2023-2024 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[LetsGoBooze]

Remember Matchbook Romance?

Stories and Alibis i still listen to. The followup album after that with the song Monsters, lost my attention.
Finch, anyone?

 

[Xerloris]

Why do I dislike him? You answered the question. His antics. Swinging a stick near a players face, any player, even meaning to get close but miss, that is utterly unacceptable to me. Throwing a water bottle, childish and embarrassing to be a fan when you have players doing that. I'm not the type who likes the player that "you'd like him if he was on your team". No. Dirty is dirty, childish us childish. I'd rather lose than win with people who intentionally try to hurt other players.

I'm not advocating movng him today or this year. Or even at all. I want to because I don't like the player. But from an analytical standpoint I'm torn. I am just curious how the board feels about him in light if how bad his stats are again vs how bad our D is. I was legitimately shocked his GSAA and S% were that bad. I am especially curious how the goalies among us and the advanced stat guru's feel.

He threw an empty water bottle at a trashcan. Oh god the horror. You're either to young to remember or you must have really hated the goalies from the 80's and 90's.

 

[Memento]

Stories and Alibis i still listen to. The followup album after that with the song Monsters, lost my attention.
Finch, anyone?

Well, shit. I actually like Monsters.

Have Ink by Finch on my iPhone. I admit that I got a lot of songs from sports games, Monsters included.

You a fan of Ice Nine Kills? Absolutely love A Grave Mistake, being a The Crow fan, but they've done a lot of awesome songs (including Someone Like You, which their cover was sooo much better than Adele's). Also, if you're interested in good St. Louis-based metal bands, there's Monster Eats Manhattan; they're pretty damn solid.

 

[TheOrganist]

He threw an empty water bottle at a trashcan. Oh god the horror. You're either to young to remember or you must have really hated the goalies from the 80's and 90's.

Any Blues fan who doesn’t bend the knee at the altar of Binnington is truly f’d in the head. He’s still good, every opposing fan hates him (which means he’s OUR asshole) and he’s a legend for 2019. Always will be.

 

[Reality Czech]

He threw an empty water bottle at a trashcan. Oh god the horror. You're either to young to remember or you must have really hated the goalies from the 80's and 90's.

Is that what we're calling Kadri these days? I approve.

 

[stlbluz]

 

[Brian39]

This might be a conversation for a separate thread but I'll ask it here. What direction would we prefer the season to go in? I'm undecided but leaning toward wanting a higher pick this draft.

I see almost no benefits to making the playoffs. I'd say there's a 10-20% chance we make it past the 1st round depending on who we play, and less than a 5% chance of making it further than the 2nd round. Our reward? Playoff revenue (who cares), playoff experience for...checks roster...Neighbours? Tucker? Hofer if Binnington is injured? And a worse draft pick.

Making the playoffs is outright bad for us. Playing to make the playoffs is outright bad for us. If we want to be a bubble team for the next 6 seasons, that's the way to do it.

While getting the highest pick possible might be the best thing, I very much disagree with an analysis that making the playoffs would be outright bad or that the only benefit of making the playoffs is playoff experience.

Robert Thomas is part of any rebuild/retool. This is his first year as a no-doubt 1C from start to finish and he is 24. He is not a finished product and this season is not irrelevant to who he is on the other side. He has no playoff experience as a 1C and got bullied by the Kadri line in 2022.

Jordan Kyrou is very, very likely part of any rebuild/retool. I think there is a small chance that he is traded, but it is pretty damn unlikely. The rest of this season is extremely important in figuring out exactly how Kyrou fits into the long-term plans. I think that it is very likely that one of the factors leading to the coaching change was a question about who Kyrou will be long term. He has 8 points in 6 games under Bannister and likely has to be a 85+ point pace player the rest of the year for us to get into the playoffs. He has no experience playing top 6 minutes/role in the playoffs.

This season has real consequences for those two guys who are very much part of the organization's long term plans. They could both absolutely benefit from playoff experience in their current roles and from succeeding over the remaining 48 games of NHL season required to get there.

