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Some news: I have joined the @BlueshirtBanter team as the podcast Ombudsman breaking down everything that Joe and Eric get wrong on the podcast each week; here is my debut article:
blueshirtbanter.com/podcast-…
Great trade for the Jets
Trade: Colts have agreed to send eight-time Pro-Bowl guard Quenton Nelson to the Seattle Seahawks, per me and @rapsheet. Nelson is on an expiring contract and the Colts are opting to get back draft capital now before they could lose him in free agency.
But an all-time Colt now moves on to the Seahawks.
On September 21, 2018, Jordan Binnington cleared waivers and was sent to the AHL. He returned to the NHL that season, and I think that Rangers fans are hoping that Garand's season turns out similarly to Binnington's 2018-19.
sportsforecaster.com/nhl/p/1…
Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 106
A team nearly pounced on Dylan Garand, Connor Hellebuyck’s trade list has a built-in escape hatch, and a lot of goalies who were waived went on to earn Vezina votes.
Read it here ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/podcast-… via @CharlieVidal #NYR
"Mike Tomlin wins 9 or 10 games and then loses in the first round every year"
Absolutely every Jets fan on the planet would sign up for that right now
The Jets aren't as far away as their 2-4 record suggests.
Bad clock management. Predictable play calling. Costly penalties. Zero adjustments. The Jets are losing games because they're consistently OUTCOACHED.
Give Mike Tomlin or Sean McDermott this roster and I believe they're AT LEAST 4-2.
3 first-round picks. $100M in cap space. Real talent already here.
The Jets don't need another rebuild. They need COMPETENT COACHING.
Get the next hire right and this team can win FAST.
The Devils only have two players with a cap hit of more than $5 million who do not have an NTC or an NMC: Luke Evangelista ($7.25 million) and Luke Hughes ($9 million)
Sunny Mehta has a chance to do the funniest thing ever in trading for Hellebuyck
Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 103
Tom Poti was better than you remember, the Devils' cap sheet raises questions, and the podcast's tallest-line math gets a fact-check.
Read it here ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/podcast-… via @CharlieVidal #NYR
Roast me when I get this hilariously wrong, but the San Jose Sharks have made terrible decisions at defense and are going to squander great seasons by Celebrini, Smith, Misa, and Stenberg to miss the playoffs
Utah will quietly have a very solid season and make the playoffs
Blueshirt Banter 2026-27 NHL Standings Preview Roundtable
Seven writers, 32 teams, and near-unanimity on who wins the Metro. After that, the Banter crew can't agree on much, including whether the Rangers get in.
Read it here ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/blueshir… #NYR
A preview of my contribution:
Blueshirt Banter 2026-27 Season Preview Roundtable
After two lost seasons, are the Rangers back in the playoff picture? Our staff makes its calls on the standings, the team MVP, and who takes the fall if it all goes wrong.
Read it here ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/blueshir… #NYR
Alexis Lafrenière is a very good top 6 winger who everybody would love if he was drafted 5th instead of 1st; hopefully getting a lot of PP1 time this season allows him to put up a points total that reflects how good a player he is
2026 Rangers Season Previews: Alexis Lafrenière
Six seasons after he was drafted, Rangers fans have largely made peace with who Alexis Lafrenière is—but is there another gear left to find?
Read it here ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/2026-ran… via @CharlieVidal #NYR
Absolutely atrocious use of challenges by the Yankees in the 1st inning today. Not even close on either one.
Charlie Vidal retweeted
Why do the Yankees lose so many one-run games?
Maybe it's because of decisions like bunting with Ryan McMahon in the fifth inning? Coming into that at bat, McMahon had 1,184 PAs and only two sac bunts. The runner on second was Wells, who doesn't have much speed. In other words, a recipe for failure.*
*Perhaps Boone was really playing 3D chess, and, knowing how bad McMahon is as a hitter, he figured swapping the speed of Wells for Volpe at 2B was the best possible outcome?
Insane
Per @JesseRogersESPN, outfielder Tommy Pham was only activated by the #WhiteSox today because he saw GM Chris Getz in an elevator last night and made his case.
He's now batting cleanup for Chicago in the biggest game of the year. It's bold, that's for sure.
4 weeks ago @iEricKohn and @JoeFortunatoBSB debated whether Batherson or Alex DeBrincat was a better UFA option next summer. Of course, in the NHL good players never hit unrestricted free agency:
blueshirtbanter.com/podcast-…
“We need to pick a game to give away an anime card that nobody is going to care that much about”
“How about a Tuesday night against the Rockies? There’s no way that will be a big game”
“As you can see from the recidivism rate, the men who are coming out of their cage are not doing just fine”
This quoted post is unavailable.
The more time I spent researching this, the more I realized how terrible the Darnell Nurse contract is
Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 92
From Darnell Nurse's real value to whether Dorofeyev's deal is a problem for Zibanejad, the Ombudsman checks this week's numbers—plus some very specific Lehigh trivia.
Read it here ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/podcast-… via @CharlieVidal #NYR
Me having to ombuds @OhRyanMead this week
🔈🔉🔊 New podcast!
Episode 90 of Blueshirt Bandwidth is the Vlad Nemestnikov Episode—@JoeFortunatoBSB is on a private jet to a Caribbean island, so @iEricKohn and @NYRChip23 are joined by @OhRyanMead of Blueshirts Breakaway to relitigate the Artemi Panarin trade in the wake of Brady Tkachuk going to Florida. Ryan thinks Drury got fleeced, Chip argues the age, term, and NMC situation made the trades genuinely incomparable, and Eric zooms out to his "forest vs. trees" thesis on how each Drury move looks defensible in isolation and catastrophic in aggregate.
Then @Almost_August and @RSolisByx from Blueshirt Banter join to break down the first-round mock draft in real time as NHL Trade-mageddon unfolds around them—Eklund to Ottawa, Kyrou to Washington, and the utterly baffling Bowen Byram deal that sent the fourth overall pick to Buffalo while everyone on the pod tried to keep up. Plus: the mailbag covers dodgeball lineups, the rebuild/retool semantics debate, Adam Fox's future, Chip's CBA proposal to rein in no-movement clauses, Ryan's bold prediction that Pat Brisson is the next Rangers GM, and @CharlieVidal's Ombudsman Report on Scott Stevens' body count, cup-winning goalie archetypes, and Chuck Knobloch erasure.
Listen & subscribe ➡️ blueshirtbanter.com/blueshir… #NYR
