21: Quick Swick and the Sneaky Petes

0:00Justin: Hey, Andrew.

0:01Andrew: Hey, Justin.

0:02Justin: We're playoff bound, baby.

0:04Andrew: Oh, yeah. Booked our ticket.

0:06Justin: No one can take it away from us now.

0:09Andrew: No, we're in. Doesn't matter now. No matter what, we could just forfeit every game.

0:14Justin: Yeah, maybe we shouldn't do that.

0:16Andrew: We shouldn't do that. No, actually, we're not playing anymore. We're good.

0:19Justin: Yeah, we're gonna rest for the playoffs.

0:22Andrew: No media. No, just media.

0:24Justin: But somebody else's style.

0:26Andrew: We'll get more. Get to that later. Welcome to the AudPod where we're talking Kitchener Rangers hockey with the AudBalls themselves, Andrew and Justin.

0:41Justin: Take it away, fellas. We should get into recapping some games.

0:48Andrew: Absolutely.

0:48Justin: We should start here.

0:50Andrew: You want more banter?

0:52Justin: What else you got?

0:52Andrew: A strange Calgary Canadiens jersey. Oh, now.

0:57Justin: Yes.

0:58Andrew: You're on the YouTube or even on Spotify. You can see this abomination he has created. Now.

1:03Justin: I am obviously cheering for Canada. Starting today was Wednesday. Robin, this is like. Other than the Rangers, this is the only other time that Andrew and I cheer for the same team.

1:17Andrew: You're going to be excited about this.

1:19Justin: I hope.

1:20Andrew: Fingers crossed.

1:21Justin: McKinnon, McDavid. Crosby, Reinhardt, Makar. Top power play. Insane.

1:28Andrew: Let's just hope they don't give up any shorthanded attempts against. Because the one thing I am scared about is the goaltending.

1:37Justin: Yeah, the goaltending. Although those goalies, they've been doing okay. They're not like, wait, who is it? It's Thompson. It's our main guy. Main guy? I don't even know. You don't even know?

1:48Andrew: It's Aiden Hill. Aiden Hill. Sam Montembeau and who else did they send?

1:54Justin: I don't even know. I can't even think of who. I can probably name most of the lineup, but I can't even remember.

1:59Andrew: He just named the line of the power play. Was it Binnington?

2:04Justin: Actually, I would trust Binnington the most out of those three.

2:07Andrew: Is it Binnington?

2:08Justin: That's it.

2:09Andrew: Could go either way. I think Aiden Hill is the main guy, though. I haven't been paying too much attention to it. But I am excited for it. But I've been busy and I've been trying to follow the Rangers and trying to follow the NHL. And now there's a break. And also we run. We're GMs. Oursel of. Of fantasy hockey teams.

2:29Justin: Really? Our week off right now.

2:30Andrew: Yeah. I haven't paid too much attention to the four nations, except that all the social media outlets keep saying who's got a better power play? The US or Canada. I'm like, okay, just watch like Finland win because they're getting no, no respect.

2:46Justin: I was saying to someone earlier today, Finland looks like a really good NHL team and Sweden, Canada and the US look like all Star for sure. Bennington is our third goalie.

2:57Andrew: A far cry from the days of Broder and Joseph and Turco and Terry Price after that and more Henry Flurry. Yes.

3:08Justin: Yeah.

3:09Andrew: Far cry. But you know what? They're going to give it their all.

3:12Justin: They're going to do best. If your goal is to just have the puck the Andrew game with your forwards, it works. It works.

3:21Andrew: It's true. If the goal here's you're actually. You might actually get the full Oilers experience. Just outscore them. That's the name of the game is we just keep putting out four scoring lines and hopefully it works.

3:35Justin: Yeah.

3:36Andrew: The good thing though is the. The defense is unbelievable on Canada and obviously they have so many centers that some of the centers are playing wing. So I think that you could see stuff happen and they could go into a blender if things are looking weird early with chemistry. But I don't know, they just.

3:53Justin: It's.

3:54Andrew: These are the best players on earth.

3:55Justin: I bet they can play together.

3:57Andrew: Yeah, I think it'll work. I think they'll all be shocked at, oh, look, somebody who is as good as me. I'm not saying that these guys don't go back to their own hockey clubs and play with incredibly talented people, but. But Crosby, McDavid and McKinnon on a line together. No, they do not go back and play with players as talented as three generational guys.

4:19Justin: McKinnon will just be like, wait, you can keep up with me.

