51: There Is Going To Be Some Saliva

0:00Justin: Hey, Andrew.

0:01Andrew: Hey, Justin.

0:04Justin: I, I, I want to start this episode by just saying thank you to all of our, the, our AudPodience. The last, the last couple times we've been at the Aud We have felt the love, like, so many people coming up, saying hi, saying hey, saying they love the pod last night. So we're recording Wednesday night before the London game. Spoiler for later. Where's kind of spoiler no London. Recap. We were, we were at the Erie game on Tuesday night and it was taco in a bag. Tuesday. Teddy bear. Teddy bear. Taco in a bag. I was one.

0:40Andrew: I was wondering if you were gonna go where I thought you were gonna go with this.

0:43Justin: So, so Andrew and I were like, we want to try the taco in a bag. So we, we get the taco in a bag, we grab some forks, and then we try and find a, like, secluded corner because there's no elegant way to eat a taco in a band.

0:58Andrew: Oh, man. It's like we literally, like, slinked off to like, eat like little goblins of, of Dorito taco bags.

1:08Justin: Yeah. And of course, like, and again, we appreciate it, but it was like we were trying to be slightly hidden and that was the most people came up to us in one go saying how much they love the pot, which we super appreciated. We also, we also had so much sour cream in our beards. Like, I'm so sorry.

1:32Andrew: One of you came up and was like, hey, boys, love the pods. And I was like, oh, great, thanks. And I turned and looked at Justin and Justin was like, just sour cream all over your face. And I was like, great. Cool.

1:41Justin: Yeah, awesome.

1:42Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

1:43Justin: So anyways, thanks.

1:45Andrew: So that happened.

1:46Justin: Thanks for the love.

1:46Andrew: It was a. Overall.

1:48Justin: It was great overall. Also, taco bag, awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did not feel great after, but I really enjoyed the experience.

1:59Andrew: I only ate about half of it and I felt okay.

2:01Justin: Yeah, I think you made the right call. It's not a great sharing item, but it's definitely a share size.

2:09Andrew: Yeah. If you can share it with someone you trust.

2:12Justin: Yes.

2:13Andrew: And love and loves you and won't judge you. Yeah, I would suggest doing that.

2:17Justin: Yeah. And there's going to be some saliva. That's.

2:22Andrew: That's the name of the episode right there. There's going to be some saliva.

2:24Justin: There's going to be some saliva. Welcome to the AudPod, where we're talking Kitchener Rangers hockey with the AudBalls

2:35Andrew: themselves, Andrew and Justin.

2:38Justin: Take it away, Fe. As we said, we are recording prior to the London Game. So we're gonna jump right into these recaps here so that we can go off and watch the landing game. We will recap it next week. See, we're. We're gonna. There's gonna be a weird backlog because there's going to be this week or, sorry, next week we're gonna recap the London game, but we're also then going to miss the Soo game because it's on a Wednesday night. It's just too tight of a turnaround for us to have a Wednesday night game and get the pot out for. For Friday. So. So next week we'll talk about London. Yeah, Unless.

3:16Andrew: Unless there was somebody who wanted to be our full time producer for no Pay.

3:23Justin: Well, I mean we'll probably give.

3:24Andrew: We don't. We don't get paid.

3:26Justin: So it's rights in the company. So then they can cover some of the debt that we have on the pot.

3:31Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

3:33Justin: You can.

3:34Andrew: You don't want to own part of the spot.

3:35Justin: It's.

3:36Andrew: It's in the red.

3:37Justin: Real. In the red. The books. We tried to cook the books and we made them worse.

3:42Andrew: Yeah, it's like that musical. I don't know anybody if. I don't know if there's a crossover with musical theater and the AudPod listeners, but the Producers where they oversell percentages of the show because they want it to be a flop. And I won't spoil it for you, but yeah, go watch it. And that's what we're going to do here at the AudPod. We're going to oversell our percentages.

4:02Justin: That's a great. The, the movie with what's his name?

4:05Andrew: Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane.

4:06Justin: Nathan Lane. That's what I was thinking of. But yes, also Matthew Broderick. It's a great movie. It's a good version of the Producers. I've seen a couple. And that. That's absolutely, really good. Go watch it. It's oldie at this point. I think it was like 2000.

4:20Andrew: It is, right?

4:21Justin: It's like.

4:21Andrew: And there's also an original version.

4:23Justin: Yes, that's very. That's also good.

4:24Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And it's also very.

4:26Justin: I think it's a good script and a good musical.

4:28Andrew: Yeah, I think so. I think it stood the test of time. Perhaps.

4:31Justin: Got something there.

4:32Andrew: Okay, comment if you want to see Justin and Andrew in a version of the Producers and if we've lost you. Well, yeah, I don't know. Add it to your movie list.

4:43Justin: Yes. Okay, so Friday night, as we Talked about last week with. With Brandon Caputo. He came on to talk to us about the Niagara Ice Dogs. And then we faced the Niagara Ice Dogs on Friday night. And then Sean Furfaro, former friend of the pod, now AudPod Corres, stole our spot and also interviewed Brandon Caputo. So, you know, thanks, Sean.

5:07Andrew: Sean is still holding the Andalorian thing. I know he's still holding the grudge, the Andalorian grudge. If you don't know, we unknowingly claim to have invented the name. He has a timestamp where he coined the phrase first, and now he's just stealing all our material now.

5:26Justin: He is literally of, like, the Kitchener Rangers lore. He is the George Costanza's wallet of receipts. Like that is Sean. He. He has every receipt he's ever. He's ever.

5:39Andrew: That's showed. And now he has an odd potty and he wants another one.

5:42Justin: He does one, you know, but.

5:44Andrew: Yeah, well, you know, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. All right.

5:47Justin: Okay. We won six to three at home.

