Halford & Brough in the Morning - Would Marcus Pettersson Be A Good Fit For The Canucks?

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

In hour two, Mike & Jason talk some Canucks with NHL analyst Ray Ferraro (1:20), on the Marcus Pettersson trade rumours and the JT Miller benching, plus HaloBro try to solve the Canucks defensive woes with the help of the text message inbox (27:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Ferraro, Ferraro, let's chat with Ray Ferraro. It's time for Ferraro, let's talk to Ray Ferraro. Ferraro winds up with a shot, score! Ray Ferraro, breakaways on his side, scores! Three-bound score! Ray Ferraro! Ferraro, Ferraro, it's time for Ray Ferraro! Ferraro, Ferraro It's time for Ray Ferraro

Let's chat with Ferraro It's time for Ray Ferraro 7.03 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough for the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda. Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything

you're looking for. Sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour two of the program. As the song suggests, Ray Ferraro is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two. Hour two is brought to you by Jason Hominuk from Jason.Mortgage. If you love giving the banks more of your money,

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Ray Ferraro joins us now on the Health and Breath Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Ray. How are you? I'm good. Little early start this morning. Had dropped Reese off at basketball. Remember the old high school basketball practices before school? Just the worst. Yeah, just

the running. Just a lot of running. And then, you know, you can really easily get a 14-year-old out of bed at 640. He can't wait to get out. Come on, wake up. It's time to do wall sits.

Everyone loves those. What are your tricks to get them out of bed? My dad used to use a wet face cloth, like a cold, wet face cloth. He would come in and just, like, throw it at me, and I would not be very happy. Do you have a good trick? No, a couple of, hey, Reese, it's 615. Hey, Reese, it's 625. And then if I've got to go past that, it's the light.

Oh, yeah. Awesome. Light's a final win. Do you have a lot to show Reese on the basketball court? Yeah, we like to, you know, I really, I got a good six foot jumper. Like, that's about my range. You know, so if nobody's around, they

like to really talk to me about my vertical, how I can really, really climb in the air. Oh, yeah. It's really something to see. Yeah. No, I've seen you before. You're basically flying through the air. It's really something to see. No, I've seen you before. You're basically flying through the air.

Yeah, thanks. Ray, so I told the listeners that I'd be asking you about Marcus Pedersen. Yes. What do you know about the guy? I know you watch every player in the league and you know them pretty well. What is the story with Marcus Pedersen and could he be a fit in Vancouver? It's funny. There are certain teams I know better than others because we do them more frequently at ESPN.

Pittsburgh's one of those teams. Over the last three years, I bet you I've done 20 Penguins games, maybe more. So I've seen him a lot. He's always paired with Letang, and now he's a little bit with Carlson. He's kind of the, I guess, the stay-home to the guy that might be more frequently up the ice. Big, rangy left shot, pretty good skater, covers a lot of ice. Like he's just the term that, of course, we hear all the time is he uses his

length to defend. I mean, he's not super physical. He's just long and he gets in the way a lot. He makes a good first pass. He doesn't, he's not going to rush the puck. He's not going to, you know, he's certainly not going to make a tight turn in the D zone and zip with his legs out of the zone. He's a go back, get it quickly up the, you know, quickly up to the

forwards and out of the zone. He can, but he can skate, like he'll join the rush once in a while, but he's not an offensive guy. So would he be a fit in Vancouver? Well, as I, you know, when I texted you yesterday, when you asked, I said, like, here's what I do with the Canucks defense. If you're adding somebody, you want to add a right-handed D. Problem is, 500 teams in a 30-team league are looking for a right-handed D. Yeah. Like, they're just, you can say in each market, hey, they should add this and they should add this, and it's really, really easy to pinpoint in a lot of places

what they should add. If you were to make a deal for Pedersen, it's pretty certain the Penguins aren't looking for something for today. They're looking for something to tomorrow. But that would leave you with Forbert when he's back, Pedersen, Soucy, Brandstrom, Hughes. You've got five left-handed Ds. So when I think of a fit, it would not,

in my little game I'm playing in my head, it's not a Pedersen in and that's it. There would have to be a corresponding move because you can't make people disappear. You can't, you know, they're on your cap. You can't make somebody just all of a sudden swing over to the right side. That's not easy to do.

And so I would like him as a player. I just don't necessarily like the fit given the makeup of the D at the time. And you'd end up with a whole bunch of guys that shoot and play pretty similarly. Do you think Carson Soucy is going to figure it out? I do. Yeah. I might be the only guy that saw this the other day,

which means I might be making it up, but I don't think I am. The first two periods against Nashville, like, they were dreadful, right? Like, they... Ian Myers couldn't get the puck out of their zone.

They were back in their zone again. They would get up to the blue line. They would turn it over. I don't know what the hell happened between the second and third period, but that was the best period he's played all season. I don't really know if he just said, screw it, and I'm going to play. But he was up the ice, not like recklessly, but he was up the ice. He moved the puck well.