4:22Andrew: Yeah, exactly. I know. It's finally. It'll just be so exciting to see Sid, who has deserved to wear the Soo since. Since he wore the Soo let's put it that way.

4:34Justin: He has some sort of insane like 170 record as a captain of a Canadian team. He's like unbeatable.

4:42Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm very excited to see all of this, but obviously that is at the forefront of our minds right now and not necessarily looking ahead in junior, but this is an OHL podcast, specifically

4:56Justin: the Rangers is who we follow.

4:58Andrew: And we do not have a problem with goaltending. We do not have a problem goaltending.

5:04Justin: Not even a little bit. But let's jump into the first game where there was a little problem with goaltending. So it's true. The first game we played Owen Sound, we won key here because we're gonna talk about some not fun things for a moment. But we won four to three.

5:21Andrew: We did.

5:21Justin: And. And it started with a beauty by Trent Swick 44 seconds into the game, which kind of becoming his staple.

5:28Andrew: Yep. The Swick start. It's a Swick start there.

5:35Justin: That's a swicky.

5:37Andrew: It's a. It's a quickie. Swicky. It was less than a minute in. I actually bet he leads the team in goals in the first minute.

5:45Justin: Yeah, I think he has, like, three in the last two weeks.

5:48Andrew: Yeah, it's bizarre. He just goes out and scores right away.

5:50Justin: It's awesome. So there were five goals scored in the first period. Misaljovic also got a beautiful corner pick. But the thing we have to talk about is the OHL Rookie of the week. Mabui got OHL Rookie of the week because he scored a hat trick against Shabble in the first period of this game.

6:10Andrew: It was, like, really go as planned for Jason Schaubel which is okay. Also a rookie.

6:16Justin: It was. There was a lot of sustained pressure. He wasn't getting much help. So it was basically the. Owen Sound was in their offensive zone shooting the puck for, yeah, like, 15.

6:26Andrew: Almost doubled the shots. It was 15 to 8 after the first period. So Shovel was under attack, full attack. And Pierce Mbuyi was a man possessed on this day, which it'll happen sometimes with rookies. And we saw with Ethan Belchettes early in the season, he had a crazy start. Hey, we do talk about that game because that game was the turnaround game.

6:49Justin: Oh, yeah, that's right.

6:50Andrew: The reason it's so good is because

6:52Justin: we got our asses handed to us learning moment.

6:56Andrew: It's true.

6:57Justin: Then Parsons came in in the second, and the team just, like, crazy tightened up. It was, like, way more defensively responsible after they. Like you said, after they got outshot 15 to 8 in the first period, sound only got 9 more shots in the rest of the game. The Rangers got 31. So it's actually amazing that we only won four to three at that point because there were some amazing opportunities. Humphries and Chromiak scored some beauties in the. In the third to. To bring us home.

7:26Andrew: They sure did.

7:28Justin: So that was a. That was a fun game. And then we went on to Niagara the next day. So we took those 31 shots, and we were like, we should have scored some more. And then we took that all out on Niagara.

7:40Andrew: Yeah, we're really bad for the. The rookie goalie in this one, actually, where it was not. Not A good look for the Niagara Ice Dogs.

7:49Justin: And he played half the game the night before because the starter got told and he went in. It was a bit of a rough weekend for Niagara there.

7:57Andrew: Yeah. And I actually listened to the radio broadcast of this one. From what I could tell, the Ice Dogs gave up.

8:05Justin: Yeah.

8:05Andrew: And Matthew Humphreys, the rookie goaltender, he was basically just out there just getting. It was like a shoot around.

8:12Justin: It was a bit like that, especially in the second period.

8:16Andrew: And the Romano goal in the third period, I saw on the. The highlights. They literally just let him walk out and shoot it.

8:24Justin: Yeah.

8:25Andrew: Basically are gonna score from. So.

8:27Justin: Yeah.

8:28Andrew: Yeah. The game was dominated by the Rangers. 19 seconds in, Christian Humphreys scores. But like the sustained pressure. It's easy to look at this goal. It's easy to look at this, the score nine to one and Sam O'Reilly the Rangers ran up the score. Not really like it. Honestly. It was after the second period which the Rangers scored with two seconds left in the second. It was four nothing and it was cruise control a little bit is what I felt.

8:59Justin: But there also wasn't like it was a lot of neutral zone play for this because there. There also weren't a lot of shots in this game. Like There were only 49 total shots in this whole game.