5:51Andrew: Back on topic. Yeah, we did. We did. It was a strong showing from the boys, especially in the first period where they outshot the Ice Dog to six, which was good. It was just positive that, you know, these quick starts and. And good efforts and all around. However, they were down one nothing pretty early in this game. Y on a power play goal by Kevin he, who is a great player out of Niagara and one of their veteran leaders, their captain.

6:21Justin: Have we ever heard of Kevin before?

6:24Andrew: Yeah, yeah, I believe it's. He is him.

6:26Justin: He is him. He is every caption over and over

6:29Andrew: and over is every caption. And then 10 minutes later, literally 10 exact minutes later, Alexander Bilecki scored his fifth, count him 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the season. That's right. I'm not AI. I have five fingers. Assisted by the kid, Evan Headrick and Jakub Chromiak Yes, Evan Headrick on the score sheet gets the assistance, gets out of the funk. That's it. The bad juju's gone away. We're feeling good about this. Is tied 1:1. And not to be a couple minutes later, Ryan Robrick puts the Ice Dogs ahead. And it's kind of like, all right, two power play goals for the Ice Dogs.

7:12Justin: Yeah, that.

7:12Andrew: Two power play goals for the Ice Dogs.

7:14Justin: Like, it was like we went. We went like six games with only one power play goal against. And now, yeah, two. Two in one game.

7:23Andrew: But what I will say is the pace of play and the flow of the Game was favoring Kitchener. This was one of those games where you're kind of like, okay, all right, we got round one, but we all know what's going to take place here now. And that's exactly what happened going into the second period. Cameron Arquette scored his ninth. Our victory. Lapping again. When Balecki and Arquette score and light it up, we just. Victory lap. That's what we do here at the odds.

7:54Justin: Yes, we do.

7:55Andrew: Yakim Chromiak on the score sheet again with the assist. That was one minute in. So exactly what you need. Exactly what you need when you're facing a team that has lost a lot of games lately and have a 21 lead on you in the first period that you dominated. Cameron Reid would put the Rangers ahead, and that would be. The Rangers would be ahead for good after that from Jack Pridham. Cameron Reid with his fifth of the year. This was a great team game, I got to say, because they scored kind of like, you know, a couple goals early in the second, and it was three to two. And we've seen this team kind of then, you know, in the past kind of slow down and just kind of shut them down and if they get another goal, great or whatever. But what they really needed to do was pour it on and get some of this, you know, energy and juice flowing. Not the juice, but, you know, juices flowing.

8:52Justin: Juice can flow.

8:52Andrew: Offensive juices. Exactly. And Jack LaBrash another guy who needed to score a goal, gets his third of the season from Jakub Chromiak.

9:03Justin: That's a three.

9:04Andrew: And that was the game winner.

9:05Justin: Yeah, that's three.

9:06Andrew: Jakub Chromiak. Three of the four goals that have scored so far in the recap. Chromiak has assisted.

9:12Justin: This was a great goal because this was. Jack LaBrash had a really good defensive moment in for. For this. He stripped. I don't know who it was, but he stripped somebody of the puck. The puck went down the other way. He got to the front of the net, and then he tipped this one home. It was a. Like he.

9:27Andrew: He.

9:28Justin: He was. He was on both ends of the ice at the same time. It felt like. So it was a. It was a nice le shift when.

9:34Andrew: Yeah, when Lebrash is really engaged. Lebrash looks like he could be a world beater. I think sometimes there's a little inexperience in his. In his game and. And sometimes because he's just such a big, physical player, I think he can get caught not moving his feet as much as he should. And which you'll see that in the NHL level with some of these big power forwards is they kind of just think that they can kind of go to the spots and things will happen for the Aud sometimes it does. But when Labrash is engaged, he's really a strong player. So I like to see that and I want to see more of that from him because he's playing with high energy guys all of the time in that, in that fourth line, Cameron Reid gets another one, which was huge. I mean, Cameron Reid had an incredible game. He had two goals. This was the, the quote, unquote insur goal. But what was significant about it was it was on the power play, which was good because they need to get the power play going. I mean, it's just been streaky, just like last year. It's been a weird year for special teams, like for them to give up two power play goals and then to give up a third power play goal in this game, in the third period. We have started the third period, by the way, that Cameron Reid his sixth of the year, was scored in the third period on a power play. And then they do give up a power play. So they gave up three power play goals. But it was kind of weird because the penalty kill has been so good. So this is going to bring down the percentages a little bit. But I don't necessarily think that if you give up three power play goals to a team that's not very good right now, maybe they're. Maybe they're better than they've been lately, but not very good right now and you still win the game six to three. You can live with those three goals being power play goals.

11:23Justin: And yeah, they're heavy team. Like they, they do have some heavy shooters and like some really great offensive players. So. So it, it's not, it shouldn't be that surprising that they can score a lot easier on the power play because they are losing a lot of games. So that, that is kind of their strength.

11:40Andrew: It's true. And, and Ryan Roebrick had three points in this game. He had. And so did Riley Patterson. Riley Patterson had three assists and funnily enough, three secondary assists. So I guess it's really good when the puck comes off his stick for, for Niagara. And Ryan Ruberik had a goal and two assists. He just, he's just, he's just a powerful player. I would be very surprised if he doesn't go extremely high in the draft. I think he will.

12:06Justin: He's projected as one of the highest to go for NHL scouting and this

12:09Andrew: was a Liam Spencer goal. Like I said, the power play was clicking for Niagara, but not much else, to be honest. And then Andrew Vermeulen gets the empty netter. I was never worried. Even when it was 5:3, I was never worried about this game. This game was not a close game. Rangers outshot them 43 to 25. And you know, it was just one of those things where anything less than this and I would have been concerned. I think, yeah, this was a get right game. As far as, you know, I know that they played Oshawa and they won that game and they were supposed to win that one. Now this was another one they were supposed to win. I feel like, okay, this is good. This is the type of teams they have to be beating. They're better than these teams. They are.

