vancouver Canucks.

But obviously, Elias Pedersen is the one to watch. The Vancouver Canucks take on the Dallas Star 7 o'clock tonight at Rogers Arena of course, Pity, as mentioned, another listless game over the weekend and a 5-1 loss to the Seattle Cracken in Seattle. The big story there, of course, was his virtual non-deployment in the third period, including no shifts over the final nine minutes and 42 seconds.

Is this his first ever benching? That's a great question. I feel like it hasn't happened before. We'd have to go back and look at... Like J.T. got benched. Yeah, we'd have to go back and look at the... And they hugged it out. They didn't do that.

It was bear hugging. But we'd have to go back and look at the time logs and the minute logs. I don't think he's been benched like that before. Because it was, and, of course, the big part of it was that despite trailing 4-1 in the game, Adam Foote pulled the goalie for an extra attacker to get the extra attacker out there, an opportunity for all your offensive players to be on the ice. Pedersen wasn't involved with that. Pedersen wasn't involved in either of the first or second power play units as well.

So there's lots to look for tonight as Elias Pedersen is your one to watch, brought to you by Limitless AV, specializing in seamless video conferencing solutions and hybrid work spaces. Book your personalized tour of their Experience Center today at Liminlessav.ca.com. Coming up on the other side of the break, we're going to go to Los Angeles. Dennis Bernstein, the fourth period. Sirius XM NHL Radio, Dennis covers the Kings. The Kings made a coaching change, just the second coaching change in the NHL this season.

Jim Hiller is out. DJ Smith is in. What's next for the Kings? We will ask Dennis coming up on the other side of the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet, 50. Sands and Associates can cut that debt by up to 80% with no upfront fees. Visiting today at sands dash trustee.com. Why'd you read it like that?

Going for the sultry thing? This is the music? We are an hour two of the program. Oh yeah. Hour two is brought to by Jason Hominoch at jason.johnach. 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. Dow Mortgage.

To the ABLE Auctions hotline, we go. Our next guest is from the fourth period. Sirius XM NHL Radio. It covers the Los Angeles Kings. Dennis Bernstein joins us now on the Halford & Brough show on SportsNet 650.

Morning, Dennis. How are you? Got my cigar and bourbon after that opening music. I'm doing great, fellas. Thanks for that. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Welcome to the Halford and Brough Lounge. That's the appropriate. 7.30 in the morning in Vancouver. We're already lighten up. Okay. The Los Angeles Kings. It was a very eventful weekend for the organization.

We did a show on Friday after the 8-1 loss to Edmonton. And I watched the whole thing, and I came in in the morning. I said, that looked like a team that was playing, maybe not necessarily to get their coach fired, but not playing hard enough to keep him employed. And lo and behold, Jim Hiller was out about 48 hours later. Did you see this coming? Were you surprised or did you expect that Hiller was likely not long for the job

over the weekend? Who was the guy that walked in the room and asked Copa Tard? just quit on the team. He put on the coach. I did. I walked through. That was me. And Kobe sat there and said,

and I had Kobe really well. I covered him in a snarker. He sat there and went, no. That's the answer. No? Okay, yeah. Here's the thing, fellas.

That stretch of three games, and the 8-1 game was a little bit of an anomaly because they didn't get a save the entire game. The goalies were terrible. But the three games, Seattle going into the break, Edmonton and Vegas, which was the big disaster,

because they missed five guys, Vegas, and they didn't win that game. They have 18 goals. They didn't give up 18 goals in three consecutive games since 1993. After that game, I went on social media that said this team is cooked. You can replace the coach whenever you want. It doesn't matter.

The team is done. And I've been more or less an advocate for Hiller because, let's be real, when you look back at this season, the division propped this team up. They're in the Atlantic. They're in last place. And there's no chance. They're three points out of a playoff spot tonight.

I think that's where we stay right now. Vegas lost again yesterday. The mammoth lost. But yeah, you knew it was coming. And there wasn't a lot of fans in the room for Jim Hiller by the time this happened. But it had to happen. You know, I always say, when the building's empty and he starts changing your name, you're in trouble. And that's for the first time that season I heard Fire Hiller chance.

I knew he was done. So I want to go big picture here because you mentioned you don't think the coaching change is maybe enough to get this team. where it wants to go in Anzegopostar's final season, and that's obviously into the playoffs. I saw a lot of scrutiny and vitriol online directed at Luke Robitai. So for the listeners that might not be up to speed with what's happened or maybe what hasn't happened over his tenure as president, walk us through the Robitai era and how it's gotten to this point.

