2022-2023 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[Brian39]

On the morning of 1/11/23 we find ourselves tied in points and games played with the WC2 spot (Edmonton). Our 14 regulation wins are 2+ fewer than all the teams we are chasing, so at the moment we don't control any tiebreakers.

The "real" standings aren't quite as optimistic. Nashville and Colorado sit 1 and 2 points behind us, but both have higher winning percentages since they have 3 games in hand. If you're looking at points percentage instead of raw point totals, there are still 3 teams for us to jump to squeak into the WC2 spot. That could happen by this weekend if things go our way, but it is still not quite as pleasant as when you first glance at the NHL standings page.

It is looking less and less likely that this group is bad enough to have a meaningful chance at Bedard. The preview of life without ROR and Tarasenko indicates that the room is going to play with 'us against the world' pride with a top line capable of scoring enough to get us to 4 or 5 goals scored fairly often. Nothing about the last few weeks tells me that we're genuine contenders, but I'm doubting that we are bad enough to land in the bottom 5-8 teams in the league.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

On the morning of 1/11/23 we find ourselves tied in points and games played with the WC2 spot (Edmonton). Our 14 regulation wins are 2+ fewer than all the teams we are chasing, so at the moment we don't control any tiebreakers.

The "real" standings aren't quite as optimistic. Nashville and Colorado sit 1 and 2 points behind us, but both have higher winning percentages since they have 3 games in hand. If you're looking at points percentage instead of raw point totals, there are still 3 teams for us to jump to squeak into the WC2 spot. That could happen by this weekend if things go our way, but it is still not quite as pleasant as when you first glance at the NHL standings page.

It is looking less and less likely that this group is bad enough to have a meaningful chance at Bedard. The preview of life without ROR and Tarasenko indicates that the room is going to play with 'us against the world' pride with a top line capable of scoring enough to get us to 4 or 5 goals scored fairly often. Nothing about the last few weeks tells me that we're genuine contenders, but I'm doubting that we are bad enough to land in the bottom 5-8 teams in the league.

I think this is right. We don’t look bad enough to truly tank hard for bedard and there likely isn’t that much difference between 13th pick and 17th, so losing isn’t really going to be its own reward. biggest key then will be do we sell our pending free agents? if we aren’t contenders this year, and we have given zero indication that we are, I think it’s clear that we need to sell to accelerate the retool.

 

[bleedblue1223]

On the morning of 1/11/23 we find ourselves tied in points and games played with the WC2 spot (Edmonton). Our 14 regulation wins are 2+ fewer than all the teams we are chasing, so at the moment we don't control any tiebreakers.

The "real" standings aren't quite as optimistic. Nashville and Colorado sit 1 and 2 points behind us, but both have higher winning percentages since they have 3 games in hand. If you're looking at points percentage instead of raw point totals, there are still 3 teams for us to jump to squeak into the WC2 spot. That could happen by this weekend if things go our way, but it is still not quite as pleasant as when you first glance at the NHL standings page.

It is looking less and less likely that this group is bad enough to have a meaningful chance at Bedard. The preview of life without ROR and Tarasenko indicates that the room is going to play with 'us against the world' pride with a top line capable of scoring enough to get us to 4 or 5 goals scored fairly often. Nothing about the last few weeks tells me that we're genuine contenders, but I'm doubting that we are bad enough to land in the bottom 5-8 teams in the league.

Yeah, I'm taking the glass half full approach and it's ultimately a good thing that guys like Thomas and Kyrou aren't giving up the fight, and the young guys that were called up are fighting for jobs, either for this season or next. Sure, we'd all love for them to fall on their face and we get lucky with Bedard, but if they fell on their face, I think we'd have bigger long-term concerns on if these guys can actually face adversity.

I think a good 2nd half will result in Army selling off UFAs, but going into the summer confident that it's a group that he can still build around, and look for acquisitions to fill holes or see which prospects are ready to make an impact. If the wheels completely fell off and guys like Thomas/Kyrou/Buchnevich all finished around a 60 point pace, I don't think Army would be completely worried about the future, but I do think he'd have some questions, the fans certainly would.

 

[mk80]

On the morning of 1/11/23 we find ourselves tied in points and games played with the WC2 spot (Edmonton). Our 14 regulation wins are 2+ fewer than all the teams we are chasing, so at the moment we don't control any tiebreakers.