12:52Justin: Yeah.

12:54Andrew: Special shout out to our friend Brandon Caputo, who mentioned Vladislav Yermolenko in goal.

13:01Justin: Who.

13:01Andrew: I mean, he was the third star and he gave up five goals because he was peppered. He was peppered in this game and he played extremely well. So obviously we know that Brandon knows what he's talking about. But it was nice to have a little scouting report going into this one on your Malenko.

13:17Justin: I like to think that our podcast helped the Rangers win game.

13:21Andrew: Yeah, of course.

13:22Justin: Naturally.

13:22Andrew: Yes.

13:24Justin: We got him in. Nobody else will ever join podcast. All right. After Niagara Saturday, the very next day, we took the very long road trip to the Eastern Conference to go see Branford where we lost four to three in regulation.

13:42Andrew: What. What's to say about this game?

13:44Justin: Yeah, this one. This one was interesting. It's. It didn't start well at all for the Rangers. Three. Three goals against in the first six minutes.

13:55Andrew: On three shots. The first three shots.

13:57Justin: Yeah. On the first three shots. Yeah.

14:00Andrew: That can't happen.

14:00Justin: Yeah, that.

14:01Andrew: Not against the best team in the league. I mean, it's a miracle. It's a miracle that it was a one goal game and it was four to three. Yeah, let's. Let's just put it the way it was with. If you let in the first three and give up the first three, even as a team, not just blaming Kirsch here. If you give up the first three on the first three shots and this is the result, you know, you don't want a moral victory, but I kind of sat there being like, okay, no, Ellen is right because he's injured. We don't know if, if Hemming is ever coming, but maybe there's a better version of the Rangers out there in the sense of roster Personnel wise, at least with Elenis we know they're a better team with Ellenness and they only lost by one goal and it was a terrible start. So. Which I just want to, I want to add in, by the way, Shovel played in the last game in Niagara the way, the, the way that. Not in Niagara against Niagara and played very well. He stopped 22, 25. Just wanted to shout that out because we didn't, didn't talk about that at all. But Branford starts this show with three straight goals. Kirsch is out of there. Shovel is in. That's why I wanted to mention it.

15:13Justin: Yep.

15:14Andrew: And from there it was a completely different hockey game.

15:17Justin: Yes, we, we did talk about this last week a little bit where we were talking about these because we had four games. We were talking about the goalie situation a bit. And, and, and we did mention that it does feel like the team does play better in front of Shovel. Like that is, that is a feeling that we're getting. And, and I think this game was a pretty broad highlight of that because, I mean, it's a shake up moment. Right. The Juice puts in Shovel energy.

15:42Andrew: It's. I don't know if they play better in front of Shovel or they play a little bit tighter in front of Shovel.

15:49Justin: Sure.

15:50Andrew: You know what I mean? Like, maybe they're a little looser in front of Kirsch because he's, you know, the, the de facto starter and he's more experienced and he's the older goalie. But it seems like they could bring some of that like lockdown tightness. Like we don't want to make too many mistakes that they bring in front of Shovel to their everyday game. Yeah, that'd be nice maybe.

16:13Justin: Yep. Well, well, as soon as Shabble went in, I mean, you know, obviously they're down three nothing. So they're, they're feeling, they're feeling it. But they did, this game did turn around like the, the Rangers started playing a lot better. Completely different game. As soon as, as soon as Shabble went in, six minutes into the game, this, this game dramatically changed for the Rangers for the better.

16:33Andrew: I mean, the, the first three goals were basically the OHL All Stars. Bradford, you know, Cooper Dennis has 13. That was. He got his 13th from Caleb Malhotra and Jet Lechenko. And then Caleb Malhotra got his 11th from Vladimir Dravecky and Jet Lachenko and then Dylan Schorner from Ben Danford and Zachary Sandu, the two guys that they acquired besides Lechenko earlier in the season. Connecting there. So it was 3 0. But there was a huge goal late in the first period unassisted.

17:06Justin: You know how Andrew loves his late period goals.

17:09Andrew: I do. It's a. It's a very important time to get a goal because I. You can. You can save the game if you get a. If you get a late goal, you can switch the momentum up. Avery Ansys scores his third of the year. Ansys is just a dog, you know, like, I know we're playing the Bulldogs, but Anstice himself is a dog. And we gotta shout out Avry Anstis family, specifically his dad, for bringing us steel poppies. Because we said on our Remembrance Day episode that we lose poppies all the time and that we want the permanent pins for our coats. And we have been delivered beautiful permanent pins, so we can always rep the poppy and never worry about losing them.

17:55Justin: Huge shout out to Scott and Andrew and Stis. Thank you so much for. For bringing us those poppies. And yeah, just really appreciate. Appreciate that you're listening so closely, that we want. That you knew we wanted these steel boppies, so that was awesome.

18:09Andrew: Very kind. And we're huge. We're huge Avry Anstis fans. We are here on the pod, so we will wear them with a little. Little more pride knowing that they came from you guys for sure. So it's three to one going into the first intermission. Can't imagine. That was fun being in the dressing room that intermission, which might be foreshadowing for later, for the next recap. But they come out and six minutes into the second period, Christian Humphreys. Mad humps. Mad humps. Angry humps. Motivated hump scores his tenth. Yes. So now it's three to two. Now it's. It's.

18:50Justin: We're.