They haven't won a player for a round since he's been the president of the team. And you fired a guy who won two cups to put this guy in place with no experience. It's been nine, this will be nine season. No playoffs, they'll be 0 and 5 because they won't make the playoffs this year. If they do, they'll probably lose in the first round again. They lost four consecutive years to Vancouver, and then prior to a couple years back, when it was still basically Dean's team, they lost to Vegas,

and I think they got swept. So he's never on a playoff round. There's no, they're not, they've never been a legit Stanley Cup contender in nine years. And fellas, they don't have any prospects. They traded Lee and Greenchew, their best prospect to get Panarin, advocate for that trip. So Luke is totally responsible. But when maybe you're not beloved by the owner,

but you're really, really liked by the owner, you're probably going to stay in place. So at the end of the season, if you want accountability for the last nine seasons, I don't think Luke's going to pay the price because the owners like him. And that's your decision to keep him. And he'll probably just move forward. So I don't see anything changing because of the relationship. And guys, you know, a lot of this is about relationships. At that high level, he has a great relationship with ownership. I think he'll continue with the president's What kind of grade would you give Ken Holland for the work that he's done as general manager this far? You know what?

I give him like a B minor, like incomplete to be honest with you, because this is still Rob Blake's team. I would say this. He made a trade in eight months that Rob Blake couldn't pull off in eight years, and that's the Panarin deal. What was the biggest trade that Blake made, the broad trade? That's who opened his face. He salvaged it by getting back Darcy Kemper, but you would have never traded Filardi. I follow, Kapari, and a pick for Darcy Kemper. So look, Kenny made a...

Here's what the criticism of Kenny comes in. Did you overrate the coach, or did you overrate the team? Because when he came in May, he said, I want to improve the team on a margin. It's the 100-2-point team. Well, it was, but you weren't 31 home games. So there was some over-rating here. He stuck with the coach, and they were in it.

They'd been in all season. They had seven more goals and won seven overtime games in the first place, but that's if but when it didn't happen. So I'd give him a B, but more leaning towards incomplete. Here's the thing, I'd grade him on this offseason because now they're moving byfield to left wing. Copa Tars retiring the end of season.

Their number one center right now without alignment is Alex Turquette. Like that's a lot of, that's a last place team. So what is Kenny doing this off season with no prospect pool? He's going to have to trade his way out of this to make this team a contender. So I'd lean towards incomplete because I, need to see one more postseason, offseason from him to say, okay, he's done A, B, or C. You mentioned Byfield there, and he's never truly panned out to being the high-end player that a lot of people thought he'd be coming out of the draft.

And that seems to be a recurring theme with a lot of the picks that the Kings made during their rebuild. How much of the situation that they're in right now has to do with the fact that they had a lot of high-end picks, and for one reason or another, it never materialized two guys putting in the business and putting in the work and being really good players at the NHL level four of the Kings. Yeah, well, you can push him to development, right? Because they have three top eight picks on the team.

Byfield, Turcott, who hasn't worked out, he's a fifth overall pick. And Brand Kalk, who's legit. Brand Kloch's going to be the number one right side defenseman next year. And they finally took the leash off him. They need to do it fully next season, whoever the coach is going to be. But if you look at, if you look at their second-out picks, it's a disaster. Sammy Fasimo, Calli, Anderson, Dolan. You, look, I'm a Ranssen.

I know you guys are Seattle fans. Great. God bless you. It's wonderful. But my GM traded his way toward the championship. Like if I was like, I would have traded all those second round picks to get established players. Maybe Kenny Gunnick. I can't think of it. He doesn't have a prospect pool.

They just told Kenny Connors who's a decent player who could be a center, maybe a two, three center, you know, three years from now. He's going to have to trade his way out of it. So yeah, you could say that. But it goes back to World Bank. He made those picks. He could have played Stoafel. You could play the Wattest game, right? If you look at who they could have picked instead of Turquite,

they could have Matt Boldie on this team. So you've got to have Stoetsland and Boulder and Kempe as your first line. Instead, you got, you know, you had for a while you had Prus Manko on the first line. So, yeah, a lot of it has to do with the picks. And the only way that Kenny can get out of this whole develop this team into a legit contender

is by trading futures for established players. What's the deal with Byfield anyway? Why hasn't he panned out to the level that people expected? He's not an alpha. He hasn't decided to be the ice. alpha because here's the frustrating part about him. You see it in flashes. You see it in glimpses.

Go back to the last season when he made that play against Zach Gorinsky a one-handed goal. He's got it in him. He doesn't want to take it out. He needs to be, he's always deferential. And I think, you know, I talk to Rick Ferrar about him as well. And Ray, I'm sure we'll be transparent about this. Great centers.

