65: No Dogs Allowed

0:00Justin: Hey, Andrew.

0:01Andrew: Hey, Justin.

0:03Justin: Road to The Robertson Part 2, starting Friday.

0:08Andrew: Yeah, I'm excited. Welcome to the AudPod where we're

0:16Tim: talking Kitchener Rangers hockey with the AudBalls themselves, Andrew and Justin.

0:22Andrew: Take it away, fellas. Round two.

0:26Justin: Round two. I mean, that was a. That was a pretty fast round one. Nice that we got a little bit of a time to recalibrate, readjust, watch London lose.

0:38Andrew: It's true. They did. They went out, you know, in five games. I was hoping that they'd put up a little bit more of a fight just to, you know. Yeah. Drain the Soo But here we are.

0:48Justin: Yeah, but here we are. Yeah, we, we. If you've been following along on the AudPod, you know, we've thrown the format. Format, whatever, out the window. We've been doing post game mini episodes which I seem. People seem to be liking.

1:07Andrew: Yeah, people are listening to them.

1:08Justin: People are listening to the Soo we are assuming because of that you like the Soo we're gonna keep doing that through the rest of the playoffs. So expect 12 more of those. And then how many, how many games would we play in the Memorial Cup? Three. So three more of those. So 17 total. That's all we're. That's all we're gonna do because that's all we are gonna need.

1:30Andrew: Three. Three games. No, there'd be three and then one more because they. They win their three round robin games and the Aud then the championship.

1:39Justin: So 16 more episodes, mini episodes coming year round.

1:42Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:44Justin: But this is, this is our in between series episode. So this will, this will probably feel a little bit more like a normal AudPod episode where we're gonna not. It's not gonna be a super long first part here where we're gonna talk about this previous series, we're gonna talk about the Soo series coming up and the Aud the end of this episode. So if you've been listening the whole time to the mini episodes, you can probably just stop listening. Is it weird to tell people to stop listening halfway through an episode? But yeah, if you've been listening all the way through, you can. But if you want to listen to all those previous episodes, that's gonna be. At the end.

2:15Andrew: You should do stand up and you should explain all the jokes as you're telling them.

2:19Justin: I can be my. Be like.

2:23Andrew: I don't really tell the joke, but

2:24Justin: like you just tangent off into like

2:26Andrew: what you're talking about. Oh.

2:29Justin: The context you need to understand this joke is this second off series over four games. Andrew, what'd you learn?

2:38Andrew: I Learned that the Spirit was indeed a one line team and the Rangers just had too many horses and too much depth. And even when they. The Spirit goalie played the game of his life, he couldn't do anything to save the Spirit. And we'll say that their spirit was broken in four games. That last game. I was very. I was, I was a little taken back by how little fight there was left in. In them. Yeah, there was. There was literal fight in them, but I didn't think that they really showed up to win that game. I think they were kind of ready to pack it in a little bit, which I understand after a long season and you're a young team and the Rangers are. Are likely not going to get reverse swep. You know, it's. I get it. I was hoping for a little bit more of a compete in that last game, but as a Rangers fan, I'll take it. As a hockey fan, I was a little kind of like, all right, it wasn't my favorite series. Yeah, it was. You know, it was what I expected. I think. You know, I didn't expect Shuriken the goalie for Saginaw to play as well as he did. And ultimately I think that the Soo series will just be like a huge step up for the Rangers. I don't know. You know, I don't think the, the time off is going to affect either team. So I think ultimately I'm just glad in the Saginaw series that nobody, you know, there wasn't too many players banged up. Yes, there were some big hits and, and you know, there's always, sometimes, you know, there's injuries that guys are nursing in the playoffs. But like, as far as I know right now, everybody that was playing in game four should suit up in, in game one.

4:21Justin: So yeah, the, the, like the, the goaltending, like, I, I think it's great that we didn't get goalie once. Like we. There were. There was a. I mean, they took us to overtime in a game where we crazy outshot them. You know, we could have easily gotten goalied in that, like in. In hindsight could have been goalied in that game, but I'm glad we didn't. I, I think that helps the, the team dynamic going forward. That that didn't happen. And like you said, yeah, nobody got injured in the end. As Bab said, you know, you got to ice this one in four. Like, this team is not at the same level that the Rangers are at, so even if it went to five like that, that could show some concerns and it, It. It didn't go to five. So.

5:02Andrew: Yeah. And I think on, on just to like, just a little push back on. Some of the stuff I'm seeing in the comment sections is, is. I, I just don't think. I don't know what the benefit it is to blowing out the opposition, like in the first round of the playoffs. Like, I don't think it gives you an advantage because you destroyed, you know, the first team you played. I think if there's like a little bit adversity, a little bit of adversity, it's better. Personally, the teams that I see go on big runs in the NHL generally have adversity pretty early and overcome it. And that's how you get momentum.

5:37Justin: Yeah.

5:38Andrew: So if there was any adversity, I'd Sam O'Reilly like it was obviously Shuriken and his unbelievable play. It's probably a much different series if Saginaw scores in overtime.

5:49Justin: Yeah.

5:50Andrew: In game three, it could. They might get another game off the Rangers just with momentum. But ultimately, I think, you know, we're. We were happy with the four games. Four. Four wins is four wins. So I, I don't care. There's no style points in the playoffs. That's not a thing.

6:04Justin: And we're probably not going to face in the playoffs again a line as hard as that top line out of. Out of Saginaw. Like that. That top line is unbelievable. Like they have no depth. So the fact that they held on in the same. In the way that they. The fourth game, Saginaw didn't really hang on. But in the first three games, Saginaw did hang on, and that was primarily due to that top line and their goaltender. Like there were. There were basically four players keeping them in this.

6:31Andrew: Well, what I will say is they for sure will not face another duo that has as many points.

6:37Justin: No.

6:38Andrew: Well, that's right. Like, that's. That's absolutely, you know, the truth, just statistically.

6:44Justin: So the next duo with that. With as many points is on the Kitchener Rangers.

6:49Andrew: Exactly.

6:51Justin: Yeah.

6:51Andrew: Yeah.

6:52Justin: Andrew, what's your three stars of this series? What's your. Who's your third star? What is your third star?

6:57Andrew: My third star is the captain, Cameron Reid I thought Cameron Reid had a huge series. He was basically. I think it was a point of game. He was.

7:08Justin: Yeah.

7:08Andrew: He had two goals and two assists. So Cameron Reid had a game winner. It wasn't pretty. He just threw it on net. But those. That's. That's playoff game winners for you. You know, they can't. No style points no style points in playoffs. So Cameron Reid I thought is really playing his best hockey of the year in those four games. I expect it will continue and I'm really excited. And There was about 10 guys that I could have put as my third star, but I'm going with Cam Reed.

7:36Justin: How.

7:36Andrew: Who is your third star?

7:37Justin: Yeah, I agree this, it was incredibly hard to put this list together because yeah, I could have, I could have picked lots of guys. Like my honorable mention is Avry Anstis because he played so hard. But the, the third, my third star is Dylan Edwards for the exact same reason. He, he got off the snide on that last game. Two goals. I, I called it that he's, that he would get off this because he'd been looking unreal this whole series. The kid just works so hard. Like he's so good and he works so hard in the corners, in the zone. He gets open like he puts himself in the right places. He's like super defensively responsible. He just kind of like he didn't get the massive points but it wasn't because he was underperforming only in the points. And that was it. So that's it. Agreed. And he's kind of my third star because I think he's going to be. He might be my first star in the next year. Like that's, that's kind of. My prediction is like he played so well in this series and just didn't quite get those points that I think he's going to get them all in the next series. So that's my, that's my third star. Who's your second star?

8:37Andrew: You mentioned your honorable mention. So just in the, in the. I have to honorably mention Alexander bi. Had a massive series was that game three was a difference maker. Helped them win the game and that one with a goal and the assist that Luca Romano deposited for the overtime winner again, another guy, Romano. You could, if you win an overtime game, you could be a star. However, I have to go, I have to go with Sam O'Reilly Yeah. For my second star. Sam O'Reilly was incredible as we knew he would be. I think now he's going to really shine in this sue series. So I mean he had five points. Four of them were huge goals and he's going to continue to score big goals and win face offs and cause turnovers just like he has since he's gotten to Kitchener.

9:28Justin: Sam O'Reilly is the exact same. Is my second star as well because of all those reasons. And yeah, he's just, he's such a clutch player. Like he knows when to, he, he can put a, he can put the puck in the net when he needs to. And that's a second star material in my book. Yeah, okay.

9:43Andrew: For sure.

9:44Justin: I think our first star is the same. But who's your first star?