18:50Andrew: We're rolling. And just like that, two minutes later, Luca Romano scores his seventh from Tanner Lam and Carson Campbell. These are all even strength goals. And it's three to three. And I'm like, oh, this is exactly what the doctor ordered. This is who this team is. We just came back again. Season opener. We came back from three. Nothing on these guys. We didn't have our big guys, they didn't have their big guys. And here we are. They got their big guys, and we're actually missing one of our most important pieces. And we just came back three. Three on these guys. So I felt really good about this. The. The shots were pretty even generally in the game. Kitchener really kind of, I thought, took over in the second period. However, I mean, they were desperate, but I also Felt like they weren't, for lack of a better term, stupid about it. It was, it was calculated desperation and they just kept pushing and pushing and now it's three to three and you're going into the second and going into the third and you're feeling really good. What I will say is the refs put the whistles away in this one. For the most part, there was only one fight. Lechar and Bolton had a fight and two minor penalties. Hendrick, Hedrick and Malhotra had penalties, but neither. So it really.

20:05Justin: And those, those were off. Those were offsetting.

20:08Andrew: So didn't factor. Exactly. Did not factor at all. So let's talk about the third period a little bit, Justin. Yeah, I thought that the Rangers had some chances to win this game or at least go ahead and take the lead. And I felt like ultimately you're going to trade blows with a really, really strong team. And it just didn't go their way this time. And I think it's mostly because they put themselves in an 03 hole to start the game. Yeah. You know, Adam Yurichek scores his ninth of the season. Eight minutes in, nine minutes into the third period from. You know who else? Cooper, Dennis and Caleb Malhotra. But you tip your cap kind of, you know, it's like, well, we didn't play our best game. And we said in the last episode, they have to play a perfect game. Well, the opposite of a perfect game is letting in the first three shots. You can't do that. And I'm not crushing Christian Kirsch here. I'm just saying that there were defensive breakdowns. There was, it looked, it looked sluggish, as it has in the, in the past. And it just, you know, you, you got to get a, you got to get a better effort out of your goal. You got to get a better. You let in a quick one. You gotta, you gotta answer back on a team this good, not just kind of chase the puck around and give up two more quick ones. That's as simple as that. And I think they know that so well.

21:27Justin: They snapped into gear. They snapped anyway. Snapped into gear six minutes into this game. And it was like, unfortunately, they were in such a big hole at that

21:33Andrew: point that it was six minutes too late. They played, they played a 54 minute game. You can't beat Brantford playing 54.

21:41Justin: No, because they played 60.

21:42Andrew: That's the bottom line.

21:43Justin: Even, Even though, even though Kitchener scored three goals in the second period, Branford played this whole game like they were, they were there the whole Game, so.

21:53Andrew: Oh, yeah. Branford never. Branford didn't have a bad game at all. Like, it wasn't like they just took their foot off the gas. They, you know, Shabble played lights out.

22:02Justin: Yes.

22:02Andrew: Like lights out. He stopped 17 of 18. This wasn't a high volume game for either goalie.

22:10Justin: But those dangerous chances.

22:11Andrew: Plus. Plus chances. It really was.

22:14Justin: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You look at the. You look at the OHL page for the. I'm not going to count them up, but it's like there's a lot of dangerous chances for only being. Yeah. An under 50 shot game. There's probably like 30 dangerous chances. So that. That was just this game. It was like pure danger the whole time. Yeah. Shovel played great.

22:31Andrew: Truly.

22:32Justin: And then after the Brantford game Tuesday night, which is last night for us, so we'll probably screw that up a few times. We played Erie at home. This one we lost three to two.

22:43Andrew: No, four. No, we did. We lost. I'm just shaking my head because it was.

22:49Justin: I got it wrong the last time.

22:51Andrew: Might have been my least favorite game of the year. And there's been. There's been a couple stinkers.

22:55Justin: Yeah.

22:56Andrew: But this was. Might have been the most frustrating game that I've watched.

23:01Justin: Well, I mean, I feel like the Soo game from a couple weeks ago was pretty frustrating. And this one, if we're putting. If we're putting it in a tier list, this one is. Is in the same tier as. As that sue game.

23:13Andrew: Yeah. And one of the big things is the Soo has a. Has a very competitive team. Erie does not have a good record at all. I don't want to say they're not competitive because clearly they're competitive and they

23:25Justin: have, they have a good line. Like, they have a really good line,

23:29Andrew: but they lose like 2/3 of the time, basically. You know, they only got 10 wins. Yeah, it. It. This was just frustrating because again, they're going to go down three nothing in this game and it's against a team. It ain't Branford. You know, you can, you can, you can go. You know, you don't want to go down three nothing against Brantford, but you lose if you go down three nothing against Branford. You all kind of just look at each other like, yeah, well, Brantford has, you know, Zach Hyman money.

23:58Justin: So it's, you know, it's rich daddy money, you know.

24:02Andrew: By the way, my Zach Hyman jersey came in the mail today. I will be wearing my Zach Hyman Jersey to the December 13th Leafs Oilers game. So if anybody is misinterpreting how much I love Zach Hyman. Don't. It's just. It's just a joke. But they. They are going all in in Brantford. Erie is in a rebuild. So. Yeah, I don't actually know what to even say about this game as far as the recap.

24:27Justin: I mean, it, like, there was a.

24:28Andrew: There was 33 seconds in. Man, that's 33 seconds in.

24:32Justin: First shot of the game. Second shot.

24:34Andrew: First shot of the game.

24:34Justin: Second shot of the game. Sorry, it was second.

24:37Andrew: Yeah, sorry. Yeah, it was. Because. Okay, so there was. I will say the first shot of the game was a. A very uncomfortable rebound that was given up.

24:45Justin: Yep.

