2022-2023 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[PocketNines]

Doug Armstrong may or may not fire Berube for what are clearly Doug Armstrong's f***ups.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Holy shit, I expected the Krug/Faulk numbers to be bad, but dear god they are arguably the worst defensive pairing in the league.

Of pairings with at least 200 minutes, only Chiarot and Seider have a worse GA/60 with 4.34, Krug/Faulk are 4.22, and 3rd is 3.42. Their expected rate is 4th worst at 3.1. Basically tied for most scoring chances against per 60 with 36.76, Dobson/Romanov have 36.79. Lead the league with 16.07 high danger chances against per 60. They are just god tier awful defensively. And the Chiarot/Seider pair, they are used as their shutdown pair, where Krug and Faulk are heavily sheltered.

The two of them need stop having people defend them.

 

[Fez Whatley]

Whatever happens, I hope they get the 2017 stars draft luck and not the 2015 bruins luck.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I have a really difficult time blaming this on the coach. The issues this team has were 100% predictable based on the roster that we took into the season.

They did next to nothing to address the real pain points on this team. I don't think Armstrong needs to go, but I think he's got maybe two offseasons to turn this around quickly or else he'll definitely be on the way out.

 

[bleedblue1223]

My issue right now with the coaching staff, is how they deploy the defense. And I get that why they have to put Leddy and Parayko in the position they are in because they other pairings are just pathetic defensively, but something has to happen. You can't keep putting those guys on an island, shelter the others, and the others still give up goals and chances at stupid rates.

If Krug and Faulk are truly broken defensively, then our rebuild is just screwed from the start and we are looking at a Sharks type rebuild. Hopefully Army can do something to fix it, and Berube/Van Ryn can figure out how to deploy them, but we might need a new defensive strategy to figure it out, and that would mean new coaching staff.

 

[PocketNines]

Krug is -22 after 24 games played (he missed one). He is on -74 pace which would easily be the second worst plus minus in the history of the NHL in one season.

He is a slow, small, abysmal one-tool player. He makes eight million dollars this year. Doug gave him eight and a half million dollars next year, and he also gave Krug eight and a half million dollars two years from now. From there he gets an additional twelve and a half million over two years.

So Krug is on the roster for the next 385 games!

Doug also gave Torey a no-trade, because no-trades are no big deal whereas no movements can cripple a team and they end up being a bad team. Super glad Doug avoided that so skillfully.

 

[Daley Tarasenkshow]

I have a really difficult time blaming this on the coach. The issues this team has were 100% predictable based on the roster that we took into the season.

They did next to nothing to address the real pain points on this team. I don't think Armstrong needs to go, but I think he's got maybe two offseasons to turn this around quickly or else he'll definitely be on the way out.

I'm not the biggest Army supporter- but what was he supposed to do? The team is basically at the cap right now, and while I understand people miss Perron, not having Leddy would leave an even bigger hole in the lineup. Simply put, players have underperformed, and a good amount of them look uninspired.

The issue with me is not how Army went about things this past summer, but the deals he's given out dating back a few years ago. Binnington, Krug and Saad in particular are signed for too much term, and the Leddy deal doesn't look like it will age tremendously well either. The next offseason will be a real test for management to see if things can get back on track.

 

[bleedblue1223]

The only solution we have on defense is Army finding another Leddy to pair with either Parayko or Faulk and those pairings getting more of a balanced deployment. When Leddy and Faulk are together, they get a similar deployment to Leddy/Parayko and are a bit worse defensively, but not all that significantly. If Chychrun wasn't so expensive asset wise, I would be on board with getting him because he is the solution. Getting Leddy 2.0 is the only solution we have for the defense, so hopefully Army can do that and then we park Krug on the 3rd pair.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I'm not the biggest Army supporter- but what was he supposed to do? The team is basically at the cap right now, and while I understand people miss Perron, not having Leddy would leave an even bigger hole in the lineup. Simply put, players have underperformed, and a good amount of them look uninspired.

The issue with me is not how Army went about things this past summer, but the deals he's given out dating back a few years ago. Binnington, Krug and Saad in particular are signed for too much term, and the Leddy deal doesn't look like it will age tremendously well either. The next offseason will be a real test for management to see if things can get back on track.

