Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 94

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.

Joe’s Henchmen

One of the opening questions asked what Joe would have his henchmen do if he was an evil supervillain, and how they would be taken out. Joe’s henchmen will be taken out by heart disease in due time.

One Battle After Another

Eric went on a rant about One Battle After Another, saying that it’s a terrible, farcical move. Everybody disagrees with Eric, as it has 94% on the Tomatometer and 85% Audience Popcornmeter.

BSB Writers

One question was about how Eric and Joe would line up the Blueshirt Banter contributors to play an actual ice hockey game. I surveyed BSB contributors, and this is the highest level of hockey that each played: 

I can assure you that any hockey team where I am a serious option for the starting lineup is not very good.

Tye Kartye

When asked what the odds of his making the team, the boys pointed out that he was actually somewhat decent last season. Per Evolving Hockey, Kartye had the fifth best xGAR/60 of any Ranger:

Joe mentioned that his points and hits prorated over a full season would’ve been one of the highest ever. Kartye’s 14 points and 75 hits in 24 games would prorate to 47 points and 256 hits in 82 games. That has been done 13 time by seven different players, including New York Rangers captain Ryan Callahan in 2011-12:

Albert Smits in the AHL?

Joe asked Google AI if Alberts Smits is eligible to be assigned to the AHL, which said that Smits can “absolutely” go to the AHL, which lead Joe to curse out Google AI rather than me. I have officially lost my job to a clanker. 

Carolina Hurricanes Lucky Run?

Joe was fairly emphatic about the Carolina Hurricanes easy run to the Stanley Cup Final, indicating that there are no lessons to be learned from their championship, implying that it was the result of luck. 

While the Hurricanes had a relatively easy path to the Final, they had the second best xGoals% this season. Furthermore, this wasn’t a one-off as they have been near the top of the league for the entirety of the Brind’Amour era: 

This season, the Hurricanes got above average goaltending from Frederik Andersen before he imploded in the Stanley Cup Final, and then got great goaltending in two games from Brandon Bussi as HockeyStats.com’s Goals Saved Above Expected per 60 minutes shows:

Yankees Talk 

Towards the end of the show, Eric mentioned that the two of us had been going back and forth via text over the state of the New York Yankees, with him saying that he’s upset that the Yankees have decided to try to be good enough to possibly win a World Series rather than so good that the only possible expectation is to win the World Series. As a Yankee fan who grew up in the 1990s, I, too, long for the days when the Yankees seemed destined to win the World Series every year. But that clearly isn’t the situation that the Yankees are in now.

Without getting too deep into baseball analysis right now, Eric said that the Yankees should trade away pieces such as Trent Grisham and David Bednar at the trade deadline. I told Eric that it is ridiculous for a team with the best run differential in the league by a large margin who is the odds-on favorite to win the American League to trade away critical pieces and wave the white flag on the season, especially considering that the American League is doing its best impression of the NHL’s Eastern Conference this season.

Eric also said that if the 2024 Yankees played the Dodgers they would’ve lost 9 out of 10 times. The odds going into that series implied that the Yankees would win 47 percent of the time, and the Yankees were two pitches away from being up 3-2 in the series.