2022-2023 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[Brian39]

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.

Our track record drafting and developing talent under Army has been pretty damn good. We gave Bill Armstrong a lot of credit for drafting, but the (very) early returns on Bolduc and Snuggy suggest that the current front office is well equipped to identify talent without him. If we are in full rebuild territory, I understand wanting to remove the GM who got you to that point form the organization. However, I do have some concerns about a major disruption to the front office in the lead up to a couple very, very important drafts.

Army has also demonstrated an ability to get out of bad deals in the past without too much pain. He made a stand with his NMC policy with Petro and that might wind up being the hill he dies on. But it also means that we have the freedom to waive (or use the threat of waivers as leverage to force players to expand NTCs) every player on the roster. I think he's owed a shot at proving that giving out a NTC is tangibly different than a NMC.

While I don't agree with a few of his major decisions, I wouldn't be considering firing him yet. He wouldn't have authority to sign any deal longer than 2 years without ownership approval, but I'd wager that is already the case.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Our track record drafting and developing talent under Army has been pretty damn good. We gave Bill Armstrong a lot of credit for drafting, but the (very) early returns on Bolduc and Snuggy suggest that the current front office is well equipped to identify talent without him. If we are in full rebuild territory, I understand wanting to remove the GM who got you to that point form the organization. However, I do have some concerns about a major disruption to the front office in the lead up to a couple very, very important drafts.

Army has also demonstrated an ability to get out of bad deals in the past without too much pain. He made a stand with his NMC policy with Petro and that might wind up being the hill he dies on. But it also means that we have the freedom to waive (or use the threat of waivers as leverage to force players to expand NTCs) every player on the roster. I think he's owed a shot at proving that giving out a NTC is tangibly different than a NMC.

While I don't agree with a few of his major decisions, I wouldn't be considering firing him yet. He wouldn't have authority to sign any deal longer than 2 years without ownership approval, but I'd wager that is already the case.

Yeah, a new GM basically sets us back years. Unless we promote from within, which wouldn't be likely, it would be a shakeup throughout the organization, so who knows what happens in terms of scouting/development or the vision that we have for who we target and how we want to play. I also don't see ownership actually firing Army, it would have to take multiple years of bad hockey with no progress. Lets say we completely suck the rest of the year and we get Bedard or Fantilli, I'd bet a lot that Army would see it through to them either developing into stars or busting.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Our track record drafting and developing talent under Army has been pretty damn good. We gave Bill Armstrong a lot of credit for drafting, but the (very) early returns on Bolduc and Snuggy suggest that the current front office is well equipped to identify talent without him. If we are in full rebuild territory, I understand wanting to remove the GM who got you to that point form the organization. However, I do have some concerns about a major disruption to the front office in the lead up to a couple very, very important drafts.

Army has also demonstrated an ability to get out of bad deals in the past without too much pain. He made a stand with his NMC policy with Petro and that might wind up being the hill he dies on. But it also means that we have the freedom to waive (or use the threat of waivers as leverage to force players to expand NTCs) every player on the roster. I think he's owed a shot at proving that giving out a NTC is tangibly different than a NMC.

While I don't agree with a few of his major decisions, I wouldn't be considering firing him yet. He wouldn't have authority to sign any deal longer than 2 years without ownership approval, but I'd wager that is already the case.

I think the idea that we should fire Army is at best silly. We have been over his tenure like the 5th or 6th best team overall, he led us to our only Cup, and last year we had like 3rd best record in franchise history. This season is really the first BAD season we have had under him. So he should have the opportunity to fix this mess and set us up to contend again. No GM is perfect. Every GM makes mistakes. The best are those that consistently put their teams in position to succeed.

He has always demonstrated that he balances the short and long-term interests of the franchise, which is exactly what you want here. If he tells ownership at this point that he wants to deal picks and prospects to go all in on this year, that would be alarming, but there is nothing in his record to suggest he would do that. He gets that we need to deal rentals so we can retool, like he did with stats and shatty. And he shouldn't have to look over his shoulder or get ownership to sign off on any moves now that he didn't a year ago. we need to be patient. you fire GM at first sign of trouble you become the Canucks.