There are a number of other questions/decisions related to a rebuild. How much (or do we see) improvement in defensive structure is very informative to knowing how deep the cuts need to be at D. There is no doubt we need to acquire a top-end LD at some point, but I think the jury is still out about what else is needed. Exactly how important is Buch? What exactly do we have in Perunovich? I think a 50+ game sample of playoff-caliber hockey helps answer a lot of these questions.

Then there is the reality that a lot of guys who clearly aren't part of a long-term plan can have their trade value impacted by a long stretch of good hockey from the team. We're not making the playoffs without some guys having good enough years to improve their trade value.

There is no guarantee that this all offsets the value you lose from sliding down the draft board. And in many cases the sum of positives from making the playoffs is outweighed by that negative draft value. But 'making the playoffs' isn't a thing that just happens in a vacuum where the only takeaways and positives are revenue and getting a few young guys their first taste of the playoffs.

We're 5-1 under a new coach and we have (slightly) outshot opponents in those 6 games. The PP is 25% since the coaching change (a very small sample size). I don't find the record (or the way we've been winning) all that sustainable, but there have been some tangible improvements. We have had 2 games where we allowed fewer than 25 shots but allowed 3+ goals. We are 2-0 in those games, so it isn't like we are just getting goalie wins. We were 26th in goals per game under Berube and are 9th since the coaching change.

We're not an .833 team long-term, but there is enough here that I don't think we should be ignoring any and all positive takeaways from a scenario where this team plays good enough hockey to make the playoffs.

 

[Thallis]

While getting the highest pick possible might be the best thing, I very much disagree with an analysis that making the playoffs would be outright bad or that the only benefit of making the playoffs is playoff experience.

Robert Thomas is part of any rebuild/retool. This is his first year as a no-doubt 1C from start to finish and he is 24. He is not a finished product and this season is not irrelevant to who he is on the other side. He has no playoff experience as a 1C and got bullied by the Kadri line in 2022.

Jordan Kyrou is very, very likely part of any rebuild/retool. I think there is a small chance that he is traded, but it is pretty damn unlikely. The rest of this season is extremely important in figuring out exactly how Kyrou fits into the long-term plans. I think that it is very likely that one of the factors leading to the coaching change was a question about who Kyrou will be long term. He has 8 points in 6 games under Bannister and likely has to be a 85+ point pace player the rest of the year for us to get into the playoffs. He has no experience playing top 6 minutes/role in the playoffs.

This season has real consequences for those two guys who are very much part of the organization's long term plans. They could both absolutely benefit from playoff experience in their current roles and from succeeding over the remaining 48 games of NHL season required to get there.

There are a number of other questions/decisions related to a rebuild. How much (or do we see) improvement in defensive structure is very informative to knowing how deep the cuts need to be at D. There is no doubt we need to acquire a top-end LD at some point, but I think the jury is still out about what else is needed. Exactly how important is Buch? What exactly do we have in Perunovich? I think a 50+ game sample of playoff-caliber hockey helps answer a lot of these questions.

Then there is the reality that a lot of guys who clearly aren't part of a long-term plan can have their trade value impacted by a long stretch of good hockey from the team. We're not making the playoffs without some guys having good enough years to improve their trade value.

There is no guarantee that this all offsets the value you lose from sliding down the draft board. And in many cases the sum of positives from making the playoffs is outweighed by that negative draft value. But 'making the playoffs' isn't a thing that just happens in a vacuum where the only takeaways and positives are revenue and getting a few young guys their first taste of the playoffs.

We're 5-1 under a new coach and we have (slightly) outshot opponents in those 6 games. The PP is 25% since the coaching change (a very small sample size). I don't find the record (or the way we've been winning) all that sustainable, but there have been some tangible improvements. We have had 2 games where we allowed fewer than 25 shots but allowed 3+ goals. We are 2-0 in those games, so it isn't like we are just getting goalie wins. We were 26th in goals per game under Berube and are 9th since the coaching change.