He moved it decisively, which has been a problem, I think. Not I think. I know this. The more that you struggle, the more that you think, the more that you think you don't react, and then every pass is like you're trying to thread a needle, when really it isn't. When you're confident, you just see the guy and you pass it.

Now he sees the guy, he measures it up, he tries to make a perfect play, and in the meantime, somebody sticks a stick in the way. So I do think, I don't know why that period, maybe because I'm kind of hoping that he does, but that period really looked completely different to me. And so we'll see what tonight goes. We're speaking to Ray Ferraro on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Ray will be on the call tonight, 7 o'clock, Rogers Arena.

Canucks, Rangers, presumably between the benches again, Ray. In a previous game, you were between the benches, and I believe you were the first to notice that JT Miller was not taking regular shifts in the third period. You mentioned it on the broadcast, and then it sort of became a thing in the aftermath when Rick Taka was asked about it and confirmed that it wasn't injury-related. It was that he was trying to find guys that were going to give his team the best chance to win against Nashville. What were you seeing, or I guess more specifically not seeing, from JT Miller in that game against the Predators on Sunday night?

Well, first off, I noticed when he wasn't sitting in the couple of seats right beside me. Right. He usually doesn't get too far down the bench. So I took a peek behind me, and he's sitting down there next to the D. I've been in that seat. That's not a good seat. When you're down that far, that means you've gone by the coach and he didn't care.

And so now you're out of his eyesight and that's a bad place to be. I thought JT has been not with the same energy and vigor that he normally plays the game with. Like, just, you don't have to go back very far. And I do think there's been some injury holdbacks for him this year. Like, he wasn't on the ice much at camp at all. He took that, I forget what game it was, he took that one open, it was the opening face off of the game and he buckled uh on the draw and then didn't take face offs for 10 days so i do think those

things have been part of the kind of just a average start by his standards but last year when when the team needed something he he kind of led the way with it you know with either a physical play or a really bold play you know something that would kind of grab the way with either a physical play or a really bold play, something that would kind of grab the team by the bootstraps and pull them in. And that's not been there. The penalty kill goal the other day, it's easy for me to criticize lousy penalty killing because I never killed penalties. So nobody has tape on me on a lousy penalty kill because there is none

i never was on it he was stuck in it like planted yeah kind of pivoting around nobody no movement to the feet no no stick position to deny a lane it's like it was just a it was a sluggish afternoon and i assumed it wasrelated, so I was quite surprised after the game to hear that, no, it wasn't. But I would suspect, and you've got to remember this, there's not too much subtle about Rick talking. He said he benched the guy, then he told the guy he benched him when he told everybody in the press. I can assume they either had a talk that night

or the next day. Like, you know, like, there's no wondering at this point. Now you got the Rangers coming in. It's one of his ex-teams. I would expect there's a, you know, a rather inspired guy that's waiting to play tonight. What are your general thoughts on the Canucks season to date? I said yesterday that I'm a little bit worried about them.

I'm not panicking, just a little bit worried, just because there seem to be small fires burning everywhere, whether it's injuries or trying to get the new guys into the system. You know, also, you know, they wanted to evolve the system into being a little more aggressive, more of an attacking team. You just, you know, it doesn't seem, they can't seem to have a game where both Petey and JT Miller are firing on all cylinders. So that was kind of like how I saw it. I wasn't, again, I wasn't panicking, just a little bit worried about it. What about you?

I'd say similar. I mean, if you were living in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia and you looked at the standings, you'd go, oh, they're doing all right. But when you're watching the games right it doesn't look the same like would you know if you didn't know or didn't watch hockey would you think looking at the Bruins at eight nine and three that they're a total train wreck right now you'd go nah they haven't quite got it going yet they They're a mess. Yeah, I watched them last night, and I would say train wreck. Yeah, like, you know, you said a few brush fires around here.

Whatever the next stage from the brush fire is, there might be the one past that. Like, they're a mess. And they've got to get things figured out pretty quickly, yet they're in the second wild card right now. Like, it's, you know, like, but they're not, how could you be content with that? I'd say, and the reason I talk about the Bruins is,

how could you be content with the way they cannot play? There's been too many, too many craters in the road so far. And you're like, look, they're going to get Demko back, you know, hopefully better better sooner rather than later. You don't get to determine injuries, right? Everybody's going to get them. If they don't have them yet, they're going to get them sooner or later, and you've got to fight your way through that.