9:09Andrew: West Rangers had 25 shots. They only had 14 shots going into the third.

9:14Justin: It didn't feel like anybody was just dominating play the whole game. It just. It actually just felt like it was a defensive game that kind of got blown up by the fact that the Rangers just scored so many. Yeah, there were some softies.

9:28Andrew: And then honestly, 40 seconds into the third, Britom scored. Surprised that they just didn't pull Humphreys at five to nothing and put in somebody else for the rest of the third. Because then three minutes later, Vermeulen scores. Two minutes later he scores again. Right. And you think at least then you're going to pull them.

9:49Justin: No, no, they, Patrick Wadham, they just

9:53Andrew: allowed his save percentage to be forever

9:57Justin: destroyed kind of person. Will you become his villain origin story?

10:03Andrew: Truly, I wish him the best because like I said, I was listening on the Aud and Farwell was pretty honest about the fact that Niagara looked like they gave up. However, I will say the power of the Rangers was there. If you're going to give up against a team like this, the shots are

10:22Justin: going to go in.

10:22Andrew: The Rangers are just too good.

10:24Justin: Yeah, that's so true.

10:26Andrew: Huge game for Cameron Arquette. He had two goals. He probably could have had another one. Just an awesome game for Cameron Arquette.

10:33Justin: Yeah, he was stellar. There were a lot of guys on this that you could point out as having great games. And I think that just comes when there's a lot of scoring. It almost feels like we're downtrodden about this, but it was like a very dominant win and we're happy to take those. I saw on Reddit somebody posted, obviously an Ice Dogs fan that said the headline was Niagara ruins Jackson Parsons day by not allowing the shadow or something. I was like, are you sure that's the headline we want to go with?

11:04Andrew: Yeah, right. I was bummed about that.

11:07Justin: That was late in the third. Yeah, it was a good goal, but it was just a bummer that it happened. He deserved the shout out in that game for sure. And then we moved.

11:16Andrew: I was just gonna say that Andonovsky is just a casual plus 5 in this game.

11:21Justin: Yeah, just a casual.

11:23Andrew: Yeah.

11:24Justin: And then our third game was against the Oshawa Generals, who came out firing.

11:30Andrew: Sure did.

11:32Justin: This time they did. Yes. After almost two goals, almost right away as one went post to post and stayed out.

11:40Andrew: But it's true.

11:42Justin: Beat Parsons. And then almost immediately after there was a crazy goal against Parsons.

11:47Andrew: Yeah, this is one of those games where it did. It did feel a bit like the Rangers just were chasing any team. Chasing is never going to play as good as a team that's playing an even game or they're playing up. That's just logic. However, they came back and they forced overtime. So it wasn't like. Again, we sound a little downtrodden about this. I. I think to get a point out of this game was very positive.

12:15Justin: After the start, there were some defensive zone lapses. Bennett Senec was left alone on the hash marks for a one timer that they scored. There was a bunch of little moments that the Rangers did not look their best in this game, but they did like you said they did. They fought back. The third period, they came out, they were awesome. Awesome third period. And yeah, forced overtime. Happy for that point for sure.

12:39Andrew: Absolutely.

12:40Justin: Yeah, it was an interesting game. I really enjoyed the energy of the third period.

12:45Andrew: Yeah, it was disappointing that they got that they lost this one because it was a good comeback. It was like that game they played last week where they had to fight back and just couldn't. They played. It was a similar game against Saginaw. They lost five to four where you just thought that they scored a couple and it looked like, oh, maybe they'll come back, maybe they'll win this one. And they fell just short. And this one they actually got A point which is. So you take it honestly, in the run of a season, you're going to lose games like this where maybe you come out a little flat. I think this could have been a game where they didn't get a point. So it's good that they came out in the third and forced that overtime. Oshawa's a really good team. The Rangers weren't supposed to compete with Oshawa at the beginning of the season.

13:29Justin: No, Osha's good. They were expectedly good. That's kind of where they are right now.

13:34Andrew: Absolutely.

13:35Justin: Yeah. So I was. There's a little bit of a concerning trend that I noticed over these three games. It comes in the shot department and now the Rangers are obviously getting a lot of goals. So it's, it's like, okay, quality shots over quantity of shots. But yeah, there, there was a little bit of concern. You know, obviously the Niagara game we won by a lot, but there wasn't a lot of shots. We got outshot in that first period against Owen Sound and then we got quite heavily outshot against Oshawa, 13 to 4, like it is. Yeah, like I said, quality shots are great, but there does have to be some volume at some point.

14:09Andrew: It's indicative of the possession numbers where if you're just. If you're ta. Sure you want high danger chances and you want quality over quantity, but if you see a trend of you're only having single digit shots in periods, is it because you don't have the puck or is it because you're really patient? How patient are you if you're chasing? So if you're chasing, you start to go, oh wait. Or are you just losing the possession game? Because then I look at another statistic because again, we don't have advanced analytics. I look at another statistic and Oshawa won 32 face offs compared to 22 for the Rangers. I think if there is sometimes a weakness it comes by way of possession and face offs and like zone entries and stuff get convoluted sometimes. I don't know why the neutral zone place sometimes regresses game to game, but I think realistically they're. When they're firing on all cylinders, we don't see any of this for sure.

15:07Justin: Yeah, this is like it's always high, high shooting, high scoring. Yeah, we've seen them blow out teams like double the shots at the end of the game this season. Yeah, okay, well it's something that I think we'll keep an eye on going towards the playoffs because you know, the possession Always goes down or neutral zone time always goes up in playoffs. So being able to sustain some offensive zone time is important.

15:30Andrew: And yeah, we don't want to seem like low energy or not excited about

15:34Justin: the fact that they had two winners.

15:36Andrew: One that was huge. Five points out of six is awesome. Where you're starting to overthink everything because now we're looking down the stretch, we're starting to. I'm starting to think about seeding. I'm starting to think about being basically or third. That's basically where we're gonna sit. Because with Windsor in the division, in the other division, they're going to have the top seed in that division. Right. You start to think about third. You start to think about how some of these teams that you're going to play in the first and second round, they're not. There's no cupcakes coming in here. And so you got to start to think we got to get as many points as possible so that you stay in that third spot and that you play the weakest team you can possibly play going into the playoffs.

16:20Justin: Yeah, for sure.

16:22Andrew: And you want to be playing your best hockey. You don't want to be like we had this huge winning streak. We won six games three times. You win Sam O'Reilly lose some going in the playoffs. So I, I just want to say that we're being like extremely. We're over, over analytical of missing out on a point in a three game swing. Right.

16:39Justin: Yeah.

16:39Andrew: This, you're doing incredible. We're, we're die hard Rangers fans, especially of this team this year. This is a special year.

16:47Justin: Okay. How does, how does playoffs work in the ohl This. I, I actually don't know how the seating works. Is it, is it division first? Like you play the.

16:54Andrew: Soo it's. No, it's one to eight, but. Oh, it's one to eight. But the top two division like the. Yeah, they get the top spot. So right now Windsor is technically second. Even though we have, we have a lot.

17:09Justin: Yeah. Four more points than the Soo right now we're looking at playing Flint as our team. Yeah, Sarnia could easily get that. It could be eerie. Like, I think sue might be a little bit too far away.

17:23Andrew: I think the Rangers win any of those matchups with those teams you mentioned. I'm not worried about it. It'll be, it won't be easy. Flint's not a pushover. But the Rangers can beat Flint in a seven game series and I don't

17:36Justin: want to get too far ahead. If we do make it to the Second round is. It receded again?

17:40Andrew: I think it's just top seat.

17:42Justin: Yeah.

17:42Andrew: So it'll be like top seed to bottom seed, like, right?

17:46Justin: Yeah. Okay, cool.

17:48Andrew: So say if Windsor won, you'd play Windsor in the second round and if you know what I mean, it would be 2, 3 and 1 and the bottom seed.

17:56Justin: The Western Conference has some of the weaker teams in the league. The east feels a little bit more like parodies, like the west, but there's like the top five in the East.

18:05Andrew: There's some talent in the east, but I think there's. This year there's three juggernauts, basically in the West.

18:11Justin: Unfortunately, it's a tough road in the playoffs.

18:15Andrew: What sucks is you're going to have to go into Windsor. You're going to be on the road.

18:19Justin: Yeah, well, maybe they'll just get knocked out in the first round, so that'd be fine.

18:22Andrew: I don't know if this is a segue because I don't think this is

18:24Justin: where we're going, but no, we're not going there next.

18:27Andrew: That London maybe stumbles a bit here and they're vulnerable to be caught.

18:32Justin: Well, do you want to talk about it before we get going into the three stars of the week or do you want to jump to three stars?

18:38Andrew: No, let's go to the three stars of the week.

18:41Justin: Okay. Three stars of the week. Andrew is your first.

