2024-2025 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread.

I was raised in Indiana, home of the Hoosiers

You have no idea how much this makes the majority of your posts finally make sense.
I can confidently say that I'm not a hoosier Blues fan, but I absolutely will be rooting for team USA to light Binner up on Saturday. And hopefully again in the championship game.

I only care about national tournaments to throw support behind Blues players, Ever since they started allowing professionals to participate in the Olympics the international scene just lost all value to me.
 
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No - I think 11M is way too high for Dobson. I'd prefer 8.5, but I'd be willing to go up to 9.5. Anything above 10 is very hard for me to swallow, even with the cap rising. 9Mx8 1 for 1 though? Yea in a f***ing New York minute.

I agree with you that he's pretty damn good 5v5. But again, he's been downright shit on the PK for the last 3+ years (I know your feelings on this and we can agree to disagree, but I think he's been bad) and he's not good enough (Dynamic enough?) offensively to crack a PP that was at times the worst PP in the league. I put a lot of stock into 5v5 metrics, but the fact that he's been a major drag on special teams drops him down for me.

I like Parayko, but I think he's far too comfortable with the off-the-glass-and-out when he's under any type of pressure. For me, he's a big reason why we haven't been more successful. Top guys can beat forechecks and transition the puck up the ice, either with passing or skating. Parayko consistently can't. Yes, he gets very difficult deployment - but so do certain other players, like Seider, McDonagh, Forsling, Tanev, Pelech, Gavrikov, and Slavin, and they significantly outperform him.

I disagree that he personally has been shit on the PK. Of the 20 defensive pairs with at least 75 minutes on the PK, Parayko and Suter are 7th in xGA/60.

Of the 23 with at least 125 minutes last season, Leddy/Parayko were 18th. Basically since Bouwmeester was forced to retire, Parayko has just played with flawed PK partners. Bouwmeester and Parayko were elite, and Suter is still capable defensively. Guys like Leddy and Fowler were never meant to be on the PK, especially the top unit.
 
Looking at the PK stats, Leddy and Broberg have their expected vs actual jump out as pretty bad, but it's because their TOI is pretty low, but Broberg's is crazy. Broberg has 7.4 xGA, and his actual goals against is 14.

Hofer's xGA during PK is 8.44 and he's allowed 14. Binnington has 23.37 xGA and has allowed 25.
 
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And to the PK posts, another thing I want to add for when Army/Steen make plans for the 25/26 defense, I think we are at the point or closer to the point where we can focus on the specialists a bit more. Whether we bring Suter back or he's replaced with someone else, we are seeing the benefit of a 3rd pair guy that can be a PK specialist. Adding Fowler and Broberg to the group, our 5v5 units have been upgraded, and we probably have the luxury again of getting a PP specialist that we can properly shelter.

Looking at the PP xGF/60 stats are probably a bit more harder to analyze for what we need, of dmen with 25+ minutes of PP time, Faulk is 14th, Fowler is 21st, and Parayko is 27th. That's out of 87 dmen. All of their actual results are a lot worse.

We basically have to go back to 21-22 for when we had a dmen with good expected and actual results, but that's also when we had better forward talent. I think getting shooters like Dvorsky and Snuggerud developed will boost because that's an area that we are lacking, but a real PP QB is another area we should be looking at.
 
I’m looking forward to watching the first game of the tournament tonight.

As an American, I’m rooting for Canada all the way because of Parayko and Binnington. I hope they excel. Team USA really means nothing to me.
 
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I’m looking forward to watching the first game of the tournament tonight.

As an American, I’m rooting for Canada all the way because of Parayko and Binnington. I hope they excel. Team USA really means nothing to me.
In the same boat, couldn't really care less about this USA team, just rooting for Blues players
 
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Parayko hasn't even been close to being a top 10 D-man this season.

Werenski, Fox, Carlson, Makar, Harley, Morrissey, Hughes, Bouchard, Ekholm, Theodore, Dahlin, and Hedman are all head and shoulders above Parayko. There's a middle tier between Parayko and those guys as well, with names like Heiskanen, Toews, Josi, Weegar, Hronek, Dobson, Slavin, Mcdonagh, Seider, Forsling, Lindholm, and Chabot.

And those are just the guys I'm 100% confident in saying are playing better then Parayko this year, but I think guys like Sanderson, McAvoy, Samberg, Sergachev, Pionk, and Mcnabb are all playing better then him as well.

He's having a career season from a counting standpoint, but he affects the game far less then all the guys above. He doesn't drive offense and he's not good enough to play on our PP that's been desperate for a QB all season. He's also the primary D for the league's worst PK.

I like Parayko a lot, but I'd trade him 1 for 1 for any of those top guys wtihout blinking, and almost alll of those secondary guys too, with a couple exceptions.
Something tells me that you don't watch all of those listed players on a regular basis (not many Blues fans actually do) or just like to be hyperbolic...
 
No - I think 11M is way too high for Dobson. I'd prefer 8.5, but I'd be willing to go up to 9.5. Anything above 10 is very hard for me to swallow, even with the cap rising. 9Mx8 1 for 1 though? Yea in a f***ing New York minute.

I agree with you that he's pretty damn good 5v5. But again, he's been downright shit on the PK for the last 3+ years (I know your feelings on this and we can agree to disagree, but I think he's been bad) and he's not good enough (Dynamic enough?) offensively to crack a PP that was at times the worst PP in the league. I put a lot of stock into 5v5 metrics, but the fact that he's been a major drag on special teams drops him down for me.