The new guys, in my mind, you're 20 games roughly in. They're not new guys anymore. They've been here a few months, and they've had a time to get uh assimilated in the community where they're living where they want to eat where you know all that off ice stuff that really is a stress like when you do come to a new team then you've got the game well they've had camp and this first quarter of the season it's it's kind of time right like and you can say the new guys but

i don't know sherwood looks like he's assimilated fine so yeah it's not it's time for the new guys right right just go play um there's the inconsistencies i guess they bother me the most because as a watcher because i i know the next gear isn't that far removed from where they are, but you have to get there. You can't say, oh, it's going to come along. No, you have to play your way there. The system change, like that's on talk and the coaches, they've got to determine how long can you go with this system change? Is it fitting or do I got to tweak it back a little bit so all that stuff that we just talked about it's sitting in a big pot of soup and it's not it's not right yet and so all you can do is keep adjusting keep tweaking keep you know poking and prodding because there there is no hockey

player store like you can't go to the store and get the answer. Everybody, like, I watched Detroit last night. Like, how could they be looking at their team and going, oh, yeah, we feel great about ourselves. Like, these are, you know, Ottawa's had their ups and downs. These are all teams that are on the cusp of the playoffs. And so the angst we feel here is in a lot of different places. And so I do think it is time, though, that we've got to make some decisions as to, you know, is the system the right one? If it is, like if you feel it is, then we've really got to knuckle down on it.

We've really got to tighten it up. If the defense pairs need to be changed, you probably got to get to that. Can you fit the lines? Can Lekker Mackey stay with Miller or do you got to flip Garland there? Because maybe it's too much for him at this moment. You're playing a really good team that gives up no goals tonight. The Rangers don't give up anything. And so this is a challenging game for

them. It's a game that requires attention and detail. And maybe it's the type of game that gets everybody's attention and you play the game that's needed. Have you ever been on a team or had you ever been on a team where the coach went to the players, the system isn't working, we should have never gone down this road, we're going back to the old system or we're trying a whole new system? No, you would never hear that. Or certainly I never heard that. But what you would hear is, okay, we've wanted to do this

and we're going to change a couple of the details of the system. And honestly, you're not going from a, you know, system A to system C. Like you're just, you're tweaking a couple of things in the current system. That happens quite frequently. Because if you think about it, how many times do you hear, well, they got to make an adjustment. That's what an adjustment is. An adjustment is what we're doing now at this time isn't quite clicking away here. So we've got to adjust something. Otherwise, you can keep doing the same thing and getting the same result.

Isn't that what that's saying about insanity? Yeah. And you expect a different result. So you get to a point for the coaches. I mean, don't forget, we watch the game, we turn the game off, and we go and we go do something else they watch the game they get something to eat and then they watch the game again and then the next day they break down all the clips and they watch it again like they're seeing that stuff in their sleep and so they know way better than any of us whether the system is inching its way along or if it's something that's just not quite

working do you think uh they will at some point consider switching up the top two pairs because i know they've done it in game a little bit but every time they go back to practice or every time they start another game it's hughes ronick susie myers well um if if the one pair can't get out of their zone which has really been a problem then you get to a point where you're like okay we got to trade we got to try something and so you know i know there's a clamoring to put maybe brandstrom deserves some more minutes maybe brandstrom's in the right spot right now that's what i think there's a lot yeah you know there's a lot of times you take a winger always doing great on the third line and let's put him

on the first line and he can't play there yeah and they're like there's a reason players get slotted where they are but maybe you could do it for a little bit of time. Like, I think Branstrom's playing really, really well. But against Chicago, we got beat out wide by Foligno on the first goal. That's what happens to a 5'10 defenseman once in a while. He got manhandled by Foligno. I mean, Foligno's a big guy, but he got beat pretty bad. Yeah, but he'll, right, he won't do that to a 6'4 guy.

And so that's why teams like size in their top pairs. That's why they can hide a smaller guy in a third pair. You can, like, if you look at the teams that win, just go back over the last few years, the teams that get deep in the playoffs, their defense, generally speaking, are monsters. There's nowhere to go. Last year, Florida had Montour. He's not a big guy, but he's a fabulous skater. That was it. The year before, Vegas had six linebackers. They had one small guy on the roster.

It was Jonathan Marshall, so he won the Conn Smythe. So teams like size for a reason. Branstrom has played himself into a great spot. And I think he's exceeded any expectation you could have had. And so the danger becomes if you elevate him, do you take him into a spot where he's less likely to succeed? Ray, have you done a Rangers game this year? Is this going to be your first?

Second. I did one in Washington early in the year. They won, I think they won 3-2. It's just a really good, really deep team, yet they had about a 10-day stretch there where it went wobbly and sideways a little bit. They get saved by their goaltending when they get like that.

Like, Shisterkin, he's just fantastic. I don't know if anybody had Jonathan Quick at 4-0 in a 97 saves percentage. That's crazy. He's got back-to-back shutouts. Their special teams are so good. They win a lot of games by neutralizing the 5-on-5 game and beating a team on special teams.

They're really, really good. Their power play is, you know, a lot of nights that power play is like a dance. It's just perfectly timed, whether Panarin's got it or, you know, they've got Trocek buzzing around the bumper, but they've got Fox on the point. They're just, Kreider sits right in front of the net. He's one of the best at it. It's a really, really good power play. And I haven't even got to Zibanejad yet.