24:47Andrew: And then right after that, there was a goal, and it was that high glove over right over here. Right. Top shelf, bar down kind of situation. I want to say that I think that we said it last night and we aren't going to criticize these boys at all, but there's obviously something going on since the puck that went off the glove against Ottawa for Christian Kirsch. There's, you know, there's. There's criticizing and then there's also just like saying, hey, I think something's going on because since that goal went in, which was the game winner for Ottawa a couple weeks back, we haven't seen the same consistency out of Kirsch, the same confidence out of Kirsch. And I just. This is the thing. This is where you figure out who you are. I don't have any doubt. If the Rangers brought this guy in, he's. He's going to snap out of it. He absolutely will snap out of it. It's. It's just this is where you prove that, you know, your NHL caliber, because you can snap out of a funk, and there's always going to be funks.

25:56Justin: Yeah.

25:56Andrew: You know, look at, you know, look at any goalie across history there. There's been a rough. Rough patch.

26:02Justin: Yeah, for sure.

26:03Andrew: And. And keep it in perspective. He still has good numbers on the season. That's how good of a year he was having before that goal went off his glove against Ottawa. Rarely can you point to a moment and Sam O'Reilly it really hasn't been the same since that. So I don't want to drag any of our guys, because I think that it's a confidence thing purely. I don't think that it's something that we need to hit the panic button on. I think it's. Maybe you gotta ride shovel a bit more than you would have maybe thought you. You would have, but whatever. Like Kersh will be back. Kirsch is Kirsch's. Kirsch. We know who kirsch is. Kirsch isn't this guy. So he'll be back.

26:49Justin: He'll be back. This was the teddy bear toss game. It was.

26:55Andrew: Which was. It was extra pressure.

26:57Justin: It was a pretty intense start to this game because obviously, yes, they scored. Erie scored.33 seconds into. Then they scored. Then they scored eight minutes later. And then they scored again halfway through the second. And the Aud was like, okay, we're not getting shut out on teddy bear last night. Right? Like, right. Yeah. But then 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Math is hard. Left in the left in the second period. Who else? Jack Freedom Laser.

27:29Andrew: Yep. Yep.

27:31Justin: Laser.

27:32Andrew: Jack Pridham Don't know why more people weren't picking him to be the guy to score.

27:37Justin: Who did you pick?

27:37Andrew: And you know what? I picked humps.

27:40Justin: I pick against this.

27:42Andrew: Yeah. But I think the odds on favorite would be the guy with the most goals on the team, Jack Pridham. He has 12. And it's weird to say, but I think Jack really needed a goal here even though he has the most goals on the team. I have next to no criticism of Jack Pridham game this season. There's one note I would bring up. I would like.

28:06Justin: So you do have some criticism for his game.

28:08Andrew: That's why I said next to no. So next to none. So I have one thing, and it's. I sometimes don't think he trusts how good his shot is. Yeah, his shot is incredible. Like, he can score further out than most people can score at this level.

28:24Justin: Yeah.

28:25Andrew: And I think sometimes he makes a really nice read. A good pass to someone who might be in a better position, which makes total sense. And you'd never criticize him for that. I just think some, like, honestly, I just like to see him shoot more because he just. He just can bury them with like.

28:44Justin: He picks perfect pretty much.

28:46Andrew: Anyway.

28:47Justin: Yeah, we. Because we've seen him. We. Last night, we saw him hit the crossbar from the top of the circle on the far left side. Like he was not close to the net by any metric. And he beat early in. Had an unreal game last night. Early in, he had the save of the week. And then he had a better save, like in the second. Yeah, he had the save of the week in the first period and then in the second period.

29:15Andrew: The save of the night.

29:16Justin: Yeah, the save of the night.

29:18Andrew: Then he had the save of the week, and then after that, he had the save of the week.

29:22Justin: Again, yes, he. He was unbelievable early and had an unbelievable game. He was so good. And yes, Jack Pridham beat him from the top of the circle over his shoulder, like.

29:35Andrew: And not only that, scored twice in this game. He also scored two goals in this game.

29:38Justin: He could have had a hat.

29:39Andrew: He beat him a third time and he could have had a hat. Exactly. So when you've got a goalie who's literally goalieing your Andrew team, it was. It's one of those things. Again, you tip your cap a bit because Erladen put on a show. I mean, it was. And I have to blame you because you brought a Dominic Haschek rookie card into the arena. For my birthday and my belated gift. I was very appreciative and I took it and I had it in my pocket the whole game. And then Noah Erleden put on a

30:11Justin: clinic that was a Dominic Hasek Knight for sure.

30:14Andrew: Hashikian clinic. Yes, it really was. Hashekian clinic for sure. It was frustrating, but it was impressive. And yeah, Noah Erladen was only named the third star because I guess Dylan Edwards had the game winner and an assist. But honestly, I would have given it to Erlodin because Earlydin was truly. It was one of the best gold ohl goaltending displays I have seen.

30:37Justin: Yeah, we talked. We talked like this game. The. The Rangers were super sluggish the whole time. There was, like, no intensity throughout the Andrew game.

30:44Andrew: Even when it was three to two. Even. Yeah, even when it was close.

30:47Justin: Yeah. But they still had, like, ample opportunities to win this game. Like, even. Even in their sluggish state.

30:56Andrew: They outshot them.

30:57Justin: Yeah, they outshot them. Yeah, they played them, I felt, in at least a period and a half, like the.

31:04Andrew: I agree with that. I agree with that assessment. Yeah. The last period and a half, they. They outplayed them thoroughly. But even, Even when it was three to two, which again, they scored in the third period, in the first minute on the power play. Jack Pridham scores in the third period and it's three to two. And now you're thinking, okay, now the boys are going to turn this on and we're going to get the win out of here. And it was just kind of. It was lumpy. I don't know how else to describe, but it was lumpy.

31:35Justin: It was like that bad gravy at Thanksgiving. Exactly. Yeah. Because they, they did. They pulled kirsch. They did all the right things. They. They. They pulled kirsch. When they had an offensive zone draw. They. They called the timeout they drew up the plan. But it was just. Yeah, there was just. There was a little bit of juice missing.

