The Rangers will play five games in eight days. Their opponents will be the Penguins, Flyers, Bruins, Sabres and Red Wings.
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Beginning on Wednesday, the Rangers will play three games over four days and five games in eight days. Their opponents will be the Penguins, Flyers, Bruins, Sabres and Red Wings. The Rangers could get Adam Fox back next week, and hopefully, during these challenging eight days, Mika Zibanejad will break out of his scoring slump.
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Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!
The Rangers lost in regulation for the first time in more than a month on Monday in Dallas.
1. Things are going so well for the Rangers that blowing a 2-0 second-period lead and allowing six straight goals (including five in the third period) in an eventual 6-3 loss isn’t upsetting. Losses are going to happen, even losses as bad as the one in Dallas on Monday.
“I thought we started the right way,” Peter Laviolette said after the loss. “It’s tough to finish that way.”
2. After the Stars tied the game at 2, their third goal was initially waved off before being overturned in their favor. When the Rangers had an obvious goal overturned a couple of weekends ago against the Blue Jackets, Stephen Valiquette said, “The Rangers never get a call … I’m not kidding.” And he wasn’t kididng.
The Rangers had two goals called back against them in Columbus in the second game of the season. They had the goal called back against them against Columbus two weekends ago. On Saturday in New Jersey, the Devils’ first goal was overturned in favor of the Devils and later in the game, a major penalty was taken off the board completely in favor of the Devils. Then in Dallas on Monday, not only was the Stars’ third goal overturned in their favor, but so was their fourth. The moment the officials need to review anything, you can guarantee it’s going against the Rangers.
3. That’s not me complaining about officiating or being a homer, it’s the truth. Valiquette wasn’t kidding, and neither am I. The Rangers are never the beneficiary of a review.
Despite the loss, the Rangers remain comfortably atop the Met with a four-point lead on the second-place Flyers, who they have two games in hand on as well. The Rangers may have blown a two-goal lead and have allowed six unanswered goals (two were empty-netters), but they are still very, very good.
4. Not all of the Rangers have been good this season, even with the team having won 75 percent of its games, and a good amount of them haven’t played to expectations. They haven’t had to because Artemi Panarin has been otherworldly with 10 goals and 16 assists in 16 games. Sadly, his point streak ended on Monday as he was unable to find the scoresheet.
Panarin’s 15-game point streak to begin the season was the longest to start a season in Rangers history and was the third longest point streak in Rangers history. It was the longest streak since Wayne Gretzky in 1996-97 and after Saturday’s 5-3 win over the Devils, Panarin became the first Ranger to have five consecutive multi-point games since Jaromir Jagr 18 years ago.
5. While Panarin is enjoying the best season of his career, Mika Zibenejad is mired in the worst of his in terms of goal scoring. Zibanejad continues to sit on two goals. He has as many goals as Kaapo Kakkko and Blake Wheeler and one fewer than Jimmy Vesey and Will Cuylle. He’s on pace for 10 goals this season, which is how many Panarin and Chris Kreider already have.
One of these games, Zibanejad will go off, net a hat trick and get right back to being his usual self. With the season 20 percent over, it would be nice if that happened in the near future, and no better time than this week where the Rangers will play three games in four days and five games in eight days. This is the most opportune time for Zibanejad to start finding the back of the net.
6. I do come across line change proposals and new combinations to get Zibanejad out of his funk, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Unless you’re going to pair him with Panarin (a move I have called for since Panarin’s Rangers debut) then there’s no need to upset the Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafreniere line. Zibanejad can figure it out and will figure it out without needing to change the dynamic of a first- place team. (Again, unless you’re putting him with Panarin and Lafreniere).
7. Lafreniere continues to be noticeable every game and prove that former No. 1 overall worth. He had the game of his career to date against Columbus and even on nights when he’s not scoring or assisting on goals, he’s having an impact on the game. Too many times over his first three seasons would he have games (and even stretches) of being invisible and that’s not happening this season. Peter Laviolette’s faith in Lafreniere becoming the player the Rangers have dreamed out is paying off.