The "real" standings aren't quite as optimistic. Nashville and Colorado sit 1 and 2 points behind us, but both have higher winning percentages since they have 3 games in hand. If you're looking at points percentage instead of raw point totals, there are still 3 teams for us to jump to squeak into the WC2 spot. That could happen by this weekend if things go our way, but it is still not quite as pleasant as when you first glance at the NHL standings page.

It is looking less and less likely that this group is bad enough to have a meaningful chance at Bedard. The preview of life without ROR and Tarasenko indicates that the room is going to play with 'us against the world' pride with a top line capable of scoring enough to get us to 4 or 5 goals scored fairly often. Nothing about the last few weeks tells me that we're genuine contenders, but I'm doubting that we are bad enough to land in the bottom 5-8 teams in the league.

We are stuck in the position that we are bad enough not be good, but too good to be bad.

 

[bleedblue1223]

@PocketNines, not quite the same level of Yogi Berra, but close.

“I think no matter where the future holds, it’s going to be where it is.

 

[PocketNines]

@PocketNines, not quite the same level of Yogi Berra, but close.

I would accept a "60% of the time it works every time" Brian Fantana output from Snuggles as well

 

[PocketNines]

The preview of life without ROR and Tarasenko indicates that the room is going to play with 'us against the world' pride with a top line capable of scoring enough to get us to 4 or 5 goals scored fairly often.

If pride is what's driving it, I don't think it's a sustainable level. The flip side is they are susceptible to snowballing funks.

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

We all know how this will go, we’ll either just miss and be in that 13-16 range or make it but lose first round and be in that 17-19 range.

 

[joe galiba]

We are stuck in the position that we are bad enough not be good, but too good to be bad.

1980's Blues, here we come!!

 

[tfriede2]

Being a bubble team in a s*** conference shouldn't have any impact on the long term...this trade deadline will greatly impact how quickly the Blues return to legit contender status and w/ all the rumors out there about our deadline assets it's pretty clear Armstrong understands that notion.

Right, I agree, but my question is more oriented towards the fans - will/should folks still root for the tank, or have fun with the young guys carrying the team to perhaps a playoff spot? I’m torn.

 

[PJJJP]

Right, I agree, but my question is more oriented towards the fans - will/should folks still root for the tank, or have fun with the young guys carrying the team to perhaps a playoff spot? I’m torn.

I'm doing both. When they win I have fun and when they lose I'm reminded that it's good for the tank.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Right, I agree, but my question is more oriented towards the fans - will/should folks still root for the tank, or have fun with the young guys carrying the team to perhaps a playoff spot? I’m torn.

Want them to play well, and just hope we win the lotto and climb as high as we can. Bedard would be fantastic, but even just jumping up 10 spots to wherever we land would be a big boost.

 

[PocketNines]

Right, I agree, but my question is more oriented towards the fans - will/should folks still root for the tank, or have fun with the young guys carrying the team to perhaps a playoff spot? I’m torn.

Nothing's right you're torn
You're all out of faith, this is how you feel
You are cold and you are shamed lying naked on the floor

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Nothing's right you're torn
You're all out of faith, this is how you feel
You are cold and you are shamed lying naked on the floor

Ok Natalie.

 

[PocketNines]

Ok Natalie.

for me "I'm torn" is as automatic as "I can't tell" / "You can tell me, I'm a doctor."

 

[Brian39]

Yeah, I'm taking the glass half full approach and it's ultimately a good thing that guys like Thomas and Kyrou aren't giving up the fight

They have both been really good since the end of the 8 game losing streak.

Thomas has 32 points in 30 games (87 point pace) and is a +6 in that stretch

Kyrou has 37 points in 28 games (108 point pace) in that stretch and is just -2.

Buch has 34 points in 27 games (103 point pace) over that stretch and is +3.

If you also ignore the 7 game win streak, you've got Kyrou with 28 points in 21 games, Buch with 24 points in 20 games, and Thomas with 23 points in 23 games. The 'new' core up front has been doing their job for the large majority of the season. Everyone got off to an awful start and those 3 are no exception (although Buch missing some games lets him off the hook a bit).

