2023-2024 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[Snubbed4Vezina]

It's refreshing to have an actual beat reporter at StLPD. Thomas tried but he was football guy learning hockey on the fly. Timmerman is fine but again not fulltime hockey guy. And before that we had JR, who I think we all know at this point what he is.

He's been doing a great job tweeting out breaking news on our prospects too. He was all over the Dvorsky situation. Very pleased with his addition. Thomas wasn't right for that job.

My thinking is he doesn't want to do it since stepping down from the VGK broadcasts, but I'd give Mike Mckenna a shot at it. if he does. He was the studio analyst in Vegas 2 seasons ago, I think now he is on an NHL Network Sirius/XM show too

I think Mike's done a great job as an analyst. I've enjoyed his work with Daily Faceoff.

 

[mk80]

He's been doing a great job tweeting out breaking news on our prospects too. He was all over the Dvorsky situation. Very pleased with his addition. Thomas wasn't right for that job.

I think Mike's done a great job as an analyst. I've enjoyed his work with Daily Faceoff.

DeFranks had a lot of good content for the Dallas Stars before he was hired by the PD.

I know Mckenna has some younger children, so I get the feeling he may not want a role of going out on the road so much right now, in any case I was surprised when he at least wasn't included as an additional analyst for the Bally's studio when they put out the list of who will be on our coverage.

 

[ezcreepin]

My thinking is he doesn't want to do it, but I'd give Mike Mckenna a shot at it. if he does. He was the studio analyst in Vegas 2 seasons ago, I think now he is on an NHL Network Sirius/XM show too



Edit: I thought he stepped down on his own, but now I can't find anything official that says he did. But here's another article on his TV time out there, the organization gave him some high praise TV analyst no longer part of Golden Knights broadcasts

Every time I've heard McKenna speak, I've found him nice and interesting to listen to. The fact that he's a St. Louis native is even more of a reason to have him color commentate if that's what he wants. I just never found Rivers to be good in that role though he's fine as a radio talk show co-host. Just not my favorite on televised games.

 

[mk80]

Every time I've heard McKenna speak, I've found him nice and interesting to listen to. The fact that he's a St. Louis native is even more of a reason to have him color commentate if that's what he wants. I just never found Rivers to be good in that role though he's fine as a radio talk show co-host. Just not my favorite on televised games.

I agree.

Rivers personality comes through more on his radio show than on the Blues tv appearances he's had that 've seen so far. Maybe it's just having to get more comfortable in front of the camera vs. being comfortable in a radio studio that's less seen, although that has changed with the quick adaptation of sports talk radio stations including 101 streaming live on YouTube now.

To quote my own post from tonight's gameday thread, Rivers is just too monotone, and robotic on the Bally's color.

Rivers knows he can put some emotion into his voice right? His commentary is like Sheldon's Fun With Flags



Actually watching the clip myself, Sheldon is less robotic than Rivers

 

[ezcreepin]

Mispronouncing names regularly as commentator is a big pet peeve of mine. To me it feels like the most basic requirement of the job and it feels like you aren't taking it seriously if you can't spend 30 minutes before a broadcast learning how to properly say the names of the players you're calling.

To be fair I've always had a somewhat intuitive understanding of how things are pronounced so maybe I don't truly understand how difficult it might be for an average person. But then, it isn't the average person's job.

It's just amateur that you can't learn to pronounce players' names when there is either clear pronunciation throughout the league OR you could literally ask the dude how he wants to be called. I can't remember which game it was but he was talking about an opposing player and got it so wrong I was just baffled and had to mute the tv. You can call it an over-reaction, but it just took me out of the game.

 

[Mike Liut]

SJ and Anaheim are the only teams I see worse than the Blues.

Washington, MTL, Columbus are probably on our same tier.

It’s going to be a long year. Embrace the year long tank for a brighter future.

 

[STL fan in MN]

SJ and Anaheim are the only teams I see worse than the Blues.

Washington, MTL, Columbus are probably on our same tier.

It’s going to be a long year. Embrace the year long tank for a brighter future.

In terms of points percentage, the Blues are tied for 16th place with a bunch of other teams. My guess is they end up in the bottom half, somewhere around the bottom 8-15, but I’ll be surprised if they’re challenging for 3rd worst.

SJ though…wow, they’re bad.