We're not an .833 team long-term, but there is enough here that I don't think we should be ignoring any and all positive takeaways from a scenario where this team plays good enough hockey to make the playoffs.

We are experiencing a new coach bump where our backup goalie has gotten hot. Despite that, we're still 6th in the central while having no major injuries for the entire year this far. We've been out shot in 4 of those 6, and 2 of the wins came against bottom feeders. We're a long shot to make the playoffs and an even longer shot to do anything against actual quality hockey teams.

If this is the long term outlook for the franchise, Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou will be on the decline moving on to supporting roles by the time we're actually competitive, if we're even competitive that quickly. We don't have a top end defenseman in the system. We might have a couple top line players at forward, but they project to be in the same range of the guys we have relative to the league than the guys who can truly take over games in the playoffs. Without the picks to get those kinds of players, we're watching a car crash in slow motion while trying to convince ourselves the driver is still in control.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

We are experiencing a new coach bump where our backup goalie has gotten hot. Despite that, we're still 6th in the central while having no major injuries for the entire year this far. We've been out shot in 4 of those 6, and 2 of the wins came against bottom feeders. We're a long shot to make the playoffs and an even longer shot to do anything against actual quality hockey teams.

If this is the long term outlook for the franchise, Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou will be on the decline moving on to supporting roles by the time we're actually competitive, if we're even competitive that quickly. We don't have a top end defenseman in the system. We might have a couple top line players at forward, but they project to be in the same range of the guys we have relative to the league than the guys who can truly take over games in the playoffs. Without the picks to get those kinds of players, we're watching a car crash in slow motion while trying to convince ourselves the driver is still in control.

This is rather fatalistic. If you look out 3+ years, we potentially already have the forwards we need to contend in our system. They might not hit the heights we expect- and that is always risk and that will delay/defeat any rebuild if you don't hit on picks- but it's certainly reasonable to think we might have what we need up front. Lindstein likewise looks like he can be top 4 guy and Parayko looks to be part of that too. So we are really missing a 1d and another top 4d. Not saying it's easy to find those, but it's not like we are doomed to suck for next decade. There is clear and plausible path back that we are pursuing, which while far from a certainty I don't think it is unlikely that we are contenders while Thomas is still our 1c.

 

[Thallis]

This is rather fatalistic. If you look out 3+ years, we potentially already have the forwards we need to contend in our system. They might not hit the heights we expect- and that is always risk and that will delay/defeat any rebuild if you don't hit on picks- but it's certainly reasonable to think we might have what we need up front. Lindstein likewise looks like he can be top 4 guy and Parayko looks to be part of that too. So we are really missing a 1d and another top 4d. Not saying it's easy to find those, but it's not like we are doomed to suck for next decade. There is clear and plausible path back that we are pursuing, which while far from a certainty I don't think it is unlikely that we are contenders while Thomas is still our 1c.

Paragko is 30. I can buy him as being a top 4 defender in 3 years, but any longer and his timer starts ticking down too. Faulk is 31, Krug is 32. These three are already inadequate without a top end Defenseman in front of them, do we really think we can wait for Lindstein to be ready to contribute top 4 minutes with those 3 around him? We already tried a bunch of very good but not top level in the league forwards with this top 4 and it didn't work out. What I see with our pool at forward is more of the same. 2 very good forward lines but no top 50 players and a D behind them that gets abused.

If we want to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender we need significantly more talent in back, or a good amount more talent than we have and a legitimate top 20 in the league forwards that can control games against the best players in the league. We don't get that kind of quality drafting 10-20 for the next 5 years. My fatalism is because we're in the worst position you can possibly be: clearly not good enough to be a playoff team but constantly digging and scraping to remain in the hunt. Even if we hit on all 4 of our most recent firsts (and hit big on Snuggerud and Dvorsky in that both are legitimate first line quality players), I don't see a way to contention with that as the goal for the short and medium term future.