9:46Andrew: Humps. Christian Humphreys Unbelievable series. Nine points in four games. You put up nine points in four games. You're going to be the first store first star every time. He had two, two goal games and he had a four point game in game one and he had the three point game in game four. So just an incredible series from Humps. We knew that Humps was a talented player, but come playoffs sometimes you can see more skilled guys shrink a little bit. Yeah, Humps is not that type of player. Humps loves the moment, loves the, the, the bright lights and you know, it's, it's his own little Friday night light story. Like his dad, the fullback probably played a lot of Friday nights. Humps is playing different Friday nights, but he is truly leading this team in more ways than one. I think he is a very underrated leadership component of this team and just an all around good dude off the ice. So it's nice to see him coming into his own, especially knowing his story, coming from Michigan and then now he's committed to Minnesota, which I don't even know if we've mentioned on the pod because I think it happened in a little bit of a dead zone between our recordings. Yeah, but yeah, he's committed to go to Minnesota. I have no idea if that's next year, but they're getting a heck of a player. Christian Humphreys first star.

11:17Justin: Yeah, I mean he's, he's my first star. He's amazing. You said some superstars shrink when the bright lights come on. Christian Humphreys, not a big guy, looks like the biggest guy on the ice when he, when he's in the playoff mode. So. We saw it last year too. He showed up when the playoffs came around and yeah, he's a, he's a big guy on the ice. Even though he's a little guy off the ice, but a big guy in spirit off the ice. Then the next series is against the Soo Greyhounds.

11:47Andrew: Not, not the Flint, not the Flint,

11:49Justin: the Soo We've played them four times this year. You know, they didn't go in the same direction that the Saginaw series went. So we lost three games to one win against the Soo And two of those were. Two of them.

12:03Andrew: Yeah, two of them overtime.

12:05Justin: But the Three that we lost, including the two in overtime happened before we acquired Dylan Edwards. So that was before we made any trades. So it was right around the time we were learning about the Memorial Cup was our last game against the Soo We've talked about this at length. the Soo kind of were in the Rangers heads. They were big and physical and whatever. And then we played them on March, March 6 so the full Rangers compliment that we're about to see in the playoffs. And we smoked them three nothing. So.

12:36Andrew: And not only that, I would shot them 37, 25.

12:38Justin: Yes.

12:39Andrew: And they had Carter George. So their big acquisition was Carter George from the Owen Sound Attack. Boy, could Owen Sound. Could have used him in the first round.

12:48Justin: Yeah, no kidding. Anyway, would have only been seven nothing games versus. Yeah, right.

12:54Andrew: Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, so the, the real, the, the real test of these two teams has was that final game and it was a dominant win by the Rangers. It was, it was also a very physical game and there was a lot of fighting. Four or five fighting majors for each team and a bunch of misconducts. Yeah, mostly for the Rangers.

13:14Justin: Not exclusively for the Rangers. Mostly for the Rangers.

13:17Andrew: Mostly for the Rangers, absolutely.

13:18Justin: Yeah.

13:19Andrew: They're a big team. They've got some real high end, you know, top talent like their overager Marco Miosa. He is, he's been nominated for overager of the year along with Priz. He leads their playoff scoring with 10 points in five games. Brady Martin, of course, the Nashville Predator player. He has seven points. You know, Lucas Fisher's a big defenseman. Chase Reed is probably going to go in the first round this year. There is some serious. Jordan Sharon is a good player. He's an 18 year old player. There's some really good players on the Soo I just don't know what they're going to look like compared to, you know, that last game in Kitchener where Kitchener really kind of ran their show.

14:08Justin: The, the one thing that the Soo had for them in our regular season games where we lost was Christopher Brown. He, he seemed to really show up and like playing against Kitchener. He scored a lot of points against us but he's injured so that is, he's banged up. We'll see if he comes back in this series. Uh, we, we don't know the. He didn't play the last game against London. That's all we know. We don't know what his injury is or, or how, how long it will be.

14:32Andrew: So the last two games.

14:34Justin: Oh, he missed the last two games.

14:35Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:36Justin: So hopefully this prolonged break between Series will be enough and he can go. I, my, my position is always the Sam O'Reilly I never want players to be injured. I never want a team to lose because they had injured players. I always want to see the best of both teams, especially in the playoffs because that is more interesting hockey to me, I think. And the Aud also takes away all those qualifiers. Well, we could have won if, you know, so and so wasn't injured and you know, that would have been the difference maker. I hate that. Plus I hate seeing young guys injured when they are in the prime spotlight moments of their careers and, and getting ready for the next stage of their careers. So. So, you know, I don't want to see anybody injured. So Christopher Brown, hope he's back. Hope he doesn't put on a single point against the Rangers.

15:18Andrew: I hope you play and I wish you the worst.

15:21Justin: I wish you the worst. Exactly. Yeah. So the, Aud you know, we, we, we talked about this. the. Aud been so physical. These games have been so physical. There was a little bit of animosity in that last game that we, that we were just talking about where we had everybody, you know, there were some, there were some goalie runs, you know, some defensemen standing up for guys and stuff like that. As Andrew mentioned, a lot of misconducts. So yeah, this, this, this series I think is going to just feel so different than the Saginaw Series.

15:50Andrew: Series. Yeah, I, I would imagine that this series will start similar to the Flint series last year where that was crazy first period where they're all running around hitting each other. Probably is going to be a scrap pretty early on in the game. I know it's the second round, but both these teams are relatively fresh coming in after, you know, sue took out London in five. You know, Rangers only played four and they've had this big layoff. Basically it's going to be off a lot of build up for this game. So I would imagine that it's going to come out and be real heavy and physical and this is where we're going to lean on Ando and Woolly early. I would expect that the lineup will be the same going in for, for the Rangers. I don't haven't heard if Lechar has faced any.

16:41Justin: I feel like it would have happened by now if.

16:44Andrew: Agreed, I agree.

16:45Justin: But it could still happen. I feel like if it, if we hear nothing by the end of today, I would suspect we're, we're business as usual.

16:52Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if the office closes until after Easter Monday, but I would expect their back open today. I would think so. Yeah. This is probably, I think, a series where you're gonna need goals from Gabe Sherratt again, like playoff performer Gabe Sherratt. And you're going to need some sec. You're going to need your secondary scoring to win you this series. I think it's because you're going to have high end opposition. Like, we know that Mignoza and, and Brady Martin are going to find the score sheet. They're going, you know, Chase reed and Quinn McKenzie, these are all guys who can fill the net. They're going to get scoring. So you're going to have to have, you know, your top lines match them, which I know that Sam O'Reilly and humps and I believe Pridz is going to start, you know, filling the net. He's, he's. It doesn't matter because he's still setting up goals, but he's going to score some. And then I think you're going to really rely on Shirat and Tanner Lam and Luca Romano and those that level of, of secondary scoring that you need.

18:00Justin: I, I think that there's the one thing that we probably didn't experience against Saginaw was a, a high end defensive pairing that can shut down maybe one of our lines. You know, the Rangers are pretty deep. We Sam O'Reilly saw line pairings that were different than we're used to at the start of the series and you know, they sort of morphed and there, there was a bit of a blender at different times in, in the series against Saginaw, but we didn't see O'Reilly, Humps and Pridham on the same line. We saw those separated into two lines. So there was two very strong top lines on the Rangers. And then, yeah, I mean, if your third line is our third line, like you're more. That's a second line. On any good, on any good team, like on a great team, that is a third line. So yeah, you're, you're gonna see that. So you need that. The, the Soo doesn't have as deep of a team. Like they have one really good line. They have like two or three really awesome defensemen and the Aud then they start to thin out sort of their second line is, is an average second line and then they sort of thin out through the end. So, yeah, exactly what you said. The, the depth scoring on the Rangers needs to show up because, you know, Woolly and Ando and Cam Reed are going to have hard defensive minutes against a really Solid top line and their guys are going to work against our top line. So, you know, the Aud does become a. A second and third line shootout. The. There's two things that were interesting about the series that we played. I know that the Rangers were a. Basically a different team in the first three games, but the Soo is very good at face offs. They. They dominated us in those three games and the Aud was close in the game where we had Sam O'Reilly who is obviously one of the best face off men in the. In the ohl. So face offs are tight and Leu is pretty good at shutting down our power play. Like, we, we struggled with a little bit of power play stuff in the beginning of the season, so that might account for a little bit of it. But we only scored once on about 20 power plays against the Soo So, you know, we gotta, we gotta make sure that our power play and our special teams take advantage when we do it. We didn't score a lot of power play goals in the Saginaw series either. So just making sure that the power play is going. I think that's going to be really important to winning this series.

20:13Andrew: Definitely. I mean, they went 05 in the game that they won against the Soo in the. In the finale, the regular season finale, they played between these two teams. They went 0 for 5. I mean, they still won three nothing. But you go 0 for 5 and you're kind of making it harder on yourself. So I do believe in this power play. I think Saginaw did an incredible job of not losing to the power play.

20:38Justin: Yeah.

20:38Andrew: Is what I will say is they. They had. Well, first of all, they had their best penalty killer on the ice, playing the best he's ever played in their goalie. And then they had this collapsing box that made that circle, you know, shot that they love from the circle on either side.

20:58Justin: That.

20:58Andrew: That wasn't really a play that they could make. So I'm hoping that the Rangers, if they need to make adjustments, they'll make more of an adjustment because I felt like against Saginaw, they kind of were forcing it a little bit in the sense of they were going to beat Saginaw. They were going to beat.

