Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 80
Charlie's back to set the record straight after Ep. 80—correcting Eric's questionable self-assessment, fun with spelling, and the cliché that J.T. Miller was better in the second half.
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, Chip) get wrong. If you aren't already, you can listen and subscribe to the podcast here.
Not Joe Fortunato
Eric called himself Joe’s “much better looking and clearly more intelligent cohost.” Eric is not better looking than Joe.
“S” in Blueshirt Bandwidth
There is one "s" in Blueshirt Bandwidth. The word “shirt” begins with an "s." There is not a second “s” to make Blueshirt plural.
Episode 80
During the discussion on who this episode should be name for, Hugo Ollas’s brief stint with the Rangers was mentioned.
Ollas was called up to the Rangers on Feb. 5 immediately following the Rangers 2-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes that kicked off the Olympics break. This was because the Rangers were required to have two healthy (not on injured reserve) goaltenders on their NHL roster throughout the break. Igor Shesterkin had been placed on injured reserve on Jan. 6, and did not return until the first game following the Olympics. Jonathan Quick was healthy, and the Rangers opted to send Spencer Martin down to Hartford so that he would get playing time during the Olympic break.
Ollas was the third option for Bloomington in the ECHL, playing in 18 games behind Dryden McKay and Callum Tung. He was the Rangers seventh round pick in 2020 and has played one game for Hartford since being signed out of Merrimack College in 2024.
J.T. Miller
Eric argued that J.T. Miller was “better the second half of the season.” Looking at his top line production, this can appear to be the case. Before the Olympic Break, Miller had 36 points in 48 games, good for 0.75 points per game. Following the Break, Miller had 17 points in 20 games, which is 0.85 points per game:
I decided to check under the hood and look at the advanced metrics. Below is Miller’s total xGF (0.0 is league average) for each month of the season:
As you can see, Miller’s best month was October, and his only above average months were October and December. Miller only played 68 games, and his second 34 games played were significantly worse than his first 34:
