2022-2023 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

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ChicagoBlues

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I'm grateful and thankful that we have such a strong ownership group with St. Louis ties.

With some creativity, I'm fairly certain they will figure out a way through this.

We've discussed a Krug buyout quite a few times here and it's appeared very unattractive, but Brian39 makes a compelling case.
 

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I think there is a case to be made for buying out Krug this summer. I don't expect it to happen and this front office and ownership group clearly doesn't like buyouts.

However, the team's financials are about to take a massive hit. Season ticket renewals are obviously going to go down barring a draft lottery win. Single game tickets are going to decrease barring a major turnaround. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that the Blues are advertising ticket deals better than anything offered last year and that tickets on the second hand market have gone way down in price. Even if next year isn't a tank, ticket sales are going to be softer than they've been recently.

Possibly more importantly is the Bally Sports situation. Maybe we re-structure the existing deal. Maybe this is the end for Bally Sports Midwest and the team has to find a new RSN (and/or explore a streaming service). Maybe the team has to produce the games without a provider and sell them directly to consumers. I don't know what the future will hold, but I am confident that the short-term outcome is that the Blues will make less money from their TV rights in 2022/23 than are now. And negotiating whatever they do next will be markedly harder if the team sucks. There was no way to predict that the team was going to have to re-sell its TV rights in 2023, but here we are.

Together this could mean tens of millions less revenue for the team than this year. Which is awful timing, because a lot of players are getting big raises and I'm not just talking about the new contracts kicking in for Thomas and Kyrou. Let's talk about our 10 biggest contracts next year compared to our 10 biggest contracts this year.

8 guys are in our top 10 biggest contracts for both 2022/23 and 2023/24. In real dollars, Schenn, Buch, Saad, Faulk, Parayko, Krug, Leddy, and Binner will make $9.5M more next season than they did last season.

The other 2 spots are different. ROR and Tarasenko rounded out our top 10 biggest contracts this year while Thomas and Kyrou will round out the top 10 next year. Thomas and Kyrou only make $1.25M against the cap than ROR/Tarasenko did, but they will make $6.5M in real dollars next year than Tarasenko/ROR did this year.

All told, despite our top 10 contracts only counting for an extra $1.25M against the cap next year, the team will be paying $16M more in real dollars for its highest paid 10 guys than they did this year.

This organization pushed a lot of salary off until 2023/24 to get through the losses in revenue brought on by COVID. This was also likely driven by players who wanted to delay big paydays until the escrow rates went down. It looked like a win-win for everyone, but no one expected the team to crater this badly and no one expected the TV money to evaporate.

Ownership doesn't like paying guys not to play for the team, but there is a real chance that this team needs to cut payroll next season if you can't bank on putting 18,000 fans in the seats on a regular basis. Krug's contract is structured perfectly for a buyout this summer. With a buyout, we would owe him $2.46M a year for each of the next 8 years in real dollars. Yes, it doubles the length of time you're paying him, but that is a $6M savings in 23/24 and another $6M in savings in 24/25 when money might be genuinely tight for the organization.

There is a real argument that from a financial standpoint, the team is better of paying him $19.6M over 8 years not to play here than it is paying him $29.5M over 4 years to play here.

From a cap point of view, a buyout saves us $6M against the cap in 23/24 and 24/25. We would take a hit of just $458k in those seasons. We would then take $2.5M a year for each of the following 6 seasons (with a one-off $2.9M hit in 26/27). 8 years of cap hits is a lot, but given our current cap structure, the organization's desire to not do a multi-year tank, and the likelihood of the cap increasing a substantial amount by year 5, I'd argue that $2.5M a year for an extra 4 years would hurt the team less than the immediate help of freeing up $6M a year for each of the next 2 years.

Trading him without retention should be plan A. Trading him with retention should be plan B. But I think that a buyout this summer is a viable plan C. It's easy to say that when it isn't $20M of my money, but an immediate savings of $6M a year in what could be this ownership groups most difficult fiscal years would be a big deal.
Don’t like buyout. Bad idea. It spreads cap hit into tears when we might be good again. Will need space then. Retain sure, but bad teams shouldn’t be buying out contracts that will hurt them when they might again be good.
 

taylord22

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I agree. If ever there was a contract this ownership and GM were to decide to buy-out, this sure seems like it. To your further point, even if we retain up to a third of his cap hit if/when we trade him, the dead cap impact will still be less in each of the next four years as the impact would be in years 5-8 of a buyout. A trade with retention would hurt next year from a competitive standpoint for sure, certainly more than the first two years of a buyout, but we're not really expecting to be good next season anyway and we'll have a pretty good idea in 5 weeks or so who we are likely to be able to draft. If it isn't one of the Top 3-4 players it isn't likely to be someone who will impact the NHL roster in 23-24.