21:16Tim: Yeah.

21:16Justin: Yeah.

21:16Andrew: You know, so like they just. It was a war of attrition is like we'll just grind you down and. And then like we said, all those point shots are what went in. But I kind of feel like if those point shots had have been more numerous to start with, it's, you know, it's not going to be a Shorter series, but the games would have been a little further apart, I think. And I expect that, you know, the Soo is probably doing their homework and thinking, you know, if we clog up these lanes, then maybe this power play can't hurt you. But ultimately I think that, you know, the power play gets opportunities, starts converting. That's going to be, you know, one of the major differences. We also need to see Christian Kirsch play at a level of consistency that allows the Rangers to be playing from in front. I think that as long as the Rangers are tied or ahead of the Soo then likelihood of getting goalied by Carter George goes down because you're not as desperate to score a goal and you're not, you know, doing things that you don't normally do when you have the lead against a good goalie. The funny thing about Kersh's stats right now are his Safe percentage is an.890, which is a little below average. But for the OHL, it's, it's. You can win games with.890, but in the sense of his goals against average, it's below.2.1.95. And of course he has the shutout. So here's the thing, what I'll say about goaltender goaltending critics. If the save percentage is below.900, but the goals against average is still below 2, you're going to win the championship. You might not like the way you're going to win the championship, but you're going to win if you less. If you allow less than two goals per game, you're likely going to go all the way. That's the bottom line. Like that's just the bottom line. It's, it's unheard of to do that all through the playoffs, but. So I would imagine the goals against average goes up a little bit and, and the save percentage also goes up a little bit. So he'll be saving more pucks, but there'll be, you know, they might, they might be, you know, slightly more than two goals per game against just because it's junior hockey. So I wouldn't worry about it. But yeah, the whole point is goal tending stats are super flawed because you'll have guys. Well, let's look at Carter George. Carter George has a.9.42 save percentage. So he played out of his mind in the first in, in the first series and he only has 1.41 goals against average. So incredible stats out of Carter George. However, the likelihood is that his goals against average are going to, is going to go up in this series while his save percentage might also just hover around 935. That might be what Carter George puts up in this series. Doesn't mean that they're going to win it. Goaltending stats are weird. Wins are the most important goaltending stat. I don't care what anybody says. That is literally the most important goaltending stat. Because you play to win the game.

24:09Justin: Yeah, exactly. Correct. I was just gonna look what Shuriken's save percentage.894. Shuriken had a better save percentage, but he had 4.16 goals against average.

24:21Andrew: There you go.

24:22Justin: Because. Because we put up 54 shots against him in one game.

24:29Andrew: I bet you his save percentage before that last game too was totally berserk as well. Like if you checked it.

24:36Justin: Oh yeah, probably before.

24:37Andrew: Before game four. Yeah, it was probably much higher because

24:40Justin: game four the Rangers put one shots against him opposed to the 73 that Kirsch has faced. It's less than half or more than double, depending on how you want to think about it.

24:51Andrew: And like our, like our friend Bab said on the last pod, is that when you're not busy, it can, it can be trouble in a different way. You can kind of. Your mind can Andrew and especially at this level, you're cold and you're just standing there, then you know there's ones that are going to beat you. So it's just the way it goes. But yeah, I mean, Carter George is a second round pick, so these numbers are expected out of him. But he's a goal. He has lost in previous series. Two better teams before. Right. I mean, he's older now.

25:23Justin: The goaltender can only do so much.

25:25Andrew: Well, he can't score. Right. So if he's, if he's, if he's, you know, letting in two goals and the team isn't, you know, putting up the, the points, the Aud is what it is. That's, that's, that's the nature of goaltending. But it's going to be a tough test. I think it's great for the Rangers to be facing a goaltender like this right now because if they get past the Soo and get past Carter George, I don't think that there's a goalie quite as skilled left. So you won't have to worry. I mean, we just had.

25:55Justin: They've already.

25:56Andrew: Again.

25:56Justin: Yeah, yeah, they've already faced. They've already faced the, the toughest line probably in the OHL this season in these playoffs. And now the toughest goalie, toughest goalie. You get past those Two things. You know, your final boss battle all of a sudden feels a lot easier. So.

26:11Andrew: Yeah. Well, you're. You're overpowered by this point. You have so many, so much experience points.

26:16Justin: Yes.

26:17Andrew: That you can. That you can place into your abilities. Yeah. Yeah.

26:21Justin: Okay.

26:22Andrew: I'm excited for this one. Let's just put it that way.

26:24Justin: Yeah, me too. I think this is going to be way more fun. So the series starts Friday, April 16th. That's game one. Same. Same schedule as the. As the last series. Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. So if we make it to game five, then. Then there's a back to back, so that'll be interesting to see. And yeah, we'll be doing our mini episodes going into that and that's. That's what we're doing. Andrew, before we get to thank yous, I. I'm gonna force you to talk about. Your movie is coming out this week. So please, I'm. I'm going to the premiere, but you tell us all the details. Invite people to the premiere. I don't know.

27:03Andrew: That's true.

27:04Justin: This could come out before Thursday.

27:05Andrew: So. Yeah, I'm in a short film that is. That has done the festival circuit. It. It was. It premiered in Los Angeles and won best cast at the Sherman Oak Films Festival. So that was pretty cool. I stayed up here. I have yet to see this film, which is funny because it has gone to four different festivals and now it is premiering at the Royal Cinema on College in Toronto, in Little Italy, in downtown Toronto. And it was directed by Chad Andrews, who also is opposite me in the film. It was written by Chad and producer Theo van der Graaff. It's a really exciting 16 minutes with absolutely no fat, no filler. Yeah, it's called the Butchers. It's about two guys, Steve and Morgan, best friends, but they also happen to be murderous butchers. They sell their victim body parts on the black market and they're not the brightest. So, unfortunately, things take a turn for Steven Morgan. I believe the Aud is to make you like these two people who do bad things. So I think it's. I think that's what I'm imagining when I was filming it was that I was. I'm hoping to somehow make this character relatable, even though the nature of this character is very evil and dark. But I'm hoping that people will get a few laughs because it is a comedy. It is a dark comedy and it was a ton of fun. And we shot it two years ago. So my son was just a. Was just an ultrasound which is funny how tied to this film that he is. And of course now we have another child on the way and I guess they'll be, you know, sneaking into the premiere with my wife at this, at this moment. But yeah, if you want to come to the butchers at the Royal Cinema, you can buy tickets on Eventbrite if you search the butchers. Let me make sure that we can

29:10Justin: put the, we can put the link to that in the show notes.

29:13Andrew: Yeah, let's put the link to it. And yeah, I'd love to see you there. 7pm on Friday.

29:19Justin: I'll be there. So you can also come say hi to me and hang out and. Yeah, and then. Sorry, it's on Thursday, Andrew.

29:25Andrew: Yeah, Thursday the the Aud then on Friday the the Aud comes out on YouTube so you can watch it on YouTube and give it a thumbs up and hopefully, you know, more good things come for all of us who are involved.

29:41Justin: Well, we'll post, we'll post a link to the YouTube in our stories on Friday so that you can, you can take a look at that too, if you want. We have to throw off our normal thank yous. First of all, we have to thank Tim so much for all of all of the work he's done to help us basically record an episode and put it out within four hours.

30:00Andrew: Definitely four times Tim's turnaround time. It turns out that the secret to Tim's turnaround time is to give him as little as possible and then he will just deliver an incredibly polished product minutes after you've recorded it. So thank you, Tim.

30:17Justin: So thank you so much to Tim. Thank you to Babs, who jumped in twice, once by accident because he just wanted to go out for dinner with us after a game and then we forced him to do a podcast and then we didn't go out for dinner with him. And then the second time because I was having Passover with family and I wasn't able to watch Game four live. So he jumped in with you to. To do a live post game reaction, which was awesome. So thank you.

30:43Andrew: And he was all iced out.

30:44Justin: He was all ice out. That's a life of having sponsors when you can ask for baguette ice.

30:51Andrew: So sponsorship. Yeah, we could get real baguettes. That would be great.

30:55Justin: If anybody wants this, I'll put them behind me. I'll eat them on. On. Yeah, like, if you want to make Tim's life miserable, give us the crunchiest bread you can and Sam O'Reilly have to eat it while we record. Deal. Yeah, of course. Thank you To Ken Born our director of branding and marketing, Papa Born. Thank you. To our prodigal producer, Liam the phenom. I I've been told that Liam was doing a little bit of research for us this week. He wanted to listen to our most recent episode and our very first episode to see where we had come. So I'm still waiting for notes on that. We'll see. We'll see if we have those for next week. And Andrew, how do you find us on the social medias at the Aud

31:39Andrew: podcast on Tick Tock and Instagram and. And you can search us up on YouTube or Google us and check out our website theaudpod.com there's going to be some cool stuff coming before the end of the Memorial Cup, end of the playoffs. I will tease. For those seven people listening to this, there's going to be something cool that we're going to implement, but we can't reveal it yet.

