2022-2023 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[Louie the Blue]

Yeah, Backes I agree. I loved him but he was clearly in severe decline at the time and I was glad when we let him walk. I don’t see ROR as that bad of outcome, but we shall see.

I personally think ROR will age similar to Bergeron.

 

[Brian39]

It could have been a situation where they simply miscalculated during a summer where Tarasenko was made available in the Seattle draft and feelings were hurt. He must have felt vulnerable being doubted and devalued. Issues with the first surgeries and being made available likely injured Tarasenko's sense of justice leading to a principled push to get traded. But when it didn't work, another strong driving force to compete with his sense of justice kicked in, pride of pure on-ice professionalism.

He was exposed at the expansion draft after his public trade request.

He went public about wanting out of St. Louis the night Tampa Bay lifted the Cup on July 7. It was later reported that he made the request to the team during exit interviews after we were eliminated in May. We made the decision to expose him in the expansion draft on July 18.

When he returned from surgery in 2020/21, his TOI per game was 5th among Blues forwards even though he very much didn't look like his old self. It was 4th during the playoffs that year despite being held off the scoresheet until the final game and finishing the series with a team-worst -8. He was given every opportunity to succeed in 2020/21 and didn't manage to shake the rust off.

Any offseason 'devaluing' was a direct result of his trade request. His trade request was not a result of us devaluing him in 2020/21 or that offseason. He very well may have made the request because he felt that the Blues doubted him or devalued him by providing poor medical care in prior years. but his request absolutely wasn't the result of feeling spurned in the summer.

I want to stress that I don't have any problem with Tarasenko trying to get himself to another team and I have an enormous amount of respect for his professionalism in the 15+ months since he made the attempt. I wear my #91 jersey more than any of my other jerseys and I think players should advocate for what they believe is in their best interest. I will harbor absolutely zero ill-will toward him if he simply plays out his contract and walks (even if that means he refuses to waive his NTC for a trade that could help the team). He has honored his contract and given 100% of what any pro team could reasonably expect. No matter what happens, I don't think any other Blue should wear #91.

 

[PocketNines]

He was exposed at the expansion draft after his public trade request.

He went public about wanting out of St. Louis the night Tampa Bay lifted the Cup on July 7. It was later reported that he made the request to the team during exit interviews after we were eliminated in May. We made the decision to expose him in the expansion draft on July 18.

When he returned from surgery in 2020/21, his TOI per game was 5th among Blues forwards even though he very much didn't look like his old self. It was 4th during the playoffs that year despite being held off the scoresheet until the final game and finishing the series with a team-worst -8. He was given every opportunity to succeed in 2020/21 and didn't manage to shake the rust off.

Any offseason 'devaluing' was a direct result of his trade request. His trade request was not a result of us devaluing him in 2020/21 or that offseason. He very well may have made the request because he felt that the Blues doubted him or devalued him by providing poor medical care in prior years. but his request absolutely wasn't the result of feeling spurned in the summer.

I want to stress that I don't have any problem with Tarasenko trying to get himself to another team and I have an enormous amount of respect for his professionalism in the 15+ months since he made the attempt. I wear my #91 jersey more than any of my other jerseys and I think players should advocate for what they believe is in their best interest. I will harbor absolutely zero ill-will toward him if he simply plays out his contract and walks (even if that means he refuses to waive his NTC for a trade that could help the team). He has honored his contract and given 100% of what any pro team could reasonably expect. No matter what happens, I don't think any other Blue should wear #91.

I had hoped to avoid this response, as you'll note I was originally careful not to say he felt devalued because of being made available. I said he could have felt – because he quite obviously did feel – a sense of injured justice during the same summer he was made available. The sequence of injured feelings or litigating whether Tarasenko should have felt a certain way is not important to my point; my point is that during that summer there existed a heightened sense of injured justice even if you could litigate why you believe it shouldn't have existed.

It's not important to litigate the feelings here, because the feelings clearly are pride feelings, and pride feelings get messy. I am saying we had a messy summer 15 months ago regardless of who was right or when and why. And none of us have all the info on the exact tick-tock of events and feelings. I only invoked it for the juxtaposition compared with today. A few things have developed, including a handful of possibly meaningful things to Tarasenko himself, that might affect his own inner calculus.

 

[Mike Liut]

It’s a damn shame that Kostin couldn’t play more like Toro. Imagine those 2 beasts playing together. Is there any way Toro adds more scoring and becomes a Tage Thompson type? They are both huge.

 

[BlueDream]

It’s a damn shame that Kostin couldn’t play more like Toro. Imagine those 2 beasts playing together. Is there any way Toro adds more scoring and becomes a Tage Thompson type? They are both huge.

I can’t see it. Kostin may become an NHL player in a new organization, but he doesn’t have the shot or skill to be a top line, 35-40 goal guy.

 

[TK 421]

It’s a damn shame that Kostin couldn’t play more like Toro. Imagine those 2 beasts playing together. Is there any way Toro adds more scoring and becomes a Tage Thompson type? They are both huge.

I know you're still lamenting the loss of the latest guy who can't clap his own hands who got away, but you can let go. We got Toro and we can rest easy knowing we got a forward out of it.