Like, he stands over there and zips along a one-timer. That's a good power play. He's having a tough season, though, isn't he, overall, Zibanejad? Yeah, his pace, his pace the game has has slowed um like he likes to hold the puck you'll see him get it as he's going up the ice he gets his feet wide and he's kind of searching for the opening he doesn't he doesn't drive drive the play deep in the zone as much as he used to and you know sometimes it's okay but sometimes it it really doesn't work what did you see from uh alexis lafreniere in the one game that you did

oh that kid's come of age um he had 28 goals last year all of them uh all of them at regular strength uh not one power play uh the game slowed down for him he's. In the past couple of years, not last year, because last year, through injury, when Philip Hedl got hurt, and unfortunately he's hurt again, and just hope he's okay. He's had all kinds of concussion issues. They moved Vinny Trocek between Lafreniere and Panarin. It just kind of got thrown together, and they had an amazing year. But prior to that, he's running around trying to hit people all over the place.

He's a big guy. And in the midst of trying to run around and hit everybody, he forgot to play the puck. And then all of a sudden the game slowed down. He's got good hands. He's a powerful guy. He's a good hands. He's a powerful guy. He's a good player. There was a lot of noise around him and Kako about whether they should keep him, move him, elevate them, demote them.

It was like every day in the notes about the Rangers, there was always something about one or both of them. And they still have them both. And Lafreniere is the one that's taken the real jump. Ray, this was great, bud. Thanks for doing this today. We really appreciate it. Have a good call tonight. We'll do this again next Tuesday. You betcha. You guys have a good week. See ya. Thanks. That's

Ray Ferraro here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Lee Texan. Uh-oh. Brough spoke negative about Zibanejad. Five goal game incoming. Yeah, I forgot about that. Remember when I was like, yeah, he's an okay center. And then he really took off. Five goals.

He scored five goals that same night. Really took off. But this isn't me speaking negatively about him. Hockey gods. Zibanejad himself has said he's having a bit of a struggle. Well, he's only got three goals in 16 games. They're in it.

I think he's a terrific player. The debate with the Rangers that I was paying attention to, listening to a bunch of the media from back east, was are they a good team with elite goaltending, or are they a great team? Because they don't score a ton at five on five, but if you look at enough of the metrics on them,

they've got an elite penalty kill. They have the second best penalty kill. Subtext, do you know who's got the number one penalty kill in They have the second best penalty kill. Subtext. Do you know who's got the number one penalty kill in the NHL? Nashville. Yeah. So I guess they are doing something well. Goalie's your best penalty killer, and they got a pretty good one.

I would not have guessed that because they've had such a bad start to the year. But anyway, Rangers have the second best penalty kill in the NHL. Their power play isn't among the elite in terms of percentages, but when you have Chris Kreider, you have a good power play. And Artemi Panarin, you've got a good power play. They're very top-heavy on their scoring. So that line of Panarin, Lafreniere, and Trocek is listed as their second line, but it's really their first line because they do so much of the scoring.

Panarin's great. 24 points in 16 games. He's got 10 goals already. That's been such a great signing for them. Very rarely do free agent signings give you that much juice in return, but he's been great. Who would you say, if you had to guess,

has the worst goal differential in the NHL? Which team? Worst goal differential in the NHL. In the team. In the NHL. The team? Worst goal differential in the NHL. Worst goal differential in the team, in the NHL. The ones that would immediately jump to my mind, Anaheim, Nashville. Obviously not one of those two. No. Jeez.

It's Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, okay. Pittsburgh minus 25. Who would you say has the second worst goal differential in the NHL? It's going to be a surprise for you, maybe. But they were a factor last night. Not Boston. It's Boston.

Really? Boston has the second worst goal differential in the NHL at minus 21. The Sharks, actually, they're tied with the Sharks for minus 21. I know that Swayman's been – it's been rough for Swayman. And I know that there's been a lot, it's been rough for Swayman. And I know that there's been a lot of pucks that he's been fishing out of the back of the net. I didn't realize it was to the point where they're a minus 21 goal differential.

That is crazy. Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go to break. We're going to come back. Yes, we're going to come back because there's still another 90 minutes of the show to go. We've got an open segment.

If you want to text, Dunbar Lumber text line is 650-650. Throw anything our way. We'll try and deal with it. We're almost going exclusively hockey today. We can maybe carve out a minute or two for the dysfunction and the train wreck that is the Dallas Cowboys on full display last night

on Monday Night Football, but a lot of hockey talk to come. Couldn't even get the roof open in Dallas. It was a tough scene for everybody involved in Dallas. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Hey, it's Biknazar. Have your say and join me on the People's Show with big takes and even bigger bets weekdays 3 to 4 on Sportsnet 650 or wherever you get your podcasts. 735 on a Tuesday.