32:02Justin: And of course you can. Please subscribe to any of those places to follow us for all this content. And after this moment, you're going to hear a new super cut of the last four mini episodes. And Andrew, for round two, game one against the Soo Grahams, you can find

32:20Andrew: us at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.

32:23Justin: See you at the Aud Hey, Andrew.

32:27Andrew: Hey, Justin.

32:28Tim: Hey, guys.

32:29Justin: What are you doing in my car?

32:31Andrew: Hey, Babs.

32:32Justin: Nice to hang out here sometimes.

32:34Andrew: Well, welcome to our little immediate reaction, the road to the Robertson, which is why we're in a car. And no other reason.

32:41Justin: For no other reason other than that's where we are. Okay. Game one against Saginaw was tonight.

32:47Andrew: Six to four.

32:48Justin: Six to four.

32:50Andrew: Got a little.

32:50Justin: We won. We won. And that is mostly the highlight. Yeah, Babs, what? Did you see that?

32:59Andrew: That was unbiased observer.

33:01Tim: Unbiased observer. They're trying to force plays a little bit, but they were conservative so that they weren't going to make mistakes. So it's kind of fine. But they got to like just shoot the puck a little bit more instead of trying to make those passes. But say now might have discovered that you have to play the 131. So if we start seeing that happen, that could be a problem.

33:17Justin: Do you agree that there was just like basically no intensity until the third period?

33:21Tim: Well, they're just playing smart and conservative and they weren't trying to blow things up or trying to run away with it. You know, you get too eager. They came in very tempered.

33:29Andrew: I agree with that and I think that was strategic. But I think it started to have diminishing Returns at a certain point. Like, it felt to me like there is a brand of Rangers hockey that we didn't see tonight. It's funny because I was watching everything under a microscope of having two fan. Or I shouldn't say fans. Two people who are visiting from the US Not Saginaw fans. Just literally people who happen to be in the Kitchener Waterloo region who love hockey. They love hockey. And I was kind of, like, amped up to be like, oh, yeah, hockey at the Aud And it was just kind of like, all right. Like, and we were standing to come up from the. From the concourse, and we just heard two guys being like, doesn't really feel like a playoff game. And, like, without ragging on the team too much. That's kind the. The vibe.

34:11Justin: We were on CTV news last week, and I specifically said game one of the playoffs is so exciting because the Aud is bumping. And it was not bumping.

34:21Tim: But if you cut in just on the section when the smoke was off after a goal, it does look like you're in Europe.

34:30Justin: Can you elaborate further?

34:31Tim: European soccer fans letting off the flares and going crazy.

34:34Andrew: Oh, yeah, yeah.

34:35Justin: Okay, okay, okay.

34:36Andrew: But, yeah, I think. I think you're right about the one three one. I felt like they were forcing him to the outside and the Rangers were just kind of spamming that play. Right. Like, and you. And it wasn't working. And I. You know, I'm not the type of hockey fan who's like, yelling, shoot. But I did love when Cameron Reid just threw it at the goalie and it just happened to go in because they were due for a couple bounces. The bounce off Humphrey skate to. And then, like, he corralled it and. And scored on the power play. That was huge.

35:01Justin: What a celebration.

35:03Tim: Oh, can we talk about the absolute miss of the goal judge to put the sirens off.

35:08Andrew: Ando's putting his hand up, like, once. What is going on? That was on the Pridham breakaway where he went off the post very clearly. And we're up. We're last row. You're a press box.

35:17Justin: We're.

35:17Andrew: We all were like, that wasn't a goal.

35:19Justin: What is.

35:20Tim: What's going on?

35:20Justin: I mean, the goal. The goalkeeper or the goal scorer just got so used to put him on a breakaway that he just expected a goal. We all did. I mean, he beat the goalie. He just didn't beat the post.

35:30Tim: He just hit the. Aud was square on the post.

35:32Justin: Oh, yeah.

35:33Tim: I'm shocked that they weren't like, I know. Thank God the lights didn't Go out.

35:36Andrew: I would like.

35:37Justin: Yeah, I've been to that game, too. Okay, so we got. We got two Sam O'Reilly goals. We got two Christian Humphreys goals. We got an Ando goal and a. And a real rando Cam.

35:50Andrew: Game winner.

35:50Justin: Game winner.

35:51Andrew: Cam Reed.

35:52Justin: Ando insurance goal. Waiting for that sponsorship.

35:54Andrew: That's true. We are waiting. Patented hold for sponsor.

35:58Justin: All right.

35:58Andrew: I think realistically, they need to be more physical. They need to be. They need to play with a little bit more reckless abandon. I think, like, they were measured on purpose. It felt like they were measured on purpose, but it felt like it was maybe too little of the chaos that they. They kind of need to create.

36:15Justin: Yeah, PK wasn't awesome. PP was awesome.

36:19Andrew: Absolutely. Well, what I will say is they were. They were very disciplined. They didn't take penalties like, left and right. It was very disciplined.

36:28Justin: I mean, speaking of the penalties, the whistles were away for most of this game. They got pulled out a little bit when it kind of was a little bit too crunchy of a game all of a sudden.

36:35Andrew: But, I mean, I don't want to say that Kitchener benefited from. From the calls, but the bottom line is like, they were. They were calls that. I think that had to be made. Like I said, unbiased observer. Like, what did you see with the officiating Game one?

36:49Tim: Usually they're trying to set a tone and, like, say, hey, this is our standard of officiating. And I think they did a good job. They were getting so annoyed on the Face Off. They were really getting frustrated with the guys jumping in Andrew, you know, a guy moving a stick early, whatever it might have been. In the five or six cases I saw the players yapping at the Soo that's something that I'm going to be like, okay, are they going to, like, eventually be like, let's see another one of these weird penalties that you never see called for. What? So I'm spacing on the word of it now. The Face Off. Face on fraction. Yeah.

37:18Justin: Yeah. Because what happened there was. There was one point when there was a draw in the Kitchener end and. And the. The. The Saginaw player took his gloves off and was like, strange. That was really weird. That was.

37:28Andrew: That was kind of like, why are we not just dropping it at this point? Like, it was kind of.

37:32Tim: Yeah, it was just. It's. They were. I think the ref was eventually getting so sick of it. So I think that could play into things later on in terms of if they might game manage a little more.

37:41Andrew: I think there's One thing that we do have to talk about. Okay. The. The. Because I know the fans are going to talk about it. The differential in shots.

37:47Justin: Yeah.

37:47Andrew: Okay. And. And the goals on Kirsch are going to look at. They're going to look at the stats and they're going to look at the goals against and they're going to look at the saves made and they're going to have the same old.

37:57Tim: They.

37:58Andrew: They have like we. But like, at least two of those goals, I saw just like total defensive meltdowns in front of them. Like, would you, if any, Would you put the goals on. On Kirsch tonight?

38:09Justin: Or.

38:09Andrew: Or like I just saw breakdowns. Like, I saw three guys like basically fall back and leave a guy at the point open. Like nobody took him.

38:18Tim: Yeah. Maybe like half the goals were definitely like off of a mislaps in overager But yeah.

38:24Andrew: So you could. So you can live with two. Right. But yeah, it's like, I don't want to hear this, like this. This narrative that's being spun a little bit that, you know that the. The. The. The save percentage isn't where it needs to be because, listen, they got away with a win. A win is a win. Now we can like, tighten up. We. We talked to some fans before the game and they said that, you know, it seems like they play tighter in front of Shobs. I'd like to see some of that. That defensive zone tightness around Kirsch. Right.

38:54Justin: I think. I think maybe the players were listening to the Aud pot a little bit too closely because we hyped up Klepov a little too much and they left Barabanov to open and he became the problem. Now, we did say that Barabanov would also be a problem, but when you're got two guys on Klepov and nobody on Barabanov, that's a different problem.

39:12Andrew: Yeah. And I think they had a little bit more time like that there. Was that. The one that basically they teed up for that slap shot Cole. They had a little bit more time. There was a little bit of like, panic, which I think was because they thought maybe. Maybe I'm not how they thought, but I. I think as a fan that I didn't think it was going to be close game. I didn't think it was going to be a runaway, but I didn't think it was going to be a close game.

39:34Justin: Yeah, it was a lot closer than

39:35Andrew: I wanted it to be.

39:36Tim: I had fun.

39:37Justin: Should we be worried about goaltending?

39:39Andrew: Yeah, that's exactly what I thought coming into this, I was like, yeah, I don't think we need to be worried about goaltending at least if. Especially if the team is only going to allow shots on the goaltender. Two out of three periods.

39:54Justin: Yes. Yeah. No shots in the third period is pretty impressive by everybody. Okay, this is. This is our post game instant reaction to game two against Saginaw. Round one. I said so many words there, but.

40:11Andrew: And he didn't even say the name of the series. The road to the Robertson.

40:15Justin: This is the road to the Robertson. We threw the normal release schedule out the window for the playoffs. We are. We're coming at you fast and hard with new episodes all the time. So just make sure you're subscribed to wherever you want to listen to us.