 

[Celtic Note]

Paragko is 30. I can buy him as being a top 4 defender in 3 years, but any longer and his timer starts ticking down too. Faulk is 31, Krug is 32. These three are already inadequate without a top end Defenseman in front of them, do we really think we can wait for Lindstein to be ready to contribute top 4 minutes with those 3 around him? We already tried a bunch of very good but not top level in the league forwards with this top 4 and it didn't work out. What I see with our pool at forward is more of the same. 2 very good forward lines but no top 50 players and a D behind them that gets abused.

If we want to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender we need significantly more talent in back, or a good amount more talent than we have and a legitimate top 20 in the league forwards that can control games against the best players in the league. We don't get that kind of quality drafting 10-20 for the next 5 years. My fatalism is because we're in the worst position you can possibly be: clearly not good enough to be a playoff team but constantly digging and scraping to remain in the hunt. Even if we hit on all 4 of our most recent firsts (and hit big on Snuggerud and Dvorsky in that both are legitimate first line quality players), I don't see a way to contention with that as the goal for the short and medium term future.

I generally agree that we need more high profile talent in the system.

However, Thomas is in the top 25 of the league and closer to top 20 than 25 at the moment. He is also a defensively responsible center. I think with continued progress he can be one of those players. I do want to see him lead in the playoffs though.

Kyrou is trying to round out his game and I think that’s why we are seeing the dip this year. Last year he was 49th in league wide scoring. The year prior and with a much better supporting cast he was 45th. I think he has a higher level to reach and if he can pair it with a better all around game then he might be closer to a top 30 guy.

Dvo and Snuggy are complete unknowns. I see Snuggy as someone who will be the guy and more the partner in crime ala a Tarasenko. It’s unclear where his ceiling is and the likelihood he reaches his potential. I could see DVO as an ROR type, but similar to Snuggy the ceiling and liklihood are hard to say.

I personally don’t see a Crosby, Mackinnion, Kucherov, Stamkos, Malkin, or Kane in the bunch. We have a well rounded, high ceiling, blend of really good but not mind blowing group of forwards like our 2019 team (if the highest rated prospects hit).

Unfortunately, because we don’t have the above elite players (I hope I am wrong), we need an elite defense (we had one in 2019 IMO). We clearly don’t have that now and there is nothing in the pipeline that I see that suggests we will. We don’t have a Hedman, Petro, Doughty or Keith. We also don’t have the top 4 supporting cast. Out of the guys we have in the system, in 3 years when I think we will start to be really good at forward, we have only Parayko and Lindstein who could be top 4 D… maybe Faulk too. But by year 4-5, how good are those two? If I had to guess, Parayko is a #4 and Lindstein is a #3 if he pans out. That leaves a top 10-15 #1D and a #2.

So while I don’t believe I hold as dire a view around our forwards, there is a large amount of high end talent to find and in a D position that takes a long time to develop.

 

[Reality Czech]

Paragko is 30. I can buy him as being a top 4 defender in 3 years, but any longer and his timer starts ticking down too. Faulk is 31, Krug is 32. These three are already inadequate without a top end Defenseman in front of them, do we really think we can wait for Lindstein to be ready to contribute top 4 minutes with those 3 around him? We already tried a bunch of very good but not top level in the league forwards with this top 4 and it didn't work out. What I see with our pool at forward is more of the same. 2 very good forward lines but no top 50 players and a D behind them that gets abused.

If we want to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender we need significantly more talent in back, or a good amount more talent than we have and a legitimate top 20 in the league forwards that can control games against the best players in the league. We don't get that kind of quality drafting 10-20 for the next 5 years. My fatalism is because we're in the worst position you can possibly be: clearly not good enough to be a playoff team but constantly digging and scraping to remain in the hunt. Even if we hit on all 4 of our most recent firsts (and hit big on Snuggerud and Dvorsky in that both are legitimate first line quality players), I don't see a way to contention with that as the goal for the short and medium term future.