 

[Mike Liut]

In terms of points percentage, the Blues are tied for 16th place with a bunch of other teams. My guess is they end up in the bottom half, somewhere around the bottom 8-15, but I’ll be surprised if they’re challenging for 3rd worst.

SJ though…wow, they’re bad.

I wasn’t really talking about our current point total, just the team in general.

 

[STL fan in MN]

I wasn’t really talking about our current point total, just the team in general.

Yeah, I know. I neglected to actually state my point. Sorry about that - that there are lots of bad teams out there. Maybe the wheels absolutely fall off for the Blues, particularly if Binny stops stealing points, but many teams have looked bad so far. I don’t think the Blues will be able to out-bad 29 teams.

 

[Xerloris]

SJ and Anaheim are the only teams I see worse than the Blues.

Washington, MTL, Columbus are probably on our same tier.

It’s going to be a long year. Embrace the year long tank for a brighter future.

Our defense sadly this year is good enough + Binnington to not allow us to get an actual good draft pick. Either the goalie needs to suck or the defense needs to suck.

 

[Spektre]

Our defense sadly this year is good enough + Binnington to not allow us to get an actual good draft pick. Either the goalie needs to suck or the defense needs to suck.

The Blues have a total of 224 attempted shots. Their opponents have 336. That's exactly a 50% difference. If they keep sucking that bad it won't be long before the goals against start piling up. When that happens, the morale will drop and it's a snowball effect.

 

[Brockon]

Thanks. I guess I conflated Schenn’s swing with Binnington.

I do think I’ve seen footage that isn’t represented here, but maybe that is faulty memory too.

The sportsnet call in the above clip mentions Binnington slamming his stick on the glass at 0:52s in the clip (doesn't show it) - I wouldn't be particularly surprised if it happened as well.

But, noteworthy is that as the call happens in the clip, Binnington is still away from the ref huddling to exit the ice and you can clearly see in the NBC clip it's Schenn slamming his stick on the glass near the refs a few seconds later.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

The sportsnet call in the above clip mentions Binnington slamming his stick on the glass at 0:52s in the clip (doesn't show it) - I wouldn't be particularly surprised if it happened as well.

But, noteworthy is that as the call happens in the clip, Binnington is still away from the ref huddling to exit the ice and you can clearly see in the NBC clip it's Schenn slamming his stick on the glass near the refs a few seconds later.

What I remember is a two-handed sideways tomahawk slam into the glass that made the ref jump. Maybe it wasn't super close to him (not like it was going to hit him) but it was an intimidation tantrum type move. There's no doubt the guys were hot.

Looking back, I'm reminded at how masterfully Berube shut that shit down and got the team focused on winning the next game. That he had the respect of the team to follow what he told them, that's probably something only an intimidating guy like Berube could have pulled off.

We talk alot about team leadership. But I think there was a bit of a paradox with that Cup winning team in that I really do think Berube filled the roll that is often filled by player-leaders. Berube was the iron will that drove that team through the playoffs. No Messier type of guy.

 

[oPlaiD]

Our even strength CF% is 39.9% so far, worst in the entire league by two percentage points under Chicago and San Jose. Our xG% (via Natural Stat Trick) is 43.16%, Only ahead of San Jose (38.05%, by far the bottom), Vancouver, and Tampa Bay.

It's extremely early so you can't say too much with a sample size like this, but there are certainly signs this team could be in the tier where the only team clearly worse is San Jose.

 

[TK 421]

Yeah special teams and corsi say we're terribad with Binny the Buoy keeping us afloat. Chicago has 5 losses in 7 games, we need to convert our shitty play into hard earned losses to match that level of suckage.

 

[CoMoBlues]

SJ and Anaheim are the only teams I see worse than the Blues.

Washington, MTL, Columbus are probably on our same tier.

It’s going to be a long year. Embrace the year long tank for a brighter future.

You may have been talking about play on the ice, but in terms of tv broadcasts, Columbus is at the bottom. The PBP guy Rimmer should have retired 3 years ago, and his calls are always behind the play. It’s gotten so bad, they started using the radio guy on NHL Network highlights.

 

[PJJJP]

Like who makes the blues schedule. Why are we having mini vacations in-between games.

 

[HighNote]

Like who makes the blues schedule. Why are we having mini vacations in-between games.