I agree with everything you said. The pandemic and resulting flat cap really hurt a spend-to-the-cap team like the Blues but the contracts handed out to supporting players have really hamstrung the team. That's on Army. We'll see what he can do with his seat starting to heat up.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Holy shit, I expected the Krug/Faulk numbers to be bad, but dear god they are arguably the worst defensive pairing in the league.

Of pairings with at least 200 minutes, only Chiarot and Seider have a worse GA/60 with 4.34, Krug/Faulk are 4.22, and 3rd is 3.42. Their expected rate is 4th worst at 3.1. Basically tied for most scoring chances against per 60 with 36.76, Dobson/Romanov have 36.79. Lead the league with 16.07 high danger chances against per 60. They are just god tier awful defensively. And the Chiarot/Seider pair, they are used as their shutdown pair, where Krug and Faulk are heavily sheltered.

The two of them need stop having people defend them.

Feel Faulk would benefit from playing with stronger d and better structure. Krug has been awful this year and Faulk has been scrambling to try to cover and taking himself out of position. If Krug is hurt sit him, but regardless split them up. Get Faulk a responsible partner and his play should turn around, because he is performing well below what we need. unless we are trying to lose then keep doing what we have been

 

[bleedblue1223]

Feel Faulk would benefit from playing with stronger d and better structure. Krug has been awful this year and Faulk has been scrambling to try to cover and taking himself out of position. If Krug is hurt sit him, but regardless split them up. Get Faulk a responsible partner and his play should turn around, because he is performing well below what we need. unless we are trying to lose then keep doing what we have been

Yeah, when he's with Leddy, he's fine, good even. It's not as good as Leddy/Parayko, but it's close. Hopefully Krug is just hurt and he bounces back, but if this is the start of his decline, then we are in trouble.

 

[PJJJP]

The one good thing is the Salary cap is expected to increase a decent amount in the coming years. Hopefully Doug doesn't sign more Krug's with the new space

 

[bleedblue1223]

The one good thing is the Salary cap is expected to increase a decent amount in the coming years. Hopefully Doug doesn't sign more Krug's with the new space

Yeah, the glass half full is that we won't be tempted to give O'Reilly, Tarasenko, or Barbashev a stupid contract, so the only potential "bad" contract is Schenn. That contract will eventually be bad, but we can probably manage it like we did Steen's. Especially if the young guys produce, we'll have some cheap ELC and bridge contracts to help.

Defensively will be a bit more difficult if those guys fall off, but at least Army will have room to replace Krug in the top 4.

 

[Brian39]

Every game ROR plays is making it harder and harder for us to get a 1st back in return for him.

He's now a -19 over 25 games with just 12 points. He's only been a plus player 4 total times this year and each time was just a +1. He's been -3 the same number of times. The underlying numbers aren't as bad and he's been getting ridiculously D heavy usage. The goaltending behind him has put up ludicrously bad numbers (.815 SV%). Recently I think our goaltending hasn't been good enough, but there were plenty of games where the numbers were bad because we kept allowing back door tap ins.

His numbers should improve, but they are quickly getting so out of hand that teams are going to feel nervous about him. Hopefully he can bring the numbers up enough that his reputation saves his value. I don't think I've ever seen a player hurt his value in the first 25 games of a contract year as he has.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Every game ROR plays is making it harder and harder for us to get a 1st back in return for him.

He's now a -19 over 25 games with just 12 points. He's only been a plus player 4 total times this year and each time was just a +1. He's been -3 the same number of times. The underlying numbers aren't as bad and he's been getting ridiculously D heavy usage. The goaltending behind him has put up ludicrously bad numbers (.815 SV%). Recently I think our goaltending hasn't been good enough, but there were plenty of games where the numbers were bad because we kept allowing back door tap ins.

His numbers should improve, but they are quickly getting so out of hand that teams are going to feel nervous about him. Hopefully he can bring the numbers up enough that his reputation saves his value. I don't think I've ever seen a player hurt his value in the first 25 games of a contract year as he has.

You’re not wrong, but ROR value is based on his proven track record and what top teams think he can add to them. Entire team here is train wreck. Whoever acquires him is likely to have better structure. So long as he flashes that he can still move and do ROR things, I think teams won’t put too much value in his crappy numbers.

