2024-2025 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread.

[Snubbed4Vezina]

https://bluenatics.stlouisblues.com/activity/677d6915ea278d0001297d8a

Early 90s Dark Blue (Road) is #1 for me

That with #16 on it is the only Blues jersey I own and will ever own.

 

[Xerloris]

Edit: Bannister also had to deal with the awful Buch at C experiment. So we had our 2nd or 3rd best forward neutered by Armstrong as I assume that came from the top down.

The Coach is who decides who plays what, not Armstrong. Armstrong has said as much previously and Monty said as far as he's concerned Buch is a winger, so sounds more like Bannister being an awful coach is who made himself deal with Buch as a C.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Dom from the Athletic released his Player Cards for the season, and looking at the Blues ones, I......actually agree with pretty much all of them, including the sub-breakdowns. It looks like his model is finally to a point where it's mostly defensible. For those who are unaware, his Net Rating is basically a different way of looking at GSVA or "WAR for hockey." He splits up Offensive and Defensive ratings, and then combines them into a "Net Rating." He breaks down Forward categories into Top 5, Top 10, Elite, 1st line, 2nd line, 3rd line, and 4th line. For D it's Top 5, Top 10, Number 1, 1st Pair, 2nd Pair, and 3rd Pair. Here are how our players stack up.

Forwards:

Elite - Thomas and Kyrou
1st Liner - Holloway (Borderline Elite) and Buch
2nd Liner - Bolduc (Predicted to regress to 3rd liner) and Schenn
3rd Liner - Saad and Neighbors
4th Liner - Texier, Walker, Joseph, Faksa, and Toro

A noticeable absence on this list is Sundquivst, which I assume is because he's so terrible that Dom doesn't even bother to rate him. All these rankings track with what I would rate our players as too - This team is carried pretty hard offensively by Thomas and Kyrou, with Holloway and to a lesser extent Buch providing decent offense as well. Schenn has held down the 2C role for the last 15-20 games well enough with our two best wingers playing on his flanks and helping to buoy him. Bolduc hasn't looked out of place, in fact he popped when playing with another one of our top forwards (Holloway) but since Holloway was elevated to the top 6, Bolduc hasn't been able to drive play on his own. Neighbors and Saad have been decent, but somewhat underwhelming. Texier, Walker, Joseph, Faksa, and Toro are all basically guys filling space. Sunny is legit cooked, he should probably be in the pressbox most nights, but unless we want to elevate Faksa, we have no one else to play Center.

From a team building perspective, I've become pretty comfortable with the idea that Thomas as a 1C and then Kyrou/Holloway/Buch as top 6 Wingers is a good start towards contention. Dom's model agrees with that assessment. Schenn, if he can meet this level of play (Even if we have to give him our two best wingers) is "good enough" as the 2C. We are clearly lacking a fourth Top 6 Winger, but I'm very hopeful that one of Neighbors/Bolduc/Snuggy/Stenberg or one of our later picks pop and turns into that guy. I think Schenn is decent enough as the 2C, but to really build out a strong forward contending core we need a better 2C, thus pushing down Schenn to 3C, much like how we went into 2018-2019 thinking our top 6 Centers would be Schenn/Bozak, and then we made the ROR deal and pushed Bozak to 3C, giving us amazing depth at that position.

For D it goes like this:

Number 1 - Broberg (He's expected to regress to Top Pair)
Top Pair - Parayko
2nd Pair - Fowler (A lot of this is driven by his Anaheim data), Suter, and Peru
3rd Pair - Faulk (Expected to bounce up to 2nd pair)

Tucker isn't rated, probably because Dom doesn't have enough data. I get that Peru seems weird in the 2nd Pair ranking, but it makes sense - Dom shows that he's probably one of the most sheltered D-man in the league, and with that caveat still only breaks even defensively, but in that role he heavily drives offense. Broberg has been a revelation, and has been crushing his minutes, but he's also been fairly heavily sheltered. He has slid into the Krug role of the 21-22 team when Krug/Faulk had sheltered minutes, but destroyed them. Faulk hasn't been up to snuff so far this year, but his track record gives him a chance to rebound according to the model.