40:29Andrew: Okay, let's get into this.

40:30Justin: This game was. Was another terrifying two periods. I. That's how I felt.

40:36Andrew: I wasn't so much terrified. I just thought that there was a chance here that. That the Rangers were going to get goalied.

40:41Justin: Yeah, they felt like they might get goalied.

40:43Andrew: Sure. Again, is a strong goaltender. He played really well. I mean, it was kind of a. A complete opposite game in the sense of the first game was very much high scoring and the second game seemed like nobody was going to be able to beat either tendee after 40 minutes because it was scoreless. I also felt like the officiating was kind of the opposite a little bit too, where the Rangers seemed they could do no wrong in the first game. The only penalty they had in the first game were. Was a coincidental. So they never had any penalty kills in this one. It seemed like there was a little bit of maybe a skew towards the Rangers in heading to the penalty box. I was. I was a little bit. There was a few calls that I was a little bit like, okay, you didn't call that. And then, you know, shortly after the Rangers are on the penalty kill because you're calling penalties again. I don't know.

41:39Justin: It didn't really feel like Saginaw could get called for hooking, slashing, cross, checking or holding.

41:46Andrew: Holding.

41:46Justin: Yeah. Yeah, that seems like.

41:47Andrew: Especially.

41:48Justin: That seemed like the four that was like they were just off the table for Saginaw to take a penalty.

41:53Andrew: They did eventually getting a holding penalty and it was. Was Klep off. And it was early in the third, but it also came with a Sam O'Reilly diving penalty.

42:05Justin: Yeah.

42:05Andrew: At the same time. So it wasn't even. They got called on a hold, but it was immediately nixed by the. By the Embellishment penalty.

42:14Justin: Those London acting classes must be really good. Like it's really held on to them there.

42:20Andrew: Not good enough. Not good enough.

42:22Justin: I guess. Yeah, not good enough because not good enough. Didn't. Didn't get away with it out.

42:26Andrew: But it doesn't matter because he scored his third in two games to open the scoring early in the third. And that's kind of when I felt like, okay, all right, here we go.

42:35Justin: They just needed to beat Joke. Not joking, sugar. And they need to beat him once.

42:39Andrew: Yeah, it just kind of had to happen. Obviously Humps had a chance early in the game on the penalty shot. I actually thought he just did a little too much. I don't love when you're, you know, maybe in the shootout, I, I don't mind that like slow approach and you're doing like a hundred thousand moves, but in a, on a penalty shot in the game, I, I think the pressure and the speed is often, I think to your advantage to just go in at full speed, but it didn't matter in the end.

43:12Justin: It didn't matter. But in the moment it felt like it might be the, the, the, the, the game breaker because it could have gone the other way.

43:19Andrew: And there was a few times where they seemed to not be able to put the puck in the net despite having an open net. And I thought, is this gonna be a game that they lose like, you know, two to one or something? And the Aud they had like three or four scoring chances and they just couldn't. Worried me a little bit. And then obviously as, as it, as the game went on, it was clear that the defense was playing very tight. The Sam O'Reilly we talked about the defense playing tight in front of shovel. I, I very much felt like the, the defense was playing, you know, and the team defense was playing much tighter in front of Kirsch. And, and we saw that really take over in the, in the third period. Couldn't. Couldn't even get a shot on net in the third period. Saginaw.

44:12Justin: Yeah, the. Soo the. There was. There was a couple things that we noted that I noticed anyways. The first period, the Rangers came out a lot hotter than they did in game one. That was nice to see. We saw in the second period that Saginaw came out in their very heated way in the, in the second period in the exact Sam O'Reilly they did in Game 1. But the Rangers were able to turn the script and not let them take the whole period. The Saginaw took the first 10 minutes, Rangers took the second 10 minutes. Pretty dominant at pretty much. At the 30 minute mark of the game, the Rangers put their foot on the gas and never let up. Like at that point. I agree. The game never went back to Eginaw.

44:51Andrew: That. That, that's.

44:52Justin: That's.

44:52Andrew: That's pretty much how I saw it too. Yeah. I thought the first period was. There was, you know, some chances for both teams and I felt like the first. The first half of that second period was pretty much all Saginaw and, And the Rangers were reeling a little bit. I. The one thing I noted in this game, all three periods it happened and it's. It could be an issue is the Rangers turning the puck over on the offensive blue line. It is an issue that a lot of teams have. It's. I mean it causes rush chances. A lot of. A lot of times teams score on them. Saginaw didn't. They did a good job of getting back and recovering and it wasn't necessarily like an ugly turnover by any means. It was just like sometimes it was like a blocked shot or like, you know, you tied up at the. Aud the line and you're not able to move that puck into the corner. It's a dangerous play. I think that's the one thing that I think the Rangers could eliminate from their game is holding on to that puck at the blue line a little bit too much because you will get those two on ones, you will get those breakaways going the other way. And in the playoffs that can be a momentum killer.

45:56Justin: I saw it seemed like Saginaw was also pretty good at holding their line. Like that was something that I didn't really know about. Saginaw coming into this series is they are pretty good at the holding their own line against the Rangers. And, and like you're saying, that does tend to go to rushes the other way as well. So.

46:10Andrew: Yeah, they're.

46:11Justin: One thing that they. They need to clean up is a little bit getting into the zone.

46:15Andrew: They're fully playing the one three one. So like it's. They're just. They're just. It's. It's basically a trap in for Saginaw that you'll have three guys across and one man back and it's really difficult to get the puck in because.

46:30Justin: Give them that knowledge.

46:32Andrew: No, because they were already doing it. Kitchener. Kitchener. Kitchener loves to carry the puck in and loves to.

46:40Justin: To.

46:41Andrew: To, you know, finesse their way in and pass it. Once they get in and set up the turnovers at the blue line, that's. That's what I'm talking about more is when they're cycling the puck in the zone. There's so many times where it's like, you know, you, you have a lot of Tommy Kut if you turn that puck over there, you have guys going back the other way. Saginaw. Maybe less. Less so. But, you know, if they get into the next round, I'm not looking that far ahead, but if they get into the next round, they can, obviously, if they, if they're playing a stronger opponent, you do not want to be turning that puck over and get caught flat footed at your, your opponent's blue line. We could do a quick scoring summary because we're. We can, we can though, because I want it. Yeah, because it all happened in the third period. So Sam O'Reilly scores his third in two games. Gabe Sherratt scores his first of the playoffs for the patented insurance goal hold for sponsorship. Tanner Lam was buzzing, had to get one. And Cameron Reid gets his second of the playoffs. So those were the goal scorers. Everybody was dominant in that third period. They could have had probably six or seven tonight.

47:47Justin: You know who could have had three goals in this game was Dylan Edwards.

47:52Andrew: For sure. He was.

47:53Justin: He had an unbelievable game for. I think he got an assist, but I don't think he got. He def. Well, he obviously didn't score, but he,

48:00Andrew: yeah, he should have two assists. And on the last year, he really was all over the ice. He's.

48:07Justin: He.

48:07Andrew: He actually had that. There was that one play and I thought about what Mike McKenzie said was we brought him in because when you need him to win a game for you, he can do it. And there was this one play where he just walked through like two defenders and got behind the last defender and he didn't score. But it, you know, it felt like, oh, here we go now we're gonna score. This is it. That also reminds me of the. Tanner Lam should have. Like he had basically, you know, it was a breakaway. It was. He was alone in front of the crease and there was a obvious hook that wasn't called. So I was a little bit annoyed with that, but I'm glad.

48:49Justin: Well, that's one of the four that

48:51Andrew: Tanner Lam Yeah, I know, right? I'm glad Tanner Lam got a goal because he deserved at least, you know, that much.

48:57Justin: Yeah, this was a good defensive game too. Ando really pushed up the, pushed up the, the grittiness of his game. There was a. There were some more clean hits and obviously Woolly had prepped that fight to start the first period so that, that sort of got the Rangers Going a bit. And then, you know, we saw Campbell on a. On the PK take about 13 shots before. Before they killed that penalty. So that dented suit cam probably has botulism for sure at this point.

49:28Andrew: Well, he was the first star too, because he's the one who threw that puck at the net in the third period. To which do you want to tell the AudPodience what you texted me when you were watching that replay?

49:40Justin: No. Okay. I did think Sam O'Reilly had kicked it. It there looked like there was a deliberate motion, but I'm glad that they didn't see that the Sam O'Reilly I did.

49:55Andrew: We'll take it.

49:56Justin: Yeah, I'll take it. It's no. No problems here.

50:00Andrew: At some point, it's gonna go the other way in these playoffs, and then we're just going to have to live with it.

50:05Justin: No, I will not. This is a biased podcast where I do not take takes back. And I can't believe you outed me on that. So here we are. I had.

50:16Andrew: I had to, because it came in. The text came in late on my side, so I had seen that it was called a good goal. And then the text came in and. No, no, no, no.

50:28Justin: It wasn't. It wasn't a game. It wasn't. Yeah. Shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shots.

50:35Andrew: Yeah. And if you took them from the point, they probably went past him.