8. Kaapo Kakko just went 10 games without a point. Zibanejad has two goals. Adam Fox and Filip Chytil have missed 38 percent of the season and Chytil had no goals in the 10 games he did play. Igor Shesterkin missed two weeks and the Rangers used three goalies in their first 13 games. And yet, they are still 12-3-1. I’m sure the Rangers will give fans plenty to complain about over the remaining 66 games, but for now, even the things there are to complain about aren’t worth it just as of now. Again, they just lost for the first time in regulation and just the second time overall in more than a month.
9. The Rangers’ schedule has been rather odd to this point. After a pair of road games and a pair of home games to begin the season, they went on a 10-day, three-time zone road trip in which they went west (Seattle), east (Calgary), north (Edmonton), west again (Vancouver) and east again Winnipeg), They returned home for one game and then went back on the road and out of the time zone for one game in Minnesota. (Why not just play in Minnesota after Winnipeg?) Then they played three home games before having six days off. Now they are on a road trip that covers New Jersey (OK, not really a road trip), Dallas, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
10. Now the Rangers have an extremely tough week ahead with games against the Penguins, Flyers, Bruins, Sabres and Red Wings. There’s a chance they could get Fox back next week and there’s hopefully a chance Zibenejad will score a goal within the next week. The Rangers’ third-period heroics finally went the other way against them in Dallas, and if it wasn’t just one loss and if the magic that has been the first six weeks of the season is going to start to wear off, they’re going to need both the physical return of Fox and the goal-scoring return of Zibanejad to avoid undoing what they have done to this point.
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The Yankees’ offseason is going about as well as the actual season. No changes have been made to the front office, dugout, clubhouse or roster and everyone within the organization continues to talk about how
The Yankees’ offseason is going about as well as the actual season. No changes have been made to the front office, dugout, clubhouse or roster and everyone within the organization continues to talk about how great everything is.
1. After the last day of the miserable, embarrassing 2023 season, the Yankees went quiet for 36 days. More than five weeks of nothing from the organization. Over that time, every other major-league club either kept playing or held some sort of end-of-the-season post mortem to explain what happened over the previous six months and why it won’t happen again. Some teams even decided during that time to move on from their general manager and/or manager, a concept foreign to ownership in the Bronx.
2. The Yankees chose nothing: say nothing and do nothing. They decided against holding their standard end-of-the-season press conferences with their general manager and manager. They decided against replacing the two people in those jobs. They went into hiding as an organization, choosing only to hold internal meetings in Tampa where they decided to run it back with the same front office and same staff. And when they report to spring training in a little under three months, they will make it apparent they are running it back with the same roster as well.
3. It was only recently the Yankees came out of hiding to publicly answer questions for an 82-win season, and the only reason they did was because they had to. Brian Cashman had to attend the General Meetings and show his face in public, and Hal Steinbrenner knew Cashman had to attend these meetings and would be questioned, so he too came out of hiding. Knowing he had to be the first person from the organization to say something, anything since the end of the regular season, hours before Cashman went on an expletive-filled tirade, Steinbrenner popped open his laptop and virtually addressed the media like a coward.
4. “I’m proud of our operation,” Steinbrenner said. “I think we have a great group of baseball people. I think we have a very strong process that has served us well up until what happened this particular season.”
The Yankees have such a “strong process” that they finished fourth in the AL East and eighth in the AL, producing more runs than only the Tigers, Guardians, White Sox and A’s. So what did Steinbrenner tell his “great group of baseball people?”
“I told them this season is completely unacceptable.”
And yet, that “group of great baseball people” are still employed by the Yankees in the same positions they held during the “completely unacceptable” season. Those employees keeping their jobs includes Cashman and the equally untouchable Aaron Boone.
5. “I think he’s a good manager,” Steinbrenner said of Boone. “He’s extremely intelligent. He’s hardworking. The players respect him as a manager. They want to play for him and win for him.”
