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How do you know? I said with a healthy Tarasenko. He hasn’t played all year, so we don’t know how many points the Blues would have had. And like I said, 2/3 of that 99 team wouldn’t even make this roster.
2019-2020 St. Louis Blues - Defending the Cup - Part 3: The Prelude to Playoff Positioning
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How do you know? I said with a healthy Tarasenko. He hasn’t played all year, so we don’t know how many points the Blues would have had. And like I said, 2/3 of that 99 team wouldn’t even make this roster.
Kreegz2
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- Dec 11, 2011
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You can play the "shoulda woulda coulda" game considering injuries with almost any team though. Do we win the cup in '96 if Fuhr isn't injured? Pronger missed the entire 2002-03 season with an injury, that team could have done some serious damage if not for that and the flu that they picked up in the first round against the Canucks. Even the 1999-00 team was missing Macinnis/Turgeon for a combined total number of games that was about equal to the amount that Vlad has missed this year. Turgeon was a scoring machine that season before he was injured and still ended up with 66 points in 52 games. Macinnis had just won the Norris and was playing some of the best defense of his career. There's also the possibility that Vlad could have had an uncharacteristically bad year this year. There's really no way to conclusively quantify a player's impact when he's injured for the means of comparison like this. The only objective information we have to make judgments on are the results, and the results say the 1999-00 team was a better, more consistent, and more dominant team over the course of the entire season.
That's not really relevant in my eyes. The 1970s had even more terrible teams, and yet the 70's Canadiens (particularly the 1976-77 team) are still considered one of the greatest teams of all time.
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I think this current team would have finished 8-3 for 110 points. That’s only 4 pts behind the 99-00 team. And that’s without Tarasenko and the dreaded Stanley Cup hangover. I just don’t see any way the 99-00 team was better than this current team.
Kreegz2
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From January 15 to February 16 this season we went 2-7-3 and one of those wins was a shootout, which means it would have been 1-7-4 under 1999-00 rules. That's an ugly month of hockey no matter how you look at it. The 1999-00 team had nothing even close to such a terrible stretch. Their worst was losing 3 of 5 to start the season and 3 of 4 in January. Outside of those minor speedbumps they only lost consecutive games twice.
- Feb 12, 2008
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The 99 team didn’t have to deal with playing into nearly July the prior year. The 99 team was nowhere near a cup contender. They didn’t have the ingredients.
Brian39
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I assume you're talking about the 1999/2000 team since that team was the one being discussed. I also assume you mean "the player at his skill level at that point in his career" and not those players a decade+ later once their skills had declined.
Pronger, Mac, Demitra, and Turgeon are all insanely clear locks to earn roster spots on this current team.
Handzus had 53 points that year as a 22 year old and finished 2nd in Selke voting. He absolutely would have a spot on the current team.
Young "only" had 39 points that year, but that total was sandwiched between 52 and 73 point campaigns. He was a good defensive player who was in the midst of an 11 season streak of scoring 30+ points. He absolutely would have a spot on the current team.
Hecht had 34 points in 63 games as a 22 year old rookie and went on to score 463 points in 833 NHL games. He'd absolutely beat out guys like Mac, Barby, Steen, Blais, and Kyrou.
Same with Conroy. In a down year, he posted 27 points after 2 seasons of posting 39 and 43 points while being top 5 in Selke voting. We traded him the next year since he became expendable and he went on to post 75, 59, and 47 point seasons in Calgary while helping them to a Cup Final. He absolutely beats out a number of guys to make the roster on this year's team.
Richer had 25 points in 36 games with the Blues. He had 33 points in 64 games the year before. He would be an upgrade over a number of our depth guys.
I really don't see a reasonable argument that those 9 guys aren't clear upgrades over at least a handful of guys on the current team. That's already over a third of the roster before you start talking about guys like Pellerin, Mayers and Nash who were very successful in depth roles and make compelling arguments to bump out current players in similar roles.
I agree with your sentiment that the current Blues team is the deepest one we've ever had. We don't have a guy as dominant as Pronger, but this is one of the deepest teams I've ever seen (league wide). But that doesn't mean that all of the bottom 6 guys couldn't be upgraded with legit middle 6 (or even top 6) caliber players. Building the depth we have in a cap league is remarkable, but you are selling the 1999/2000 roster incredibly short by claiming that no more than 7 of them could crack this current team. That was a hell of a roster who set a league record for fewest goals allowed in an 80+ game season despite the entire hockey world knowing that their weakness was goaltending. That team was absolutely loaded with incredibly good two way forwards who would thrive in the middle/bottom 6 of a Berube-style team.