 

[PocketNines]

I don't buy that ROR is in even the tiniest danger of not returning at least a first round pick.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Every game ROR plays is making it harder and harder for us to get a 1st back in return for him.

He's now a -19 over 25 games with just 12 points. He's only been a plus player 4 total times this year and each time was just a +1. He's been -3 the same number of times. The underlying numbers aren't as bad and he's been getting ridiculously D heavy usage. The goaltending behind him has put up ludicrously bad numbers (.815 SV%). Recently I think our goaltending hasn't been good enough, but there were plenty of games where the numbers were bad because we kept allowing back door tap ins.

His numbers should improve, but they are quickly getting so out of hand that teams are going to feel nervous about him. Hopefully he can bring the numbers up enough that his reputation saves his value. I don't think I've ever seen a player hurt his value in the first 25 games of a contract year as he has.

Yeah, O'Reilly and Saad have good underlying numbers, but it's like Leddy and Parayko where they are getting a ridiculously hard deployment, so it's really difficult to judge them statistically. And lets say we'd want to keep him and he wants to stay, what contract can we even give him? He'll point to his track record, his underlying numbers, and his deployment, but you also can't justify giving someone around .5 points/game and a -19 any sort of significant contract that his track record would demand.

Taylor Hall from Buffalo to Boston is probably the best example, which would not be good for us, if we get the equivalent of 2nd+Bjork, then what a waste it could've been.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

My issue right now with the coaching staff, is how they deploy the defense. And I get that why they have to put Leddy and Parayko in the position they are in because they other pairings are just pathetic defensively, but something has to happen. You can't keep putting those guys on an island, shelter the others, and the others still give up goals and chances at stupid rates.

If Krug and Faulk are truly broken defensively, then our rebuild is just screwed from the start and we are looking at a Sharks type rebuild. Hopefully Army can do something to fix it, and Berube/Van Ryn can figure out how to deploy them, but we might need a new defensive strategy to figure it out, and that would mean new coaching staff.

Everyone is so quick to blame Army (and he deserves blame, obviously) but I don't understand why we give Berube and the coaching staff a pass. Maybe the team lacks horses to be true contender, but does anyone really believe that we are playing up to our full potential? Does anyone watch us and think, "gee, we lost but we had great structure just can't keep up with talent of rest of league"? No. We look like we are a bunch of drunk guys who just met each other before heading out for rec league game.

I love Berube, but this is mess is in large part on him and coaching staff. Berube seems like generally is attitude and effort guy while he largely leaves it to assistants to do the rest of it and they have let him and us down. MacT has no business being behind bench and has been awful addition in every way. MVR is way overrated as a coach; we had Robinson mentoring/covering for him when we won Cup and Monty here last 2 years to help and without them D is a disaster. Ott is apparently great working with players individually to improve things, but not sure how much of a big picture/strategy guy he is based on what we are witnessing. It's almost like Monty was only one who could actually coach.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Everyone is so quick to blame Army (and he deserves blame, obviously) but I don't understand why we give Berube and the coaching staff a pass. Maybe the team lacks horses to be true contender, but does anyone really believe that we are playing up to our full potential? Does anyone watch us and think, "gee, we lost but we had great structure just can't keep up with talent of rest of league"? No. We look like we are a bunch of drunk guys who just met each other before heading out for rec league game.

I love Berube, but this is mess is in large part on him and coaching staff. Berube seems like generally is attitude and effort guy while he largely leaves it to assistants to do the rest of it and they have let him and us down. MacT has no business being behind bench and has been awful addition in every way. MVR is way overrated as a coach; we had Robinson mentoring/covering for him when we won Cup and Monty hear last 2 years to help and without them D is a disaster. Ott is apparently great working with players individually to improve things, but not sure how much of a big picture/strategy guy he is based on what we are witnessing. It's almost like Monty was only one who could actually coach.

And it's possible we are attributing too much of our issues on losing Monty, but we could probably argue that he was the best coach on the staff last season. I'm sure we are missing his presence from more than just and x's and o's perepective. Take his off ice issues away, and he's never been fired for his performance, and he's never missed the playoffs as a head coach, at any level.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

And it's possible we are attributing too much of our issues on losing Monty, but we could probably argue that he was the best coach on the staff last season. I'm sure we are missing his presence from more than just and x's and o's perepective. Take his off ice issues away, and he's never been fired for his performance, and he's never missed the playoffs as a head coach, at any level.