What I'm curious about is do we NEED to be competitive next year from a financial standpoint. The rhetoric around 25-27 year olds leads me to wonder what the goal actually is. Or rather, what the appetite for remaining non-competitive is. Armstrong has show he was comfortable taking some wild -big- swings to get heavily flawed rosters into the playoffs. I don't want that to be the direction, and I hope Armstrong is wiser now than he was then, but...it will be an interesting off-season.

If we are OK with being bad, the other factor at play that I think *could* positively impact Krug is if we do move to a faster, higher risk, pace of play. There are several reasons for going that direction. There's recent precedent with teams like Seattle. It also forces a young forward group to adopt a stronger culture around checking, which we could clearly benefit from. And it's a much better fit for smaller, more mobile d-units.

I'm not a big fan of Krug, but I think he looks like a different player in that type of system. *If* he holds together, which he hasn't shown he's capable of doing. He's never going to be a great defender, and that type of system will assuredly lead to him getting torched regularly, but...he's good playing on his toes and making plays.
 

oPlaiD

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Well Eklund still says three teams are interested in Krug...

This is where I'm supposed to insert a Dumb and Dumber meme.
 

Brian39

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Don’t like buyout. Bad idea. It spreads cap hit into tears when we might be good again. Will need space then. Retain sure, but bad teams shouldn’t be buying out contracts that will hurt them when they might again be good.
I wouldn't buy it out without a clear plan of what to do with that space. I'm not buying it out just to have the space to maybe do something. But if the right guy is available for the right price and Krug's cap is the hang up? I think I'm making the deal and knowing that a buyout is a comfy last resort to make the cap work.

I don't at all think this will happen, but for the sake of argument let's say that Ottawa decides that their best path forward with their glut of LD is to make Chychrun the #1LD, Sanderson as the #2 and move Chabot for futures before his NTC kicks in next summer. They don't pick until the 4th round this summer and they decide that freeing up cap space and reloading futures is necessary.

That's a player that changes this team's trajectory ASAP. I think Chabot/Parayko could handle the role Berube is currently asking of Leddy/Parayko and I think that Leddy/Faulk could be a nice sheltered 2nd pair. Or you could keep Leddy and Parayko together and make a Chabot/Faulk pair that can genuinely play all situations instead of being massively sheltered like Krug/Faulk. Play both pairs in all situations and watch Leddy/Parayko thrive. That's the type of player that I think could genuinely fix the blueline in one move. And if it doesn't, then I'm 100% confident that it is a coaching issue and I don't hesitate to fire the coach and bring in someone who can fix the D. No one is convincing me that Chabot, Parayko, Faulk and one of Leddy/Scandella isn't a quality top 4 group.

If something like that becomes available at the draft and the only way to make it a reality is a Krug buyout? I'm doing it. I'm not eager to buy him out when the buyout window opens just hoping that something shakes loose, but if there is a tangible opportunity for a move like that, I'm making the deal and figuring out how to get rid of Krug later.

But again, trading him without retention or trading him with retention are plans A and B for me no matter what.
 

CaliforniaBlues310

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I’ve became much more open to the idea of a deal based around Krug and Vrana.

Much like Kapanen, Vrana only has one more year on his deal after this, and that would be $7ish mil of free’d up cap space when they get replaced by Snuggerud and Bolduc the season after next.

Both could also be used to gain more picks at the deadline next year as well, which would obviously speed up the salary savings.

Vrana-Thomas-Buchnevich
Saad-Schenn-Kyrou
Neighbours-TBA-Kapanen
Toropchenko-Alexandrov-Blais

Still have to get a 3C for next year, but maybe we’ll get lucky and that’s our 1st rd pick this summer depending on the lotto luck.
 
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Louie the Blue

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Armstrong has show he was comfortable taking some wild -big- swings to get heavily flawed rosters into the playoffs.
I agree with everything you said aside from this.

His first year, IIRC, he traded Boyes and Brewer around the deadline when the team wasn't going anywhere.

