Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 84

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.

I Messed Up the Draft Order

In last week’s ombudsman report, I stated:

In the NHL draft, the final four picks of the first round are reserved for the teams that lose in the Conference Final (29-30), lose in the Stanley Cup Final (31), and win the Stanley Cup (32). Picks 17-28 are held by the teams that lose in the first two rounds in the inverse order of their record in the standings.

What I did not mention is that any team that wins their division and then loses in the first two rounds will pick after every other team that loses in the first two rounds. When I wrote last week’s report, both the Vegas Golden Knight and Buffalo Sabres were still battling for a spot in the conference finals. Of course, the Golden Knights beat the Ducks to reach the Western Conference Final and the Buffalo Sabres fell in overtime of Game 7 against Montreal. This means that the Sabres will have the final pick of teams that lost in the first two rounds, and the Rangers will hold pick #26.

I would like to apologize to our loyal fans for letting them down.

Episode 84

Although it was not ultimately the Corey Locke episode, he did not do nothing during his short tenure with the Rangers. Locke played 18 minutes across three games during the 2009-10 season, going 1 for 7 on faceoffs and registering a plus one.

Viggo Björck

Snark and Roberto talked about taking Viggo Björck fifth overall, fully acknowledging that drafting Björck with that pick would be a bit of a reach. In last week’s Roundtable of what the Rangers should do with the fifth pick, I reviewed who would be available based on five leading mock drafts published after the lottery. Here is where they have Björck being selected:

• The Athletic (Corey Pronman): 12th
• ESPN (Rachel Kryshak): 11th
• The Daily Faceoff (Steven Ellis): 7th
• Bleacher Report (Hannah Stuart): 7th
• TheScore (staff): 11th

Benoit Allaire

When discussing the retirement of Rangers goaltending coach Benoit Allaire, Eric mentioned that the Rangers have had a litany of backup goaltenders who have been incredibly consistent and got better following their time under Allaire. Evolving-Hockey’s goalie data only goes back to 2007-08, and the primary backup for the first few seasons was Stephen Valiquette at the end of his career. Let's look at some examples of goalies for whom we have xGAR per 60 minutes data before and after being under Allaire’s tutelage.

Alex Auld only suited up for the Rangers in three games during the 2009-10 season after losing the Stars backup job for performing at a below-replacement level for most of the season. He rebounded to have the best season of his career in Montreal the following year: 

While  advanced data tracking isn’t available for bulk of Martin Biron’s career, during which he played 300 games for the Sabres, he rebounded from a below-replacement season with the Islanders in 2009-10 to post three strong seasons with the Rangers to finish his career:

Antti Raanta posted the best season of his career with the Arizona Coyotes in 2017-18 immediately following the two seasons that he spent as the Rangers backup:

Ondrej Pavelec appeared headed for retirement before Allaire resurrected him for one last season as a solid backup in 2017-18:

Eric also made a pair of errors while naming Rangers backup goalies. He said that Cam Talbot came out of Alabama Birmingham (UAB). UAB does not have a hockey program; Talbot played at the University of Alabama Huntsville, which had an NCAA Division 1 program from 1985 until 2021.

Eric also called the aforementioned Ondrej Pavelec, Oleg Pavelec.