Finally we have Parayko, who has his ups and downs. He's shown excellent individual metrics for things such as goals/assists/points, blocking shots, and not taking penalties. He plays against some of the best competition night in and night out, but he doesn't drive offense and he grades out very poorly on the PP (Obviously with limited useage) but especially the PK, which at this point I think is fair. He's been our top PK D-man for the last three years (Which is what the model looks at) and our PK has been the third worst in the league over that span. That's with three different head coaches, and none of them could make it work with Parayko as our top PK D-man. Last year, Binny was the fourth best PK goalie in the league, stopping 11.37 goals above expected, and Hofer was ranked 38th, at 3.2 above expected, and we STILL had a bottom-half-of-the-league PK. Parayko leaves a lot to be desired on special teams.

Anyway, I thought I'd share all this

 

[Brian39]

Finally we have Parayko, who has his ups and downs. He's shown excellent individual metrics for things such as goals/assists/points, blocking shots, and not taking penalties. He plays against some of the best competition night in and night out, but he doesn't drive offense and he grades out very poorly on the PP (Obviously with limited useage) but especially the PK, which at this point I think is fair. He's been our top PK D-man for the last three years (Which is what the model looks at) and our PK has been the third worst in the league over that span. That's with three different head coaches, and none of them could make it work with Parayko as our top PK D-man. Last year, Binny was the fourth best PK goalie in the league, stopping 11.37 goals above expected, and Hofer was ranked 38th, at 3.2 above expected, and we STILL had a bottom-half-of-the-league PK. Parayko leaves a lot to be desired on special teams.

Anyway, I thought I'd share all this

Just to focus on Parayko and the PK, I don't view our crappy PK as an indictment on Parayko. Yes, he has been the top PK guy, but what other D men have we had on the PK who are well-suited for it?

Parayko has 483 PK minutes since the start of the 2022/23 season. Leddy and Faulk are at 345 minutes and 305 minutes. 4th on the team is Scandella with 116 minutes. Suter has been here for half a season and is 5th with 94 minutes, just a few seconds ahead of Krug at 6th with 94 minutes.

How many of those guys were well-regarded for their PK ability before joining the Blues? Leddy well exceeded my expectations, but he was the other D on the top PK unit for 2 straight years and that is not an area of perceived strength. I don't think that the unit being bad is necessarily an indictment of the D man who got the most minutes when the other guys out there aren't known as good defensive defenders. For years we filled our blueline with an emphasis on skills that don't do much for a PK. "Who the hell is going to kill penalties for this team" was a frequent question and that wasn't targeted at Parayko.

 

[LGB]

Just to focus on Parayko and the PK, I don't view our crappy PK as an indictment on Parayko. Yes, he has been the top PK guy, but what other D men have we had on the PK who are well-suited for it?

Parayko has 483 PK minutes since the start of the 2022/23 season. Leddy and Faulk are at 345 minutes and 305 minutes. 4th on the team is Scandella with 116 minutes. Suter has been here for half a season and is 5th with 94 minutes, just a few seconds ahead of Krug at 6th with 94 minutes.

How many of those guys were well-regarded for their PK ability before joining the Blues? Leddy well exceeded my expectations, but he was the other D on the top PK unit for 2 straight years and that is not an area of perceived strength. I don't think that the unit being bad is necessarily an indictment of the D man who got the most minutes when the other guys out there aren't known as good defensive defenders. For years we filled our blueline with an emphasis on skills that don't do much for a PK. "Who the hell is going to kill penalties for this team" was a frequent question and that wasn't targeted at Parayko.

Agree that Parayko isn't the issue on the PK, but I do think Leddy is, who Parayko has generally been paired with. Way too passive.

 

[A Real Barn Burner]

Dom from the Athletic released his Player Cards for the season, and looking at the Blues ones, I......actually agree with pretty much all of them, including the sub-breakdowns. It looks like his model is finally to a point where it's mostly defensible. For those who are unaware, his Net Rating is basically a different way of looking at GSVA or "WAR for hockey." He splits up Offensive and Defensive ratings, and then combines them into a "Net Rating." He breaks down Forward categories into Top 5, Top 10, Elite, 1st line, 2nd line, 3rd line, and 4th line. For D it's Top 5, Top 10, Number 1, 1st Pair, 2nd Pair, and 3rd Pair. Here are how our players stack up.

