Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 78

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 get wrong. If you aren't already, you can listen and subscribe to the podcast here.

John Tortarella

In response to the recent news that the Vegas Golden Knights fired head coach Bruce Cassidy and hired John Tortarella, Joe said that, “it’s always good when John Tortarella is back in your life.”

This is only true if he is not coaching your hockey team.

Brennan Othmann

While discussing the New York Rangers inability to properly draft and develop players, Joe said that Brennan Othmann “wanted to leave earlier this season, and got fucked over by rules regarding the AHL.”

Although Othmann never confirmed that he out and out requested a trade, in an interview following the trade he said, “I thought it was time for a change, so kind of made the decision at the start of the year and the process went on, obviously, the whole season.” 

As far as the AHL rules go, 18- and 19-year-olds with CHL eligibility are not allowed to be assigned to the AHL until the calendar year in which they turn 20. This meant that Othmann had to play the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons in the OHL despite posting huge point totals because he was one of the older players in the league. As has been frequently discussed on the podcast, Othmann’s development would have benefited from playing with more mature players in the AHL.

2020 NHL Draft Lottery

As the Rangers insistence on collecting points in the standings to the detriment of their draft lottery odds was discussed, Chip asked “didn’t the rangers have a 1 percent chance of winning the Lafrenière lottery?”

In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHL created a “preliminary round” of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with the teams that were seeded 5-12 in each Conference when the 2019-20 season was paused. While the playoff tournament didn’t begin until Aug. 1, the NHL held the draft lottery on June 29. In that “first phase” of the lottery, the NHL used placeholders for the 8 teams that would be eliminated in the preliminary round. In order to ensure that a team wouldn’t intentionally lose a preliminary round series to ensure a top three pick, the league then held a “second phase” in which each team that lost in the preliminary round had equal odds to get the pick that had been won by a placeholder team. The first overall pick was drawn by one of the placeholder teams in the first phase of the lottery, so after the preliminary round each team that lost was given a one-in-eight shot at receiving that pick, which the Rangers won. 

As far as the overall odds of the Rangers receiving the first overall pick in that draft are concerned, the cumulative odds of one of the placeholder teams winning the first overall pick was 24.5 percent. The Rangers then had a one-in-eight chance of winning the second lottery, meaning that the Rangers had a 3.1 percent chance of winning the Lafrenière lottery.

Interesting Free Agents

Chip mentioned Eeli Toilvanen and Patrik Laine as intriguing free agent options who could be found in the bargain bin this offseason. Per Evolving-Hockey, Tolvanen has mostly been a below-replacement level player outside of his breakout 2024-25 season, and Laine is basically a replacement level player. Maybe Laine can recapture the magic of his first two season where he scored a combined 80 goals.