Toro has hands of stone, Tage always had hands so it's a totally different situation. I don't see him developing into anything like Tage.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I know you're still lamenting the loss of the latest guy who can't clap his own hands who got away, but you can let go. We got Toro and we can rest easy knowing we got a forward out of it.

Toro has hands of stone, Tage always had hands so it's a totally different situation. I don't see him developing into anything like Tage.

Agreed. Tage always had great shot too. He was one of those if he figures it out he could be a scorer guy. Torpo has never shown any indication he can score.

 

[BlueDream]

My bad, I read Mike’s post wrong. He was asking if Toro could become a scorer. I thought he was asking about Kostin.

Either way, the answer is still no.

 

[STL fan in MN]

It’s a damn shame that Kostin couldn’t play more like Toro. Imagine those 2 beasts playing together. Is there any way Toro adds more scoring and becomes a Tage Thompson type? They are both huge.

Toropchenko is a great success for a 4th round pick but he has complete hands of stone. Has speed and drives to the net but near zero finishing ability. Some goals will result from the chaos he causes but I wouldn’t expect much offense from him.

 

[Xerloris]

Toropchenko is a great success for a 4th round pick but he has complete hands of stone. Has speed and drives to the net but near zero finishing ability. Some goals will result from the chaos he causes but I wouldn’t expect much offense from him.

He has pretty good hands for a 4th liner. I mean what do you expect from a 4th liner?

 

[STL fan in MN]

He has pretty good hands for a 4th liner. I mean what do you expect from a 4th liner?

I expect exactly what he is.

The question though was if he could develop into a Tage Thompson type of player. The answer to that is no.

 

[PJJJP]

Can't wait for our third game on Saturday when everyone else has played 5 games already! I need to launch the Schedule maker into the sun for this

 

[Brian39]

I had hoped to avoid this response, as you'll note I was originally careful not to say he felt devalued because of being made available. I said he could have felt – because he quite obviously did feel – a sense of injured justice during the same summer he was made available. The sequence of injured feelings or litigating whether Tarasenko should have felt a certain way is not important to my point; my point is that during that summer there existed a heightened sense of injured justice even if you could litigate why you believe it shouldn't have existed.

It's not important to litigate the feelings here, because the feelings clearly are pride feelings, and pride feelings get messy. I am saying we had a messy summer 15 months ago regardless of who was right or when and why. And none of us have all the info on the exact tick-tock of events and feelings. I only invoked it for the juxtaposition compared with today. A few things have developed, including a handful of possibly meaningful things to Tarasenko himself, that might affect his own inner calculus.

I interpreted your 'miscalculated during a summer where he was made available' to mean that their miscalculation occurred in the summer in response to that stuff. My mistake.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

 

[Brian39]

Count me in the group who isn't at all angry about the Blues schedule. I'm slightly annoyed as a fan, but I think it has been good for the actual team.

It allowed us to take another team bonding trip before the start of the season, which our organization seems to value pretty highly. We got to play Columbus on the tail end of a B2B and their 3rd game in 4 nights. They looked gassed down the stretch and that helped us get 2 points. We're going to be able to play our #1 goalie in at least the first 4 games of the season without putting too much wear on him. This definitely isn't the ideal schedule, but I'd much rather be in our shoes than be in the shoes of the teams that have already played 4 or 5 games in the first 8-9 days of the season.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I don't love it, don't hate it, like it better than the red one last year. There's really not much you can do with our jerseys though, since historically the home and away are just reverses of each other.

Actually, I think I'm leaning more towards love with them being a bit more creative going with the original jersey concept that never made it to an official jersey, I do like the striping/font style, and first time using gold/yellow as primary. Would like to see the pants/socks combo too.

 

[PocketNines]

I interpreted your 'miscalculated during a summer where he was made available' to mean that their miscalculation occurred in the summer in response to that stuff. My mistake.

No worries. Tarasenko's camp definitely is responsible for the public nature of it. I think he just made a mistake thinking he would be moved. When it didn't happen, there was 0% chance he was going to pout and let anyone see it affect his play because of his own inner competitiveness. Even if he knew the rational reasons he was made available AFTER actions he took, the feelings were in a messy place.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

I expect exactly what he is.

The question though was if he could develop into a Tage Thompson type of player. The answer to that is no.

Toropchenko is one of those guys who will score 10-12 goals once or twice in his career.

He is a primo shift disturber who is super smart.

 

[ort]

I like the jerseys. Yellow is sooooo much better than red. Going back to the birth of the team is better than an alternate (even worse) take of the ugly 90s jerseys. Those red jerseys were terrible.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Well, they got one thing right in that ad.

We’re never satisfied.

 

[ValHaller]

 

[The Note]

Those jersey's are fine and I'll be interested to see what the full kit looks like. Anything is better than the red monstrosities from last time.

 

[PocketNines]

I wonder what the jerseys look like when there is light in the room of the person wearing the jersey instead of noir shadows and dancing

 

[STL fan in MN]

Those jersey's are fine and I'll be interested to see what the full kit looks like. Anything is better than the red monstrosities from last time.

Hmm…Inhadnt thought I’d that. They’re not going to go with yellow pants are they?!

 

[joe galiba]

Why have a random dancing while wearing it in poor lighting so we cannot actually see the jersey?
couldn't they actually just have showed it?
or does it suck in normal light or something?