2021 Expansion Draft Discussion

[Bye Bye Blueston]

No, they wanted him for free, but not more then they wanted a 24 year old defenseman who most still think can be a legit top 4 option who had been a good NHLer for 4 years, and even in a down year was looking like he could be a 40 point defensemen this year.

Dunn is a very valuable asset to an expansion team. The fact we didn’t move him before we lost him for nothing is a problem in and of itself honestly.

Looking at Kraken I’m not even sure Dunn will be one of their top 6D.

 

[Zezel’s Pretzels]

SEA is picking a lot of D. Larsson, Oleksiak, Dunn, and Lauzon. Interesting.

EDIT: Add Giordano and Soucy to that list. That's an NHL defense already.

 

[WeWentBlues]

We should have exposed Krug and protected Dunn

 

[Novacain]

Looking at Kraken I’m not even sure Dunn will be one of their top 6D.

Come on, do you not remember Vegas? They are gonna unload at least 2-3 of those guys.

 

[The Note]

We should have exposed Krug and protected Dunn

Sure, but it was never going to happen. And given the Kraken (wisely) saying "thanks but no thanks" to all the pricey aging guys available to them, I doubt they would've taken Krug anyway.

 

[ChuckLefley]

Sweet. He is suspended without pay for the year and if he ever wants to return to the NHL in the future he owes us that year of service (See the outcomes of Radulov and Yashin). Assuming the league views his refusal to play as a violation of his contract, he will be suspended by the league as well and we aren't subject to his cap hit.

If he wants to end his NHL career over this and throw away $15M+ (plus whatever he might make on his next contract) then he is welcome to do so. If he wants to test Army's resolve on this he should talk to the last Vladimir (Sobotka) who tried to out-wait Army outside the NHL. And assuming the IIHF follows the same standard they did with Radulov, he would be prohibited from playing in the 2022 Olympics, which will likely be his last chance at an Olympic gold.

Like you said, the breakup looks really bad. We have no reason not to use every ounce of leverage we have if he refuses to honor his contract.

Do you mean when Radulov went to Russia and got paid for five seasons than only had to play 9 games for Nashville to become a UFA? The NHL doesn’t suspend players for refusing to report. The teams do that.

 

[Novacain]

Sure, but it was never going to happen. And given the Kraken (wisely) saying "thanks but no thanks" to all the pricey aging guys available to them, I doubt they would've taken Krug anyway.

Correct, which means we’d have kept Dunn, and could have traded him ourselves for actual assets if need be.

 

[542365]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

 

[Brewhouse Sports]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

No guarantee they would’ve picked Krug.

 

[Zezel’s Pretzels]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

Some folks are going to have some crow to eat when Krug has the same kind of second season in the Note that Faulk had last year.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

Have you watched either of them play?

 

[Em etah Eh]

Looking at Kraken I’m not even sure Dunn will be one of their top 6D.

He might be their PP QB or #2 in that role. They’ve got a solid core of defensive D but Dunn is worth the risk for the type of D they were lacking.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Some folks are going to have some crow to eat when Krug has the same kind of second season in the Note that Faulk had last year.

Krug didn't even have a bad season, this narrative blows my mind. Faulk was at least garbage in his first year, Krug was nowhere near that.

 

[The Note]

Correct, which means we’d have kept Dunn, and could have traded him ourselves for actual assets if need be.

I'm with you, I would've preferred they expose Krug. I just never really thought it was something the FO would consider and as such didn't really see the point in getting overly worked up about it. This FO is convinced they have a Cup window still. You don't have to agree (I don't really see it, again, barring a series of transformative moves) but that is how they are operating. They weren't going to functionally punt on Krug one year in.

 

[Louie the Blue]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

I don’t think you’re separating Krug the player from his contract.

He’s very good at what he was brought in to do. His contract will not look good in a few seasons, but he’s better than Dunn is at this point and if Dunn develops like we think, we’d be grateful if he was even 80% of what Krug is on the PP.

Krug’s issue is he didn’t have a reliable partner. Give him a D first partner or stay at home and I think your criticism won’t be as harsh.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

He might be their PP QB or #2 in that role. They’ve got a solid core of defensive D but Dunn is worth the risk for the type of D they were lacking.

I’m not saying he was bad pick for them. Just that we project his “upside “ without acknowledging that he hasn’t been very good.

 

[Novacain]

Sweet. He is suspended without pay for the year and if he ever wants to return to the NHL in the future he owes us that year of service (See the outcomes of Radulov and Yashin). Assuming the league views his refusal to play as a violation of his contract, he will be suspended by the league as well and we aren't subject to his cap hit.