Forwards:

Elite - Thomas and Kyrou
1st Liner - Holloway (Borderline Elite) and Buch
2nd Liner - Bolduc (Predicted to regress to 3rd liner) and Schenn
3rd Liner - Saad and Neighbors
4th Liner - Texier, Walker, Joseph, Faksa, and Toro

A noticeable absence on this list is Sundquivst, which I assume is because he's so terrible that Dom doesn't even bother to rate him. All these rankings track with what I would rate our players as too - This team is carried pretty hard offensively by Thomas and Kyrou, with Holloway and to a lesser extent Buch providing decent offense as well. Schenn has held down the 2C role for the last 15-20 games well enough with our two best wingers playing on his flanks and helping to buoy him. Bolduc hasn't looked out of place, in fact he popped when playing with another one of our top forwards (Holloway) but since Holloway was elevated to the top 6, Bolduc hasn't been able to drive play on his own. Neighbors and Saad have been decent, but somewhat underwhelming. Texier, Walker, Joseph, Faksa, and Toro are all basically guys filling space. Sunny is legit cooked, he should probably be in the pressbox most nights, but unless we want to elevate Faksa, we have no one else to play Center.

From a team building perspective, I've become pretty comfortable with the idea that Thomas as a 1C and then Kyrou/Holloway/Buch as top 6 Wingers is a good start towards contention. Dom's model agrees with that assessment. Schenn, if he can meet this level of play (Even if we have to give him our two best wingers) is "good enough" as the 2C. We are clearly lacking a fourth Top 6 Winger, but I'm very hopeful that one of Neighbors/Bolduc/Snuggy/Stenberg or one of our later picks pop and turns into that guy. I think Schenn is decent enough as the 2C, but to really build out a strong forward contending core we need a better 2C, thus pushing down Schenn to 3C, much like how we went into 2018-2019 thinking our top 6 Centers would be Schenn/Bozak, and then we made the ROR deal and pushed Bozak to 3C, giving us amazing depth at that position.

For D it goes like this:

Number 1 - Broberg (He's expected to regress to Top Pair)
Top Pair - Parayko
2nd Pair - Fowler (A lot of this is driven by his Anaheim data), Suter, and Peru
3rd Pair - Faulk (Expected to bounce up to 2nd pair)

Tucker isn't rated, probably because Dom doesn't have enough data. I get that Peru seems weird in the 2nd Pair ranking, but it makes sense - Dom shows that he's probably one of the most sheltered D-man in the league, and with that caveat still only breaks even defensively, but in that role he heavily drives offense. Broberg has been a revelation, and has been crushing his minutes, but he's also been fairly heavily sheltered. He has slid into the Krug role of the 21-22 team when Krug/Faulk had sheltered minutes, but destroyed them. Faulk hasn't been up to snuff so far this year, but his track record gives him a chance to rebound according to the model.

Finally we have Parayko, who has his ups and downs. He's shown excellent individual metrics for things such as goals/assists/points, blocking shots, and not taking penalties. He plays against some of the best competition night in and night out, but he doesn't drive offense and he grades out very poorly on the PP (Obviously with limited useage) but especially the PK, which at this point I think is fair. He's been our top PK D-man for the last three years (Which is what the model looks at) and our PK has been the third worst in the league over that span. That's with three different head coaches, and none of them could make it work with Parayko as our top PK D-man. Last year, Binny was the fourth best PK goalie in the league, stopping 11.37 goals above expected, and Hofer was ranked 38th, at 3.2 above expected, and we STILL had a bottom-half-of-the-league PK. Parayko leaves a lot to be desired on special teams.

Anyway, I thought I'd share all this

Awesome breakdown! In regards to Bolduc, I would really like to see him take the other spot on Thomas’ wing. He was flying earlier this year with Holloway and I think he would shine there. However, a third line of Saad, Sunny, and Neighbors sound horrible lol.

The third line seems to be our Achilles heel at this point. Any insight on those player breakdowns on a better way to mix the bottom six? Can Texier or anyone play center and give Sunny a break? How does he rate Faska, Toropchenko, and Walker?

