Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
703 on a Tuesday.
Chapter 2: What insights does Aarif Deen share about the Colorado Avalanche?
Happy Tuesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough in the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates. They're open seven days a week, and they're open late to help you get debt-free with no judgment or upfront fees. Visit them today at sands-trustee.com. This one's part of the conveyor belt series, this song. They're open late like a speakeasy.
What kind of pet shop is open at 3 a.m. with raucous jazz music? The best damn pet shop in town. We'll get through a show without a Simpsons reference once. No, we won't. I like that. How dare you say that? We are in hour two of the program. Arif Dean from Colorado Hockey Now is going to join us in just a moment here to kick off hour two.
Hour two is brought to you by Jason Hominuck at Jason Dow Mortgage. 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 him online at Jason.
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Chapter 3: How did the Avalanche perform in their recent games?
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Let's go now to the Able Auctions hotline. Our next guest is a beat writer for Colorado Hockey Now. Arif Dean joins us here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Morning, Arif. How are you?
I'm doing well. I'm heading back to Denver here in a couple hours, but not before a... Fun couple of games here in Minnesota.
Yeah, especially fun for the Colorado Avalanche. And, you know, one of the things that we haven't really mentioned, although we mentioned it briefly, big move, big gamble, if you will, by Jared Bednar going with Mackenzie Blackwood, going to the lumberyard yesterday and going with Blackwood over Wedgwood. It pays off. Colorado dominant in front of him, but Blackwood good as well.
I guess a two-part question here. Were you surprised that they made the flip to Blackwood? And what did you think of his performance last night in 5-2 victory game? for the abs.
So I wasn't, uh, I wasn't as surprised as, as others, just because there's a couple of things. Number one, When the playoffs started, Jared Bednar was pretty open about, like, I'm using a tandem. But when your team goes 6-0 to start the playoffs, you don't really want to make a change.
Like, I don't think it would have made sense to take out Scott Wedgwood after, you know, those first five or six games, maybe after game one. But that was just one of those crazy games that you don't really blame on the goalie for. And number two, he's done this all year.
I think the surprise in all of this is that this had been the longest that Blackwood had pretty much gone as a healthy goalie because he has missed some time this year without playing.
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Chapter 4: What are the key strategies being implemented at BC Lions training camp?
And when you take that into consideration, it was almost a month. It is a pretty pivotal game. There's a huge difference between Coming back home 3-1, and then it's a whole new series, and it's 2-2. So that was a big, big move there for Jared Bednar. And Blackwood responded, and he responded well. Great move there. And then, sorry, what was your second question again?
Oh, just the performance that Blackwood put up. Because, yeah, I also heard those remarks from Bednar earlier prior to the start of the playoffs that, you know, like some other teams that were going in that had relied on two goalies, he was comfortable going to a tandem. But it had been all Wedgwood.
I know it was only 19 saves for Blackwood last night, but that game was tight in the third period before the empty netters. And I thought he was especially good in the third period.
Yeah, he had to make some really, really big saves there. And I think in the third period, it was 15 to 12 were the scoring chances. And that comes in a game where that was more than half of the scoring chances that the Minnesota Wild had all game. And, you know, as you know, it was a game that was pretty much tied or within a goal the entire way.
So there were some big saves he had to make there to keep the abs in it.
I wanted to ask you about the Michael McCarron-Josh Manson incident, only because, and we talked about this with Greg Wyshynski earlier, it was an incident for sure, but I felt like its impact on the actual game was somewhat minimal, and really a minor story compared to some, although the trash-talking between the two got some notoriety, and it certainly made the rounds on social media last night.
What did you think of the decision to rescind the major demands and give him a double minor for the penalty? And then what came after that for both him and the Colorado Avalanche?
I thought it was best case scenario for the ads. I really thought there was a case to give them a major. I don't know if it was one of those things where the officials just didn't want to fill a player out and make it.
really, really bad for one side so early in the game, or if it was a case of that, it was just such a minimal attempt of a, of a button that they, you know, didn't feel that it was worthy of a five.