Happy Tuesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda, Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in Hour 2 of the program. Hour 2 is brought to you by Jason Hominuck from Jason.Mortgage.

If you love paying too much for your mortgage, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. I, of course, am being facetious. Definitely let him do that. Visit him at Jason.Mortgage. Not.com or.ca. Jason.Mortgage. I

know that this is a sports show and the focus should be on sports, but I can't help but admit and acknowledge that I have been distracted by storm tracking and weather tracking. Me too. Yeah. I started following a bunch of independent storm trackers. Have you seen them on Twitter? There's a whole thing.

I didn't know. There's a whole like... Amateur meteorologist. There's a whole industry based around this. there's a whole like sub amateur meteorologist based around this didn't you see the original twister so that's funny because i didn't see the first one but we went and saw the second one in theater see the first one nope i didn't see really but i saw the second one saw that okay all right let's move along i saw the second one in theater how was it i did not realize that that was the premise of the movie. They were chasing the storms.

I thought they were trying to run away from them. Yeah. I was like, go the other direction. Just go that way. The poster has a picture of their vehicle with the storm tracking gear on it. They're trying to learn about tornadoes. That would be a pretty short movie if they were running away from that.

That's pretty easy, actually. It's four from that. Cause all of you is like, all right, there's a tornado. Let's go. Bye. I don't know. That's pretty easy actually. Yeah. Well, it's not like a shark. It's not, it's not like jaws. That was, that was the premise I was under.

It's like the tornado had teeth. Things that got personal. Remember? So sharknado is what you're thinking. Like jaws actually got, I remember in some of the later ones, it got personal. Like jaws.

Yeah. It was like, that was my. Like Jaws. Yeah. Jaws was like, that was my brother. Jaws is smoking a cigarette in a bar. He was drunk. Your next Michael Caine. Jaws 2, he's back and he's pissed.

Anyway, I digress. Just when you thought you got him. So we're getting a bomb cyclone. Yep. Which the name implies that the cyclone will be like hip and cool. It's the bomb. Or it'll explode.

Or it's a bad thing. It'll explode. Especially bad if you live on the west side of the island. Correct. So you're expecting over 100 kilometer winds from this cyclone. Yeah. The only thing I thought of, I'm going to have to do a lot of raking. Because I think any leaves that are still hanging on the trees might be gone over the next two days.

It might be branches coming down. Three hours raking. Ah, perfect. Big win. Come on. So use this as your public service announcement to charge your devices. Get those battery packs plugged in tonight or right now if you can because it's coming this afternoon. Bomb cyclone is a little bit aggressive.

I love it. Yeah. I like that we have embraced all the weather terminology. Atmospheric river. Yeah. It's great. It's good. We should be more cognizant.

I used to know that as heavy rain. Right. This is the big time boomer take. I see this all over Twitter. In my day, we called it rain. What is atmospheric river? Yeah. This is great.

I just said, boy, it was hot out. Bomb cyclone was known as a bit of a breeze. Yeah. Windy day. Bring a jacket. It's a bomb cyclone. Okay. Vancouver Canucks take on the New York Rangers tonight,

7 o'clock from Rogers Arena. We talked briefly about the Rangers with Ray Ferraro just in the previous hit. The Hour 2 podcast will be up as soon as Hour 2 is done. You can listen to Ray's hit there. And then the Canucks head out on a road swing. So the homestand is already, I mean, let's be frank, it's kind of a dud here. It hasn't been great.

And I don't know if the Canucks are going to rue, rue the fact that they were unable to take advantage of this. I suspect that they will. but things get harder tonight. The Rangers are going to be one of the tougher opponents the Canucks have had through these first 20 games of the season. So in a way, it's a decent send-off on the road trip from the sense of you've got an opportunity not just to salvage the homestand a little bit, but also kind of get a measuring stick game in there, which they haven't really had for a while.

All due respect. Well, they had one against the Oilers, and it didn't go very well. Right. That's what I'm saying. And then it went Calgary, which they handled. I thought they played well against Calgary. But it was Calgary. Yeah, yeah.

Chicago was a win. It was a dour affair. It was not great. Islanders game and Predators games probably set whatever progress they had made back. You can't build on anything off those two games. Well, some people will say they had a good third period, but I really do think that. Against Nashville. Yeah, you chalk that up to score effects.

The Preds were protecting a two-goal lead. They went into a bit of a shell, and the Canucks came at them, scored once, but they had already dug themselves too big a hole with a few mistakes and a dreadful penalty kill yeah so tonight really is an opportunity not just to as i mentioned salvage the homestand uh the rangers are a very formidable foe you if you heard ray talk about it prior to going to break. Really well-rounded team. Also basically zero health issues aside from Phillip Edel, who's still back in New York dealing with

what looks to be potentially another concussion after he took an elbow to the chest, but the whiplash really got him against San Jose the other night. Rangers don't allow a lot of goals. They've got very good goaltending. They've got three shutouts through 16 games. They've got the lowest goals against in the NHL. So it's going to be a test for the Vancouver Canucks tonight.