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Just to focus on Parayko and the PK, I don't view our crappy PK as an indictment on Parayko. Yes, he has been the top PK guy, but what other D men have we had on the PK who are well-suited for it?

Parayko has 483 PK minutes since the start of the 2022/23 season. Leddy and Faulk are at 345 minutes and 305 minutes. 4th on the team is Scandella with 116 minutes. Suter has been here for half a season and is 5th with 94 minutes, just a few seconds ahead of Krug at 6th with 94 minutes.

How many of those guys were well-regarded for their PK ability before joining the Blues? Leddy well exceeded my expectations, but he was the other D on the top PK unit for 2 straight years and that is not an area of perceived strength. I don't think that the unit being bad is necessarily an indictment of the D man who got the most minutes when the other guys out there aren't known as good defensive defenders. For years we filled our blueline with an emphasis on skills that don't do much for a PK. "Who the hell is going to kill penalties for this team" was a frequent question and that wasn't targeted at Parayko.

Faulk played a ton of minutes on the PK for a Carolina team that was within the top 10 PK units during his tenure (Top 5 for a 4 year stretch when he was averaging over 2 minutes a game). Suter has always played a ton of PK minutes for teams with good PKs - Nashville (Top 10 while he was there), Minn. (Top half during his tenure) and recently Dallas (Top 5 while he was there). Scandella was basically your classic, third pairing PK specialist D-man. Krug had around the same per/60 TOI with us as he did with Boston, when they had a top 5 PK league wide. Leddy is the one guy you list who didn't have a background of killing penalties on a good PK team before he got here. Binner has played at an elite level on the PK over the last three years. Yet even with all that, our PK has been bottom 3 in the league.

I mean at what point is Parayko held accountable? We've had players that have all had success on the PK on other teams, outside Leddy. We've had exceptional goaltending. We've had three head coaches in the last three years. Yet we're still bottom 3 in the league. I think a lot of that should fall at Parayko's feet, the deal with him has always been we'll accept the lack of offense for exceptional defensive play, and he hasn't provided that on the PK.

 

[Reality Czech]

We earned 19 points through 22 games under Bannister with a .432 points percentage that was 26th in the NHL. We have earned 27 points in 23 games under Monty with a .587 points percentage that is 12th in the league over that stretch. That's the difference between a 71 point pace and a 96 point pace. The improvement through Monty's first 23 games has been drastically better than the improvement through Berube's first 23 games in 2018/19. The Blues were on pace for 73 points when they fired Yeo and played at an 82 point pace for Berube's first 23 games. Going from a .432 points percentage to a .587 points percentage is massive improvement.

We had a -22 goal differential under Bannister. We have a +14 goal differential under Monty.

We scored 2.36 goals per game under Bannister (30th in the league). We have scored 3.22 goals per game under Monty (8th in the league)

We allowed 3.36 goals per game under Bannister (25th in the league). We have allowed 2.61 goals per game under Monty (9th in the league).

Our xGF% at 5 on 5 was 45.86% (26th in the league). It is 51.21% under Monty (13th in the league).

Both the results and underlying numbers have substantially improved since the coaching change. We played like a bottom 7 team under Bannister and we've played like an above average team under Monty. It is simply not true that we haven't been much better than we were under Bannister.


I vehemently disagree that the team demonstrating massive improvement but being unable to dig out of the early hole is the absolute worst result to a season. The climb from 'not close to good enough' to 'contender' doesn't happen overnight, from one player, or from one single transaction. You have to make multiple acquisitions and upgrades. I have zero issue with the draft pick falling 5-10 positions if it did so because we upgraded at coach, saw development from multiple key young guys, kept the goalies we trust, and improved the supporting cast around the shifting core.

Nice numbers but it also bears mentioning that we had 31 points over Bannister's first 23 games. So hopefully Monty can continue to trend up once the new coach bump wears off, if it hasn't already.

 

[Stealth JD]

Dom from the Athletic released his Player Cards for the season...It looks like his model is finally to a point where it's mostly defensible.

