2024-2025 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread.

[Snubbed4Vezina]

My other requirement I failed to mention above is that I want to see good hockey. Solid defensive structure, physicality, effort. I can't tolerate bad hockey anymore. I don't have time for that.

 

[Majorityof1]

Should we try to build our next Cup team like our last cup team? We were an anomaly, and we barely won it requiring multiple game 7s. Round 1, every game but one was a 1-goal game. One wrong bounce and it was just another 1st round loss. There was a special momentum and resiliancy that would be really hard to capture again.

Most cup teams have elite talent, guys routinely in the end of the year award conversations. Can we win again with ROR level guy as opposed to Matt Tkachuk, Jack Eichel, Kucherov, Hedman, etc?

 

[Mike Liut]

Should we try to build our next Cup team like our last cup team? We were an anomaly, and we barely won it requiring multiple game 7s. Round 1, every game but one was a 1-goal game. One wrong bounce and it was just another 1st round loss. There was a special momentum and resiliancy that would be really hard to capture again.

Most cup teams have elite talent, guys routinely in the end of the year award conversations. Can we win again with ROR level guy as opposed to Matt Tkachuk, Jack Eichel, Kucherov, Hedman, etc?

Great goaltending, big physical D, 2 way forwards with several who can lay the wood. That was a well constructed team imo.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Should we try to build our next Cup team like our last cup team? We were an anomaly, and we barely won it requiring multiple game 7s. Round 1, every game but one was a 1-goal game. One wrong bounce and it was just another 1st round loss. There was a special momentum and resiliancy that would be really hard to capture again.

Most cup teams have elite talent, guys routinely in the end of the year award conversations. Can we win again with ROR level guy as opposed to Matt Tkachuk, Jack Eichel, Kucherov, Hedman, etc?

How many awards have Florida guys won? That team is very similar to our Cup team in many ways. It’s a proven model.

 

[LetsGoBooze]

I wonder if Petro would have stayed a lot of these opinions would differ. I can say without a shadow of a doubt, for many, many years Petro was easily our best overall player and especially come playoff time. Some of the years we didnt advance too far, usually due to lack of scoring, Pie would quietly be shutting down the teams opposing top line. I loved the guy. And i still look at our prospects and dont see anyone with quite that ceiling. To me Petro was easily a #1, and i currently have Lindstein toping out at a #2, and Jiri at a #3. Our pool still lacks a truley elite D prospect.

 

[Majorityof1]

I am curious, how would people here classify a successful re-whatever? Is it Cup or bust? Is it regular season success that at a minimum results in 2nd and 3rd round appearances? If we hit the Backes era level of success, is that successful in your eyes?

Cup or bust. Realistically, I want a few seasons where we are one of the big favorites for the cup and have a strong playoffs even if we fall short. Choosing between a) 10 years of 3 seed/wildcard with first/2nd round playoff exits or b) 7 missed playoffs with 3 strong years as favs, I'll take b personally. Obviously the goal is some combo of both but I'd prefer to lean toward deep runs than playoffs every year

 

[TheOrganist]

How many awards have Florida guys won? That team is very similar to our Cup team in many ways. It’s a proven model.

Exactly...Florida's collection of very good, but not elite players just took out two of the best players in the league. I'm not really concerned about margins when it comes to a grueling 4 rounds of hockey and especially in the recent Cap era. There are many teams capable of winning in any given year. I'm all for a really balanced, deep group on both sides of the puck.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Depth, depth, depth. Winning teams need to produce when their best players get shut down and it's difficult to do that when paying big dollars to elite players over an extended period of time. I'd rather have a balanced team of good players who step up when it matters most as opposed to a team that relies on one or two elite stars to carry them.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Feel like we are down playing Barkov, Tkachuk, and Reinhart. Although in the playoffs, there were more of a committee, where everyone chipped in, and one player didn't dominate the scoring.

 

[Majorityof1]

Feel like we are down playing Barkov, Tkachuk, and Reinhart. Although in the playoffs, there were more of a committee, where everyone chipped in, and one player didn't dominate the scoring.