 

[Majorityof1]

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.

If the issues were so predictable, why did nobody predict them? We had a poll for how the Blues finish the season (Thread link). Nobody voted for them to miss the playoffs. 59 votes, nobody voted they'd miss the playoffs. Only 10 people voted they would lose in the first. You voted they'd lose in the finals. So how predictable was it they would be this bad?

I'm not calling you out specifically, well I am, but only because your post made me decide to point it out. This is something a lot of people are saying now, that it was predictable. But I do not recall anyone saying we'd be that bad before we were that bad. So how was it predictable? I have been harping on our defensive issues and the loss of Perron, and I didn't predict we'd be this bad. I voted we'd lose in the first round, not that we'd get a top 10 pick. I don't think it was predictable at all. There is something going on beyond our on paper/predictable issues.

 

[bleedblue1223]

If the issues were so predictable, why did nobody predict them? We had a poll for how the Blues finish the season (Thread link). Nobody voted for them to miss the playoffs. 59 votes, nobody voted they'd miss the playoffs. Only 10 people voted they would lose in the first. You voted they'd lose in the finals. So how predictable was it they would be this bad?

I'm not calling you out specifically, well I am, but only because your post made me decide to point it out. This is something a lot of people are saying now, that it was predictable. But I do not recall anyone saying we'd be that bad before we were that bad. So how was it predictable? I have been harping on our defensive issues and the loss of Perron, and I didn't predict we'd be this bad. I voted we'd lose in the first round, not that we'd get a top 10 pick. I don't think it was predictable at all. There is something going on beyond our on paper/predictable issues.

I think they were predictable, but we all viewed the situations as unlikely. I sort of alluded to this season as a possibility, where just everything goes wrong, and that being that we wouldn't be as successful with the slot passes as we were last season, loss of Monty, and some players not being able to outperform their underlying numbers, like the Krug/Faulk pair. Those issues were predictable, but this season has gone way worse than that. A predictable bad season would've been in line with the Dom projections, where we were a bubble team, but a team with a positive goal differential and in that 90-95 point range, I think he had us around 92 points? That would've had us regressing back to the mean, but still a decent hockey team.

ROR falling off a cliff production wise wasn't predictable, even if we thought losing Perron was going to hurt. No one saw the PK becoming such a joke, even if we thought Monty was going to hurt. No one saw the team refusing to defend the slot becoming a thing. No one saw the team suddenly not playing with intensity or attention to detail. Not even Dom thought we were going to be this bad, so it was only predictable to a point.

 

[Majorityof1]

I think they were predictable, but we all viewed the situations as unlikely. I sort of alluded to this season as a possibility, where just everything goes wrong, and that being that we wouldn't be as successful with the slot passes as we were last season, loss of Monty, and some players not being able to outperform their underlying numbers, like the Krug/Faulk pair. Those issues were predictable, but this season has gone way worse than that. A predictable bad season would've been in line with the Dom projections, where we were a bubble team, but a team with a positive goal differential and in that 90-95 point range, I think he had us around 92 points? That would've had us regressing back to the mean, but still a decent hockey team.

ROR falling off a cliff production wise wasn't predictable, even if we thought losing Perron was going to hurt. No one saw the PK becoming such a joke, even if we thought Monty was going to hurt. No one saw the team refusing to defend the slot becoming a thing. No one saw the team suddenly not playing with intensity or attention to detail. Not even Dom thought we were going to be this bad, so it was only predictable to a point.