Okay, let's go into the Dunbar Lumber text line and answer your questions and comments. DJ in New West, and we didn't even talk about this yesterday. Not at all. Text in, I haven't been able to tune into the station since Friday after the Marty McSorley interview. Which one was that? I am curious as to what kind of reception he got at the Giants game.

Can you please touch on that? Maybe you have already, but I've missed it. Thank you. No, we haven't. There was only one of us here that was at the Giants game, and that was Laddie. What was the talk out at the Langley Event Center for that Giants game? And did you chat with Marty McSorley at all?

Yeah, no, he was in good spirits at the event. And I want to say the reaction was kind of indifferent. I want to say most of the people in the crowd were 30 or under, and they didn't really probably know who Marty McSorley was or heard the interview. So, yeah, if you were expecting some type of major negative reaction, that's not what happened at the event. It didn't hit our core demo 50 plus. No.

So I think it was more so to do with people weren't sure who he was. Right. So the ramifications and aftermath of the interview, a lot of people picked up on it. I know that Bourne and Kipper were talking about it on their show. I know J.D. Bunkus was mentioning it on his show, and he tweeted out at us as well. Sat and Dan were talking about it.

Yeah, a lot of people were. Patrick Johnson wrote about it in the province. Daily Hive wrote about it as well. Maybe there's a new flavor of popcorn that's coming at the Canucks game. That probably would have taken the lead. But this was the second story. Shots fired. Anyway, I do want to address one thing. And some people suggested that either we intentionally didn't know or made ourselves intentionally unaware of where Marty McSorley was at with his thoughts on the donald

brashir incident um so we had gone and done the research prior to the hit and we knew that in the immediate aftermath including the trial and everything uh mcsorley was pretty defiant and not remorseful about his actions my interpretation of that was a lot of that was uh for legal purposes he wasn't going to admit guilt there wasn't going to be an admission of or ownership of responsibility because there was a legal ramification but but he maintained it he maintained it and i saw a few interviews that he did a few years after the trial and he kind of maintained that i think that's a good word for it defiance so i said right before the interview i said i don't know how this is going to

go right i think the thing that um caught me off guard was that 24 years later he's got very clear memories of exactly what happened but it doesn't appear as though that any of the analysis or interpretation of what happened has changed from the moment that it happened yeah like there was a decision that was made and it stayed the same and honestly all of us in listener land or on air have had incidents in our lives where over the course of time you've looked at things and you've thought maybe i will take a more objective approach i got it wrong i don't even necessarily mean wrong but um i'll take a look objective approach. I got it wrong. I don't even necessarily mean wrong, but I'll take a look through a second set of eyes or maybe the time that has elapsed

has allowed me to look at things differently because I'm a different person 20 years later. That's all. Okay, let's move on from that. Dalvier takes in, who do we think gets the start in goal for the Canucks tonight? Already won his last game. He looked better, but it was Chicago.

Lankanen's lost a few in a row now. Does he need a few days off to reset? Good question. Yeah, I think that's a good question. If I'm going to bet, I think they go with Seeloffs. Yeah, I was thinking the same, actually. And I know it's the Rangers, so you might be tempted to be like, all right, well, Lankanen's been our best goalie overall,

but I think he is showing a few signs of, I don't know, not of being human. Friend, you don't think. You just see it. Yeah, the Islanders game I thought was pretty rough. He's allowed 16 goals in his last four games. And I think this will be a good chance to see if you can build some confidence, some more confidence into Seelov's game.

But who knows how Rick Tockett, where they decide, because the Canucks did not practice yesterday, so there was no indication. And, in fact, they had a full team day off, so there was no media. There will be some media this morning, and we'll see if Rick Talkett talks about that. Maybe they throw a curveball at us and a third goalie takes the net. There are reports, I guess, that Thatcher Demko is getting close

to making his return. Do we have even an estimate? Could it be on this upcoming road trip? Darren Dreger put it out there yesterday and a number of media outlets then subsequently ran with it. Dreger said that Thatcher Demko's return to the Vancouver Canucks lineup is imminent.

Now... Ooh, imminent. Yeah, when describing exactly what imminent means in hockey parlance, Dreger was a little bit more vague. The sense is that. Right. The sense of the emanation.

Emanation is not a word. Don't use it in regular speech. No, we should. It sounds like it's close. What is the emanation of Thatcher Demko? Please stop. I don't know. I don't know what it means, like imminent return.

And then is it just, okay, let's see what you got. You're starting a game. That's the only – because for goalies, that's it. You can't put them on a minutes restriction. You can't – what are you going to do, play them in the first period and be like, that's enough today, Thatch. Well – Go have a seat.