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Chapter 5: What does Ryan Rigmaiden look for in players during training camp?
You know, I think if, if I was trying to figure out exactly how the officials went or made up that decision, it's more or less that, you know, they're sitting there, they're having their little scuffle, they get pulled down after the hit. And yeah, it just kind of looked more like they're both kind of jabbing at each other.
And, and, you know, like Josh Manson said, he said, I, I, I miscalculated where I was holding my stick. Uh, I'm sure you saw the quote. I didn't want to butt in him, but he did want to punch him in the head. Unfortunately, he was holding the stick when he tried to punch him in the head.
So, um, it was a little bit of an interesting, uh, of an interesting decision and one that obviously benefited the abs, but also benefited the wild. They got the power play goal. They got the first goal in it. it could have been a lot worse for the abs. Uh, as, as for the trash talk, I was a little world.
Like when we all heard the thing that happened on ESPN with PK Subban, where he just outright came out and say, well, PK, you played against him and he's dirty and you, you know how he is. And, Manson doesn't really have that kind of a reputation.
So the first thing that I did was I hit the Google machine and I did a Michael McCarron, Josh Manson search, you know, expecting to find like a 2021 play where some guy attacked another guy and there was nothing. So it was really, it was really confusing as to where it led to.
And then obviously, you know, after a game like that, there were a couple of suckers in the media like myself and a couple of others that, you know, we, We ignored the Nassim Kadri's and all the other guys, and we went straight to Josh Manson and talked to him, and he kind of explained it from his part. So it was a fun little thing, but the Michael McCarron part was, you know, him talking to P.K.
Subban in an after game again, just, you know, unleashing dirty player, nobody respects him, all that. It was kind of like out of nowhere to say the least. It was very strange.
Yeah.
So I remember back in 2022, right from the start of the playoffs and Colorado swept Nashville.
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Chapter 6: How competitive is the early phase of BC Lions training camp?
Yeah. With my eyes, I was like, this team's winning the cup. There's no doubt about it. And they did. And it was one of the more impressive Stanley Cup runs we've seen, certainly in the salary cap era. Are you getting that same vibe from this team?
I am. And I've been kind of talking about it since... pretty much since the postseason started and we knew that they were going to face, let's put it lightly, a weak team in the first round, whether it was going to be LA or San Jose or whoever. And then we knew it was going to be tough in round two between Minnesota or Dallas.
I just didn't think it was going to be as tough, even if it was Dallas, as the series they had a year ago. But, you know, going back to that 2022 Avalanche team, if you take it all the way back to like 1989 or 1988, I think, the 1970s Montreal Canadiens dynasty, and there was one team in the 80s, and they have been one of the Edmonton... The 85 Oilers rolled.
Yeah, so there was a team, but it's not just playoffs. It's regular season. Basically, what I'm getting at is, for as long as I've been alive, and I'm 33, there has been no team as dominant October to June as the 2022 Avs, and basically how I came up with that is,
The 119 points that they had in the regular season in 2022 was the most by an eventual Stanley Cup champion since 1988 or whenever it was. So this team is not... they can't do the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay lightning thing where it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we'll just get them to playoffs. We'll be a wildcard team.
We'll be the three seed and we'll play Winnipeg in the first round. We'll play Dallas in the first round and, and we'll turn it on. No, like the, the, the Nathan McKinnon gateway and it's called Jared Bednar version of the Colorado avalanche. They have to dominate October to June.
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Chapter 7: What are the expectations for Nathan Rourke this season?
They did it in 2022. They look to be, to, to, to want to do it again. And, and, Yesterday was such a big game, not that it would have automatically led to a series loss, but here's a fun fact for you that is just mind-boggling. The Jared Bednar, Nathan McKinnon, Colorado Avalanche have never won a series that was tied 2-2. So they have to roll.
They're either sweeping teams and they're up 3-0, or they're up 3-1. So it just seems like they need to be what you're talking about, that 2022 version, what we saw against Earlier this year, where they had two regulation losses in 40 games, they need to dominate start to finish, and it does look like they're well on their way to do that. It's quite impressive.