Exactly, not everything was predictable. Nor the extent of it. Its not predictable if everyone thought it was possible but unlikely. Meriam-webster defines predictable as behaving in a way to be expected. If it was viewed as unlikely, than it was not expected and hence not predictable. And more importantly, very few people were even harping on the possibility of things going wrong even slightly. A few were, but nowhere near the amount of people who are now claiming it was predictable.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Exactly, not everything was predictable. Nor the extent of it. Its not predictable if everyone thought it was possible but unlikely. Meriam-webster defines predictable as behaving in a way to be expected. If it was viewed as unlikely, than it was not expected and hence not predictable. And more importantlu, very few people were even harping on the possibility of things going wrong even slightly. A few were, but nowhere near the amount of people who are now claiming it was predictable.

What actually was predictable is so many folks claiming after the fact that they knew this was going to happen.

 

[bleedblue1223]

What actually was predictable is so many folks claiming after the fact that they knew this was going to happen.

Army is an idiot for not seeing what we all saw after the fact.

 

[TK 421]

I thought we'd be good this year so I'm feeling pretty not smart. On the flip side I get to have 'Michkov could be a Blue!!!' thoughts that could actually come true.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I thought we would take a step back this year. But I still expected us to fight for 2nd/3rd in the division.

 

[PocketNines]

Army is an idiot for not seeing what we all saw after the fact.

Army is an idiot for 9/27/20 which you can't say is an after the fact opinion.

If you harp on it, that's unacceptable.

If you generously give the man time and the benefit of the doubt to prove you wrong, that's also unacceptable because then when that benefit of doubt window closes you will be seen as operating out of hindsight.

 

[Mike Liut]

Jamie Rivers just said the Blues would only get a 3rd or a 4th for ROR and Tarasenko because of their down production and expiring contracts.

Haha no Jaimie

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Jamie Rivers just said the Blues would only get a 3rd or a 4th for ROR and Tarasenko because of their down production and expiring contracts.

Haha no Jaimie

Tarasenko has 19 points in 23 games.... a 67 point pace.

Goodrow got a 1st+ for a career high 24 points in 62 games.

 

[LGB]

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.

I think we're in trouble

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Jamie Rivers is stupid.

 

[Blueline2757]

Jamie Rivers just said the Blues would only get a 3rd or a 4th for ROR and Tarasenko because of their down production and expiring contracts.

Haha no Jaimie

Tell me something I don’t know.

 

[Brockon]

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.

Part of the hold up for rentals is cap space, as you know. At max retention

Horvat 2.75m
Meier 3m & RFA (ugly qualifier of 10m)
Monahan 3.1875m
Debrincat 3.2m & RFA (9m qualifier)
ROR 3.75m
Tarasenko 3.75m
Toews 5.25m
Kane 5.25m

Gostisbehere 2.25m
Dumba 3m
Klingberg 3.5m

Who do see as buyers? My take on what rosters have moveable cap dumps to make acquisition space and guess at needs.

Colorado if they ship out JT Compher as a pending UFA cap dump for a better 2nd line center.

Toronto if they ship out any of Engvall, Kerfoot, Brodie or Muzzin for upgrades - possible Dman or 3rd line center upgrades.

Carolina probably could use an upgrade, but don't have viable cap dumps and have no wiggle room for acquisitions. That Pacioretty off-season trade is likely their rental move, assuming he's healthy.

Tampa always seems to buy in their window - Namestikov, Killorn and Cole as dumps? Looking at a middle 6 forward? Defensive upgrade? Hard to say.

Edmonton - Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, Barrie or Foegele. Definitely need forward help and maybe defensive help. One of the few places I could see looking at Tarasenko, Meier, Debrincat or Kane because they need top 6 help as opposed to middle/bottom 6 help like most other potential buyers.

Pittsburgh - Kapanen, Rutta or Pettersson (the last 2 have 2 more years of term), but I'm not seeing obvious dumps As Zucker is finally looking like a fit there. Not sure what they're buying.

Boston - Foligno, Zacha, Smith, Nosek or Debrusk? Forward help in the middle/bottom 6?

Dallas - Gurianov and Khudobin, for middle/bottom 6 help.

Alot of these teams need middle 6 help - outside of Toews, ROR and Monahan, I don't see the available players being fits for most of the needs.

