2023-2024 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[Majorityof1]

5V5 GA/60

2018-19 2.02 GA/60 (16 games)
2019-20 2.66 GA/60 (28 games)
2020-21 3.03 GA/60
2021-22 2.65 GA/60
2022-23 3.86 GA/60
2023-24 2.83 GA/60

He still needs to be better defensively, no questions about that, but last year seems more of an outlier than this year being the outlier.

Shhhhhhh. You all need to stop with these facts. You are ruining a perfectly good false narrative . How else are they supposed to run a very good player out of town if they can't misconstrue quotes and ignore facts about his play? I mean he isn't a goon who fights people on the ice and he plays video games off the ice. We have to run him out of town. The only question is how.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Is anyone saying that he's always been good or even decent defensively throughout his career? None of the criticism in the last week from angry Blues fans has been couched in the notion that he's been good defensively this year but has historically been bad. No one has been saying that Berube got fired because Kyrou has been bad defensively in previous years. You were talking in present tense, suggesting that he is still getting scored on a lot. He is not.

As for production, I think his lack of production is currently being a touch overblown. His shooting percentage is way down and (like the entire team) he hasn't been getting it done on the PP. But he is genuinely contributing at 5 on 5. He's helped himself with two 5 on 5 points in the last 2 games, but all in all I bet his rankings in terms of 5 on 5 offense are better than most would expect.

His 15 points at 5 on 5 currently puts him in a 25 way tie for 47th in the NHL. Other notable players with 15 points at 5 on 5: Tavares, Pavelski, Stone, Barkov, Draisaitl, Fiala, Barzal, and Bratt. His six 5 on 5 goals has him in a 35 way tie for 70th. Other notable players with only six 5 on 5 goals are Eichel, McDavid, Horvat, Giroux, Byfield, Stamkos, Schenn, and Marchand.

He has more to give offensively. He is paid to be a guy who is top 25 in these metrics and that is where we have seen him finish in each of the last 2 seasons. I'm not saying this is all we should expect out of him offensively at 5 on 5. But I think he is closer to his 5 on 5 production than most people think when they see his raw totals. The issue is that he (and the entire team) hasn't gotten anything accomplished on the PP this year.

But he really hasn't sacrificed a ton offensively at 5 on 5 in order to achieve the drastically better defensive results. He's still generating a lot of shots and chances and a slight bump in shooting percentage would have him right around where we should expect.

Get hung up on present/past tense all you want but yeah, I was talking about his career as a whole and his 2022-23 season was SO bad it’s going to take quite a bit for me to like Kyrou as a player again.

I didn’t read all of the comments on Kyrou the last few days but I’d say him getting booed wasn’t solely because of the quote from JR. It was a culmination of his wilting goodwill with Blues fans over the last couple years. The comment (whether you think he was baited by JR or not) was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back IMO. So yeah, I think his past (shitty) performance, played a role in how fans reacted. Right or wrong, he’s tied with Thomas as having the biggest contract in Blues history (correct me if I’m wrong but either way it’s way up there) so fans are going to expect a complete star quality player for that much money.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Shhhhhhh. You all need to stop with these facts. You are ruining a perfectly good false narrative . How else are they supposed to run a very good player out of town if they can't misconstrue quotes and ignore facts about his play? I mean he isn't a goon who fights people on the ice and he plays video games off the ice. We have to run him out of town. The only question is how.

I’ve never once talked of running him out of town so nice strawman argument there.

I’m not a huge fan of Kyrou but my hope is that he will one day fully mature and be the player I know he can be. Put it all together. I think the frustration comes in that most players have made those adjustments by age 25. He hasn’t. Will he ever? That’s the frustration. He’s paid to be a star. Sometimes he is and sometimes he’s an absolute detriment to the team. I hope this is a turning point for him and he becomes a consistently dangerous player while also putting in full effort and not being a turnover machine and/or largely blowing coverage.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

You've been presented with the statistics that point to positive defensive strides being made by Kyrou. If you refuse to acknowledge those adjustments that he's clearly made defensively this season, no, he'll never "put it all together" in your eyes. That's the thing with Kyrou, he's made substantial improvements and if not for some bad puck luck the offense would likely be there too. Unfortunately, even if he was producing more offensively with a career avg shooting pct. there's still a portion of the fan base that would want him run out of town.

