Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 109

Welcome back to the Blueshirt Bandwidth Podcast Ombudsman Report. Each week, Charlie Vidal will listen to the latest episode of the podcast and correct the record on anything Joe and Eric (or, in this case, Joe and Chip) get wrong. If you aren't already, you can listen and subscribe to the podcast here.

4-Game Losing Streak

The New York Rangers were in the midst of a four-game losing streak that was snapped during the recording of the podcast. As the title of this podcast alludes to, the Rangers are a bubble team, hoping to sneak into the playoffs as a wild-card team. Since the introduction of the divisional playoff format and wild-card slots, there have been 11 seasons and 44 wild-card teams to make the playoffs (the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons used different playoff formats because of COVID-19). Of those 44 wild-card teams, 30 had a regulation losing streak of at least four games at some point during the season, with four of those teams having a losing streak of six games. Here is the list of teams:

Scott Morrow is Playable

Chip pointed out that Braden Schneider would no longer be on the Rangers if they thought Scott Morrow was playable. In the four games he has played this season, Morrow has been a positive contributor on the blue line. He has 0.4 xGAR and is net even on defensive xGAR:

Kucherov Contract

Chip said that Nikita Kucherov wants to be paid as one of the top 10 players in the league. The 15 highest contracts signed, by AAV, are:

Kucherov was reportedly offered $15 million AAV, which would tie Connor Bedard for the fifth-highest AAV contract signed so far and would be the largest AAV ever given to a player older than 30.

During the discussion, Joe said that the cap continues to go up. The salary cap is currently $104 million. The NHL's official cap projections are $113.5 million for 2027-28 and $127.5 million for 2028-29.