'Defensible' other than the fact he has John Marino rated as league-MVP level? That right there leads me to believe that the whole exercise is garbage.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Awesome breakdown! In regards to Bolduc, I would really like to see him take the other spot on Thomas’ wing. He was flying earlier this year with Holloway and I think he would shine there. However, a third line of Saad, Sunny, and Neighbors sound horrible lol.

The third line seems to be our Achilles heel at this point. Any insight on those player breakdowns on a better way to mix the bottom six? Can Texier or anyone play center and give Sunny a break? How does he rate Faska, Toropchenko, and Walker?

Thank you! I agree, the third line is struggling right now, which isn't unexpected for a team that's trying to retool.

Neighbors Net Rating is -3, which sounds bad, but grades out to the average third liner. His Offensive rating is -2 and his Defensive rating is -1. For reference, a -2 O rating is actually seen as kind of a 2nd/3rd line tweener. A -1 D rating is considered 4th line defensive impact. So while Neighbors is overall grading out to be an average third liner, his offensive impacts grade out higher, while his defensive impacts grade out lower. Obviously most of Neighbors' value comes from scoring goals. The model expects him to score 21 goals, which is in the top half of the league. Where Neighbors struggles is that he doesn't play against particularly high difficulty quality of competition (Right around the midpoint in the league), and even with that sheltering, is terrible at driving play, coming in at the bottom 10% of all players. He doesn't grade out as an above average passer, and while he does impact the PP much more then regular 5v5 play, that's not enough. He also doesn't really draw penalties, while, due to his rough and tumble nature, picks them up. Defensively, he gets a good amount of value from being willing to block shots (As we saw last night) putting him in the top 25% of all forwards for blocked shots. He also grades out fairly well on the PK, for the little time he gets there, but overall his defensive metrics at 5v5 put him in the bottom 20% of the league.

In short, the model basically tells us what seems to be the consensus on this board - Neighbors is a heart and soul type guy who's willing to put his body on the line and fight his way into the dirty areas - but his lack of footspeed, puck skills, and overall IQ (At least up until now) have not unlocked a dangerous offensive player. The Brendan Morrow comp is a good one.

Saad is also at a Net Rating of -3, and also grades out as a -2 O and a -1 D - but gets to those differently. From a straight production standpoint, he's actually very similiar to Neighbors. Saad is projected to score 17 goals and 34 points to Neighbors 21 goals and 37 points. Saad actually plays against lower QoC then Neighbors on offense, but drives play better overall. He is less effective on the PP then Neighbors (Yep lol) and blocks far less shots. A lot of his value comes from drawing penalties (But not taking them), as well as playing against much MUCH higher QoC defensively then Neighbors, while having about the same impacts. Saad, for what little he plays on the PK, grades out well, about the same as Neighbors.

Again, I think the model is showing us what our eyes would see from this season of Saad. He no longer is an acceptable defensive player, but since he's a vet he gets tougher matchups. He doesn't drive play, but can generate some offense through his own ability. He doesn't elevate his linemates.

As for the others, they are almost all carbon copies of each other, with the exception of Texier. Tex is basically a third line offensive player with AHL defensive metrics. Walker/Toro/Faksa/Joseph are all 4th liners offensively with varying degrees of defensive capability ranging from pretty damn good (Walker/Toro) to good (Joseph) to average (Faksa) for a 4th liner.

'Defensible' other than the fact he has John Marino rated as league-MVP level? That right there leads me to believe that the whole exercise is garbage.

Yea I think he needs to filter games played better - Marino played one game (And he did great!) but that should get filtered out lol. Overall I think his work makes a good amount of sense.

 

[Reality Czech]

Faulk played a ton of minutes on the PK for a Carolina team that was within the top 10 PK units during his tenure (Top 5 for a 4 year stretch when he was averaging over 2 minutes a game). Suter has always played a ton of PK minutes for teams with good PKs - Nashville (Top 10 while he was there), Minn. (Top half during his tenure) and recently Dallas (Top 5 while he was there). Scandella was basically your classic, third pairing PK specialist D-man. Krug had around the same per/60 TOI with us as he did with Boston, when they had a top 5 PK league wide. Leddy is the one guy you list who didn't have a background of killing penalties on a good PK team before he got here. Binner has played at an elite level on the PK over the last three years. Yet even with all that, our PK has been bottom 3 in the league.