They've found their scapegoat, and they're not going to stop until he gets run out of town and puts up 80 points on the regular for another franchise.

 

[Majorityof1]

I’ve never once talked of running him out of town so nice strawman argument there.

I’m not a huge fan of Kyrou but my hope is that he will one day fully mature and be the player I know he can be. Put it all together. I think the frustration comes in that most players have made those adjustments by age 25. He hasn’t. Will he ever? That’s the frustration. He’s paid to be a star. Sometimes he is and sometimes he’s an absolute detriment to the team. I hope this is a turning point for him and he becomes a consistently dangerous player while also putting in full effort and not being a turnover machine and/or largely blowing coverage.

You are one of the top posters here. I didn't mean to cast aspersions on you. I was referring to others on here, and the ones who booed Kyrou at the game.

Like Kyrou or don't. But he has game breaking ability, more than anyone on our team. Buch and Thomas are better players as they are more consistent. Nobody on our team has kyrou's ability to break the other team by single-handedly turning nothing into something. That level of skill either costs a lot more than Kyrou, or it comes with some downsides. If Kyrou was more consistent on both sides if the puck, he'd be Marner making $10M+.

 

[TheOrganist]

@BadgersandBlues had a great post months ago that the Roman Josi contract was the comp that Petro’s camp was probably using as far as AAV. I think Korac is talking out his ass on this rumor.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

5V5 GA/60

2018-19 2.02 GA/60 (16 games)
2019-20 2.66 GA/60 (28 games)
2020-21 3.03 GA/60
2021-22 2.65 GA/60
2022-23 3.86 GA/60
2023-24 2.83 GA/60

He still needs to be better defensively, no questions about that, but last year seems more of an outlier than this year being the outlier.

Ignoring 2018-19 - it looks like a real outlier on both sides - his 5v5 GF/60 shows kind of a similar thing: generally 3.0 GF/60, 2021-22 was a breakout at 3.5. That's arguably what makes last year look so bad: '21-22 looked so good because the offense was rolling with him out there.

[Yes, if we look at ES it's a little better/worse on both sides. It doesn't meaningfully change things, IMO.]

Are people being affected by recency bias? Quite possibly. Will that change? Maybe - but it might take another '21-22 type season. As long as his GF/GA ratio stays around 1, I'm OK with it and then we're down to nitpicking whether he's putting up enough offense or not. That ratio goes meaningfully under 1 - like, say, under 0.85 because the GA part is going up while the GF part stays steady - then the scrutiny on his defensive play should go up as well.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

@BadgersandBlues had a great post months ago that the Roman Josi contract was the comp that Petro’s camp was probably using as far as AAV. I think Korac is talking out his ass on this rumor.

Petro's representatives were pretty public about Josi as a comp, but they backed off of that after the pandemic finances started to become apparent. The 7.5M number sounds pretty dubious.

I think most agents and GMs would assign a dollar value to almost any type of concession you can build into a contract (NTC, NMC). What the amount represents is subject to debate, and would vary from player to player. What dollar amount did Pietro assign to it?

The strongest evidence that the 7.5M number is baloney is the fact that Vegas paid 8.8M AAV on the 7y deal. Its a LOT more money, and close to 60% paid as bonuses (which I believe provide substantial tax benefits). Bottom line, he got paid a lot more in Vegas than what Korac is throwing out there for what he'd have taken home from St Louis.

Who was bidding against Vegas at that time? It pretty much felt like they were bidding against themselves once Pietro rejected Armstrong's final offer. Are we supposed to believe Vegas bid up his salary so much for no reason? We haven't heard the AAV of the Blues final offer (to my recollection) but I bet it was close to 8M AAV x 8 years.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

@BadgersandBlues had a great post months ago that the Roman Josi contract was the comp that Petro’s camp was probably using as far as AAV. I think Korac is talking out his ass on this rumor.

Exactly. Not to beat dead horse, but reporting by national guys who tend to know these things (and it wasn’t Lou who broke chief firing) was that Petro lowered ask when josi signed bc he had been pushing for higher number than josi got. So while someone in his camp may be telling Lou that now, it certainly wasn’t tune they were singing when it mattered.

 

[TheOrganist]

I suppose the only timeframe when an offer like this could have been presented was in July or August directly after the Cup win and shortly before Josi signed in October, 2019...and Petro would have accepted that AAV if the Blues met every other structural requirement they were asking for (trifecta of bonus money, term & NMC)...but even still...Petro really had no incentive to sign that early for a relatively meager raise on AAV basis considering his value was at an all-time high.