Right. Barkov is a perennial Selke winner not like the one year for ROR. He and Tkachuk both have multiple top 5 Hart finishes. And Reinhart had more goals this year than any Blue ever not named Hull. But sure, same thing.

 

[TheOrganist]

It wasn't that long ago when Barkov was getting criticized for his playoff disappearing act...

 

[Celtic Note]

There’s a certain poster here who is going to get an aneurism from reading that.

Sorry about that, I guess?

 

[Celtic Note]

Feel like we are down playing Barkov, Tkachuk, and Reinhart. Although in the playoffs, there were more of a committee, where everyone chipped in, and one player didn't dominate the scoring.

Barlov has been an elite two-way center for a while now and Tkachuk has solidified that status IMO.
I don’t think we have two players of their caliber. Thomas might be getting close to Barlow, but I don’t think he is there at the moment, nor is he Conn Smyth ROR. Maybe he can become that, but as much as I like the player and I think highly of Thomas, I feel like I would be deluding myself a bit to say he is at their levels currently.

 

[PocketNines]

We should not rewrite history where we consider the championship 2019 team an anomaly. That would be to gaslight ourselves out of an actual proud accomplishment which was that we patiently rooted for the team as it built great depth through the draft and then spend a whole decade before winning the Cup as the West's most winning regular season team. How can the winningest conference team for a decade be an anomaly when its core then drives it to win the Cup? The answer is it cannot, it could only do so in a warped feeling of the self not being worthy. That team was very worthy. An anomaly because it had to "win multiple Game 7s" in the playoffs is an outright absurd way of thinking. The only reason people can't see it is there was this wretch in goal named Allen who almost destroyed a Cup worthy team. He tried. But the team was way too good. There are only 398 players who have played 1,000 games in this league, take a look and speculate how many from that team there will be. That was a legit team through and through. It had an alpha leading it every year from the back end and it was great to have year after year.

 

[Louie the Blue]

We should not rewrite history where we consider the championship 2019 team an anomaly. That would be to gaslight ourselves out of an actual proud accomplishment which was that we patiently rooted for the team as it built great depth through the draft and then spend a whole decade before winning the Cup as the West's most winning regular season team. How can the winningest conference team for a decade be an anomaly when its core then drives it to win the Cup? The answer is it cannot, it could only do so in a warped feeling of the self not being worthy. That team was very worthy. An anomaly because it had to "win multiple Game 7s" in the playoffs is an outright absurd way of thinking. The only reason people can't see it is there was this wretch in goal named Allen who almost destroyed a Cup worthy team. He tried. But the team was way too good. There are only 398 players who have played 1,000 games in this league, take a look and speculate how many from that team there will be. That was a legit team through and through. It had an alpha leading it every year from the back end and it was great to have year after year.

I agree that I do not think 2019 was an anomaly (the performance prior to the bubble the following season would support that notion). However, I do think placing a large amount of blame on Allen is unfair with regards to potentially sabotaging the season. Most of the blame should be placed on Yeo

 

[Reality Czech]

I'm convinced that Army reads HF and is just trolling a particular poster.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1808534563645178204

I pop every time he mentions the actuary table now.

I do think Petro is pretty guaranteed a spot in the Hall. I know Weber was viewed a bit more highly at his peak, where some viewed him as the best in the league, he just never won a Norris, and Petro was a bit below that during his peak, but Petro has multiple Cups and multiple golds with Canada at various events.

Petro is an interesting question. He's right on the border but if he gets in it will be exactly for the reasons you listed. Regarding that Cup team, one could argue that ROR was a top ten player in the league that year, based on being a legit 1C offensively and defensively. Petro was probably our second most important player, but having two top pairs and two #1 caliber lines made the difference. More than any other Cup winning team I can think of, we won via depth and overall team play. No passengers on that team.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I pop every time he mentions the actuary table now.

I don't remember him ever using the term before, and now it's in almost every interview.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I'm about to have that Thomas troll admit that he thinks Schenn is better defensively than Thomas. Brings back memories of some Rangers fans telling me Shattenkirk was better than Petro when they both played here.

 

[Drubilly]

I just listened to Army with BK and Ferrario. It was mentioned almost a half dozen times. I chucked every time.