31:55Andrew: Yeah, it was a. It was just a flat game.

31:58Justin: Yeah, it was. Yeah.

31:59Andrew: Yeah. And it didn't help that. No. Earlydin, you know, was. Was doing crazy things in that when they did have chances. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that it probably wasn't fun to be in that locker room in any of these intermissions or post game. We heard from UC in the post game saying that he didn't like anything about this game. And I understand because the Rangers are a much better team and they could have still won this game. But you've got guys, and I'm not calling anybody out by name, but there was guys who were gassed, who were not line changing. There were guys who were floating around in the offensive zone. There were guys who were, you know, beautiful passing, beautiful cycling of the puck. It's too slow when you got a goalie who is absolutely on fire. You got to create chaos. There was nobody in front of the net the whole time. Like, it was. They were boxed out. They're just boxed out. And I don't know if that's a case of, like, we got a lot of skill on this team. We don't have a ton of size. We don't have, like that, you know, quintessential power forward. But somebody's got to take that role. Somebody's got to go to the front of the net and just make it difficult for somebody like Noah early and to see. Or just to stop. To stop the puck. Yeah, to see. It's easy to not call guys out by then because I wasn't really impressed with anybody. It was just one of those games right. Where you were just kind of like, what's going on over there? Like, yeah, do they know that there's 28 seconds left? Like, it was kind of like, yeah,

33:39Justin: it did feel like.

33:40Andrew: Like, sure, you're psych. And. And don't get me wrong, high skill, high skill teams. This happens to. This happens to. Sure. I'm an. I'm an Oilers fan and I can. I can't tell you the amount of times it'll be late in the game and they're looking for a goal and it doesn't feel like there's any intensity there. And I'm like, because you're trying to set up the perfect play, it doesn't exist. It's not. This is not the time. So just go hard. Make something happen. There was a few moments it just felt lumpy it's fine. It was the bad gravy. Yeah, bad gravy.

34:12Justin: Bad gravy game. There it is. Okay, to. Tonight we are facing London in London. That game is. Is about to start. Kersha starting tonight, so that'll be interesting to see how he does. Weston Cameron is back tonight, which is exciting. Yeah, nice to see him back in the lineup. So, yeah, we'll. We'll talk about that.

34:30Andrew: And we're saying tonight, but we mean Wednesday. You're listening. On Friday.

34:33Justin: Yeah. You know the outcome of this game, but that's what's coming up, so. So those are nice things to see. We'll recap this game next week when we. When we reconvene. But, Andrew, this does mean we got to do a good, bad and ugly this week. And so who. What is your good for the week?

34:52Andrew: Oh, boy. What is my good? You're starting with the hardest part.

34:59Justin: I always find the ugly the hardest part.

35:01Andrew: So my good. Well, sure, but I'm just saying, for this week, I'm just gonna say the good for me was seeing Rangers Nation come out for the teddy bear and support that cause. And we had almost 10,000 teddies on the ice. It was like 9,800.

35:21Justin: Oh, it was. Yeah, it was like. It was like 10 short of 10,000 or something. So. Yeah, close enough.

35:26Andrew: 9989 or something. I felt bad. I was like, you know what? We should have just brought, like, 40 teddies and just dumped them on Mike Farwell.

35:36Justin: Yeah.

35:36Andrew: Which, by the way, I let him know he still hasn't been thrown on the ice in 30 years of the Teddy toss. But you and I, I'm actually going to stop and start working out as soon as this podcast is over.

35:46Justin: Oh, finally.

35:47Andrew: Because it's the 30th anniversary of the Teddy toss. We're. We're throwing Mike on the ice next year.

35:53Justin: Okay. I saw Mike posted this.

35:56Andrew: Yeah.

35:56Justin: The Ohl posted today, again Wednesday that last night was the 30th anniversary of the Teddy toss.

36:05Andrew: Oh.

36:06Justin: So, okay, I think some fact checking. We got to get the AudPod computer on this.

36:10Andrew: And Maybe it was 30 years, but there was no Covid year, so it was actually only 29.

36:16Justin: So 30 years, but 29 tosses. There you go. That could be it. All right.

36:22Andrew: That could be it.

36:23Justin: Okay. My good is young guy energy. Anstis, Branford. We Sam O'Reilly lot of good Hedrick had. Had. He scored, got his first point last week. He got another point this week. He look, he's been looking good there's been some confidence. Yeah, it's not all about points. He, he's looking good on the ice. That fourth line always looks good. I like there's, there's some energy with it and I want. Now I'm like, okay, we got some leaders in this room who maybe need to take a little bit of a note from the young guy line. So let's, let's pass that up. Like, let's be a, a two way passing. I don't know what that means. What's your bad?

37:02Andrew: My bad is I feel like they look like a different team since Ellenis left the lineup and I think that's bad because they played a good portion of the season without Elenis and they were a good team. And now we've lost Elenis and it seems like we're floundering a bit and it's like, I'm like, what do we need? We need a high intensity guy who can play, you know, first line minutes and has a scoring touch and has a physical presence. Luke Ellen is so you can't just suddenly go back to being like, well, we just don't have them. No, we saw that you could win games.

37:41Justin: Yeah, for sure.

37:41Andrew: So that's my bad is that it seems like the loss of Elenis has got them in a hole, which I'm like, but you played a good portion of the season without.

37:48Justin: He's still there with the team. Like, it's like, yeah, my bad. My bad is poorly timed penalties. We took this Branford. We took two late period, third period penalties. It feels like we've taken. We are the most penalized team in the ohl and I feel like a lot of those penalties also come at inopportune times either when the game is one goal difference tied, significant moments later in the game, they seem to get frustrated. The Rangers also seem to be ready to drop the gloves a lot faster than other teams are. And that also gives them.