I like Parayko, but I think he's far too comfortable with the off-the-glass-and-out when he's under any type of pressure. For me, he's a big reason why we haven't been more successful. Top guys can beat forechecks and transition the puck up the ice, either with passing or skating. Parayko consistently can't. Yes, he gets very difficult deployment - but so do certain other players, like Seider, McDonagh, Forsling, Tanev, Pelech, Gavrikov, and Slavin, and they significantly outperform him.
How has Parayko dragged the PK down? I'm genuinely curious to hear this one...And I'm happy to compare/contrast Parayko with Slavin, which I have done many times. You mentioned that Parayko isn't dynamic enough offensively, but he and Slavin are actually neck and neck.

Parayko 288 points in 714 games (0.403 ppg)
Slavin 292 points in 721 games (0.404 ppg)

The grass is always greener on the other side, my friend.
 
No - I think 11M is way too high for Dobson. I'd prefer 8.5, but I'd be willing to go up to 9.5. Anything above 10 is very hard for me to swallow, even with the cap rising. 9Mx8 1 for 1 though? Yea in a f***ing New York minute.
Why on Earth would he sign for that?

$9M AAV will be 9.42% of next year's cap. Owen Power recently got 9.49% of the cap coming off his ELC and a 35 point career-high season. Jake Sanderson recently got 9.15% of the cap coming off his ELC and a rookie 32 point season. Dobson is significantly closer to UFA with a better resume.

Sergachev got 10.18% of the cap coming off a bridge deal with a career-best 38 point season (plus a 44 point pace in the 56 game COVID season). He was in a similar position where he only needed 1 more year post-bridge-deal to reach UFA status. I think Dobson can pretty credibly argue that his resume is better than Sergachev's was at the time of extension. He can also argue that Sergachev took a bit less to sign in a no-tax state on a contender while we would be asking him to sign up for a worse situation. Dahlin got 12.5% of the cap after his 73 point season. McAvoy, Jones, Werenski, Fox, and Nurse all got more than 11% on their long term deals and they had a single 50+ point season between the 4 of them.

All told, there are currently 19 D men who signed for a cap hit that was 10% or more of the cap in year 1 and 12 of those guys were at 11% or more in year 1.

Why on Earth would Dobson sign an extension at less than 10% of the cap following a trade to a new team that isn't a contender?

I agree with you that he's pretty damn good 5v5. But again, he's been downright shit on the PK for the last 3+ years (I know your feelings on this and we can agree to disagree, but I think he's been bad) and he's not good enough (Dynamic enough?) offensively to crack a PP that was at times the worst PP in the league. I put a lot of stock into 5v5 metrics, but the fact that he's been a major drag on special teams drops him down for me.
We will have to agree to disagree and we've had that conversation before.

I like Parayko, but I think he's far too comfortable with the off-the-glass-and-out when he's under any type of pressure. For me, he's a big reason why we haven't been more successful. Top guys can beat forechecks and transition the puck up the ice, either with passing or skating. Parayko consistently can't. Yes, he gets very difficult deployment - but so do certain other players, like Seider, McDonagh, Forsling, Tanev, Pelech, Gavrikov, and Slavin, and they significantly outperform him.
But those guys aren't getting the same deployment AND they are not significantly outperforming him this year.

Parayko is playing 45 seconds a night more than Gavrikov at even strength. 1:15 a night more than Seider. 1:43 more than Pelech and 1:44 more than Forsling. 2:51 more than Slavin. 3:35 more than McDonagh. 4:02 more than Tanev.

Tanev, and McDonagh are getting zone splits more defensive than what Parayko gets. But they are also doing it with 2nd pair minutes, not top pair minutes. Absolutely no one would argue that either is the #1 D man on their team and both of them play for a team with a drastically better forward group than ours. Parayko is outscoring both of them 10 goals to 1 at even strength. The two of them have combined for 29 even strength points while Parayko has 26. Parayko has more takeaways than either of them, has tripled up their combined hit total and is in between them in blocked shots. Even if they are outperforming him defensively (which is easier to do in 2nd pair minutes than 1st), he is absolutely demolishing them offensively. I can't find stats for zone carries vs 'off the glass' plays, but my eyes sure as hell don't see Tanev and McDonagh making controlled exits more often than Parayko. They are both very, very much glass and out guys. I don't see anything that suggests that they would more effectively play the role of #1 D than Parayko is this year. Tanev has never done it and McDonagh hasn't done it in well over 5 years.

Gavrikov has really similar deployment to Parayko. Slightly fewer minutes, but still top pair minutes. Parayko has more hits, blocks, and takeaways. I think it is fair to say that Gavirkov has outperformed defensively in similar roles. But he sure as shit hasn't kept up offensively. Parayko leads in even strength goals 10-3 and even strength points 26-18. Parayko's outshooting him 89 to 65 at even strength.

The rest of the guys all get noticeably more offensive usage than Parayko, including Forsling and Slavin whose usage leans decidedly toward the offensive zone. Yet Parayko is outscoring all of them (goals and points) at even strength.

You are vastly overestimating the number of guys who 'also get difficult deployment' compared to Parayko. As it has been for years, no one in the league logs his combo of volume and defensive usage. Gavrikov is coming close and then everyone else is way behind. And he is certainly not being significantly outperformed by everyone in that group.
 
I wouldn't trade Parayko for many of the players on that list and likely none of the players that are older than Parayko. It's crazy how undervalued he is by a small portion of the fanbase, especially this season when he's having the best offensive season of his career.

It's not a surprise that he's looked as good as he has now that he has a legitimate top-4 LD next to him and not having to support someone who should be on the third pairing.
 

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