If the players want to win for Boone, why didn’t they do that more often? Of course players want to play for him. Boone is a dream boss. He’s the ultimate player’s manager. Make the first out of an inning at third? He likes the aggressiveness. Give up seven runs in two innings? He thought the stuff was great, but there were just a few pitches the starter would like to have back. Jog down the first-base line like you’re a valet attendant retrieving a car? Turn your back on the pitching coach after allowing eight runs without recording an out? He’ll say he would have disciplined the pitcher in question, but it’s late in the season.
As for Boone being “hardworking,” maybe he is, but it doesn’t mean the work he does is good, and what is Steinbrenner basing Boone being “extremely intelligent” or a “good manager” on?
6. Steinbrenner admitted to wavering on if Boone should continue as manager of his team. Why would Steinbrenner even think about replacing someone who is “extremely intelligent” and “hardworking” and a “good manager” the players “respect” and “want to play for” and “want to win for.” Those are the exact characteristics every MLB team is looking for in hiring a manager, and yet Steinbrenner was willing to move on from someone he has under contract who possesses those traits. Why? Because Boone doesn’t actually possess those traits.
Steinbrenner said he changed his mind about a possible managerial move after consulting with Andy Pettitte, Nick Swisher and Aaron Judge. Steinbrenner’s own intuition nor his highly-paid “great group of baseball people” mattered in the decision. Instead, a former teammate of Boone’s, someone who never played with or for Boone and the team’s current captain (who gets to enjoy an accountability-less work environment) acted as the driving force in Boone getting a seventh season to manage the Yankees.
7. Nothing Steinbrenner said made me feel any better about being a Yankees fan going into 2024. Truthfully, unless he guaranteed he would stop at nothing to acquire Juan Soto, he wasn’t going to make me feel better after retaining his general manager and manager. But then Cashman spoke and suddenly all of the lies and excuses that came out of Steinbrenner’s mouth didn’t seem so bad.
In Cashman’s first run-in with the media since the end of the season, he behaved in a manner wildly inappropriate for someone of his position. He spoke about his job and his team as if he had put a few back in the hotel lobby before meeting reporters. Not only did he ideologically challenge anyone who thinks or talks poorly of the disastrous roster he has built, I was waiting for him to physically challenge media members for saying or writing anything critical of him or his team over the last year.
“I think we’re pretty fucking good,” Cashman said with microphones in his face, and that’s all he needed to say. That one sentence sums up the state of the Yankees better than any words I can put together possibly can. Coming off their worst season in 30 years in which they had the highest payroll in the AL, Cashman still believes the Yankees “are pretty fucking good.”
8. The lack of accountability within the organization is startling. Steinbrenner said the season was unacceptable, and yet, he didn’t fire a single employee. Cashman has blown through more than $3 billion of payroll over the last 14 years without producing a single World Series appearance let alone World Series win and still believes his team is “pretty fucking good.” Boone has a litany of performance-related excuses for his players after every single game and those players spend all season talking about tomorrow until there are no more tomorrows and then they talk about next year.
9. When Steinbrenner was asked about Cashman’s unhinged appearance, he said, “While I don’t condone the cussing, I do like the passion.”
Steinbrenner doesn’t condone Cashman’s language except he does, since nothing came of it. In mid-July when Carlos Rodon blew a kiss to heckling fans in Anaheim, Boone said, I would like him not to do that … But I think it was better than getting into a shouting match or doing something that he would regret.” Rodon shouldn’t have reacted and blown a kiss to upset fans, but hey, at least he didn’t verbally or physically assault a fan! Every single member of ownership the front office and clubhouse lacks accountability and it trickles down from Hal, who won the birth lottery, all the way to someone like Harrison Bader, who condescendingly responded, “No concern,” to Meredith Marakovits when asked about his level of concern regarding the team’s place in the standings in early August.
10. Early in the 2023 season, a friend of mine told me he believes the Yankees are operating as a social experiment: a test to see how far the organization can push its fans while still maintaining a fan base. At first I laughed because of the comedic way it described the 2023 Yankees’ season, but as the season progressed, it became hard to ignore as a possibility.