18:44Andrew: My first star. Thank you. I like to be asked by the host with the most. All right, I'm going with the cams. All right, hear me out. The cams. Yes. Cameron Arquette, Cameron Mercer, Carson Campbell and Cameron Reid Honestly, I just wanted to shout out all. All four of these guys because they are heart and soul players. Obviously, Cameron Reid is a offensive powerhouse and is going to be drafted in the first round and have wonderful career and go on and do great things. But he's still very much a heart and soul guy. And I think that these four guys embody that heart and soul. What it is to be a Ranger. Cameron Arquette, they were saying on the radio broadcast he came. He was an offensive powerhouse when. Where he came from when he was playing in Bantam, he was a sniper. He hasn't played that in Kitchener, but he has played the role that he's played very well. He's extremely talented player at what he does. The results are starting to come more and more. Cameron Mercer is the same thing. He's such a heart and soul guy. He does exactly what you want. He never stops moving his feet when he's out there. He's always hounding the puck. You just love to see a guy like Cameron Mercer score. Anytime Cameron Mercer scores, I'm excited. Like, you see some of these top talent, like drafted prospects scoring and they do it and it's so beautiful. Whatever. When I see Cameron Mercer get a dirty one, digging for the puck and scoring a hard working goal, I love it. Gets me going. And then of course, Carson Campbell, what can you say? This is Steady Eddie. He has, I think 22 points on the year, which is not something he's asked to do ever. He's just, he's just a great kid. I'm. I've enjoyed watching him this year. He's the type of defenseman that I just love to watch because he's a heart and soul, blue collar kind of guy. The first star Cams, who's your first star?

20:45Justin: My first star is the Juice and the coaching staff. Because, you know, there were two. There were two games where we had to fight back and one we won, one we went to ot. Like, obviously, whatever needs to happen in the dressing room going into the third period, he's got the Juice to do it. So yeah, he's. He is the Juice and he's got this team. Roland and I heard that there are contract extension talks in the mix.

21:16Andrew: It's true. Because his contract's coming up. So I guess what it is that he signed a two year contract with a two year option.

21:24Justin: Yeah.

21:24Andrew: And I guess how it works is generally the option is just an opportunity for them to renegotiate. And so that's where we're at with that. And I'm very excited.

21:34Justin: I want him to come back.

21:36Andrew: Yes. And I also understand that he has aspirations to coach in the NHL. I understand.

21:42Justin: Yeah. And I want him to coach in

21:44Andrew: the NHL and I want him to Coach here until 2027. Post the big dance and then after that and he wins it on home ice, he can just go off and win all of the cups. I don't. He can do whatever he wants. He can coach wherever he wants. I'm not, but stay here, please. And the staff, I gotta make special.

22:07Justin: Yeah.

22:08Andrew: Yeah. Good luck. I. They're more likely to hire Daryl Sutter a third time.

22:13Justin: Yeah.

22:13Andrew: I would like them to keep the assistance they have in place as well. That's all.

22:17Justin: Yeah. Keep the whole band together. Because it works.

22:20Andrew: It does.

22:21Justin: All right.

22:22Andrew: My second star is Mike McKenzie for bringing in the guys that he has brought in this year, which I specifically noted as chromia, grizzolia, vermeulen. Pridham, Hlacar and Humphries. It just. I can't imagine this team without those guys on a nightly basis. They're just all fill a very specific role. Role. Now that we're at this point in the season and quite literally we were looking at this team before, in our preview episode before the season started and we're like we don't have enough centers. And we had no idea that. And realistically we didn't have enough defensemen and we had no idea of what Mike McKenzie was cooking up. So I just, I looked through the score sheets of these three games specifically and I saw how important Grisolia, Vermilion, Pridham, Laar and Humphreys were in these games and yeah, I don't know where we'd be without those guys. So all grace goes to Mike McKenzie there.

23:25Justin: It's his honorary monthly star at this point.

23:29Andrew: Absolutely. You just have to. If you have five guys you want to name as a star, like, well, it's the GM the Soo you did both.

23:37Justin: Thanks.

23:38Andrew: Who's your second star?

23:40Justin: I went with our friend Jakub Chromiak He had a great weekend. Of course defensively he was very strong as he always is. And then he got the awesome game winning goal against Owen. Sound came at a clutch moment. He looked like a star forward when he got that goal. Like Chromiak killing it.

23:58Andrew: Great choice. One of the new guys.