After tonight's game, and it's November 19th today, the Canucks don't play another home game until December 6th, and that's at home against Columbus. They head out on a six-game road trip. So that's like two weeks, you know? Yep. So I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that Thatcher Demko plays on this road trip. They have a few days off after they play tonight, and they start their road trip Saturday in Ottawa against

Greener and the Senators. Then I guess this is interesting. They have a back-to-back Tuesday and Wednesday in Boston and in Pittsburgh. We're both terrible right now. The two teams with the worst goal differential in the NHL. It continues on in Buffalo and Detroit. Don't forget that Buffalo game is a 12 p.m. start. Right. That's the Black Friday game. And it ends in Minnesota. And then Sunday's a 9.30 start. I hate this schedule already.

I don't like any of this. 9.30 on a Sunday morning. NFL hasn't even kicked off. That is sleeping time. Yeah. I mean, I get it. It's a very awkward schedule. So over a seven-game stretch, they go 4 o'clock in Boston.

I'm just cherry-picking all these different times. 4 o'clock in Boston, 4.30 in Pittsburgh. These are PST start times, by the way, here. Noon in Buffalo, 9.30 a.m. in Detroit, 5 o'clock in Minnesota, 7 o'clock in Columbus, 1 o'clock in Tampa Bay. No, no, no. Or 1 o'clock against Tampa Bay here. That's a matinee here.

And Columbus is at home as well. Yeah, yeah. So it's all over the map the next little bit. Let's go into the Dunbar-Lumber text line a little bit more. Here's one comment. Hronik needs to drive the second pair for $7.5 million. That's always the way i've kind of been leaning on this um but him and hughes have just been so good together that

this coaching staff clearly doesn't want to break them up they have broken them up mid-game before we've seen them switch around the pairings but you know like we talked about with ray every time there's another practice or every time there's another morning skate they are back together and last season we rarely saw it and one of the things i kept on saying and you know i wasn't saying that heronic is overrated or that they shouldn't sign him it was just that we didn't see if he could drive his own pair and i kind of agree with that assertion and i know some people would push back and say you know there's value in a guy being able to play with quinn hughes and elevating him all the way to the heights that he's gone.

And, you know, certainly most of the credit goes to, you know, Quinn Hughes, but some of it goes to Hronik, right? He's a very good player and he's, you know, he's a better fit with Quinn Hughes than Juleson is. And I think the problem, it's twofold. Number one, we don't even know if Hronik can drive a second pair, but I would like to see a pair of Soucy and Hronik. I would like to see what that looks like, and you put down Myers to the third pair, or maybe you put him with Quinn Hughes. Thus enters the problem. Who would you play with Quinn Hughes?

Right, and I think an offshoot of that is that we must remember that Quinn Hughes wants to play with Philip Peronic. Well, pretty well established. But eventually that is like, okay, well, that's fine when things are going well or even when they're going so-so. We might be at the point where you always have to defer to whatever he wants. He's that good.

Like, okay, whatever you want. You want Kiefer Sherwood? Well, I think Quinn he wants he's that good like okay whatever you want you want keifer sherwood well i think i think we play with ronick we'll let you play with him but i think quinn hughes wants what's best for the team and that might be the other part and right now that's what the best best for the team right now i i i mean i'm just i guess i'm just getting i realized the problem that the coaching staff is in because you look at that defense and it's it's so different from the forwards like you can come up with all sorts of different combinations for the forwards and rick tockett has gone with a lot of different combinations for the forwards you know he recently finally broke up the the new third line yep um and he spread them he spread them out in an effort to

put dakota joshua back with Bluger and Garland and also give Sherwood and bring some of his energy up to play with Pedersen. But you go back to the blue line and you start going over new pairs and you're kind of like, oh, I don't like any of these new pairs because if you put Hronik with Soucy, and honestly, I would like to see that, who do you play with Hughes? Do you put Myers with him, or do you put Juleson with him

and see how that goes, or De'Arne with him? I'm with Ray that all these people talking about elevating Branston, maybe you try it for a game or two, but that is not a long-term plan. No. His warts will be exposed against tougher competition.

And that's with all due respect to a guy that I think has come in and played really well, provided some much-needed puck moving on the back end. But look, there's a reason he's bounced around a little bit. There's a reason he was available for so cheap. He's got his limitations defensively. Okay, that being said, one, of the three defensemen that the Canucks acquired this offseason, Brandstrom's been the biggest win.

That's fair to say. Brandstrom's been a much bigger win than DeJarne or Forbord. Oh, well, Forbord, I think that's not his fault, though. But it doesn't matter. Whatever the case may be. He's not playing.