So, Arif, the other day, the Selke finalists were announced, and we saw them, and we were like, wait, what? Brock Nelson? How did Brock Nelson turn into a Selke finalist? Because this is not an award that...
he's ever been in contention for certainly not during his time with the new york islanders what what has happened in colorado so are you familiar with and you guys you guys had wishes gone earlier are you familiar with the monthly awards that uh that wish does on espn where he'll he'll send out an email to all the p uh professional hockey writers association people and just kind of like get a feel for what people are thinking for the awards every month yep
OK, so he did it a couple of times with me this year and I was I was digging into some numbers and I was trying my hardest, especially early in the season when the Avalanche were like thirty five and two or whatever. Like I was trying really hard not to just like, oh, yeah, Hart McKinney, Norris scale doesn't do it like I was trying to not do the thing where, you know, Jack Adams.
And then I was looking at defensive numbers, and I think I literally was going to flip a coin and be like, okay, either Brock Nelson or Val Matushkin need to be up for the selfie because their defensive metrics are insane. They were like 70% puck possession, 70% course, 70% this, 70% that, expected goals insanely low. And then on top of that,
uh brock nelson started the season a little slow offensively five points in his first 16 games uh and then he just went like berserk there was the you know leading up to the olympics and then coming out of the olympics where uh something along the lines of 24 goals and 29 games like he was leading the league for like two and a half months in goal scoring and
And then you look at his defensive metrics, and it's like, okay, Nathan McKinnon's getting every offensive zone start. Brock Nelson has to take every faceoff in front of Blackwood and Wedgwood. And him and Val Dutroux are going to have to go out there and finish off six on five games.
And they have to have all these defensive end draws and face the tougher competition and do basically all the things you need to do so that Nathan McKinnon can go out there and be a heart trophy guy and put up 150 million points.
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Chapter 8: How will the BC Lions manage their schedule during the World Cup?
And I was like, okay, this is like you, like, like you said, like he's 34 years old. He's never had anything like this. So I started to kind of throw it out there a little bit in those monthly Wyshynski things. Uh, not that I had an impact on, on other voters.
Uh, but I think a lot of people started to realize that too, like, okay, Brock Nelson is basically, I don't know, 2007 Rob Niedermeyer, but he's also got 65 points and 33 goals. Like it, it is quite impressive what he's done.
to the point where when the Avalanche traded for Nazem Kadri, and they still brought him in, it was like, oh, great, now the Avalanche can reunite Landeskog, Kadri, and Nachushkin. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Kadri's the third-line center on this team. The guy from Long Island is having an insane season. So his offense has since kind of dried up a little bit.
I think he scored his 30th goal literally the game after the Olympics, right in the high of that. game gold medal that he took from us. But then he's kind of slowed down. He's got two goals in the playoffs. One of them was yesterday. They're both empty netters, but he's still doing that defensive zone thing.
Yesterday was the first game he was split up from Val Nachushkin and both of those guys went on to separate lines and, and they both impacted it defensively. It's, it's insanely impressive what he's done this year. And, and, I think the abs were criticized a lot for giving him the contract. They gave it in the summer.
And then halfway through the season, Jared Bednar, I think we didn't even ask him about like the contract. We just said, how well is Brock Nelson been? And it had been like around the time when one bird got 6 million and Dvorak got like five and a half or whatever he got from Philadelphia. And Bednar is like, he's been good. A lot of people criticize Chris McFarland when he signed that deal.
Look what other quote unquote, second line centers are getting now. So yeah, I think they made the right gamble, they made the right move, and it's well-deserved. We all know Nick Suzuki's going to win it, but it's a well-deserved finalist award there for Brock Nelson.
I wonder if people appreciate how good the Avs were, not only as a team, but defensively this season. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but they had the lowest goals against and the best PK in the NHL.
correct on both. Most goals for, lowest goals against, best PK. Fun fact, who's the last team to have the most goals for and the least goals against?
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