24:00Justin: Yeah. Okay, who's your third star?

24:01Andrew: My third star in the same vein as it was back in the day, back in the days of yore, in the old Ye Olde Odd podcast.

24:10Justin: In the end we didn't know what we were doing.

24:12Andrew: Do we know what we're doing now? I wouldn't Sam O'Reilly do.

24:15Justin: It's just the not knowing what we're doing.

24:17Andrew: It's true. Yeah, it was the penalty kill which went 12 for 4 in these three games. But I would just prefer that they tighten up and not take so many penalties, which I know is not sometimes up to you because sometimes games are called loosely and you can get away with a lot and sometimes games are called very to the lever of the law and. And it's ticky tack which we see seems to be happening more and more and as we get closer to playoffs, which makes me think the playoff officiating is going to have me pulling what is left of my hair out. And I'm preparing myself for that emotionally. I'm preparing myself to not blame the refs if something weird happens in a playoff round. I just want to put that out into the Universe and Sam O'Reilly how do we take care of that? Don't take so many penalties. So it's great that we've got a great penalty kill.

25:19Justin: That's awesome league.

25:21Andrew: Let's take less penalties and keep killing penalties when we absolutely have to.

25:27Justin: Yes, yes.

25:28Andrew: And your third star, Justin, is our

25:31Justin: old friend, Trent Swick. I didn't go with the olden days of three stars. I just love Trent Swick.

25:37Andrew: Yes.

25:37Justin: Three goals and eight shots in those three games this weekend. He has six goals in his last six games. So he's.

25:44Andrew: Yeah, he's a beast. I think he was my first star last week.

25:46Justin: He was.

25:47Andrew: He's just great.

25:47Justin: He's just hard not to just mention him.

25:49Andrew: What can't you say about him?

25:52Justin: All right, so we got three games coming up. We got our Eastern road trip start note this week. It's not only just an Eastern road trip, it is the East Division. We are playing number three, four and five in the East Division this week in order. So we start out with the Kingston front necks. We've played them once. We beat them 3, 2 overtime. So we have a. A 1 and O record with them. I mean, the Kingston's been playing well. Like, they're. They're fourth in the East Conference, so they're just kind of.

26:22Andrew: They went nuts at the trade deadline. They acquired a ton of players. They've been playing really well since the trade deadline. Yeah, yeah, they're going for it. So it'll be a test for sure.

26:34Justin: For sure. Yeah, they're definitely on the upswing. And the Aud then we play the Ottawa 67's So we. We have also beat them. We beat them six to three. They're sitting fourth in the East Division, ninth in the Eastern Conference. So they kind of feel like little bro in a different way because they have Luca Pinelli.

26:53Andrew: Ah, yeah. In a. In a loving way.

26:56Justin: In a loving way, like. Oh, yeah, Benelli. I like that name.

27:00Andrew: Yeah. There was rumor that they would trade him to Kitchener. I wasn't.

27:03Justin: We went. I was kind of hoping he would show up there, too. But I think the NCAA picks are better than a trade pick this year.

27:10Andrew: Hey, I love not giving away assets and getting first line center out of it.

27:16Justin: Yeah.

27:17Andrew: Could you imagine if you could do that in the pro leagues? Like, that's what people.

27:21Justin: We just went scouting and found one.

27:23Andrew: They must experience this in people who love soccer or football.

27:27Justin: They're.

27:28Andrew: This is what they experience. They're like, oh, we got this guy on loan who's coming in and you're like, sorry, what? Oh yeah, no, he's immediately the best player on the team.

27:37Justin: You're like, what?

27:38Andrew: How does this league even work? I'm getting a small piece of that with. With the NCAA with Christian Humphreys coming.

27:44Justin: Yeah.

27:44Andrew: Mid season. So that's pretty fun.

27:47Justin: Yeah. So Ottawa 67's that game and then finally we play the. The Peterborough Petes Sneaky Pete's these days they're pulling up some wins. Like listen, they did it.

27:59Andrew: And the streak. The Pete's ended the streak.

28:03Justin: I know.

28:04Andrew: You know what though? I love it Petty Pete's because they were down three to one and they didn't pull the goalie.

28:11Justin: And I was like, yes, this is.

28:14Andrew: I'm like, this is how I would coach.

28:19Justin: They have great jerseys. They're a good team that we like. Hopefully we don't beat up on the Soo much. We beat them four to one. So we beat everyone that we're playing this week once and they. They're the. They're their own conference, division, whatever I'm talking about.

