Sportsnet 650: Mike Halford and Jason Brough on if the Vancouver Canucks will make a move soon.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Halford: “When (Ilya) Mikheyev gets back, could there be a Conor Garland trade, like ready to roll?
Brough: “So they’ve got a piece of paper in a drawer somewhere in an envelope with all the details, plane tickets.”
Halford: “I don’t know but it might make sense. Like I could see the Canucks being like, ‘Hey, we do want to trade Garland but we kind of need him for the next little while because he’s on our top line right now.’
He’s currently playing with (Elias) Pettersson and (Andrei) Kuzmenko, but we all know that that spot is kind of being save for Mikheyev. And then you’re like, okay, well I guess we could bump down Garland to the third line or something like that. There could be an injury. There could be something that happens over the next little while.
But I’m just wondering. It’s just one of these things because they do need help on the blue line because, you know, (Noah) Juulsen, he just hasn’t been very good.”
Brough: “I don’t think you can go 82 with Juulsen. Let’s just put that out there.”
Halford: “(Akito) Hirose, they want in the AHL. Like Tocchet, Hirose showed up to camp this year and Tocchet was like, ‘you need to get stronger.’ Right? I don’t know if they were displeased with how his fitness went over the offseason or they were just like, ‘ya, you still need to get, if you thought this was getting strong enough, well you’re wrong. Cause you’re not strong enough.’
I think Tocchet has a real, a real, he wants to have bigger defensemen outside of Quinn Hughes, That’s what he wants. And most NHL teams do. They want to have big guys on their back end. They’re fine if there’s one puck mover, like a Quinn Hughes type, but for the most part, they want bigger guys.
And by the way, I don’t know if anyone’s been watching, probably not, but Columbus night, they lost 4-0 to the Red Wings and Andrew Peeke, who Freidge kind of hinted that the Canucks might be interested in because in one of his 32 Thoughts columns, he said the Canucks are peeking at defense options. Which if he doesn’t mean Andrew Peeke, that’s just a really weird way to write it. Andrew Peeke was a healthy scratch.”
Brough: “I did notice that and I also put together the clever wordplay from our friend Friedge, about peeking at a guy.
I mean, I suppose all the pieces align and it would make sense. The concern the Canucks would have is that, again, like you mentioned, they’re one injury away from being in that same sort of quagmire. Quagmire everybody.”
Halford: “But Nils Aman‘s sent down right? They’re gonna want him in the lineup.”
Brough: “Put it this way. If it was to next man up whole thing, they’ve go more options at forward than the do defense.
Halford: “Garland played nine minutes on Saturday. Something like that. He part of their PK. He’s not really part of their power play either. So on nights where it’s special teams game, he kind of gets lost and you know, that’s gonna be even more so if he’s not in the top-six.”
Brough: “With all due respect..”
Halford: “So listen, here’s what I think is gonna happen. I think Garland’s gonna get traded and I think he gonna get traded pretty soon.”
?️”When Mikheyev gets back…could there be a Connor Garland trade ready to roll?”
▶️@MikeHalford604 & @SadClubCommish wonder if the #Canucks might be making a move pretty soon.
— Sportsnet 650 (@Sportsnet650) October 17, 2023