Sure, it's easy to be fatalistic but I see no reason to panic when nobody knows what is actually going to happen. Maybe it will go down how you see it, but maybe it won't. Sure, you need a lot of talent and many contending teams were fortunate (crappy?) enough to draft a generational player or two in the top 5 of the draft. But honestly there are plenty of very good players picked lower, so all we can do is hope to strike gold with one or two of our promising prospects.

Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the NHL points leaders to see where they were drafted.

Kucherov (58th)
MacKinnon (1st)
Miller (15th)
Nylander (8th)
Panarin (undrafted)
Pastrnak (25th)
McDavid (1st)
Rantanen (8th)

The next group of guys are mostly/all top 10 picks, but then you've got guys like Guentzel, Point, Thomas, Boeser, Stone, etc who were picked lower (many out of the first round). So there are plenty of star players to be found outside of the lottery. Obviously defense is by far the biggest long-term concern for the Blues, and it seems to be very difficult to find franchise d-men in the draft. Many of the top 1D were picked in the top 15 if not top 5, but there are still guys like Josi, Letang, Carlson, Spurgeon, Toews and highly touted youngster Brock Faber all picked much later in the draft, some even in the 2nd or 3rd round.

I get the argument in favor of tanking, but I sure do enjoy seeing competitive games rather than watching a terrible team like Chicago or San Jose suck for years before they are hopefully good again. I guess it all balances out in the end and the reason sports are fun to watch is that we usually don't know what's actually gonna happen.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Paragko is 30. I can buy him as being a top 4 defender in 3 years, but any longer and his timer starts ticking down too. Faulk is 31, Krug is 32. These three are already inadequate without a top end Defenseman in front of them, do we really think we can wait for Lindstein to be ready to contribute top 4 minutes with those 3 around him? We already tried a bunch of very good but not top level in the league forwards with this top 4 and it didn't work out. What I see with our pool at forward is more of the same. 2 very good forward lines but no top 50 players and a D behind them that gets abused.

If we want to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender we need significantly more talent in back, or a good amount more talent than we have and a legitimate top 20 in the league forwards that can control games against the best players in the league. We don't get that kind of quality drafting 10-20 for the next 5 years. My fatalism is because we're in the worst position you can possibly be: clearly not good enough to be a playoff team but constantly digging and scraping to remain in the hunt. Even if we hit on all 4 of our most recent firsts (and hit big on Snuggerud and Dvorsky in that both are legitimate first line quality players), I don't see a way to contention with that as the goal for the short and medium term future.

Parayko is I think only one of our current D core that is likely to be here (at least in top 4 role) when our next window opens, even in optimistic scenario that I outlined. We absolutely need more talent around him (and presumably lindstein) on d at that point or we won't be contenders. But we will have opportunities to find that, whether in draft or elsewhere.

as to how much we need, if we find guy like miro heiskanen we could get by with filling in around him. if we only get guy as good as petro, then we still need another solid top 4 guy too. if we only get guy on faulk level, we need another top 4 guy and need a forward to emerge as at least as good if not better than thomas. regardless, we need to improve d but there are multiple available paths to reach where we need to get.

 

[ToniJ1960]

Theyre 2 0 1 against the Stars who have a .667 points percentge and you say they arent competitive? You could be more specific. I think the team has been less competitive even with better players. We can say new coach bump but is it a guaranteed thing to happen? Can we absolutely say thats all it is?

 

[LetsGoBooze]

I think we can turn it around in 3 years BUT and this is the big BUT, we absolutely need to get a top 10 pick from this season, probably top 8 and draft one of the top 2 or 3 defensive prospects available. We need a chance at hitting on a 1D and this is one of the strongest D drafts in years. It also would be an incredible time to add a stud defensive piece to grow with all the young core forwards. We can get Thomas and Kyrou more playoff experience in 2-3 years, but dont short change the retool or else were gonna be stuck with a fringe playoff team for a decade. Adding strong draftees in 2024 and 2025 should be top priority, then start going back all-in on the roster in 2026 and beyond to fill in roster holes. We will still have the back half of the Thomas/Kyrou contracts to compete.