2011-2012: Didn't do anything.

2012-2013: Acquired Leopold and than Bouwmeester. I think Leopold was insurance in case they didn't get Bouwmeester. Bouwmeester ended up being an impactful multi-year player

2013-2014: This might be the biggest miss on Armstrong's part for going all in with the Miller/Ott trade.

2014-2015: Armstrong made a bunch of moves near the deadline to have depth in acquiring Michalek and Jokinen. Jokinen didn't do much and neither did Michalek (who recovering from a concussion).

2015-2016: Maybe another example of taking a swing to take a heavily flawed roster to the POs with the Oshie/Brouwer trade. Horrible value but Brouwer was a solid contributor for one season.

2016-2017: Shattenkirk traded for Sanford and a 1st. Sanford contributes some in 2019 PO run and 1st ends up being used to acquire Schenn.

2017-2018: Stastny traded for Foley and a 1st at TDL.

2018-2019: Doesn't do anything aside from acquiring Del Zotto.

2019-2020: Acquires Scandella after Bouwmeester goes down.

2020-2021: Doesn't do anything.

2021-2022: Leddy trade for Sundqvist and Walman.

The only real moves I think you can hold against him for trying to improve a flawed roster for POs are 2013-2014/2015-2016. You could argue the Leddy trade as well, but I don't view most of his moves as just trying to get in and hope the team can go on a run.
 
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Celtic Note

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I agree with everything you said aside from this.

His first year, IIRC, he traded Boyes and Brewer around the deadline when the team wasn't going anywhere.

2011-2012: Didn't do anything.

2012-2013: Acquired Leopold and than Bouwmeester. I think Leopold was insurance in case they didn't get Bouwmeester. Bouwmeester ended up being an impactful multi-year player

2013-2014: This might be the biggest miss on Armstrong's part for going all in with the Miller/Ott trade.

2014-2015: Armstrong made a bunch of moves near the deadline to have depth in acquiring Michalek and Jokinen. Jokinen didn't do much and neither did Michalek (who recovering from a concussion).

2015-2016: Maybe another example of taking a swing to take a heavily flawed roster to the POs with the Oshie/Brouwer trade. Horrible value but Brouwer was a solid contributor for one season.

2016-2017: Shattenkirk traded for Sanford and a 1st. Sanford contributes some in 2019 PO run and 1st ends up being used to acquire Schenn.

2017-2018: Stastny traded for Foley and a 1st at TDL.

2018-2019: Doesn't do anything aside from acquiring Del Zotto.

2019-2020: Acquires Scandella after Bouwmeester goes down.

2020-2021: Doesn't do anything.

2021-2022: Leddy trade for Sundqvist and Walman.

The only real moves I think you can hold against him for trying to improve a flawed roster for POs are 2013-2014/2015-2016. You could argue the Leddy trade as well, but I don't view most of his moves as just trying to get in and hope the team can go on a run.
The Leddy trade wasn’t the problem. It was signing his contract. Same for Scandella. I didn’t like them as targets, but the acquisition wasn’t painful. The contracts were/are painful.

The Oshie and Miller trades were dumb as a box of rocks dumb.
 

PocketNines

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Horrible value but Brouwer was a solid contributor for one season.
Brouwer made it count with one of the most legendary and important goals in Blues history. Maroon is also a person who can say that.

I don't even want to think about what the trajectory of this franchise would have been if the Blues lose that game. Hawks also might have gone back to the Final over Dallas and San Jose. Hugely seismic goal after a terrible trade.
 

BlueDream

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I’ve became much more open to the idea of a deal based around Krug and Vrana.

Much like Kapanen, Vrana only has one more year on his deal after this, and that would be $7ish mil of free’d up cap space when they get replaced by Snuggerud and Bolduc the season after next.

Both could also be used to gain more picks at the deadline next year as well, which would obviously speed up the salary savings.

Vrana-Thomas-Buchnevich
Saad-Schenn-Kyrou
Neighbours-TBA-Kapanen
Toropchenko-Alexandrov-Blais

Still have to get a 3C for next year, but maybe we’ll get lucky and that’s our 1st rd pick this summer depending on the lotto luck.
I’d definitely take a flier on Vrana. I’m kinda surprised how many people here seem to be afraid of him but I don’t think it’s that big of a risk. I’d love for us to capitalize on a trade with Detroit for once.