28:34Andrew: And speaking of the streak. The streak OHL around the league.

28:41Justin: So there is. I'm going to firstly say that we are going to briefly talk about this, but you should go listen to the OHL podcast because Mike Farwell does a much better job about describing what has happened. There was. There was a goal that Easton Cowan was given an assist on where he was probably the third assist, but he was still given the assistance.

29:03Andrew: Basically the puck came off his stick and it may have been deflected or tipped by a teammate which would have made him the third assist which we

29:13Justin: don't award, which doesn't get counted.

29:15Andrew: So which would have ended the streak early. It doesn't matter because the streak ended up ending a couple games later. However, there is something that happened. Like I said, we direct you to that podcast to listen. But the brief rundown is Farwell basically posted it saying I don't. Here's. Here may be evidence that the streak ended and this is a phantom assist which sometimes people get things wrong and I don't think he was pointing it out to do anything evil. And the London Knights took away his media credentials and blocked out all from doing anything at the Rangers London Knights game. That's how they responded. If you want to talk about pettiness,

29:54Justin: which is against the OHL guidelines, you cannot do that. I hope there's some repercussions coming out of this, but I mean maybe I'm just being petty like the Pete. So you know.

30:03Andrew: No, I think that if you do something like that, then there needs to be something levied against the team. If you block out media where quite literally there is a rule that the OHL has put in place, if you break the rules, it doesn't matter if it's media availability, it doesn't matter if it's the stick curvature. If you break a rule, there has to be a repercussion. That's all I'm saying.

30:25Justin: Speaking of breaking rules, the nights is a crazy segue. The London Knights continued to not have a great week as cam. Not one of our cams. A different cam was arrested in London after drunk driving, fleeing the scene, causing injury, causing a crash. I'll read the cbc. Cameron Allen, a London night defenseman, has been charged with impaired driving, impaired operation, exceeding blood alcohol concentration, failing to remain at the scene, failing to report an accident, and blood alcohol concentration above zero. As a novice driver, that's a lot. Been suspended by the ohl.

31:08Andrew: It's easy to say the wrong thing. I'm not going to make light of this at all, especially considering the topic of drunk driving and hockey players is very poignant to go into the season. We lost Johnny Gadrone, his brother, to a drunk driver. I don't need to tell you, I don't need to say what I think about this. If I had to say Mark Hunter. Dale Hunter. Get your house in order. Get your house in order. All right. That's all I gotta say. It banned me from the stadium. Doesn't matter. I don't want to go to London anyway.

31:39Justin: Yeah, we trashed London last week and it was more fun. And now this week it's got more serious all of a sudden.

31:45Andrew: Yeah, it's not. I'm not trashing you because you're doing it to yourself.

31:49Justin: Yeah. And obviously Cam Allen has been suspended from the OHL indefinitely with all this. And now it is time for the greatest Ranger of all time, Groat, the Groat. Thank you.

32:07Andrew: My baby's sleeping.

32:08Justin: So this is, this is the last week where we will have two groat nominations because we have done 29 groat nominations. At the end of today, we will be at 31 Grote nominations and then we have one final Groat nomination next week. And so this is my last Groat nomination. A lot of these have been surprises to each other throughout this process, but the last few here, we've made sure that we, we know what we're doing, make sure that the gamut gets covered.

32:37Andrew: Yeah, I know what you mean, though. Like the pool is shrinking and we don't want to end up doing the same one or missing somebody that we felt like needed to be in there. So the last few have been choreographed, but the first many were all surprises.

32:52Justin: I'm going to go first this week. Are you ready?

32:55Andrew: I'm ready. Justin final groat.

32:58Justin: My final gro. From Woodbridge, Andrew this defenseman was a kitchen arranger from 1999 to 2003 Y2K and by the time he left, he had cemented himself as one of the best two way blue liners in team history. 191 games played, 29 goals, 106 assists, 135 points. A rock solid presence on both ends of the ice. His final season he helped kitchener win the 2003 OHL championship. He also helped Kitchener win the Memorial Cup and he was also named to the Memorial Cup All Star team. The guy did it all. Quarterback to power play, shut down top scorers, played heavy minutes in every situation. Then he went 12th overall in the NHL Draft to the Washington Capitals, kicking off a 488 game NHL career that saw him play for six different teams including a very deep playoff run with the New York Rangers in 2012. Ladies and gentlemen, my final Groats nomination. Good out Steve Eminger.

