Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 86

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.

Most Interesting Personalities

It is astonishing that when considering who should be on the Mount Rushmore of New York Rangers personalities Sean Avery was never mentioned. During his first stint with the Rangers, Avery came up with a novel method of screening goalies during the first round of the 2008 playoffs:

That summer, Avery signed a four-year contract with the Dallas Stars. Just 23 games into his tenure, Avery decided to take a shot at Dion Phaneuf for dating his ex-girlfriend (Elisha Cuthbert) prior to a morning skate:

Avery was suspended six games by the league and was ultimately waived by the Stars, allowing him to return to the Rangers to play parts of four more seasons.

Since his retirement, Avery has gotten into acting with small roles in the Christopher Nolan films Tenet and Oppenheimer.

Note: at the time of the “sloppy seconds” controversy, Jarret Stoll was dating Rachel Hunter, another ex-girlfriend of Avery’s. Hunter played the titular role in the Stacy’s Mom music video:

Episode 86

Due mostly to a lack of options, this was the Wojtek Wolski episode. Joe said that vaguely recalled a Wolski last second goal against the Phoenix Coyotes, and Eric said that it was actually scored by Ryan Callahan. The game that they couldn’t quite remember was played on Dec. 17, 2011 in Glendale, Ariz. The Rangers won on a Brad Richards goal with 0.1 seconds left. Ryan Callahan got the secondary assist:

Wojtek Wolski did not even dress for that game and would play only three more games for the Rangers before being traded to the Florida Panthers for a third round draft pick in 2013 (Pavel Laplante) and Mike Vernace.

Playoff Heaters

Notable playoff heaters were discussed, including Ruslan Fedotenko’s 2004 postseason, during which he scored 12 goals and added two assists, including the only two goals for Tampa in their 2-1 win in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final:

Bryan Bickell getting a huge contract following a great playoff run was also discussed. In 2013, he had 17 points in 23 games, including the game tying goal in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final:

That summer, he signed a four-year, $4 million AAV contract, which is the same percentage of the cap as somebody signing a $6.45 million AAV contract this summer. As a reminder to any NHL general managers who may be reading this: Vincent Trocheck is signed for three more years at a paltry $5.65 million per year.

Alex Tuch Pronunciation

Joe keeps pronouncing Alex Tuch’s last name like “touch.”

His name is pronounced “tuck,” like the business school.

The Better Team Getting Swept

After very much being swept in the 2023 Eastern Conference Final by the Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said:

“That’s the unfortunate part of this is that we’re going to look back and everyone’s going to say you got swept and that’s not what happened.”

There is one case in hockey history that I’m willing to point to as the better team getting swept. In the first round in 2003, the Detroit Red Wings faced the seventh seeded Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and outshot the Ducks 64-44, 36-23, 37-26, and 34-27 in four games. The Ducks won all four games by one goal, including two in overtime, to eliminate the heavily favored Red Wings on the back of outstanding goaltending by Jean-Sébastien Giguère, who would go on to be only the second player to win the Conn Smythe trophy despite losing in the Stanley Cup Final (the other being Ron Hextall in 1987).

Since then one more player (Connor McDavid in 2024) has won the Conn Smythe Trophy in a losing effort, but Giguere became the only player so far to win the Conn Smythe in a losing effort and later go on to win the Stanley Cup in 2007 when his Ducks (then no longer Mighty) beat the Ottawa Senators in five games.

Potential Trade with Blues

The idea of trading the #5 pick to the Blues for the #11 and #15 picks was brought up during the question and answer portion of the show. In the Episode 69 (nice) Ombudsman Report, I linked to a paper by Michael Schuckers which assigns a value to each pick in the NHL draft based on the historical performance from each draft slot. The #5 pick has a value of 741 points, the #11 pick has a value of 535 points, and #15 pick has a value of 433 points. That indicates that the Rangers should at least consider making that trade.

In order to dig deeper into the potential value of such a trade this year, I’m going to leverage the Hockeystats.com (JFresh) draft projection model:

• The #5 player has a 92 percent chance of being an NHL regular and a 49 percent chance of a being a star
• The #11 player has a 69 percent chance of being an NHL regular and a 12 percent chance of being a star
• The #15 player has a 62 percent chance of being an NHL regular and a 7 percent chance of being a star

That means that if the Rangers take the 11th and 15th best player, they have a:

• 1 percent chance of having two star players
• 17 percent chance of having one star player
• 82 percent chance of having zero star players
• 43 percent chance of having two NHL regulars
• 45 percent chance of having one NHL regular
• 12 percent chance of having zero NHL regulars

Math below:

Scott Arniel Hot Seat

When ranking coaches who are going to be on the hot seat next season, both Joe and Eric had Scott Arniel at or near the top of this list. Joe then looked back to 2025 and mentioned that Arniel should be on the hot seat already for how the Jets lost in the playoffs two years ago to the St. Louis Blues in the Game 7 from the Gods. It was actually the Jets who came back from two goals down in the final two minutes against the Blues in Game 7 including a Cole Perfetti game tying goal with 1.6 seconds left:

The Blues would go on to lose to a very good Dallas Stars team in six games in the second round.

Frankly, I’m very disappointed in Eric for not catching and correcting this error in real time given his disdain for the Blues and the entire St. Louis region. Do better, Eric.