If he wants to end his NHL career over this and throw away $15M+ (plus whatever he might make on his next contract) then he is welcome to do so. If he wants to test Army's resolve on this he should talk to the last Vladimir (Sobotka) who tried to out-wait Army outside the NHL. And assuming the IIHF follows the same standard they did with Radulov, he would be prohibited from playing in the 2022 Olympics, which will likely be his last chance at an Olympic gold.

Like you said, the breakup looks really bad. We have no reason not to use every ounce of leverage we have if he refuses to honor his contract.

“Hey, you know that star player we gave 2 shoulder survived too that didn’t actually fix the issue, and then we were critics of him for not playing through the pain more whose really pissed at us and wants a trade? Let’s find a way to really push this even further and basically lock him out of the NHL instead of dealing him! Then we get his cap space to sign a new top level player! Perfect!”

*3 months later*

“Look, we aren’t sure why Landeskog didn’t want to sign here in spite of us making the best offer. It’s a complete mystery.”

Narrative is the reason. Showing how you treat your players to the rest of the league is the reason. We already look like a joke for the handling of this Tarasenko situation, doubling down is stupid.

 

[Em etah Eh]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

there are 6.5M X 6 reasons that Krug was never going to get taken. We still should have exposed him over Dunn though. Then they are taking Tank/Blais/Walman/Mikolla.

I would have also dangled Faulk to protect Walman just to see if that cap could have gotten opened up. Look at these value contracts. Larson getting 4X4 is a sweet deal. Curious to see how the other UFA Dmen deals go.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

there are 6.5M X 6 reasons that Krug was never going to get taken. We still should have exposed him over Dunn though. Then they are taking Tank/Blais/Walman/Mikolla.

I would have also dangled Faulk to protect Walman just to see if that cap could have gotten opened up. Look at these value contracts. Larson getting 4X4 is a sweet deal. Curious to see how the other UFA Dmen deals go.

I like Larson but he isn’t as good as Faulk.

 

[Louie the Blue]

there are 6.5M X 6 reasons that Krug was never going to get taken. We still should have exposed him over Dunn though. Then they are taking Tank/Blais/Walman/Mikolla.

I would have also dangled Faulk to protect Walman just to see if that cap could have gotten opened up. Look at these value contracts. Larson getting 4X4 is a sweet deal. Curious to see how the other UFA Dmen deals go.

I don’t follow this reasoning at all.

Faulk is a top 4 D and was arguably the Blues best D this past season. Walman will be lucky to be a third pairing D.

Faulk’s contract isn’t an albatross and he should be fine long term if he was used like he was this season instead of as a LD.

 

[Vektor]

Our pro scouting is f***ing terrible. Does Krug have a single tool better than Dunn? Dunn’s shot, skating, physicality, passing, and defensive stick are miles better than Krug’s. On top of that Dunn is bigger, cheaper, and younger. Krug was quite clearly a product of those top forwards of the Bruins. I cannot believe we protected Krug over Dunn. Losing Krug would’ve cleared a ton of cap space to bring in a useful player or re-sign Schwartz. This was completely botched. Dunn is Seattle’s Shea Theodore. He’ll play behind Gio for a season or two and then blossom into a great offensive Dman.

No part of Dunns time here indicates any of this to be true.

 

[Em etah Eh]

They are close enough that I’d rather have the 4X4 vs the 6X 6.5. Not that Larsson was coming here, but we could be patient and sign a decent post Covid contract instead of panicking into another Krug deal.

Plus I feel like we need more stay at home guys (if we still had Dunn In the fold) and those guys are looking like they are signing reasonable deals post Covid.

 

[Novacain]

No part of Dunns time here indicates any of this to be true.

He’s a 24 year old defensemen who was on pace to push for 40 points this year. He took a step back this season overall to “good 3rd pairing defender” instead of “elite 3rd pairing matchup nightmare” which was him the last 2 seasons. Him taking a big jump wouldn’t surprise anyone that’s paying attention.

 

[Louie the Blue]

My only issue with how Armstrong has handled this is he didn’t force Seattle to pick Tarasenko.

I would’ve protected Dunn, gone 8 skaters instead of 7-3-1, and left Tarasenko exposed with Sunny(who’s still recovering from injury) and Barbie.

 

[Em etah Eh]

I don’t follow this reasoning at all.

Faulk is a top 4 D and was arguably the Blues best D this past season. Walman will be lucky to be a third pairing D.

Faulk’s contract isn’t an albatross and he should be fine long term if he was used like he was this season instead of as a LD.

I just feel like 6X6.5 should get you more post Covid and right now capspace is king if we were to stay patient and not rush into another Krug signing the minute we get space.