We always seem to be behind in games early in the season. This happened last year, too. 10 days into the regular season we had played only 2 games. No other team in the league had played less than 4 games by then and a handful of teams had already played 6 games.

The season before that, by Nov 2nd we had played just 7 games (23 days into the season). That's a pace of about 9 games a month. For reference, we play 15 games this November.

You have to go back to the 19-20 season when we had a normal start to the year, 13 games in October which was about average for the league. And we actually had a game on the 1st day of the regular season, which I feel like was the outlier because we had won the Cup that summer and they typically have the Cup winner play on the 1st day of the season.

 

[Thallis]

Like who makes the blues schedule. Why are we having mini vacations in-between games.

I don't think 4 days without a game is that outlandish

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Like who makes the blues schedule. Why are we having mini vacations in-between games.

So we can sit there and think about what we've done.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

We always seem to be behind in games early in the season. This happened last year, too. 10 days into the regular season we had played only 2 games. No other team in the league had played less than 4 games by then and a handful of teams had already played 6 games.

The season before that, by Nov 2nd we had played just 7 games (23 days into the season). That's a pace of about 9 games a month. For reference, we play 15 games this November.

You have to go back to the 19-20 season when we had a normal start to the year, 13 games in October which was about average for the league. And we actually had a game on the 1st day of the regular season, which I feel like was the outlier because we had won the Cup that summer and they typically have the Cup winner play on the 1st day of the season.

I think it’s intentional. Blues don’t want too many games competing with baseball.

 

[Mike Liut]

I think it’s intentional. Blues don’t want too many games competing with baseball.

The Cards and Blues are competing for the highest pick. The Blues went 10th, the Cards are 5th (prior to lottery) and now it’s the Blues turn. Can they top 5th? Very possible

 

[ezcreepin]

The Cards and Blues are competing for the highest pick. The Blues went 10th, the Cards are 5th (prior to lottery) and now it’s the Blues turn. Can they top 5th? Very possible

Last time the Blues had a pick in the top 5 I was in 8th grade and didn't care that much about hockey, and the Cards I was 4 years old and didn't care about anything lmao. It's going to be fun being an adult and watching the young guys develop in both of these organizations.

 

[Brian39]

It's not just the Blues starting out with a light schedule. Attendance sucks in October around the league (this year is especially true, but every year starts out light) and the NHL has a hard time competing with football. Any time anyone brings up a desire to get the NHL playoffs out of June, there is always discussion about how NHL teams absolutely won't move the start of the season forward and want as few home dates as possible in October.

We don't get to see the arena availability dates that the teams send to the league, but I'd bet good money that 75% or more of the US teams submit the absolute minimum number of open home dates for October that the league will allow.

We have currently played 1 more game than Dallas and are in a 4-way tie for 2nd least with 7 games played. 19 teams have played 8 games and no team has hit 10 games yet. By Sunday, we will be in a 9 way tie for fewest games played with 10. Another 17 teams will have played 11 games with just 6 teams being at the 12 game mark. We are on the low end, but it isn't a huge gap. Pretty much every team is going through these mini-vacations early in the year as the NHL tries to minimize going head-to-head with football (NFL, NCAA, and even families who spend their Friday nights at a high school stadium).

 

[bleedblue1223]

It's not just the Blues starting out with a light schedule. Attendance sucks in October around the league (this year is especially true, but every year starts out light) and the NHL has a hard time competing with football. Any time anyone brings up a desire to get the NHL playoffs out of June, there is always discussion about how NHL teams absolutely won't move the start of the season forward and want as few home dates as possible in October.

We don't get to see the arena availability dates that the teams send to the league, but I'd bet good money that 75% or more of the US teams submit the absolute minimum number of open home dates for October that the league will allow.

We have currently played 1 more game than Dallas and are in a 4-way tie for 2nd least with 7 games played. 19 teams have played 8 games and no team has hit 10 games yet. By Sunday, we will be in a 9 way tie for fewest games played with 10. Another 17 teams will have played 11 games with just 6 teams being at the 12 game mark. We are on the low end, but it isn't a huge gap. Pretty much every team is going through these mini-vacations early in the year as the NHL tries to minimize going head-to-head with football (NFL, NCAA, and even families who spend their Friday nights at a high school stadium).

MLB playoffs too, which for most cities probably isn't a huge consideration, but probably is for the Blues in most seasons.