Maybe the Yankees are just fucking with all of us? It sure would explain Steinbrenner recently saying Boone thinks the team needs to bunt more or Cashman opting to criticize his second-highest-paid position player’s injuries unprovoked. It certainly would explain everything the two said over the last two weeks. It would definitely explain everything that has gone on with this team for a long time now.
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Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!
1. If you had told me before the season began that through less than the first month the Rangers would briefly lose Ryan Lindgren to injury, put Adam Fox on long-term injured reserve and a goal-less Filip Chytil on injured reserve, Igor Shesterkin would only play in eight games to date (and get pulled in one) and get injured, his backup would get injured, the team would be on their third goalie, Mika Zibanejad would have two goals, and the Rangers would have lost games to the Blue Jackets and Predators and blown a three-goal lead to the Wild, I would have asked you how many more losses they have compiled. Instead the Rangers are 8-2-1 through 13 games, and after their 4-1 win over the Wild on Thursday, they have won eight of their last nine.
2. Five nights after blowing a three-goal lead to the Wild before losing 5-4 in a shootout, the Rangers got retribution for their collapse in Minnesota. They didn’t play a complete game, but they scored the first goal of the game, never trailed and got an amazing performance in net from Louis Domingue in his first game as a Ranger.
“When you’re older, you don’t build yourself up too high for a game like this,” Domingue said. “You just try to do your job.”
Domingue did his job and did it exceptionally well. he turned away 25 of the Wild’s 26 shots, limited to them just one goal in their dominant second period and helped ease the minds of Rangers fans nervous about the health of Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick.
3. “It’s not his first rodeo,” Peter Laviolette said of the 31-year-old Domingue playing for his seventh franchise. “He really stepped up big for us.”
It was the first NHL appearance for Domingue in more nearly 19 months. For the Rangers, it was the first time since 1989-90 they had three goalies record wins in the team’s first 13 games. It was the seventh time already this season the Rangers didn’t allow more than one goal in a game.
4. Domingue was able to get an early cushion to work with because just like they did in Minnesota five nights earlier, the Rangers got on the board early. An Erik Gustafsson-to-Alexis Lafreniere-to-Vincent Trocheck goal gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead just 3:56 into the game.
How good has Gustafsson been? It’s hard to believe he had to take a one-year, $825,000 offer from the Rangers in the offseason. Now with three goals and nine assists this season, he has made the absence of the irreplaceable Fox hurt a little less.
5. The Wild were finally able to break through against Domingue at 12:33 of the second period when Brandon Duhaime scored For much of he second, the game had a similar feeling to the Rangers’ loss in Minnesota. The Wild controlled play for the entirety of the second, taking the first eight shots of the period, leading 11-1 in shots with seven minutes to go in the period and finishing the period with a 15-3 edge.
6. The Rangers regrouped during the intermission and responded with another pretty goal from the Lafreniere-Trocheck-Panarin line to take a 2-1 lead. It was the second even-strength goal of the game for that line that has played extremely well together since the shuffle was made before the 5-3 win over Detroit. After the trio each produced an even-strength point against the Red Wings, they came back and did the same against the Wild.
“He’s doing most of the forechecks for us,” Panarin said of Lafreniere after the line’s first game together against the Detroit. “Nice to see young guy working for the old guys.”
7. With just over seven minutes to go, the Rangers received their first power play of the game, and the second unit extended the lead to 3-1 when Blake Wheeler banged home a rebound for his first goal as a Rangers.
Lafreniere assisted on the Wheeler goal for the first three-point game of his carer. With a goal and two assists in the win, Lafreniere now has five goals and four assists on the season (a 32-goal, 25-assist, 57-point pace). Everything about his game looks improved and the trust and belief Laviolette has instilled in him is paying off.
Panarin had another Panarin game, continuing his streak of recording at least one point in every game this season. The 1.38 points per game he produced during his first season with the Rangers was remarkable and it’s hard to believe he’s currently destroying those numbers with 1.69 points per game this season to date. He’s currently on pace for 139 points.