I mean at what point is Parayko held accountable? We've had players that have all had success on the PK on other teams, outside Leddy. We've had exceptional goaltending. We've had three head coaches in the last three years. Yet we're still bottom 3 in the league. I think a lot of that should fall at Parayko's feet, the deal with him has always been we'll accept the lack of offense for exceptional defensive play, and he hasn't provided that on the PK.

It's hard for me to hold one player "accountable" for a below average PK any more than one guy can make it elite. It takes a four man unit to have a good PK and an effective system or gameplan to make it work. Even the best defender in the world won't make much difference if the other the guys aren't doing their jobs or of the system itself is flawed.

Regarding Dom's player cards, what data is he using to come up with these evaluations? I don't really put much weight into anything he puts out there but I'm just curious.

 

[SirPaste]

Awesome breakdown! In regards to Bolduc, I would really like to see him take the other spot on Thomas’ wing. He was flying earlier this year with Holloway and I think he would shine there. However, a third line of Saad, Sunny, and Neighbors sound horrible lol.

The third line seems to be our Achilles heel at this point. Any insight on those player breakdowns on a better way to mix the bottom six? Can Texier or anyone play center and give Sunny a break? How does he rate Faska, Toropchenko, and Walker?

I agree I think Bolduc has looked solid and deserves a chance to play with a different center other than Sunny, he drags down the entire line IMO. I would love to see him get a shot with Thomas but looks like Neighbours is back up there for the time being. Don't see Monty messing with the 2nd line for now as they have been very good. Really no other option unless they would sit Sunny but like you mentioned there is nobody to take that 3C spot.

 

[A Real Barn Burner]

Thank you! I agree, the third line is struggling right now, which isn't unexpected for a team that's trying to retool.

I agree I think Bolduc has looked solid and deserves a chance to play with a different center other than Sunny, he drags down the entire line IMO. I would love to see him get a shot with Thomas but looks like Neighbours is back up there for the time being. Don't see Monty messing with the 2nd line for now as they have been very good. Really no other option unless they would sit Sunny but like you mentioned there is nobody to take that 3C spot.

Crazy idea, but what if we just scratched Sunny and split those minutes between Thomas, Scheen, and Faska. I doubt Thomas could do aa full 12 minutes more ice time but the idea would be to basically double shift Thomas as much as possible with the third line.

Could allow us to dress 7D and use Scotty P on the powerplay as QB.

Either that or Armstrong needs to find a cheap 3C/4C in a trade.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

It's hard for me to hold one player "accountable" for a below average PK any more than one guy can make it elite. It takes a four man unit to have a good PK and an effective system or gameplan to make it work. Even the best defender in the world won't make much difference if the other the guys aren't doing their jobs or of the system itself is flawed.

Regarding Dom's player cards, what data is he using to come up with these evaluations? I don't really put much weight into anything he puts out there but I'm just curious.

Here is the snippet I took of him describing his metrics:

He's tweaked the model a number of times since he made it, most notably after 2019 towards valuing defense more when the Blues won the Cup against the Bruins (Another top defensive team that season), as well as last year when people such as Blues and Red Wing fans felt that players like Parayko/Seider weren't being captured accurately and he did more to capture usage and QoC.

I think the overall metrics do bear out that Parayko has been poor on the PK. Looking at 22-23 for instance, our top 5 D men in terms of TOI for the PK were Parayko, Leddy, Faulk, Krug, and Scandella, in that order. Yet outside of Leddy, Parayko had the highest xGF/60 of all our D-men at 9.93:

Ok, so maybe Leddy is bad on the PK. Well let's take a look at this year then, where Leddy has been out since game 3. Our top 5 D-men PKers this year by overall icetime:

Parayko is giving up an extra expected goal per/60 compared to every other big minute D-man. Is his usage harder? Probably. But that's why he's getting paid what he's getting paid. We aren't paying him 6.5M because he can light it up like a 2-way guy, we're paying him because he's supposed to be the backbone of our D. At 5v5, he does hold up to that, but on the PK, he leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[PocketNines]

Did he make any comments squaring how a top pair defenseman making 6.5M is the 4th worst contract in the league this year, up from 9th last year or whatever it was?