50:39Justin: The point was a good place to shoot from.

50:42Andrew: That seemed like it.

50:43Justin: 49 high danger shots in the low slot were not the weakness.

50:49Andrew: I know, I know. The. The closer you are to him. It's like some sort of weird video game boss fight.

50:55Justin: It's.

50:55Andrew: The closer you are to this goalie, the more likely he is to absorb the. The shot, everything.

51:01Justin: Yeah, yeah.

51:02Andrew: And the further you are away, the more likely you're going to get it past the Aud was a strange one.

51:09Justin: It was a strange one. Okay. This was game. Game three against Saginaw. The Kitchener Rangers now lead the series three to nothing after a 4:3 overtime win. Did not.

51:19Andrew: Overtime victory.

51:21Justin: Yeah, it was grunting from Andrew this week. How very nice.

51:24Andrew: It was one of those games where I think you and I both had had moments where we were like, oh, I. I think they might lose this game. And it wasn't for lack of faith. It was just like. It was just like something frustrating was happening. And for two different reasons. We were like, ah, this is gonna go against us.

51:41Justin: But they powered through the game one and game two. I spent the first two periods of both of those games going. I don't know if they can do it. And then they won. And then this game, I was like, I spent the first two periods going like, oof, this is gonna be too easy. And the Aud almost wasn't. Yeah. And.

52:00Andrew: And I really, I really felt like I, I have a. I have a lot. I don't have a lot to say about the first and the third and even the overtime, but the second period. I have a lot of notes on some of the good things that I will talk about. Just in general, I Sam O'Reilly lot more dumping and chasing from the, from the Rangers tonight. I think they've made those adjustments that they're not just going to try and carry it along the boards into the zone. And the zone entries were extremely successful. So they didn't always dump and chase, but just mixing in some of the dump and chase there. There was a lot more open lanes entering the zone, so.

52:40Justin: Well, if they just think about how you're going to enter the zone, the Aud more likely that.

52:44Andrew: Exactly. It's not just an outlet pass to a winger. Yeah.

52:47Justin: Every time.

52:48Andrew: Yeah. So that was really good. Really good. I mean, you know, it got started really on the right foot with, with an Andalorian goal, which was the first one from the point. Right. And. And I wrote down more shots from distance because I noticed it a little bit, I think in the last, in the, in the first game that he struggled a little bit with shots from further away. And I especially think about that weird angle. Cameron Reid each game winner that they just kind of threw on net. He's very, he's very a reactionary goalie like his, his reactions are incredible.

53:23Justin: Oh, yeah.

53:24Andrew: I think maybe if he has a weakness, it's the positioning. So if you, if he can't see it and it's from further away, there's more net than there is when you're closer to him or on a breakaway. As, as we've found out, Saginaw has

53:39Justin: obviously pre scouted the Rangers really well because they clog up those, those passing lanes in the high slot and in the low slot. Very. Oh, yeah. So all of a sudden there's, there's a lot of bodies between the point and the, the goalie. So getting some of those through is a challenge.

53:57Andrew: They collapse. Yeah, the, the Rangers do love that low circle side play, and that's just not there.

54:04Justin: No, it's not available in this. Not there. But now if they start shooting from the point, it could open up. Yeah.

54:11Andrew: And, and they had a power play in that first period. And I Wrote like the power play needs to create more chaos. And, and that's exactly when they were successful, was when they were taking shots from the point and creating chaos in front of Shuriken. It was, it was a lot of, of kind of like figuring that out I think through the game. But yeah, those, that, that and it's that low box that they. That collapsing box that they're playing in the defensive zone and it's just like it's just. Just really successful against some of the things that the Rangers usually do. I, I think some of the Kirsch detractors will have a little bit more ammo in this one. But what I will say is he did have a couple of ten Bell saves that kind of nullified some of the easier. There's basically only two goals that I think I'd like to see him have back. It was a crazy assist in that first period that Klepov had. But like Kirsch needs to keep that glove higher. I will say that that has been one of his Achilles heels throughout this.

55:14Justin: I'm telling them.

55:15Andrew: Yeah, yeah, they know. They already know. If I know, they already know. But, but it was the same within the second second period. You'd love to have that five hole goal back. However, like less than a minute later he saves like one of his best saves of the game. So it's, you know, it's easy to say, well look at the gun, let's look at the shots. But the quality of chances from that big line and, and Kirsch being able to stop them. There were a couple of game saving saves that he did make.

55:48Justin: Let's pretend it's December 23rd and it's Festivus and you have a list of grievances about the second period. Let's get into it.

55:56Andrew: Okay. But that double miner was did a Cola ridiculous. What? He's already in the books. Go into the box and yeah, he gets into it with the defenseman but like that happens a million times.

56:09Justin: Yeah.

56:10Andrew: I don't know why you're doubling up in the playoffs on that. It's because they're down two nothing and they're the eighth seed. I don't believe it's anything else. There was a chance in the second period. Reed, Cameron Reid kind of had a chance. I wasn't so much a grievance but like, you know, you'd love to see him bury that there. It was kind of a two on one turn into a breakaway. But again, Shuriken is just so good. But it all culminates with a bad penalty at the end of the second where Woolly shoots it. And what I will say before, I will say that Woolly shot it at the defenseman and I, I guess they gave him a roughing call rather than unsportsmanlike. I don't know, weird stuff. Very weird.

56:47Justin: With the, There was a, there's. There was a bunch of those weird calls where I was like, that's, I'm

56:52Andrew: like, that's, that's not the call.

56:53Justin: Like, yeah, I'm like, sure, give him a penalty, but also get the call. Right.

56:58Andrew: But what I will, I will give the Rangers their FL. Flowers big time on that double minor penalty kill. Woolly and Ando actually, like, I know I'm gonna criticize Woolly again at some point in this. I think you are too. But Woolly and Ando were huge on that double minor. I think Ando probably had his. One of his best games as a Ranger. It was very low key, but it, he played. He was, I think one of the best players on the Rangers tonight. And it was because they had no chances when he was on the ice. Like, it was, was. It was. He was a standout for me and he had a takeaway on Barabanov down in the slot. I was like, oh man, that saved a goal in on that, on that power play. And, and we gotta, we gotta take credit for saying Blacki's getting double digit goals because he didn't get them in the regular season.

57:45Justin: But he did. But he just now 10th. Yeah. So that's nine in the regular season

57:49Andrew: and one in the playoffs. So I'm taking, I'm taking credit on that.

57:52Justin: And it was a, it was a beautiful shot too. Oh yeah, man. Whenever he, he doesn't get that many shots, but when he does, he does it right.

57:59Andrew: Very selective.

58:00Justin: I remember early in the season I, I said, remember we were watching that Balecki period. And we remember he had that like the, the, the light bulb came out above his head and he just realized he could be a part of the play and he's never let up. His confidence has just grown since. It's been so awesome. Back to, back to your Ando point. All I wanted to say on that is just that anybody who was saying, you know, why are we bringing Ando back? This is why. Because Ando, he has that next level where he can fill in whatever he needs. This isn't the Endo that played last year. Like, he almost looks like a completely different player now than he did a year ago at this Tommy Kut it's because he knows what he needs to do and he fills in the roles at the right times. And I mean, the goal off the top was beautiful, but, you know, he's not there to score goals. He's there to play hard defense against. Against two of the top players in the league.

58:51Andrew: Yeah, I mean, he. He also had a beautiful pass from the high, high point to. To that cross ice down low to that. To that circle play that they like to get to, and it didn't result in anything, but it was just such a silky smooth pass. The guy is just a more dynamic player.

59:08Justin: Yeah, for sure.

59:09Andrew: There's less pressure, I think, in the sense of, like, he's not the captain and, and he's got a. Another, you know, towering, monstrous, aggressive defenseman playing on his opposite side. So I think it's just one of those, like, natural things where he could play a little bit looser. He doesn't necessarily always have to be that, you know, aggressive hitting presence. He can kind of pick and choose his spots, which he did get off a big body check in this one as well. But he can be a little bit more responsible, and I think that's when he's at his best because he is a very good responsible.

59:45Justin: He does need to be more responsible because Woolly went a little bit on the irresponsible side this time. So, yeah, there was the. There was the shot at the end of the second period that, yeah, should be a penalty. And then there was the, like, running checking from behind, which also was a roughing penalty, I think, which I was

60:03Andrew: like, okay, yeah, the numbers. That was weird because he was coming. He was back checking, and the Saginaw player was turning at the exact Tommy Kut that's why you can't take a run at a guy that far away, because there's too many. There's too many variables there.

60:18Justin: And he didn't. He didn't hold up at all. Like, when he turned there, even if he had tried to hold up a little bit, he would have still hit him, but he wouldn't have hit him as, like. Yeah, and I mean, he did.

60:28Andrew: There was, you know, the third period, it started with a really good penalty kill from the Rangers, which was, you know, important. And then there was a great opportunity, I thought, from Haeden Ellis, who I thought has looked really good in this. In this series. He hasn't really factored in too much, but again, he's not playing a role necessarily where he has to do that, but he has been, I think, a positive player.