8. Through 13 games, the Rangers have three losses and each loss can be clearly defined. In Game 2, after coming off their most complete performance in at least a decade, they laid an egg on the road against last season’s last-place Blue Jackets. In Game 4, they no-showed at home against the inferior Predators before embarking on a five-game, 10-day West Coast/Western Canada road trip. In Game 11 in Minnesota, they held a 3-0 lead just 6:53 into the game, and then were thoroughly dominated for the rest of the game on their way to a three-goal lead collapse (though they did manage to earn a point). Other than that, it’s been all wins. Blowout wins, hard-fought wins, come-from-behind wins, wins they didn’t deserve, shutout wins, you name it, and the 2023-24 Rangers have done it already.
“It’s never one thing,” Laviolette said of the team’s ability to win in so many ways. “It’s probably a combination of a bunch of different things.”
9. I don’t think anyone thought the Rangers would get off to this kind of start. The kind of start that is nearing a place where they can play .500 for the remainder of the season and still reach the playoffs. As of now, if the Rangers won only half of their remaining schedule, they would finish with 96 points. The Panthers were the last team in the playoffs last season with 92 points.
“You can have objectives and what you think is necessary to be successful,” Laviolette said about winning. “If you can check off eight out of 10 of those objectives and you can do it consistently, you probably find yourself winning hockey games.”
10. That’s where the Rangers find themselves: winning hockey games. They are atop the Metropolitan Division, sitting five points ahead of Carolina with a game in hand on the Hurricanes.
On Sunday, before enjoying a six-day break, the Rangers have a chance to extend their division-topping lead at home against last-place Columbus. I expect this game to play out differently than the second game of the season when the Rangers fell to the Blue Jackets in Columbus.
Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!
The Rangers kept their winning streak alive in their return home, but it came at a cost, as they lost they lost their best player and a top-six center on Thursday. Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.
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The Rangers kept their winning streak alive in their return home, but it came at a cost, as they lost their best player and also a top-six center on Thursday.
1. After beating up on the Western Conference for two weeks on the West Coast (Seattle) and in Western Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg) and setting a franchise record for undefeated length of a road trip, the Rangers returned to the Garden on Thursday for their first true test of the season: Carolina. The odds-on favorite to not only win the Eastern Conference this season, but to win it all, the Hurricanes arrived in New York one win and two points behind the Rangers in the Met.
2. It didn’t take long for the Rangers to get on the board in this one as a too many men penalty on the Hurricanes just 1:38 into the game put the Rangers’ dynamic power play on the ice. A little over a minute into the man-advantage, Artemi Panarin carried the puck up the ice and dished it off to Vincent Trocheck just before entering the offensive zone. Upon entering the zone, Trocheck immediately had the puck knocked away, but it was knocked away directly to Panarin, who was now in the right corner. Panarin one-timed a backhanded pass from the corner all the way through the crease where Chris Kreider was waiting alone to bang it in. 1-0 Rangers.
2. The pass from Panarin may have seemed like nothing other than a perfectly-placed feed for Kreider, but the degree of difficulty was enormous. To put that much strength behind the puck on the backhand, get it from the corner through the front of the net and keep it accurate is silly. Less than two minutes into the game and Panarin had his season-long point streak extended.
3. For the first nine minutes of the first period, the Rangers controlled the play. They had little trouble getting through the Hurricanes’ neutral zone defense and managed to create some high-quality scoring chances, while the Hurricanes were held shotless. But when the Rangers got called for their own too many men penalty, the Hurricanes evened the game.
4. Tony DeAngelo began the power-play rush to a heartwarming chorus of Garden boos and passed the puck off to Sebastian Aho. Aho found a streaking Seth Jarvis with a blue line-to-blue line pass, and Jarvis split a flat-footed Jacob Trouba and Ryan Lindgren, went in all alone and finished with a quick shot over Igor Shesterkin’s glove. 1-1.