I mean the guy was only off by 500-600 spots or so, did this come up?

 

[bleedblue1223]

Parayko is the only one that will always be used against the top PP unit. I wouldn't disagree that Parayko might be part of the issue, but I've always viewed PK and PP as more of team/system issues as opposed to individual issues.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

@Brian39, I never really clarified what I think the Blues contending timeline looks like.

I certainly don't claim that any Cup contention window is predicated upon Lindstein and Jiricek's progress. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that DA could bring in one or two more players that fit with the rest of the predicted, future roster. Holloway and Broberg have sped up our rebuild. Similar moves could and probably will happen to further speed up the rebuild toward a contending window that is sooner than my expectations.

Contending sooner most likely means a few young players have found immediate success with the Blues. But it also could mean DA traded some promising players for a couple studs who will take the team over the top toward strong playoff showings. Or...or....or.....lots of scenarios....

The Blues have to integrate Dvorsky, Stenberg and Snuggerud in the next 1-2 seasons along with other forwards needing to be integrated over the next 3-4 seasons. I doubt we keep them all. Add to that our young D.

If DA doesn't pull another HollyBro or two, then the Blues contending window will not be serious until maybe the 28-29 season. Even then, Lindstein and Jiricek are just getting started, provided their both still with the team.

The more I write and think about this, the more everything changes. A timeline prediction is only as good as the strength of perception agreements.

 

[Brian39]

Faulk played a ton of minutes on the PK for a Carolina team that was within the top 10 PK units during his tenure (Top 5 for a 4 year stretch when he was averaging over 2 minutes a game). Suter has always played a ton of PK minutes for teams with good PKs - Nashville (Top 10 while he was there), Minn. (Top half during his tenure) and recently Dallas (Top 5 while he was there). Scandella was basically your classic, third pairing PK specialist D-man. Krug had around the same per/60 TOI with us as he did with Boston, when they had a top 5 PK league wide. Leddy is the one guy you list who didn't have a background of killing penalties on a good PK team before he got here. Binner has played at an elite level on the PK over the last three years. Yet even with all that, our PK has been bottom 3 in the league.

I mean at what point is Parayko held accountable? We've had players that have all had success on the PK on other teams, outside Leddy. We've had exceptional goaltending. We've had three head coaches in the last three years. Yet we're still bottom 3 in the league. I think a lot of that should fall at Parayko's feet, the deal with him has always been we'll accept the lack of offense for exceptional defensive play, and he hasn't provided that on the PK.

That's fair about guys being part of quality units. However, Leddy is the one Parayko's played with. From 2022/23 through 2023/24 Parayko played 278 shorthanded minutes with Leddy. He didn't play more than 35 minutes with any other defender.

Our PK was 5th in the league in 2021/22 when Parayko led the team in PK ice time and played the bulk of his PK minutes with Scandella/Mikkola. Then we exclusively paired him with Leddy for 2 years and the results on the PK were bad. Leddy's injury (and changes to the lineup) have changed the pairs. And while the PK has been bad overall, Suter-Parayko have been pretty good together as a pair.

We've allowed 8 shorthanded goals against in the 74:48 shorthanded minutes Parayko and Suter have played together. That 74:48 is 42% of the team's total PK time this season and those 8 goals against are just 28% of the shorthanded goals we've allowed this year. It's a goal against roughly every 9:20 worth of shorthanded time they've been on the ice together, which is right in line with an average PK. When Parayko and Suter on paired together on the PK, the unit does just fine.

The issue this year is that the PK has been a disaster when they aren't together. When neither (or only 1 of them) is on the ice, the PK gets scored on every 5 minutes. 21 goals against in 105 minutes.

I don't see much accountability/blame to lay at his feet. Give him a partner on the top PK unit that is also a plus defensive defender and he does a good job. Ask him to carry a guy ill-suited for the PK and the unit struggles. I think that's going to be true of most guys. I don't think his defensive skillset is as effective on the PK as it is at 5 on 5, but he is among the least of my concerns on the PK.