60:50Justin: Yeah, well, he got four. I mean, it's hard to talk about shots on the Rangers tonight when they got 54 shots, but he did get four shots tonight, so it was like.

61:00Andrew: Yeah, I, I think, you know, like the woolly hit was really reckless and. And it leads directly to the klep off one power play goal. Yeah. And again like that. That's the one that I can't put on Kirsch because that's just. It's a bad play that goes into a, you know, a third period power play and, and the Aud home and you know, that's. I, I kind of. We both kind of thought, I think at that moment that like this could be the one that gets away from them. The player that I really got to give props to that I think is gone to a next level. Not just Ando is. Is Gabriel Sherrod. He is a playoff player.

61:35Justin: Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a gamer, man. That goal to the Aud up in the third, it couldn't be more clutch at that moment.

61:41Andrew: Desperately. And he, he's just like a physical along the boards player. I'm really excited because he didn't, you know, he didn't necessarily mesh right away. He didn't really, you know, explode offensively like, you know, Dylan Edwards or, or, or Sam O'Reilly has coming over. So it was kind of like I was like, what does he bring in the playoffs? He's been completely, you know, like invaluable to the Rangers. He's just, just exactly what they need in that position. He's playing that third line wing. It's just like it just brings another element of scoring and physical play. And then I don't know what you want to talk about overtime, because it was all Rangers.

62:17Justin: It was all Rangers. I don't even know. Didn't even get it. They got. They didn't even get a shot. I don't think in the. No over time nor even a look,

62:27Andrew: they looked spent. It looks like they, they.

62:29Justin: They've. Well, they have one line that they played for 40 minutes in the. In the first three periods. Like there's. You wanna. Who would. You'd be dead.

62:36Andrew: You want to talk about the. You want to talk about the. The time on ice stat not being available? It's probably because of games like this. Games like this Klep off and Barabanov and Jilkin with like a 46 minute game.

62:50Justin: We'll have to listen to Rangers talk tonight with Mike Farwell to learn how many minutes he was on. The only other thing I wanted to say, was Dylan Edwards still snake bitten? Even though I know he got two assists last game, but he got 11 shots and 10 were high danger. In this, in this game, he's still no go. 20 of the shots in this insanely high scoring or high shooting game, Dylan Edwards did not score. Dude's gonna put in seven in one of these games at some point because

63:17Andrew: he's due to regress. Positively regressed. Yeah, I think Jack Freedom's.

63:21Justin: Freedom's in the same boat. I was going to say the exact same thing.

63:23Andrew: Exactly. And we got to give, you know, our boy Luca Romano props.

63:29Justin: Yeah.

63:29Andrew: Depositing the overtime winner.

63:30Justin: And I think I would have put him in this category of regressing, regression, needing if, if he didn't score this goal. And man, clutch, clutch goal looked amazing.

63:40Andrew: You know what, he did it first round last year in the playoffs as well. He loves the overtime winner.

63:44Justin: He loves the pressure.

63:46Andrew: Balecki with the shot. And the rebound goes to Romano and he scores. And, and you know what? That's black. He had a great game. Romano needed that one. And they're up three nothing. And let's, let's finish him off Thursday. Game four. The sweep is complete. What'd you see tonight, Babs?

64:05Tim: It was pretty violent at points. You know, I thought Grew tried to kill Jack Priddle. Oh, yeah. It was a pretty senseless move on his part too because was. He was beating him to a puck that wasn't probably a high threat. Like, it was just kind of like a nothing burger zone exit. So unfortunate there. Hlachar. That was stupid. Yeah, there was, that wasn't good.

64:30Andrew: There was some stupid stuff that happened tonight in a blowout game.

64:34Tim: I don't love seeing that in a blowout of a game on either side. I don't know if Hotar is going to face any discipline as a result of the play. I doubt it.

64:43Justin: It.

64:43Tim: You just don't need to.

64:44Andrew: Yeah, you know, absolutely. I, I think it was, it was a bit of a strange game energy wise. I, you know, like Sam O'Reilly started the scoring pretty early on. I will give props. Justin said that Dylan Edwards is due to score about seven goals, but he almost had a hat trick tonight. So he had, he had two and then had a breakaway later in the game and, and was stoned on that and, and sure, again, I, we got to give him the, the, his flowers. He played so well in this series. This series could have been an absolute runaway, but Shuriken kind of kept it somewhat close. Of course, the final score being 51 tonight. But I thought Saginaw looked like they were kind of just okay to go down the way that they were going down tonight. And that's not to like, you know, put them down, but like, it was a little bit. Like, it was a little bit like I thought there'd be a little bit more fire out of this Tommy Kut you know, it is what it is. Yeah. Go.

65:37Tim: He.

65:38Andrew: That was stupid. You could have really injured Pridham there. I. I was. I was heated. I was fired up. I was texting things to the. To the group chat that will not be repeated on the pod. But yeah, he can essentially, you know, go home to his billet parents and pack his stuff and be done with the ohl is what, uh, James go. Can do. Uh, I also saw. Saw the. The running of the goalie, the flyby. I gotta mention that that was. It was weird. Like, it was just unnecessary.

66:10Tim: It was just a. It was just a stick. That's a game within the game thing that I actually like. Low key love.

66:15Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

66:16Tim: When guys, like get silly.

66:17Andrew: It was too late though.

66:19Tim: Yeah. And like, if the goal is not in his blue paint or a little bit further out even, I think they just let it go and they're like, ah, whatever. These guys are doing their thing.

66:28Justin: Sure.

66:28Tim: Also, given the context of the penalties prior to that, I dropped the video of my reaction to the first period in four or five minutes because it was just insane. Just, they're trying to kill each other, but they're going to war. I saw that and went like, ah, as a referee, I don't know if I'm gonna necessarily want to get involved in that one, especially because your goaltender really likes to kind of mix it up a little bit. He gets in there. So I thought that was one of those ones where I'm like, ah, whatever. But they call it and then immediately score.

67:00Andrew: Yeah, yeah, they. They did, they did. And I could kind of see the air being let out of the balloon there slowly after that one. That was kind of the one that, you know, Dylan Edwards had two in the first period. Right. So it's. Yeah, it's a three. Nothing after one. Then like you said, you've got to the second period. Lachar had a. Had a. A moment. He has. He has moments. I love the intensity. I love the line he plays on. I think he gets a little emotional sometimes. I think like, you know, seeing Pridham potentially injured, he got a little emotional. I understand that there was only one goal in this period because it was mostly, you Know the Rangers playing keep away. I felt like on the second period. But Humps did have a nice goal. Christian Humphreys scored. And then the third period was literally just the Rangers penalty parade. It was frustrating. They killed three back to back to back off the beginning of the third, but it was, it was just kind of a, a sleepy period after that. It was one team was ready to go home and the others ready to go to the second round.

68:05Tim: Yeah, I think you got to buy in on the ref side too on that one where they're like, hey, we've warned them a bunch of times. So like we're just going to start calling the game like very the way they did. And I think it's an efficient way to get kind of make sure that no nonsense really starts to spiral up. Especially, you know, you look if there's a clear slash, like you got to call that. And they are able to ice the game like the ice I have on my wrist tonight. But it was a fantastic display. I'm shocked that you haven't addressed the fact that I look like a ridiculous person right now.

68:31Andrew: Well, Babs, I wasn't gonna say it, but I thought maybe you're trying something else out and it's. Maybe you're having a pre married man crisis. Maybe you're, you're, you're. I know you're engaged to be married and, and, and potentially maybe you're just going through something here. So I'm not going to comment on people's appearances.

68:53Tim: I, I needed for my hockey skits where I play the, the douchey player to have some stuff to really amp it up. So I got a brand to send me a bunch of stuff for free. So I have an iced baguette on my wrist. I figured it'd be a good throw to talk about them icing the game because it's good for Kitchener to be able to get the series done early because you don't want to see these first round playoff matchups where it's an overmatched system. Like you don't want to see the other team snag a game because what you're looking at is it's just the risk, risks of injury, it's going to get higher and higher. The team that's getting be beat up on, they're going to get more frustrated. More frustrated. The OHL first round, it's usually a bloodbath. Everyone talks about it. Yeah, maybe, you know, some of these games shouldn't necessarily get the way they are. Like one of the other series that had maybe. I think it was 36 goals. I mean, I look at that and go, isn't that a little much? But you. You run the risk of guys running each other. So I'm glad Kitchner was able to I this one out and we can move on to a little bit more competitive hockey. Although Saginaw at points looked like they could keep the goals tight. I don't want to say that they, like, kept it close, but they. They kept it tight and the Aud would just kind of fall off by the time the third period came around or whatever. And then tonight was just a. Just a sorry start.

70:05Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. They were in it. It wasn't a complete runaway like that. That Flint Owen Sound series you're talking about, that set the record for goal differential. I think they were plus 32 in a four game.

70:16Tim: I felt bad making that video. Yeah.