Either ROR or Barbashev would work on that 3rd line too. Wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them back.
 

CaliforniaBlues310

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I’d definitely take a flier on Vrana. I’m kinda surprised how many people here seem to be afraid of him but I don’t think it’s that big of a risk. I’d love for us to capitalize on a trade with Detroit for once.

Either ROR or Barbashev would work on that 3rd line too. Wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them back.

Same. The response to it surprised me a bit.

I think him and Kapanen are good stopgap options while we wait for the prospects to develop a bit.

I wouldn’t be shocked if one returns, but I think I’m at a point where I’d rather let Barby get paid somewhere, and still not sure if I want ROR to return. I think I’d rather have a stopgap option for a year, unless we land an NHL-ready C with our top pick in June. Plus, we now have Dean in the system and he should only need a year or so in Springfield.

If you could tell me that we will move Schenn in the next 18 months, you could convince me much more easily into bringing ROR back.
 

Louie the Blue

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Brouwer made it count with one of the most legendary and important goals in Blues history. Maroon is also a person who can say that.

I don't even want to think about what the trajectory of this franchise would have been if the Blues lose that game. Hawks also might have gone back to the Final over Dallas and San Jose. Hugely seismic goal after a terrible trade.
I don’t disagree and in general don’t have a problem with Brouwer himself. I think it was worth it even though he was really only a solid contributor for one season with a legendary goal.

I think more of my criticism is how Armstrong went about trading Oshie than Brouwer himself. Armstrong was determined to trade a “core” player after the Wild series even if it meant he didn’t get fair value in return.
 

Xerloris

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I don’t disagree and in general don’t have a problem with Brouwer himself. I think it was worth it even though he was really only a solid contributor for one season with a legendary goal.

I think more of my criticism is how Armstrong went about trading Oshie than Brouwer himself. Armstrong was determined to trade a “core” player after the Wild series even if it meant he didn’t get fair value in return.
Pretty sure we went to the 3rd round that year and lost to the Sharks. Brouwer trade was worth it, he clearly had an impact on the locker room.
 

Renard

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I don’t disagree and in general don’t have a problem with Brouwer himself. I think it was worth it even though he was really only a solid contributor for one season with a legendary goal.

I think more of my criticism is how Armstrong went about trading Oshie than Brouwer himself. Armstrong was determined to trade a “core” player after the Wild series even if it meant he didn’t get fair value in return.
I still don;t understand the return we got for Oshie. We should have gotten a lot more.
 
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STL fan in MN

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Next years tank is off
Is it?

To me, I see the adds of guys like Kap and Vrana as similar to when the Ducks signed Klingberg to a 1 year deal. The entire point was to likely trade the guy for an asset the next trade deadline.

I just hope it works out better for the Blues than it has the Ducks. I would assume Klingberg will get moved today but he’s had such a horrible season that I’m sure they’ll get a lot less for him than they were hoping that $7M was going to buy them.
 

PJJJP

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Is it?

To me, I see the adds of guys like Kap and Vrana as similar to when the Ducks signed Klingberg to a 1 year deal. The entire point was to likely trade the guy for an asset the next trade deadline.

I just hope it works out better for the Blues than it has the Ducks. I would assume Klingberg will get moved today but he’s had such a horrible season that I’m sure they’ll get a lot less for him than they were hoping that $7M was going to buy them.
Yeah it's a good move by us. If they are playing well and producing we can either extend them or sell them. IF they don't play well then they're a UFA at the end of next season
 

Mike Liut

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Yeah it's a good move by us. If they are playing well and producing we can either extend them or sell them. IF they don't play well then they're a UFA at the end of next season

I’m torn. If they play really well, which is very possible, I’d be interested in re-signing them. Very skilled players and they fit with our core.
 

Mike Liut

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Hypothetically, imagine if Buch, Kap and Vrana can’t come to terms to be re-signed next and all have a great year. Imagine the haul those players will return.
 

bleedblue1223

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Hypothetically, imagine if Buch, Kap and Vrana can’t come to terms to be re-signed next and all have a great year. Imagine the haul those players will return.
We do have Buch for another year, but yeah, opportunity for some good returns. Even if Kap and Vrana bounce back normal production, 40 points for Kap, and 50ish for Vrana, we'd be looking at some decent returns. No 1sts, but we'd get some 2nds/3rds, and those picks turn into quality players too.
 
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