In St Louis the coaching this year has been awful. Boston has been great. Maybe those are coincidences. Either way, Berube and his staff should be accountable.

 

[Fez Whatley]

I get the anger towards army and Berube to an extent as they're the folks running the show. However, for the 1st time in blues 50+ year history they were the guys that brought us a cup. I understand moving past sentimental emotions, but remember back to game 2 vs the avs when their fans shit all over bednar and were ready to run him out of town after a 1-1 series tie? And how much crap did Cooper get until b2b cups? Who could we even replace either of them with?

The rags fans are very upset about their lack of prospect development - where we have found and developed a ton of late round 1st and 2nd rounders (also blias 6th, mikkola idk which, parayko 3rd).

The Flyers and Vancouver 's 10 year " retool " (lul) was and still is a shit show. Where as Army retooled on the fly pretty successfully in 2017.

Also, I understand the desire to burn everything to the ground and sell anyone that agrees to be moved like: schenn, Saad, leddy, parayko, Faulk, Binnington, etc in addition to the ufas, but we have seen all of those guys contribute way way way more than the whole team this year. It may not be as bad as it looks.

This year has been a disaster, but it hasn't been completely out of left field - we all knew eventually that it would come to this. Covid really really ruined our window and if we had those seasons back I think we would be looking at things very differently. In my opinion, however, I think army and berube are the best people to retool / rebuild this team back into winning form.

We've seen army get good value for assets (if you bring up petro I'll strangle you) and sometimes outright fleece teams - even as recent as last off-season like buch. If he has cap space to make moves like 2nd+Bjork he'll make them. He will also take advantage of panicking teams at the tdl, I'm sure of it.

This is an exciting time to be a fan. We got to see them get a cup, now with some smart moves we can be back in contention maybe as soon as 2024-25. These next few months are going to determine a lot for the upcoming decade. I have full faith in the coach and gm to make the correct moves.

 

[Brian39]

To be clear, I think ROR will return a 1st. But if he continues playing like he has been so far through March then I don't think he will. I think that is unlikely, but this deadline could very well end up being a buyer's market.

Toews seems like a lock to hit the rental market. It is looking more and more like Horvat will hit the rental market. Horvat is a player that should return a 1st. Toews shouldn't return a 1st, but he gives teams a cheaper backup plan if they don't like the price they are seeing on ROR. Sean Monahan could be a similar consolation target.

Kane and Tarasenko are both very likely to be aggressively shopped and should command a 1st in return. Then you have that Dadanov, Nyquist, Domi, Athanasiou tier of consolation guys.

The D rental market looks pretty robust this year with Dumba, Klingberg, Ghostbear, Hamonic, and Gavrigov all sitting there as pending UFAs on bad teams. I could see a couple of them returning 1sts.

Meier and Debrincat are both RFAs (with arb rights) who could theoretically muddy the rental market waters if their teams start shopping them to upswing teams with the cap to extend them. Boeser is reportedly available and I wouldn't be surprised if a few tanking teams gunning for Bedard started looking to move guys with 2-3 years left. I don't think those would be deadline deals, but a midseason trade of either of them takes a buyer's 1st rounder (and more) off the market.

How many 1sts are going to get traded this year? 7 were moved in-season last year, but 4 of those were for future drafts (2023 or 2024). 4 of them were for guys that had term remaining on a contract, which means 3 were moved for pure rentals. 4 were moved in 2021, with 3 of them being for rentals.

If only three 1sts get moved for pure rentals, then ROR is playing his way out of returning a 1st. Again, I think that he will wind up returning a 1st rounder, but another 25 games like this and a flood of good players being sold would put it way in doubt.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Yeah, it's still more likely than not that he returns a 1st+, but the longer we go, and the longer he doesn't produce points, the more likely his returns gets closer to what Hall returned.

 

[PocketNines]

I'll pass on extending full faith in a GM that boat anchored himself to Torey Krug instead of Alex Pietrangelo.

The idea that people who remember a hauntingly imbecilic decision should be "strangled" is completely unacceptable.

 

[Mike Liut]

I’d take a high end prospect like Kneis over a late 1st for ROR