38:24Andrew: Gets them in trouble.

38:25Justin: Gets them in more trouble. So, yeah, I'm not, I'm not loving these poorly timed penalties.

38:30Andrew: What's your ugly? Very similar. My ugly was actually going to be the lazy penalty.

38:37Justin: Yeah, yeah.

38:37Andrew: And we Sam O'Reilly Sam O'Reilly few of them last night. We Sam O'Reilly couple of real lazy, tripping calls. I know there was desperation, but it's also, you know, get your stick out of the feet when you're trailing. Like, that's Justin, you know, guys are going to go down so easily. So I was just frustrated it didn't happen in the Brantford game. But you know, I could have picked, you know, the start of the Brantford game as an ugly. There was a double ugly in this, in this week for me realistically. But I wanted to look at it because we've talked about it at length on the Brantford start. And I just wanted to say that even against, even against Niagara there was Sam O'Reilly know, there was just some penalties and I'm like, you know, they, they, they gave up three power play goals which was fine because they had the lead, but some of those they didn't. You know, the refs were, were calling everything against Kitchener and very like it felt, it felt like it was more against Kitchener than Niagara. I don't know what the actual things. Yeah, it was five to four. So it wasn't, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. But I just think like clean up your game a little bit. That's that's all. Just don't be lazy. Just don't be lazy when you're, especially when you're winning and, and even more so when you're, you know, one goal game and you're trailing. Just, just don't be lazy.

39:58Justin: My ugly is, is intensity. So yeah, start. Starts the games. Like, especially that eerie game in the third period. Like, you know, you're down one, you could, you could score one. You just got to. Oh yeah, you just gotta put it in.

40:12Andrew: They just, yeah, and they were put in the effort and was playing lights out, but there wasn't. You can still beat a lights out goalie. You just have to cause chaos in front of.

40:21Justin: Yeah.

40:22Andrew: And you have to, and you have to, you know, crash for rebounds and you have to score an ugly one and, and sometimes I'm like, we struggle to score the ugly goals.

40:31Justin: Yeah, that's true.

40:33Andrew: We score pretty goals. We score a lot of beautiful goals, but like to just see like a real gnarly one. Not often.

40:39Justin: Not often. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we've had a few like the, the one off Jack LaBrash his, his butt that like those types of ones. We have. We did. We haven't seen one of those in a while. So. Yeah.

40:52Andrew: Yeah, we need more of those, need

40:53Justin: more of those off the butt, off the butt goals. Okay. Next week we got, we got three games. So like I said, we'll, we'll recap the London game and then the last game, which is the Soo game. We'll recap the week after. So Friday night we are at home for the last time in two weeks. Like we only have we only have this game and then we have the 19th of December, which is also a Friday. And that's. And then, the Aud the Christmas break. Those are the two last home games of the Aud before the 28th of December, which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

41:24Andrew: So I would, I, I would also, I would also encourage AudPod listeners, the AudPodience to buy a ticket to that Sunday, December 7th game in Guelph. Go down there. You know, just be visible. Go, go walk through the mall. I was told there is a lovely little chocolatier in that mall.

41:44Justin: So no Cinnabon, but you can get a chocolate.

41:47Andrew: Exactly. And if you rot your teeth, there's also a dentist.

41:51Justin: So win. Win. So the Pete's. This is our first meeting with the Pete's. Interestingly, about all of these games that we're playing this weekend, we have very similar records with all the teams we're playing. So this is where, where Erie has like a way worse record than us and Niagara has like a slightly worse record than us. These game. These teams are all sort of living in the same world as the Rangers. So the Peter sitting.

42:13Andrew: Yeah. And this is going to be a test.

42:14Justin: Yes. Yeah, for sure. The pizza hanging. They're in the toughest division. They are with Ottawa and Brantford and they're sitting 15, 10, 1 and 1. And you know, they're only a few points behind Ottawa. Like Ottawa's been insane lately. So the fact that the Pete's are able to hang out and especially after last season where they, I don't think they won a game until this time last year, like this is, this has been a huge turnaround for the Pete's. So they're playing motivated, they're playing convicted. Like you know, they got, they don't have, they don't have any world beater scorers, but they do have like four or five players who are like point per game, close.

42:56Andrew: Like that is where the Aud Adam Novotny is a, is a great player for sure. I've seen highlights. I, I've read things about him. His scouting report online. Great player. There's, there's, you know, Matthew Soto jumps off the page. They, they, they let in a lot of goals. Peterborough, they only actually have a negative goal ratio. 98 against. They're only 96,4. But they can score.

43:23Justin: Yes.

43:24Andrew: So it's one of those things where I don't, I, I hope the Rangers can shut them down and play from ahead. Don't, don't get into a, you know, scoring match here with, with Peter, for sure.

43:36Justin: Because. Because Easton Rye, their goalie can stop the puck. He's got a 916 save percentage on the season. Yeah, it's like, you know, yes, they, they have a negative goal differential, but they, they do have a guy that can stop the pucks. So, you know, we don't want to get into, we don't want to get into an eerie situation again where you.

43:54Andrew: And they score more than the Rangers. Yeah, they have 96 goals. Rangers only have 84.

43:58Justin: Yeah.

43:59Andrew: So it's, you know, they score more.

44:01Justin: Yeah. The Ranger, the Rangers are sitting with 60, 64 goals against, which is the. Sorry, 68 goals against, which is the second best in the OHL. But they also only have 84 goals for, which is very mid pack in the OHL. So it's like.

44:15Andrew: Well, if you told me that the Rangers were going to struggle to score goals, I would have laughed at you.

44:19Justin: I know. Well, that's, that's just it. So.