 

[ScratchCatFever]

We are experiencing a new coach bump where our backup goalie has gotten hot. Despite that, we're still 6th in the central while having no major injuries for the entire year this far. We've been out shot in 4 of those 6, and 2 of the wins came against bottom feeders. We're a long shot to make the playoffs and an even longer shot to do anything against actual quality hockey teams.

If this is the long term outlook for the franchise, Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou will be on the decline moving on to supporting roles by the time we're actually competitive, if we're even competitive that quickly. We don't have a top end defenseman in the system. We might have a couple top line players at forward, but they project to be in the same range of the guys we have relative to the league than the guys who can truly take over games in the playoffs. Without the picks to get those kinds of players, we're watching a car crash in slow motion while trying to convince ourselves the driver is still in control.

If Thomas and Kyrou are on the decline by the time we're ready to compete then we may as well trade them now and live in the basement of the NHL for the next decade.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Theyre 2 0 1 against the Stars who have a .667 points percentge and you say they arent competitive? You could be more specific. I think the team has been less competitive even with better players. We can say new coach bump but is it a guaranteed thing to happen? Can we absolutely say thats all it is?

Not to mention the team was already in a playoff spot for most of the season before they canned the head coach. It's not a basement team and we're simply not bad enough to get the top 5 pick people wishing for a tank are hoping for.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Jordan Kyrou is very, very likely part of any rebuild/retool.

Nitpick: it's a refocus now.

 

[Drubilly]

Nitpick: it's a refocus now.

And I’m fine with that. For now.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

Thomas is tied for second in the league in even strength scoring. It’s a really shame our power play is so garbage. Would be interesting to see where his totals would be if it was better.

 

[Mike Liut]

Any news on Faulk?

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Any news on Faulk?

Bannister said it's not as bad as they thought. Out for a bit though. Didn't define how long, but not couple days.

 

[PocketNines]

The pro-Armstrong reply to Thallis is so thoughtless and weak. "Hey you never know" + "random luck in the draft" is not a strategy for a man who says he believes in himself totally and completely. Armstrong's flunkies never explain how it will be the Blues who get this magic draft luck while the other 31 teams do not. The flacks are not serious in their thinking

 

[Louie the Blue]

The pro-Armstrong reply to Thallis is so thoughtless and weak. "Hey you never know" + "random luck in the draft" is not a strategy for a man who says he believes in himself totally and completely. Armstrong's flunkies never explain how it will be the Blues who get this magic draft luck while the other 31 teams do not. The flacks are not serious in their thinking

Isn’t pretty much any championship team built on flukes, luck, and anomalies though?

Not defending Armstrong-I think the roster is poorly constructed and he doesn't have a vision-but I can use 2010 - onward as an example of all teams that won the Cup relying on fluke, luck, and anomalies.

Hawks moved up from 5 to 1 in the lottery to get Kane in addition to signing two players (Keith, Hossa) to long-term contracts that are no longer allowed in the NHL while also maintaining manageable in cap hits.

Boston relied on a goalie who didn't have his first full season in the NHL until he was 31 and was otherwise a nomad who happened to blossom later than most goalies and having a HoF/borderline HoF career.

Kings acquired a guy who was upset that he was shipped out of Philly to Columbus after signing a long-term contract in Philly.

Penguins relied on a rookie goalie when Fleury struggled and acquired a key defenseman in Daley for nothing.

Capitals had Oshie perform at levels he previously hadn't in the POs and a nomad in DSP make significant contributions.

Blues had Binnington and were lucky with health.

Lightning had top 6 forwards in Palat and Johnson who were drafted in the 7th and undrafted.

Avalanche were a culmination of two botched rebuilds (the ones that got them Landeskog and MacKinnon) as well as falling in the lottery when they were historically bad and ending up with Makar.

Adin Hill was not intended to be the Knights starter and had one of the most random and unexpected PO runs ever. He wasn't even supposed to be their backup!

 

[PocketNines]

Isn’t pretty much any championship team built on flukes, luck, and anomalies though?

No, sports success is not all random ... ?

Why would you invest any attention in something like that?