And if he is a center, they see two or three players, two, three plays from the point in time when you're looking at the puck. When Clinton sees the puck, he's just focused on the puck. He's not thinking, where does it have to go a second pass from here? He doesn't have that vision. He doesn't have that IQ. Does that make him a left wing in the scene? Probably because two years ago, his best season was as a left wing with Kopitar and Kente. But

that's really tough to dress the guy second overall as a center and you play him on left wing and that creates holes in the middle. But I think that's the trick. So two things. He doesn't have a vision that a true elite centers do. And he hasn't decided to be a true elite center. He hasn't decided is to be Jack Eichael or awesome Matthews. Now, the one caveat because a lot of people think you should trade him,

the one caveat I have with him is that Page Thompson didn't become Page Thompson until he was 24 years old. And by those 23. I gave him one more year. I would put him with Panarin, which they haven't done so far, and see what happens next season. But you're right, he hasn't

certainly actual, look, if you have to draft over again, you'd trust that suit later, there's no question. Those are two things that's been holding back byfield. So what is the plan to replace Copatar? I know you mentioned that Ken Holland is going to have an off season and we have to wait and see. But in addition to all the other issues that he's got,

that's got to be the number one. Has to be. Well, he said in the press conference, if he's not trading his first pick this year, which is probably nine or ten right now. But what he didn't say was he wasn't not trading the 27 first. or the 28th first round pick or any player on the roster, they need to go get Robert Thomas. And I know that will be painful and it will be costly.

It's going to cost you two first round picks for this team. It would probably cost you out to the fair year and probably your fourth asset. But it wouldn't have to make because if you had Panarin, Thomas, and Kempi, that's only your first one for any team sellers, any team. So that would be the guy. It would be painful. You're leveraging your future, but there's no prospect pool to say, okay, I can't, you traded your one prospect, Green Tree, to get Panarin.

advocated for that. So that's where they stand right now. There isn't a plan. And well, I would also I would go chase Nick Schmalt as a two C. He's not a 1C. If that's the only center you get next in the offseason if Rahm gets him, then he's a 1C by the fall. But on a really good team, he's

a 2C. So you're absolutely right. They have to address the center rights position. Is it Elias? Maybe. I don't know. You'd probably have to talk to Kempi and vouch. People have to vouch for him. Maybe he wanted to come here. There's not going to be any retention from the Canucks, so that's a costly trade.

But yeah, they have to address the center, right? Because right now, that's a last place team center alignment right now. Your best two centers next season right now on the roster are Alex Turcott and Sammy Hellenia. It's brutal. Yeah, centers are important. We're finding that out here in Vancouver. We always knew it.

We always knew it. I mean, that's hockey 101. Where is Drew Dowdy in terms of his career and will the Kings need to soon replace him and do they have any candidates right now? No, no, no. No candidates. He's got one more year left at 11 million. So he'll be the second pair of right side defense for next year.

These guys saw it in the Olympics. He's seen it all season. He gets beat by speed routinely. You know, when he played San Jose here, it was, when Macklin came down the wing, it was not a pretty sight. She's not the same Jew he once was, but he's, what, 35 years old? He's got one more year. And the question is, what do you do with them after that?

Do you go to the Coppator route and give him year by year? I'm not sure they're going to go in that direction. I don't think they're going to trade him. I don't think you're going to buy him out. But he's clearly not even a 24-month-night. Forget the 27-minute he used to play. He's not even a 20-he's a 20-he's an 18-19-minute-minute-payer defense. And you have to place them.

Next year, you have to slown correctly, which is something you've never had to do with Drew. It's like, who plays it? Oh, whoever plays it through. It's great. Now, where does you get slotted to make him the more effective player? That's going to be the question. But he's clearly passed his prime.

He knows it. He's still a great presence in the room, but he's not the one, he's not the player once in a one. So, again, that's going to be, you know, we're talking about a lot of holes in a lot. So it's not really optimistic times. That's why I don't think the team's going to make the playoffs.

They're going to have to play 600 hockey. They're a 525 hockey team all season. So, you know, Jude's going to go down the lineup, and Kenny's going to have to find the, well, the good news is that you can put Brant Clark up there. So they have a number one right defense for next year. They finally the leash off him a little bit. They need to take the full leash off him next year.