5. Later in the first, Adam Fox had a lane down the middle of the ice in the offensive zone to potentially receive a pass for an undefended shot in the slot. Before he could make his way toward the net, Aho, realizing he was out of position to defend Fox, stuck out his right leg and caused a knee-on-knee collision. The play went uncalled by the officials, and after trying to continue to play, Fox went down the tunnel and didn’t return to the game.
“I went in and looked at it after the period,” Peter Laviolette said. “Especially from the overhead, I didn’t like the hit.”
At best, it was clear interference on Aho that resulted in the Rangers’ most important player leaving the game in the first period with a “lower-body injury.” At worst, it was a dirty, disgusting play by Aho that could leave the Rangers without their most important player indefinitely.
6. Fox wouldn’t be the only Ranger to exit the game with an injury. After a first-period collision that looked like nothing other than Chytil awkwardly losing a glove on the hit, he would eventually leave the game as well. His injury is being called “upper-body” and after the Ranger announced they were recalling Johnny Brodzinski early on Friday, it looks as though Chytil will be missing some time.
Chytil has yet to find the back of the net this season, but he has been playing well, creating scoring changes and setting up his teammates (six assists in 10 games). Injuries are always a problem for the cetnerr though, and his career injury log is as long as a CVS receipt.
That’s 14 documented injuries since April 2019. Again, the hit that caused him to leave Thursday’s game looked like nothing at the time and still doesn’t when you watch it back. So maybe he will miss nothing more than a couple of games?
“Chytil and Foxy are really important players for us,” Shesterkin said. “Hopefully everything will be good.”
Yes, hopefully everything will be good. Hopefully Fox’s removal from the game was cautionary and he’s fine now and can return to play unscathed on Saturday. The Rangers are limited in depth as is, and there’s no replacing Fox.
7. From the nine-minute mark in the first until halfway through the third, the Hurricanes took over. The Rangers had trouble generating offense, the Hurricanes began to successfully clog and defend the neutral zone and any Rangers entry was immediately met with a turnover or loss of possession.
“Between periods, I thought we needed more bite in our game,” Laviolette said. “You kind of start to see the buildup back in the third period and go back out there and continue to push on. I really liked our response.”
8. With just over nine minutes left in regulation and the scored tied at 1, Jacob Trouba lost control of the puck at the right point. He was able to regain control and skate around Jarvis and eventually make his way to the right corner untouched when DeAngelo decided to skate past him and defend no one behind the net. Trouba picked his head up and found Will Cuylle gliding toward the front of the net. Trouba fed Cuylle and Cuylle deflected it in.
“I like his straight-ahead speed. I Like his physicality,” Laviolette said of Cuylle. “A big goal at the right time in the third period.”
9. The Rangers hung on for the final 9:39 for a 2-1 win, their sixth straight. Clear Sight Analytics Hockey had the Hurricanes beating the Rangers in expected goals 2.97 to 2.58 and outchancing them 27-22, so it was once again another big performance in net for the Rangers. The win increased the separation between the Rangers and Hurricanes to four points in the standings.
10. Next up is a game in Minnesota on Saturday. (Wouldn’t it have made sense for the Rangers to go from Winnipeg to Minnesota and then return home to play Carolina, rather than go from Winnipeg to New York to Minnesota?) After the oddly scheduled one-game trip outside the time zone this weekend, the Rangers won’t play a game outside the Greater New York City area for more than two weeks.
The Wild are off to a shaky start (3-5-2), but always seem to play the Rangers well, and the trio of Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello and Joel Eriksson Ek are all averaging a point per game this season. It will be a challenging test for the Rangers to extended their winning streak to seven straight. Let’s hope Fox is there to take it with them.
Vintage Ice Hockey is the only company that sells premium-quality jerseys, apparel and team merchandise for defunct minor league hockey franchises. It’s a family-run, hockey fan-driven company that’s committed to celebrating and preserving the legacies of defunct minor league hockey franchises. Check out their collection spanning over 100 years of minor league hockey and use code KTTC for 15% off your order!