Severely limits what prospects are available from most of them, they're likely to be dealing late picks and that's it. And a handful of them don't have many available 1st/2nd rounders.

Anybody else care to put their views out there?

 

[Brockon]

Tarasenko has 19 points in 23 games.... a 67 point pace.

Goodrow got a 1st+ for a career high 24 points in 62 games.

The two aren't even remotely comparable players...

Look at what they bring before you disparage the buying GMs move - not to mention this move contributed to back to back cups, there's no way in hell any Tampa fans or front office staff regret the price they paid for Goodrow, Coleman or Hagel. The combined cost for those 3 players over 2 runs was 4 firsts, Nolan Foote, Boris Katchouk, Taylor Raddysh and Anthony Greco

Tarasenko is either in a scoring role or his contributions to the team are minimal. He's a pending UFA with a sizable cap hit to accommodate.

Goodrow was at the time a Saad light - bottom 6 Swiss army knife who PKed, played his role well and came with 2 years of term on a sub 1m cap hit.

Coleman and Hagel were much the same, with a better offensive touch than Goodrow offered.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Screen Shots: St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche and Price

Adam Proteau gives his thoughts on three topics, including the streaky St. Louis Blues on another losing skid and the injuries affecting the Colorado Avalanche.

thehockeynews.com

 

[PJJJP]

I know our Defense sucks but I'd like to see a new system. The Leafs have Reilly, Muzzin, and Brodie out for 2-3 weeks so far and they have beaten the Devils, Stars, Penguins, Redwings, Wild. They only have Giordano, Sandin, Holl, and Liljegren as their top 4. Like on paper that defense doesn't seem like it's better than ours but it's vastly outperforming ours

 

[bleedblue1223]

I know our Defense sucks but I'd like to see a new system. The Leafs have Reilly, Muzzin, and Brodie out for 2-3 weeks so far and they have beaten the Devils, Stars, Penguins, Redwings, Wild. They only have Giordano, Sandin, Holl, and Liljegren as their top 4. Like on paper that defense doesn't seem like it's better than ours but it's vastly outperforming ours

They are out performing their expected rates defensively, but I'd also imagine they are taking the approach of a good offense is a good defense. It's the arguments that people would use for Karlsson being great defensively because he's always in the offensive zone.

 

[Stealth JD]

Giordano is still a legit number 1D-man...he's playing effective minutes, and a lot of them. He's capable of carrying a pairing and shutting down the opposition's top lines. The Blues defenders, outside of that one game against Edmonton, haven't stopped much of anything.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

If the issues were so predictable, why did nobody predict them? We had a poll for how the Blues finish the season (Thread link). Nobody voted for them to miss the playoffs. 59 votes, nobody voted they'd miss the playoffs. Only 10 people voted they would lose in the first. You voted they'd lose in the finals. So how predictable was it they would be this bad?

I'm not calling you out specifically, well I am, but only because your post made me decide to point it out. This is something a lot of people are saying now, that it was predictable. But I do not recall anyone saying we'd be that bad before we were that bad. So how was it predictable? I have been harping on our defensive issues and the loss of Perron, and I didn't predict we'd be this bad. I voted we'd lose in the first round, not that we'd get a top 10 pick. I don't think it was predictable at all. There is something going on beyond our on paper/predictable issues.

It seems like you took my post to mean nobody is surprised we’re likely going to miss the playoffs. That’s not what I was saying.

Team defense, for example, has been the biggest issue for two seasons now, and while many people (myself included) had hopes it would be good enough, it’s a surprise to nobody that it’s been poor. I don’t think anyone expected things to be this bad, but the issues that have popped up aren’t concerns that haven’t been voiced about this team.

The issues aren’t a surprise. The depth of the issues are. The fact that seemingly everything that we thought could possibly go wrong has gone wrong is why we’re in the position we’re in, if that makes sense.

 

[PJJJP]

Anyone read the Binnington article on the Athletic?

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Anyone read the Binnington article on the Athletic?

Read it during intermission. He should stop some more pucks before whining about his teammates.