There should be no, He should play when used minutes. He should play McCar minutes. That's what they need to do with this player. And if he makes mistakes defensively, who cares? It doesn't matter. You need to think of which, because he has the talent. Maybe not to be at that level,

but a certain second tier defenseman, maybe just the drop of all those guys that we just talked about. So, Dennis, we have a saying sometimes on this show, and usually we use it to talk about the Canucks. And it's, sometimes you're just screwed. And, like, are the kings, Are the Kings verging on that, or do you think they can pull a rabbit out of their hat

and get back to being a competitive team sooner rather than later? It's trending in that direction, to be frank. But the one GM that has the fact to make trades is Ken Holland. So I think you can do it. I think you can be aggressive. Maybe overpaid Nick Schultz to get a second line, several. Trade two first round picks to get a player. You don't need that many players.

Like, they're not totally screwed, but here's where they're screwed, which is like the context. Who's in the division with them? San Jose, they're coming. Anaheim might win the division. Anaheim could win the division. Like, that's the competition. And those forward wall for Anaheim, are you kidding? Look, those kids, Benix Seneca out of nowhere?

You remember draft night? Like, you didn't even think it was going to get picked. That's the problem. Is that the juxtap position between the three California teams? there's one team that has an older roster right down to the oldest roster in the league LA now granted you got 40 Perry that kind of skews it

but the context is very very different so to answer your question yeah they could be screwed this could be a team that is going to regress but here's the thing they can't rebuild here the GM 70 years old it's corporate ownership

two miles up the road are the Dodgers who aren't afraid to sign any player at any price that's the competition in this market you can't rebuild five years from that are going to be good next season is such going to be such an interesting season because to your point they may be screwed. There may be a lot of regression here

and that's why this is such a big season for Ken Holland offseason for Kenny Holland. He's going to determine where this team's going to go in the next two or three years with this summer. One more real quick before we let you go. I know that obviously DJ Smith's going to be the head coach on an interim basis. Did you hear if there was any conversation or any thought to bringing in the big fish in the available coaching market

Peter DeBore behind the bench? No, no, because who's going to take the interim tag? Who's going to take it with the team right now? I'm Pete, I'm waiting. Now, the other guy, if you want to go another direction, your guy in Apsons is a pretty good coach. I'm not sure they want to go in another direction with another first-time coach.

But I don't think that, if I was Pete, I don't think they did because it was done so quickly. I think you look at the off-season for DeBore or any other established coach, and I think the potential might swing that way because Hilo was a first-time coach, so you'd probably go the other direction with an experienced coach. But if I was Pete, I'd say, no, I'll wait until the summer. Let's see what will you make.

And Keith, that's the only team that's going to call Pete as well. There's always going to be multiple openings, so we'll see what happens in the summer. Dennis, this was great, man. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Thanks for having me again. Appreciate it. Yep. Have a good one.

Dennis Bernstein, Sirius XM, NHL Radio, and the fourth period here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Okay, Braden Kutz is going to join us in our regular what we learned segment at 830. Very much looking forward to chatting with Braille. I want to do a quick what we learn now. Okay. Okay. And it's a bit of an old man yells at the clouds thing.

Doesn't feel like you learned anything. Okay. I learned that I have a new pet peeve when people sit behind me at sporting events. Oh. Okay. So we've talked about this on the show. You know, sometimes you get seated in front or beside of, someone who's loud and really confident in sharing their

conversations and opinions and the worst part is when they are totally misinformed about everything. So you're sitting in your seat and you're just kind of dying inside while you're listening to someone, I don't know, like mansplained the problem with the Kinnaks and you're like, that's not it or whatever. I am familiar with what you speak of. I have a new a new version of that.

And I am not, I'm not trying to hate, but this is just me personally. Okay, at the White Caps game on Saturday. Okay. Four dudes, and they were dudes in their 20s, sat behind me, and look, they were nice guys, right? They were having fun. They're having a good night.

But all they talked about the entire game was their prop bets. It was the only thing they talked about and it was really distracting for me. I wasn't like freaking out or anything. I was just like, this is like this is where we are right now. So, you know, I'm trying to watch the game. I'm like, I just hope the white caps win, right?

I hope they win. They are cheering for, I think they must have bet on a yellow card in the first half. You can do that. So every decision that the referee had to make, you know, they think they're being funny, yelling like, ref, you know, that's a yellow card. Oh, I think he said something to you or whatever, you know? And I was like, I was like, whatever.

Like, it was funny for about five seconds. But then it happened over and over again. Now, I also think one of their prop bets was Brian White to be the first goal score. So they went ballistic when they had that, he had that early chance and he missed. And then Mueller had the penalty. right and you know they were like okay guys here's what I want to happen Mueller misses it it rebounds to Brian White and then he puts it in and I'm sitting there going just like hey how about Thomas Mueller just scores

yeah how about we just cheer for that which he did and I know again like people are going to be like brough you're such a grouch and yes that's true it's true but I really do find that sports betting has just fundamentally changed how so many people. And I would say a lot of it with young males, how they watch the game. And like, listen, I have buddies that do the same way. And every time they bring up their prop bets, I'm just like, I don't care. Like, I don't care.