70:18Andrew: In that sweep, that was. Yeah. Something else I kind of sat there thinking about, you know, aren't the Rangers the number one seed? How did they not get Owen Sound? But, yeah, no, Saginaw, you know, they had moments. They had the goaltending, and ultimately they just didn't have the horses. You can't. You probably have access to the. The time on ice. Klepoff and Barabanov and Zilken, they had to play 150 minutes in four games.

70:42Tim: One of those situations, too, where if you're a player that weighs on you.

70:46Justin: Yeah.

70:47Tim: A lot.

70:47Justin: Yeah.

70:48Tim: Emotionally and physically. Because if you're the guy and you're sitting there going like, ah, I got to get a goal. I got to get this done. I got to get this done. Eventually you're going to start to resent your teammates in some capacity. No matter how good of a player, how good of a teammate you possibly are, there is that. And you're going to be looking to people saying, when is it going to be you? Can you do something, please? And you know that that's not a good position to be in. So. Yeah, I think you're 100 right on that one, man. I don't think there's any way they win without those two having, like, career playoff series.

71:21Andrew: Yeah. It's just those. Those two especially, they. They were basically all of the offense. They were the only ones that the Rangers seem to have any trouble with as far as puck possession. It was just one of those things where, look, you know, I'm an Oilers fan, so you're giving me a little bit of PTSD there, where you were saying, it's got to be somebody else. It was like, you know, the worst of the dry Seidel McDavid days and the zero depth, but it was like times a thousand because Klepov and Barabanov all year have had this incredible weight on their shoulders, and it just wasn't going to happen against a team that prides itself on depth. I mean, Gabe Charat's on the third line. It's three lines that can score. And then honestly, Avery Anus, he hasn't had much ice time in this series, but he's a guy who can score as well and he plays extremely well. And, and he's, he's, you know, he's down on the fourth line because there's no room to put him anywhere else. So I ultimately was worried that Klepov and Barabanov might be able to steal a game and I.

72:22Tim: A game or two games. You know, they're both very, very, very talented players. Like, I'm big. I'm big on both.

72:28Andrew: Yeah, that and especially with that goaltender. The way he was playing, he's playing out of his mind. He was playing an awesome series. This game obviously got away from him a little bit early, but I mean, I think the Rangers by like, early second period already had almost 30 shots on him. So it was.

72:45Tim: Yeah, I saw at one point it was like 25 to 5. And you're. I'm sorry, but that's it. That's a wrap. Yeah, you're not going to be able to be very competitive in that situation. And it's tough. They probably played a lot. And as the goaltender too, you get peppered for a certain period of time over a certain amount of games and like, you're not gonna be able to keep all the pucks out of the net. Like, you can maybe, like I said, steal a game. Your shooters can and shoot and get you in a half decent spot. But the combination of the two is just not. Is not an ideal spot. Car like Prime Carrie Price wouldn't have been able to do a, a whole lot in his junior career if he was just transplanted into this team right now. Right. You would look at it and go, oh, yeah, Kitchener won 41.

73:26Andrew: Yeah.

73:26Tim: You know, it's the difference of a goal because after a certain amount of shots, that's. They just. They. They will go in.

73:32Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And so now just one of the things that kind of stuck out to me was Jack Pridham held without a goal. He did contribute, he did have assists. He was definitely an effective player. But if you told me that he wasn't going to have a goal in this series. I would have kind of been like, all right, well did Kitchener struggle or what's the deal there? So we saw Dylan Edwards regress positively in this one. He hadn't had a goal. He had 11 shots on net and 10 high danger chances in the, in game three. So it was going to come. Jack Pridham I'd like to see him shoot a little bit more. What's your take on Jack Pridham having less goals than Matthew Anonofsky through the first playoff series?

74:19Tim: Yeah, like Ando is, it's a good swan song situation for him. He's really, you know, putting it all out there. So it's, it's credit to him on that. Some guys get addicted to the past. I've noticed it more and more when you get into tighter games. That's usually when that type of player shines the most with that where yeah, they really want to pass the puck. Some guys just, that's it. Mitch Marner in and there was a lot of situations where Mitchie would make a great pass and they'd score, but he could is easily of shot not to glaze him, but you know, it's just a high pressure playoff situation. You just, you don't want to make the mistake. You want to be a good teammate. You think too much and then that's how it goes. But Prudence's also a fantastic passer too. So it's not one of those situations where it's a shooter passing. Oh, like he, he's, he's got the ability to do both quite effectively. So yeah, that's just. You just gotta go on. The more playoff games they play too, the less they're going to have these thoughts. They'll just kind of get rhythm and go. And when they have more competitive games too, I think that will also lead to some of your top players kind of pocketing those pucks.

75:22Andrew: That's true. And you got to think that, you know, we talked to Jack Pridham in the off season right before the, the season began and he said, you know, the individual awards are great, but winning is the, is the, is the overall goal. Which I know is like, you know, that's the hockey response. But, but it's, it's also like the response you want to hear as a fan. So I'm glad that that wasn't so much of a worry. I think he will get going in more competitive games. I think it seemed like there was a little bit of pressure on them compared to Saginaw. In the sense of like, all the pressure was on the Rangers. They had to basically win. You know, they had to sweep them or else it was going to be like, wow, Saginaw got a game off the Aud obviously they, you know, almost got goalied in game three with Shuriken stopping 50 of 54. But yeah, I, I, I see, you know, Prid's probably breaking out and, and he's due for a couple for sure. And the other, the other thing I wanted to touch on was Cameron Reid being a point per game player. He was just a bit underneath that in the regular season. But Cameron Reid obviously is not just an offensive defenseman. I know you saw at least a couple games of this series. What did Cameron Reid show you as like a leader of the team?

76:44Tim: Yeah, he's got a good outlet pass. It's really fantastic to see him break the puck out. He's, you know, he's going to be very valuable NHL product to a team because he's got that first pass and he's also got the speed to be able to, you know, fly around the ice. You're watching games at the Aud from up high in the press box, you know, and it's noticeable, you know, his speed in games too. You just see how he gets involved on the offensive side of things. He's kind of one of those guys where you go, okay, this is going to be a very dependable player when we get him and when we're under pressure, he's going to be able to get that puck safely out because I've seen him rim the puck and put it up and off the glass too. So, you know, some guys get addicted to rushing the puck out or making that perfect outlet pass and all that stuff. I've watched him do the things that you're supposed to be able to do and, and at the junior age, maybe some of the guys don't have that defense first mindset where they're gonna go. Yeah, up and off the glass. But I've seen them do it, seen him break the puck out. I think it'd be a very useful team. You know, Toronto would be a team that I go and go, hey, you should have grabbed him because guess what, guys? You can't break the puck out effectively. Yeah.

77:44Andrew: Last but not least, Christian Kirsch gets a lot of heat on social media from Rangers fans. Yes, he can be inconsistent, but some of the of the best goalies in the world are inconsistent. That's kind of the difference sometimes with your goalie. Is it hard to Stay focused when you're not getting a lot of shots on you because I think that's what sometimes people don't realize is that like, yeah, when you're not busy, you can kind of Andrew a little bit.

78:09Tim: No, 100% happens. Olympic hockey you'll watch happen and junior and like the world juniors too. It can happen in hilarious ways. But if you're sitting there not getting a lot of shots. Yeah, you can get into a weird spot. You watched it, the Olympic gold medal game. Binner, I was going to going, he's probably feeling a little cold in the net. Right. So psychologically, I don't know if that has as much of an impact on it. Just phys physically, like, yeah, like it's tough. But going back to your first point there, it's junior hockey. Guys are going to be inconsistent because people forget these are young men still, like, you know, there's a lot of hockey left for him to be playing and the majority of it will not be in major junior in the ohl. It'll be somewhere else. So he's got a lot of time to work through these things. And if all goalies were reliable, you'd see a lot more of them drafted in the first round out of junior hockey. And there's a reason why you don't. And that's because we don't have the question answered yet if they're going to be that good or not. It's a harder thing to read. It's a difficult spot to be a goalie. They mature differently. You have guys that are stellar. You look over in Windsor, you know, they've been able to have goalies at a certain age really pop off. They've got a young goalie in net two. Could one of them be better? Could the older goalie who wasn't drafted potentially be even better than the one that we're suspecting will be now? It's just, it's tough. So I, I don't like people being overly critical of the goalies in junior hockey. I try not to do that.

79:26Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. We try not to do that with any of the players just because some of them are literally going to high school during the day. It's easy to forget how difficult high school was when you weren't playing junior A or major junior hockey. Thank you for joining us, Babs. Justin will be back for the wrap up. We're gonna do a series wrap up, a brief wrap up and then we're gonna super cut these episodes together and we will preview whoever the next matchup is right now as the time of recording and tonight being released. the Soo is up 3 to 1 on London. I would put my money on the Soo closing that out, but we. I'm hoping it goes seven. I hope London's got a couple wins in them. Jeff, just for the sake of what you said about teams getting tired and and a little banged up and softening them up for the Rangers. Not that they need it. Not that they need it, though. Game one of whatever series will happen at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.