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Is it possible to re-sign Petro and also have room to keep Scandella, Schwartz and eventually Parayko?
ok, I’m greedy. I want to keep all the boys together as long as possibly.
ok, I’m greedy. I want to keep all the boys together as long as possibly.
Something will have to give at some point. The cap remaining relatively flat (presumably) for the next year -or two- given all the lost revenue won’t help things. Before everything went to hell I had wondered ITT if they might explore the market on Schwartz around the draft. I think if you can get a young roster player and a first from some team that wants to extend him, that would be a great way to free up some cap and restock a bit without hurting the team too badly in the immediate. I realize Schwartz is a very good player, and I have no desire to see him shipped off, but it might be something they have to consider if they want to keep Petro/Parayko (which I think is of utmost importance).
izzy
go
scandella will be cheap anyway. he looked good but small sample size. shouldnt get a raise from his two million
i dont think they should move on from jaden unless he wants over 7 million. steen, allen and bozak come off the books at that point anyway.
petro really is the only concern imo. might need to see if bozak can be dealt
i dont think they should move on from jaden unless he wants over 7 million. steen, allen and bozak come off the books at that point anyway.
petro really is the only concern imo. might need to see if bozak can be dealt
Scandella makes $4mm. His cap hit is $2mm bc of retention. Unlikely he will agree to halve his salary to sign for $2mm.
izzy
go
yeah i was only referring to what he was against our cap
he signed that after a career high in minnesota as a 24 year old
doubt he gets close to that much now imo
I like Scandella too but Mikkola is ready to make the team next season so he’s not someone we break the bank for.
Ideally we would re-sign Petro and Scandella and jettison Faulk elsewhere, but, ya know...
Ideally we would re-sign Petro and Scandella and jettison Faulk elsewhere, but, ya know...
No real good place to put this but my wife asked me who was going to be awarded the Conn Smythe right before it was awarded and I said my vote would be for ROR. Having a lot of time and rewatching the games a lot I would vote for Binnington in retrospect.
ROR had a great playoff run but overall I think Binnington was more valuable.
ROR had a great playoff run but overall I think Binnington was more valuable.
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Brian39
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The UFA market for middle/bottom pairing D men is pretty expensive.
Here are all of the D men UFA contracts given out last summer that carried an AAV between $2M and $5.5M:
Patrick Nemeth got 2 years at $3M AAV
Anton Stralman got 3 years at $5.5M AAV
Ben Chiarot got 3 years at $3.5M AAV
Nick Jensen got 4 years at $2.5M AAV
Ron Hainsey got 1 year at $3.5M AAV (at 38 years old)
Jordie Benn got 2 years at $2M AAV
Jake Gardiner got 4 years at $4.05M AAV
J-Bo got 1 year at $3.25M AAV (with a potential $250k bonus)
Chara got 1 year at $2M AAV (with a $1.25M bonus for 10 games played plus $500k in potential playoff bonuses)
Scandella's worst has still been better than the guys on that list making less than $3M. I don't see any way to look at that list and say that his UFA value is less than $3M AAV for at least 2 years. I don't think the Blues should pay anything close to market value for Scandella. If he wants to take a discount to stay with a contender where he fits in, awesome. But if he wants to play the UFA market, he will likely get a contract much closer to his current salary than $2M.
I go back and forth. I don’t know how difficult it will be to flip either of them to a team since they’re only signed for one more year. Perhaps the Blues have to retain a bit on one of them, but I don’t see them attaching high picks or a young roster player to get out from under them. But it’s tough to say without seeing how this all shakes out.
I think Bozak could be dealt for a mid-round pick. Allen had such a great year could potentially fetch a 2nd or 3rd. We won’t have to pay to deal either.
CaliforniaBlues310
Registered User
I’m interested in whether Berube will run 3 deep down the middle, or move Schenn over and put Thomas in the top 9.
Also I think Kostin and Blais will rotate between that 3rd and 4th LW spot when fully healthy, if they go the route of 91-10-18 down the middle.
As far as lineup construction, I’m not sure which I like more
Schwartz-O’Reilly-Perron
Schenn-Thomas-Tarasenko
Sanford-Sundqvist-Kyrou
Blais-Barbashev-Kostin
Mac, DLR/TBA
or
Schwartz-Schenn-Tarasenko
Sanford-O’Reilly-Perron
Kostin-Thomas-Kyrou
Blais-Barbashev-Sundqvist
In regards to the kids, Kaspick and Toro are at least a year away, and Poganski could be an injury call up next year.
Brockon
Cautiously optimistic realist when caffeinated.
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