34:13Andrew: Yes, a big powerful defenseman. Love Steve Iminger. I remember him in the NHL games with the Capitals and he used to just be able to crush people. I was excited when I found out he was a Ranger and that he was on that Memorial Cup winning team.

34:32Justin: Yeah, nice.

34:34Andrew: All right, all right. Born in Aurora, Andrew March 31, 1993. That's right. Mike Road is younger than me. In fact, he's still playing hockey. He is a coveted right shot defenseman. He is drafted third overall by the Kitchener Rangers in the 2008 OHL Bantam Draft. In 2008 2009. He began his first season as a 16 year old and led OHL rookie D men in scoring with the 39 points in 62 games. Playing alongside future NHL and Columbus first round pick John Moore. He followed up the rookie season with a trip to the playoffs where the Rangers would get to the third round and he would contribute 17 points in 20 games. Leading all Rangers defensemen. He was named to the OHL All Rookie Team in his second year. He broke out OHLD men in scoring with 26 goals and finished with 79 points in 63 games. Second in total points only to future longtime NHLer Ryan Ellis. He was named as an OHL First Team All Star. The Rangers lost in the first round in seven games, but this guy puts up 11 points in that series. That offseason he's drafted 12th overall also just like Eminger, 12th overall, but this time by the Carolina Hurricanes. He joins his old buddy and and other groat Jeff Skinner in Carolina. He began his next season in the NHL but returned to the Rangers after NHL training camp. Unfortunately, less than a month later he suffered a severe concussion as a result of a violent headshot that made national headlines. However, he returns and he actually plays 49 games and puts up 54 points. In that season, the Rangers played 16 playoff games and this guy continued his clutch standard with 22 points in 16 games. On September 18, 2012, he was named captain of the Kitchener Rangers for his overager season where he continued his near point per game pace with 48 points in 54 games. He also recorded seven points in 10 playoff games, but before doing so played four regular season games for the Carolina Hurricanes. He made the opening night roster the following season and recorded an assist on October 6, 2013 for his first career NHL point. He played parts of five seasons in Carolina, scoring 37 points in 151 games until he was traded to Calgary with Eddie Lack for Keegan kanzig and a sixth round pick in 2019. He was immediately placed on buyout waivers. However the next day he was immediately signed by Minnesota. After a cup of coffee with Minnesota and New Jersey, he took his talents to the KHL for two seasons before returning to the AHL for a couple seasons and then bouncing back to the KHL. He recorded 48 points in 111 KHL games and currently plays for EC Red Bull Salzburg of the Ice HL. Or perhaps it's the Ice HL which is the top Austrian league where he most recently won the championship. He is known as a small defenseman with strong skating and impressive on ice vision. His creativity with the puck was notable and his he is a true power play asset with his quick release and elite offensive skills. His name Ryan Murphy Ryan Murphy Nice.

38:18Justin: Great groat. Hey, I was wondering should should we ask the people who they think the final groat is? I think it's pretty clear. I think maybe we should ask the people we should name all of the growths we've done and see if they can pick out who the final groat will be.

38:37Andrew: Let's do it.

38:38Justin: Let's fire them off. One each.

38:41Andrew: Mike Richards Derek Roy Brian Bellows John Gibson, Walt Tkachuk, Andre Benoit Scott Stevens, Gabriel Landiscog, Bill Barber, Paul Reinhart, Justin Acevedo, Larry Robinson, Pete deboer, Jeff larmer, Evan mcgrath, Hunter brustevich Dwight Foster, Scott dickey, John Tucker, Jason aon, Wayne Presley,

39:20Justin: Donald red Lawrence, Wendell young, Shane stevenson, Jeff skinner, Steve emer and babs picks. Oh, sorry. Oh. Brian Murphy and babs pick Nazem Kadri. Who is the final groat?

39:40Andrew: Who is the final groat?

39:43Justin: I bet there's a way you could tell us, Andrew.

39:45Andrew: You can find us on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram at the AudPod. You can also send us an email@theaudpodcastmail.com we'd love to hear from you.

39:58Justin: And you can find us on YouTube at theaudpodcast. The Kitchener Rangers and thank yous. Of course we have Ken Born director of branding and marketing today right here.

40:11Andrew: Thank you, Ken Born.

40:13Justin: And then of course we have to thank our prodigal producer Liam the phenom. And that's it for us this week. So of course you can find us

40:21Andrew: at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.

40:25Justin: See you at the.