All 3 of those guys have a real chance to score 85+ points. Kyrou's not going to dig out of his +/- hole, but he has a real chance to be an even player over his final 65 games. They have found chemistry as a line together and while they need to defend better as a 3 man unit, I could see them being a top 10 NHL 1st line for years. Hitting some of those benchmarks in the 2nd half of the season would be really good for the organization even if it takes us out of the Bedard sweepstakes.

Nothing is as good as winning the Bedard lottery, but even a full tank would put our odds pretty well below 10%

We are stuck in the position that we are bad enough not be good, but too good to be bad.

I don't think we need to win the lottery to become good again. A mid-1st along with a bunch of assets from multiple deadline sales would put us in pretty good shape moving forward. Drafting and waiting probably isn't enough, but Army has demonstrated proof of concept that he can flip picks for contributors with term.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

for me "I'm torn" is as automatic as "I can't tell" / "You can tell me, I'm a doctor."

"I'm not a real doctor, but I am a real worm."

 

[Xerloris]

don't think we need to win the lottery to become good again. A mid-1st along with a bunch of assets from multiple deadline sales would put us in pretty good shape moving forward. Drafting and waiting probably isn't enough, but Army has demonstrated proof of concept that he can flip picks for contributors with term.

Even if we don't get Bedard picking top 5 and possibly top 10 is still a really damn good player.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Even if we don't get Bedard picking top 5 and possibly top 10 is still a really damn good player.

really like this draft through 10, potentially up to 20, for chance to get impact player. its not just top 5.

 

[PocketNines]

Given that the Blues have a new beat writer it would be good to have some follow up on the fall report that ROR and Armstrong would be discussing any future contracts in January. I realize the point is likely moot, but that is what the follow-on reporting could get at. It's possible that there's no talk during the injury but I don't automatically see why that would derail the initial plan to revisit in January.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I think the only meaningful report would be some loose confirmation that ROR will be traded, but strong interest in a reunion in the summer. An extension talk in the original sense, is almost certainly not happening, but they still could have discussions on what a deal would look like in the summer after he was traded to a playoff team.

 

[Brian39]

Even if we don't get Bedard picking top 5 and possibly top 10 is still a really damn good player.

For sure. Picking earlier is better and this draft looks great. I'd definitely prefer picking 5-10 over picking 15-20.

But my point is that landing a top 5-10 pick isn't this organization's only road to contending in the 2020s. Selling multiple rentals to pick up a couple more 1st rounders, two or three picks in the 33-90 range, and/or a couple decent-to-good prospects can stock the prospect cupboards a hell of a lot better than most teams who have fallen into the 'mushy middle' over the last decade or so. Most teams that fall into the cycle of being too good to be bad, but too bad to be good' wind up coming out of the draft with just 1 or 2 prospects worth thinking about. A sell-off puts us in position to come away from the draft with half a dozen of those prospects (or fewer if we flip some).

 

[bleedblue1223]

Yeah, to that point, we were lucky this season happened to occur with UFAs like O'Reilly, Tarasenko, and Barbashev. Imagine if it was next season when we'd have no logical UFAs to sell off for a significant return.

 

[PJJJP]

If we can pick up 2 1st round picks and a extra 2nd I'd consider that a good deadline. This is a good draft and there are about 13-14 prospects I'd be really excited to pick. The higher we pick the better but hopefully we can snag a spot in the top 12 or so picks.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

I think the only meaningful report would be some loose confirmation that ROR will be traded, but strong interest in a reunion in the summer. An extension talk in the original sense, is almost certainly not happening, but they still could have discussions on what a deal would look like in the summer after he was traded to a playoff team.

I think it's time to turn the page on ROR - his metrics have all dropped year over year in his tenure here - when he arrived, he was a legit #1C putting up 3+ GSVA. Since our Cup year he's been getting progressively worse (2.7 to 2.4) and is now under 1 win of value this year - say what you will about advanced stats, but when a guy has declined four years in a row according to them, it's terrifying to think about locking him into any type of long term deal. And he's going to ask for (and probably get) a deal in the range of 5-6 years and 5-7 million.

I mean, if he wants to come back and center our third line at like 3M a year on a 3 year deal, then ok maybe - but he's dumb to take that contract when some other team will look at his prior three years and offer him something more in line with that production.