 

[MissouriMook]

...
Who was bidding against Vegas at that time? It pretty much felt like they were bidding against themselves once Pietro rejected Armstrong's final offer. Are we supposed to believe Vegas bid up his salary so much for no reason? We haven't heard the AAV of the Blues final offer (to my recollection) but I bet it was close to 8M AAV x 8 years.

I thought I remembered Army doing an interview not long after the dust settled on that year's free agent frenzy where he explicitly stated that he offered $8M x 8, a partial NMC (for the last 4 years of the deal) and a full NTC. It is possible that I could be conflating the specifics he expressed in that interview with something that was reported later. I suspect that the annual signing bonuses (over 56% of the total comp he got from Vegas; exempt from a future buyout) had more to do with the decision than a NMC, especially since Army offered a full NTC and covered the additional expansion draft/waivers angle with the four most important years of his offer.

 

[Brian39]

The strongest evidence that the 7.5M number is baloney is the fact that Vegas paid 8.8M AAV on the 7y deal. Its a LOT more money, and close to 60% paid as bonuses (which I believe provide substantial tax benefits). Bottom line, he got paid a lot more in Vegas than what Korac is throwing out there for what he'd have taken home from St Louis.

Who was bidding against Vegas at that time? It pretty much felt like they were bidding against themselves once Pietro rejected Armstrong's final offer. Are we supposed to believe Vegas bid up his salary so much for no reason? We haven't heard the AAV of the Blues final offer (to my recollection) but I bet it was close to 8M AAV x 8 years.

I have my doubts on Korac's source/report given the timing. I don't think he's just pulling it out of thin air, but I'd wager that it is less a confirmed number and more someone with knowledge of the situation offering a highly educated guess after-the-fact.

However, I think it is safe to assume that any AAV that would have 'gotten it done' with the Blues was on an 8 year deal. $7.5M x 8 is only $1.6M less total dollars than what he got in Vegas. I'm not sure I would say he got a lot more money. He'll be 37 when the 7 year deal expires, so it isn't like there is/was an expectation that he would have a high earning potential for that 8th year that the Blues could have given him. A large AAV difference with small total dollar difference is the exact purpose of the allowing the existing team to offer that extra year.

If we are just talking about July 1st, then I don't think $7.5M x 7 (with a full NMC) would have gotten it done from the Blues. And I don't think whoever this source is believes that such a deal would have gotten it done. I feel pretty comfortable speculating that this source was saying that at some point before we lost the ability to give that 8th year, it could have gotten done with $7.5M x 8 (with a full NMC).

Vegas wasn't bidding against us. Vegas was bidding against the rest of the league. UFA AAVs are higher than max-term extensions. That's the nature of the game. I just don't think that Petro getting $61.6M on a 7 year deal tells me much about what he would or would not have taken from the Blues when an 8 year deal was an option.

 

[Brian39]

I thought I remembered Army doing an interview not long after the dust settled on that year's free agent frenzy where he explicitly stated that he offered $8M x 8, a partial NMC (for the last 4 years of the deal) and a full NTC. It is possible that I could be conflating the specifics he expressed in that interview with something that was reported later. I suspect that the annual signing bonuses (over 56% of the total comp he got from Vegas; exempt from a future buyout) had more to do with the decision than a NMC, especially since Army offered a full NTC and covered the additional expansion draft/waivers angle with the four most important years of his offer.

To my knowledge, Army has never publicly stated the dollar amount he has offered any player. I could be wrong, but I have zero recollection of him getting that specific about Petro's offer. The only interview I recall him going into any details about the Petro offer was in the zoom press conference on 7/1 where he was still silent on the dollar amount and fairly vague on the NTC/NMC terms.

FWIW, his contract is not buyout proof in Vegas. The first 6 years are, but he gets no bonus money in the final year, so that year is a pretty good buyout candidate. If they want to buy him out in the summer of 2026, he will only count for $2.9M against the cap for 2026/267 and 2027/28.

 

[Celtic Note]

Schenn has been an analytics black hole for a while now.