44:22Andrew: Yeah, it's, it's just a strange. It's. It was like. We go back to it. Yes, the goal setting of very late has, has been a little like. But that has not been the story of the season. The goaltending in the defense has been good.

44:36Justin: Yes.

44:37Andrew: So we just got to get the scorers going and we have to get them going early in games. Right.

44:44Justin: Like before the six minute part.

44:45Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

44:46Justin: Then the next game is on Sunday in Guelph. That's the seventh, the one that Andrew was referring to our season series sitting at 2 and 1. Guelph we talked about last time we saw them. They're, they're now sans Lechenko, but you know, they've still been playing games, winning games. This, this new and improved Guelph team, they're, they're looking a lot better. They're on a win streak right now. So, you know.

45:10Andrew: Yeah, well, they're an up and down team for me in the sense of every time I check in on them, they're either like beating a team that I don't think they should be or like that, like, like they beat Windsor and Brampton in their current three game win streak and. And then they, they also just like lose games and get, and get kind of, you know, like beat up by you know, like teams that should. But like I'm like, who are you? So it's a weird, they're a weird team this year. I think that they can catch you sleeping. Yep. And because they're not a bad team. They're just, they're just inconsistent. Ethan Miyadima If I could, if I could guarantee somebody's gonna have one or two points against the Rangers, it's gonna be this guy. Because every game he's played against us,

45:55Justin: he scores so many goals against us.

45:58Andrew: It's like, dude, yeah. It's so crazy.

46:01Justin: Please.

46:02Andrew: He's a great player.

46:03Justin: So good.

46:03Andrew: But shut them down. Shut them down and let's, let's, let's take this one personally, you know, and, and let's invade the rink. Let's get a lot of people down there and get down there early because there is limited parking.

46:18Justin: Not according to TikTok. Yeah.

46:22Andrew: Yeah.

46:22Justin: And then Wednesday next week, we play the Soo who I guess has become our nemesis this season. Like, I don't know, we can't beat them.

46:30Andrew: We.

46:31Justin: We lose leads with them. Like, it's just, they're. the Soo hard for us. I don't know why this.

46:35Andrew: Yeah. And you know what? They're. They, they are 8, 1, 0 and 1 against us in the last five

46:43Justin: years, which is crazy.

46:44Andrew: At home.

46:44Justin: I'm like, who's the suit?

46:45Andrew: We can't beat. Yeah, I was going to Sam O'Reilly can. We've only beat them two times in the last. In the last 10 games at the Soo Yeah. So the Soo is a bad road trip for Kitchener. So let's, let's change that up.

46:58Justin: Let's change that up.

46:59Andrew: Let's.

47:00Justin: Yeah, let's.

47:00Andrew: Yeah, let's change that up. We know that it's the usual suspects there. Jordan, Sharon and Chase Reed. You know, let's, let's get out to a lead in these games and hold it. And just, let's just play Rangers hockey.

47:16Justin: Yep. So there. Those are next week's games. Thanks again for listening this week. And thank you to, of course, Ken Born director of branding and marketing.

47:26Andrew: Yes, branding.

47:29Justin: Our product. Our product co producer, Liam the phenom.

47:33Andrew: Tim, does he have any notes for us?

47:35Justin: Not this week. Has he.

47:36Andrew: Has he. No, he.

47:37Justin: He.

47:37Andrew: Okay, Liam, well, you're starting to slack a little bit here.

47:40Justin: He gave us the, the. The. The podcast name and that worked for him.

47:45Andrew: Well, that was, that was wonderful.

47:46Justin: Yeah, it was a good.

47:48Andrew: Yeah. Now if you tell your smart speaker or whatever your device that you listen to to play the AudPod, Kitchener Rangers podcast, you actually don't need to type anything.

47:58Justin: Yes.

47:58Andrew: But before, if you said the AudPod. It didn't.

48:01Justin: There was a lot of things that might have popped up. So. Yeah.

48:04Andrew: Yeah.

48:04Justin: Tim.

48:07Andrew: Tim.

48:08Justin: Thank you, Tim, for writing, arranging, performing, creating, producing, engineering, and composing our new theme song. And of course, thank you to JJ who we met last night at the Aud for the first time, which was awesome. Jj who does our voiceover at the beginning of the episode. So thank you jj.

48:22Andrew: JJ also just won our one of our set of tickets in our giveaway which was totally random and we were also very excited about it.

48:31Justin: Couldn't be happier because we got to meet. Yeah, for sure. It was a great, it was a great reason to finally meet her, which was awesome. And Andrew, how do you find us

48:38Andrew: on the social medias on TikTok and Instagram? You can with your thumbs. Theod podcast is our handle. Check us out. We'd be posting all sorts of clips and stories and all that kind of good stuff. And then on YouTube you can find us TheAudPod Kitchener Rangers. Just search us in the search bar or Google us. We'll come up, you'll watch it, you'll love it, you'll like it, you'll subscribe and you'll comment because that's what everybody did this week because we said comments are the best. If you are still listening to this into this, this far into the thank yous. Comment, comment, comment. Right. Thanks, Josh, one of our loyal listeners. Comment, comment, comment, comment. We want to see it every week.

49:24Justin: Appreciate it. And of course you can email us at hello@theaudpod.com because we're cool like that. And we have theaudpod.com as a website that you can make your homepage.

49:33Andrew: True. Exactly. You better do it right now.

49:37Justin: And Andrew, as always, do it now. Okay. It's gonna be a while for me because I can't go on Friday, but I know, you know, at some point in the future, Andrew, you can find

49:51Andrew: us at a strange little corner eating a taco in a bag at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.

49:59Justin: We'll see you at the Aud Oh, sour cream on my face.

50:04Andrew: So embarrassing.

50:05Justin: It.