So let's talk about this. Because there's a lot to unpack here. First, let's address the elephant in the room in which Jason and I, routinely on this very radio program have gotten the fruits of labor of advertising and at times sharing our bets, right? We've had countless sponsors on the show affiliated with the online gambling or otherwise.

We've done NFL picks for years on a Friday basis, right? Pick it against the spread, our best bets, all that kind of stuff. We've contributed. We've contributed to, I call it, the sports betting ecosystem. And it is a full full, edged ecosystem now because it's no longer hiding in the shadows. It is front and center and prominent. Now we come at it, I think, and I don't want to speak on behalf of you, but we come

out from a very unique perspective because we used to work in that industry. To me, it was never something new or interesting or something that I had never done before. And we guess when I first started it, yes, but like when I broke into radio and print, I kind of understood that sports betting was a thing that was out there and it existed and you could do it if you wanted to. Like I said, it kind of existed in the shadows. It was sort of illegal, but sort of not, but you could do it. When it became socially and publicly acceptable

and everyone started doing it. It's mainstream, right? It's mainstream now. So what I, I've noticed things that you're talking about. And I almost feel like I want to, I would have turned around to those dudes behind you and been like, You're on an interesting path here, gentlemen. Because I've got countless friends of mine who over the last few years have been introduced and dare I say

indoctrinated into the sports betting world and they've seen the pitfalls of it. There are some tough ramifications, right? One of them is, can I go and enjoy this sporting event without having some juice involved without having some action on it. And can they? Some can, some can. Some have had to make a conscious effort to stop doing it. Yeah.

Because... Do people actually understand how the books make money with just like the minus 110 as opposed to just... There's a reason it's minus 110, right? I mean, there's... That's the advantage that the books have. And I think every high school should offer an introduction to statistics and probability.

and everyone should have to take it to understand, like make it about sports betting and just run out the numbers and run out the numbers of how successful you have to be, what your win rate has to be in order to just eke out a profit. The same would go for, you know, if you're making investments, right? Just like if you get a 7% return this year

and then next year and then year after that, how much that can add up to because so many of these guys, and maybe it's just enjoyment, but like if you load up that account, you're losing that money. So here's the thing. He's not trying to mansplain

how sports gambling works, and there are all those people that are like, you know, being like a sage, savvy gambler, you know, the newbies that have come in and ruin it for the hardcore game. We've worked at sports books before. We've seen how many people win.

It ain't many. Because I see right now, to go down this road, though, countless people who stack these ridiculous 18 proper 18 game parliaments, together and they're like, look at what I could win simply by betting 10 bucks. And they've got a 27 parlay. And I'm like, those are designed by the books to get people to wage on stuff that has a

0.0001% chance of hitting. You know what else they're designed in? There's designed for promotion. Because like you, one of you or your buddies will hit one of those. 100%. And then you'll be like. And you'll talk about it for ever. And then you'll talk about it.

Right? and you'd be like, oh, it's so close. I'm just going to keep doing it. Listen, I started this whole segment by admitting, like, I'm being a bit of an old man here. Someone called me woke for talking about this, and I don't know how it's woke. If you want to spend your money on that sort of stuff, go for it.

I spent my money on my 20s on booze, and that was also a poor investment, although I met some nice people along the way, you know? It's good. We had some fun. But like, people use the word, woke whenever it's just something they don't agree with. If it doesn't fit their life view, it doesn't, not even politics.

It's so crazy. Not even politics. Just like anything at all now, if I don't like this thing, it is woke. That's like the general summary of it. Or just like, like I am as a person who's seen some things, I am providing some advice. If you want to take that advice, take it. If you don't, fine. No, it doesn't fit their life view.

So it's woke. You are, like, I see this, like, I know it's just part of, like, having fun sometimes, right? But those books make money make money for a reason. And you are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely to beat the book. But have fun while you're doing it. Okay, we've got a lot more to get to on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 651. Final hour to come at 8 o'clock. We are going to be joined by Ryan Hanna, host of the Winged Wheel podcast out of Detroit.

Potential Landing Spot for Elias Petters. We will find out. We'll talk to Ryan about that at 8. And then at 8.30, Vancouver Canucks first rounder, Braden Coots is going to join the program live from Prince Albert as he gets ready for the WHL playoffs, which are not too far away. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650.