The eye test confirms

 

[Celtic Note]

I thought I remembered Army doing an interview not long after the dust settled on that year's free agent frenzy where he explicitly stated that he offered $8M x 8, a partial NMC (for the last 4 years of the deal) and a full NTC. It is possible that I could be conflating the specifics he expressed in that interview with something that was reported later. I suspect that the annual signing bonuses (over 56% of the total comp he got from Vegas; exempt from a future buyout) had more to do with the decision than a NMC, especially since Army offered a full NTC and covered the additional expansion draft/waivers angle with the four most important years of his offer.

I recall that he mentioned some of the details about what was offered and we heard from the media some financials. What you say is what I thought we heard about what was offered. Not sure if the AAV was Army or not though.

 

[BlueDream]

Sorry, Lou, I call bullshit on that. He says “I’m told” but fails to say who told him, or even explain whether or not Petro’s agent even made that as a counter offer. That is also $500k less than what Army explicitly stated was his final offer at the time. If the deal Korac refers to was out there, and Petro was willing to accept it, there is no way Army would have walked away from bringing him back for barely a league minimum salary less than what he paid Krug.

I have been told that Petro wasn’t coming back for anything less than a substantial overpayment because he had his mind set on moving on to a new challenge elsewhere. My version of “I’m told” has just as much credibility as his until he reveals his source for that claim. The whole thing was an opinion piece and that’s just his opinion unless he can explicitly quote the source.

Pretty laughable that multiple people actually liked this post. But again, anything to convince themselves that Armstrong is the good guy I guess.

Come on, man. How many articles have you read where writers said exactly who their source is? You do realize that would basically eliminate them from getting any sources again, right? It’s not hard to figure out how journalism works.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Pretty laughable that multiple people actually liked this post. But again, anything to convince themselves that Armstrong is the good guy I guess.

Come on, man. How many articles have you read where writers said exactly who their source is? You do realize that would basically eliminate them from getting any sources again, right? It’s not hard to figure out how journalism works.

It's also not hard to see how easy it is for someone to make claims without anything to substantiate it. Eklund built a hockey rumors empire by doing just that.

 

[Celtic Note]

It's also not hard to see how easy it is for someone to make claims without anything to substantiate it. Eklund built a hockey rumors empire by doing just that.

Political networks and politicians do it all the time and we know how “successful” they are. Lies are the name of the game in this day and age. It better to trick someone by triggering their emotions than being respectable and honest. It pays more.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

It's also not hard to see how easy it is for someone to make claims without anything to substantiate it. Eklund built a hockey rumors empire by doing just that.

the problem with anonomous source here is that it's without context. If he had said "a source close to Petro told me in the immediate aftermath of the signing,." that would allow source to be deniably anonymous and you the reader can evaluate motive of source and allow that to weigh on it's credibility.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I have my doubts on Korac's source/report given the timing. I don't think he's just pulling it out of thin air, but I'd wager that it is less a confirmed number and more someone with knowledge of the situation offering a highly educated guess after-the-fact.

However, I think it is safe to assume that any AAV that would have 'gotten it done' with the Blues was on an 8 year deal. $7.5M x 8 is only $1.6M less total dollars than what he got in Vegas. I'm not sure I would say he got a lot more money. He'll be 37 when the 7 year deal expires, so it isn't like there is/was an expectation that he would have a high earning potential for that 8th year that the Blues could have given him. A large AAV difference with small total dollar difference is the exact purpose of the allowing the existing team to offer that extra year.

If we are just talking about July 1st, then I don't think $7.5M x 7 (with a full NMC) would have gotten it done from the Blues. And I don't think whoever this source is believes that such a deal would have gotten it done. I feel pretty comfortable speculating that this source was saying that at some point before we lost the ability to give that 8th year, it could have gotten done with $7.5M x 8 (with a full NMC).

Vegas wasn't bidding against us. Vegas was bidding against the rest of the league. UFA AAVs are higher than max-term extensions. That's the nature of the game. I just don't think that Petro getting $61.6M on a 7 year deal tells me much about what he would or would not have taken from the Blues when an 8 year deal was an option.

Your comparison ignores structural details that affect the take-home. My understanding is that bonus moneys are taxed where they’re earned (rather than salary which is taxed at rates where games ae played throughout the league. That’s a nontrivial advantage with real dollars in Vegas. Your math to make the two contract totals look similar is an oversimplification.