 

[Shwabeal]

I don't remember him ever using the term before, and now it's in almost every interview.

He said it 2-3 more times when he was on 101 talking about the Buch extension 10 minutes ago.

 

[TheOrganist]

I just listened to Army with BK and Ferrario. It was mentioned almost a half dozen times. I chucked every time.

Did he have anything of interest to say? I caught the recap and he admitted the defense is very “average?”

 

[Blueswin]

I wonder if Petro would have stayed a lot of these opinions would differ. I can say without a shadow of a doubt, for many, many years Petro was easily our best overall player and especially come playoff time. Some of the years we didnt advance too far, usually due to lack of scoring, Pie would quietly be shutting down the teams opposing top line. I loved the guy. And i still look at our prospects and dont see anyone with quite that ceiling. To me Petro was easily a #1, and i currently have Lindstein toping out at a #2, and Jiri at a #3. Our pool still lacks a truley elite D prospect.

You might also remember that earlier in the year fans were wondering how we could unload Petro because he was playing so bad until they went on a run. I think the most impactful players were O' Reilly, Binnington & the shut down pair of Bow & Parayko. Petro was not the mvp of the playoffs when we won.

 

[SirPaste]

You might also remember that earlier in the year fans were wondering how we could unload Petro because he was playing so bad until they went on a run. I think the most impactful players were O' Reilly, Binnington & the shut down pair of Bow & Parayko. Petro was not the mvp of the playoffs when we won.

This is just a crazy take to me but to each their own. Petro was insane in that cup run.

 

[sfvega]

Lindstein and Jiricek will need to be more than top 4 guys. They need to be top pair players, with one being a #1D. I like both prospects quite a lot, but that seems like is the absolute pinnacle of their potential.

At forward I like a great deal of our players, particularly given where they were drafted. Our scouting staff has done a pretty fantastic job of getting great value for where our picks have landed (imagine what they could do with actual high picks). BUT, the system still lacks top level talent. We have very good talent. There are plenty of guys I am excited to see play. I don’t however see guys I am confident projects high enough that they would ever fall into elite company.

If we are not going to have an elite D, then we need elite forwards. If we are not going to have elite forwards, then we need elite D. To date, I am not seeing anyone on the team nor in the system that projects as an elite player. Maybe one of Thomas or Kyrou can make a big step, but I am not super confident in that. I think Thomas is pretty close to the player he will become. Kyrou has room to grow, but unless his offense reaches the next level, it might be a stretch.

Finding that player via trade seems like a low probability. And finding that trade without giving up a ton a value is even lower.

I agree with you and Thallis. I like Lindstein, more than Jiricek even. I don't think I'm low on Jiricek, but I do think in a better class that he's closer to pick 25 than to pick 10. I think that Jiricek is probably a #3, maybe a low-end #2 if development goes well. I think Lindstein is a relatively safe #3 with the potential to become a legit #2. But I could see Jiricek becoming a #4 more than I can see him becoming a #1, and I think there's a good chance that only 1 of them develops into a top pairing D and a higher than we want to think chance that they're both #3s.

If Jiricek can blossom into something more resembling his brother, then we're set. But I don't think we should be planning around thag happening. And the projected D class next year is thin atthe top again, and it's likely we miss out on the blue chips like we did this year. There's still significant work to be done on D IMO.

 

[LetsGoBooze]

You might also remember that earlier in the year fans were wondering how we could unload Petro because he was playing so bad until they went on a run. I think the most impactful players were O' Reilly, Binnington & the shut down pair of Bow & Parayko. Petro was not the mvp of the playoffs when we won.

Unless it was the uninformed Twitter folks or FB posters i dont ever remember anyone thinking moving Petro was the answer. He was still in his prime for D age in 2019. I do however remember the frustration of that team not performing early season and everyone having their own takes on how to fix the issue. Moving a 29 yearold franchise Dman at the time wouldn't even have been on my list of how to go about 'fixing' that eventual Cup winner. As far as the MVP of our cup run i think thats easily up for debate, we had such a deep team with different guys stepping up in different series i do think it's hard to name one singular MVP. Definitely a great TEAM win.