So in its own little vacuum the brandstrom acquisition and elevation to a third pair guy is a big win honestly he was given away by uh colorado and then was directly directly dispatched to abbotsford so for him to be but i don't think but i don't think he's a solution i don't i don't think he's a solution to the main issues, and the main issue is that the second pair is not getting it done, and the second pair plays heavy minutes. But I think he could be a temporary solution, because I think the end game, the solution, Jason, unfortunately,

is not rejigging what they already have on defense. The solution is they're going to have to add something to this blue line. Well, I think one of the solutions is also that Carson Soucy finds his game. But even if he does, I still don't think the pieces fit how you want them to fit. You know what I mean? I don't think the pieces fit like anyone wants them to fit right now. Right. And it's

because they don't have the right pieces. Yes. So they're going to need to add something, which is why you're going to hear Marcus Pedersen's name over and over and over again over the next few weeks. You know, people text in, it's a no-brainer, should be heroic with Branstrom. Fine. Put

that pair together. It still leaves the question of who plays with Quinn Hughes. The pieces don't fit. Who's the guy that they tried to make work a couple years ago at training camp? Cole McWard. Cole McWard. Ward McColl.

Yeah. So I think the coaching staff at times has wanted to make someone else work because they see the same thing that everyone else sees. Maybe put Susie with Hughes. DPD. Susie with Hughes to try and get Hughes to fix Susie. Then you got to throw someone on the right side, you know? Yeah.

Like, I don't know if, has Susie maybe on the right side. I don't know. Has Susie maybe played the right side a little bit? I'm willing to entertain that notion, but I don't know. There's limitations with this group. There really is. I like that. DPD with Hughes. Do that.

See what happens. One game. You never played in the NHL. You mostly play the left side, but you're going to go up on the right side on the Canucks top pair. Good luck. Go, go, go. DPD is a bridge too far. I was shocked when they called him up.

It felt like desperation is a stinky cologne. I was like, oof, that's a lot. Yeah, it was an indictment of the group. They were just doing that to throw fear into the hearts of the defensemen that play currently. So JNDelta says, exactly. How about having more than two legit top four defensemen? Hey, I'm all for that idea.

Let's hear your solutions. This is why Marcus Pedersen's name is in the news and why the Canucks have reportedly been talking to the Penguins about him. And the Edmonton Oilers have reportedly been talking to the Penguins about him. And any name that comes up, whether it's Rasmus Anderson or I've seen David Juracek in Columbus. Rasmus Ristelainen, Ivan Broga. David Juracek is not a solution to the Canucks' problems right now. He's a 20-year-old guy.

He was former sixth overall pick. Absolutely, he has potential. He played eight minutes last night for the Columbus Blue Jackets in their big win over the Boston Bruins. Most people in Columbus are saying he should be down in the AHL right now. So that's not a solution for the Canucks problems this season. Let's rush up Tom Willender. You can't just take him out of school.

Don't do it. It's the finish exams. You know that exam you get? Ah, strap it. It's a tough situation that the Canucks are in, but they're not the only ones. The Oilers are in the same situation. One texter suggested he should just play by himself

and really earn that MVP. A singular D pairing. I will say this. Just hold on. Go ahead. MVP a singular and a singular D pairing I will say this just go ahead also making this more complex and confusing and raising the bar like someone just texted in should we not be

thinking higher than Marcus Pedersen you know what you're thinking of last year when they acquired Nikita's a door off because not only did it fill the void it worked perfectly like could you think of a better in-season defensive acquisition in recent memory than that one? They paid rock-bottom price for him.

He played great when he got here. He became a fan favorite, and he elevated his game in the postseason. It worked out fantastically well. It's going to be difficult to replicate the amount of trade success that they had from Zdorov. Now, the glass half full, the optimist will say, well, this management group did it once.

They can do it again. The pessimist will say, you're never going to really knock it out of the park as effectively as you did last year. And I'm in between because Zdorov really, really altered the course of last season, I thought. Not only did it fill an area of need, he also, I would say he overachieved as a Vancouver Canuck.

Is that fair to say? Especially in light of what we're seeing in Boston right now, where now that he's being paid more and being counted on more and the expectations are higher, he's having a hard time matching. He was nasty in the playoffs

and so was Tyler Myers when I think the standard of officiating changes a little bit and you can get away having a hard time matching. He was nasty in the playoffs and so was Tyler Myers when I think the standard of officiating changes a little bit and you can get away with a little bit more. The Canucks were a beast to play against.

They protected their own end very well and very aggressively. Remember when Myers would go into the corners and it would just be like a stick swinging machine in there.

He would just go in there with that aggressiveness. And that typically you don't see that type of play in the regular season. Number one, because it's really tough to do every game over an 82-game stretch. And also because the officiating is a little bit different. But I think we can all conclude, we can all conclude, I think, that finding a fix to this group on the blue line is the number one challenge and it is a big challenge for Patrick Alveen and Jim Rutherford.

Brendan Batchelor is going to join us next. We'll talk more about the Canucks and their game tonight against the New York Rangers at Rogers Arena where, I'm going to repeat it, the Canucks need to be a lot better than

they've been this season. You're listening to the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.