Who else in the league could have fit Pietro at that point, that he would even consider? My recollection is that the market had already cleared.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Since we're apparently going to do this discussion and ... without quoting all the relevant posts:

* The fact that Vegas gave Pietrangelo what they gave him doesn't mean anything as to what Pietrangelo wanted from the Blues, or wanted in general. Part of that Vegas offer may have been to make sure Pietrangelo didn't go talk to other teams, part of that may have been his agents seeing what else they could squeeze out of Vegas. I might want $200K + $20K SB in my next job, but if someone lobs $250K + $50K I'm not about to say "whoa, that's too much - I'll take less than that." And I'm probably not instantly signing that, either. I may see if I can walk them up to $300K + $75K, knowing where they set the floor, and expect "if I have to settle at 250+50, that's still a hell of a lot more than I set out to get."
* Yes, it's entirely possible Vegas bid against itself. Look at a couple of the contracts they've lobbed. Hell, we've seen other teams do it around the league at times; no reason to think it wouldn't happen with Vegas as well
* I recall Armstrong's comment alluding to being close to 8x8 - I agree with @Brian39, I don't recall 8x8 mentioned specifically - but I do recall him specifically mentioning his offer had "some" signing bonuses and "a modified NMC." That lacked a lot of details. He might have offered 50% of each year's salary in signing bonuses and a full NMC for 4 years, a full NTC for the other 4. It might have been $1M signing bonus the 1st year and nothing after, and a NMC for 2 years, a full NTC for the next 2 and a partial NTC for the final 4. No one knows what "some" signing bonuses and a "modified NMC" really meant; it's whatever Armstrong wanted it to mean.
* "He who shall not be named" mentioned that Pietrangelo's camp pushed for an offer for a while and Armstrong repeatedly refused to offer anything; when he finally did some time after the Blues went out, his opening offer was 5x7, no signing bonus, minimal NTC protection. [The extended discussion of the reported timeline on Pietrangelo's contract negotiations and all the related contracts and trades that occurred along the way omitted for now.]
* Could it be that Pietrangelo's camp would have settled for 8x7.5 and a NMC? Sure. Could an initial 5x7 offer have pushed Petro's side to go way up on their demand, hoping to land in the middle where they really wanted to be? Absolutely; that's how negotiations work.
* Do I think one side (both sides) got dug in to the point that the other (neither) was budging and they weren't getting a deal done? Yes. Do I know who to blame for that? No.
* Are we ever going to get all the details on this? No. Like, never.
* Even if we did, would that change anyone's mind on how things went down? Probably not - because people would probably still claim those details were made up where they didn't support their long-held position on what happened.


BTW - while looking for something, I ran across this gem written by someone after the Krug signing went down. I'll ... let everyone else opine on it:

Krug was, for all intents and purposes, the second best defenseman on the market behind Pietrangelo. He’s a 50-point power play beast who definitely won’t allow Jamie Benn to sit on his head (sorry, Alex, but you did go down). Krug will break Benn in half and then write his family a nasty letter. He’s physical in the way that guys named Torey usually are not. A Michigan native, Krug was the guy who slammed into Robert Thomas during the Stanley Cup Final as hard as A-Train would, but according to young Bob, all should be well.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Who else in the league could have fit Pietro at that point, that he would even consider? My recollection is that the market had already cleared.

It's been 3 years and change, someone would have to go back and re-create where everyone was going into the 3rd day of UFA to know who was still in and who was still out, but I don't recall it having "cleared" to the point that Vegas was the only team that had cap room left for Pietrangelo. [Which, if it did, would be an argument for Vegas giving him less knowing he had nowhere else to go.] It might be that teams were interested, Pietrangelo's camp had said "we're not interested" and those teams had moved on, but I don't think it was to the point that Petro woke up that morning, looked around and said "... well, f***, I guess it's Vegas or nothing."

To paraphrase Armstrong when he was asked about the possibility of still bring Pietrangelo back (and we can then debate if he was being serious or not), it could have happened - it just might have required getting really creative to do it.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

I'm just curious as to why in the 3+ years it's been, we've never heard of the $7.5mil number before

 

[Majorityof1]

I'm just curious as to why in the 3+ years it's been, we've never heard of the $7.5mil number before

Hmm I wonder...

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Hmm I wonder...

View attachment 786222

I'm not looking to get into the debate over this topic, it just genuinely feels odd to me that this number randomly pops up, and yes, I know it could very well be true.