2024-2025 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread.

[Beninnola]

Fowler sucked before he got here. I guess he just magically remembered how to play after he had forgotten all this time in Anaheim? or maybe the coach matters.

Have you seen their 5v5 stats?

They make Chicago blush at times….

It’s difficult to make a stronger argument that any team is worse 5v5 as of a bit ago. Probably close if not still the same. I didn’t want to hate on them so I didn’t track it. Isn’t really evaluating Fowler to look at his stat line on a rebuilding team. I didn’t scout the guy, but I never felt he was trash. Nobody was putting the guy down that I saw, ducks fan or otherwise. The day of the trade I recall feeling cool - a good defenseman. I’ll go find my reaction for fun. BRB. Digging commences.

I said “I love it” among other positive things on the day it happened in its thread. I didn’t think we were getting a bum. I referred to him as bonafide twice that day.

 

[taylord22]

My analysis of the analysis: (of the YouTube video of our teams strategies being discussed).

The blues are not notably more concerned with puck possession up high and it’s one of the options of the general play so … showing the handful of times that was the option that was taken while not showing the other options being taken is just ... The numbers do not reflect the change as described. We’re behind the net more now. And I think….thats just the general state of our team when we’re playing well….like the general metric you could use any night to see how things were going: the amount of time and plays we make from behind their goal line is an excellent metric to add to a small list.

This is a franchise that had all of you watch shwizzle Schwartz button hook on the half wall then half the time go to the blue line, or down the wall for years, watched Kyrou dance on the blue line for years, under bannister and Monty equally turning over the puck at bad times (I’m not mad). None of this stuff the one video is talking about is anything new. It’s literally just … I’m not going there nevermind.

Robert Thomas loves loves loves behind the net plays. He’s always been like this. Monty didn’t make Thomas discover some love for the thing he’s always done.

The blues activate their D. - yep we do this way more under Monty. We also have cam Fowler, Leddy, and Broberg (extra credit Tucker) who all love to activate. That didn’t exist under the old coach, and po Joseph did activate all the time under the old coach, Broberg started the season under a full time activate mode with drew bannister as his coach until Mitch Marner said no.

The analysis is just for clicks. Nicest thing I can say.

Here’s a better one:

We have 2 competitive advantages that we can leverage to win

One is breadth and depth of defensive experience. We can exploit other teams with holes or nullify some advantage elite teams have against us. Most teams do not have anywhere near this.

Second is basically Holloway in terms of our total group. We got enough wingers to be a full enough team. Most teams cannot say this and those teams are at the mercy of our grind.

I’m not following. Are you saying you don’t feel the Blues reloads are better under Monty than they were under Bannister? Or that reloads don’t matter?I do disagree that controlling the speed of opp entries is a topic that drives engagement. Regardless, objectively, all of these systems are aspects of the game that were not clicking at an elite level under Bannister.

I think there’s some truth to what you’re saying re: the talent ceiling and volume increasing, but it’s also a bit chicken and the egg. Where it really leans toward coaching, for me, is how long this level of play has been sustained. If it was limited to a set of players, you’d see more defined dips/valleys. Our sustained performance screams trust in the system we’re playing.

Last thing: Goyens was a Q coach, and still does scouting and video work for teams. I wouldn’t call him an elite hockey mind, but he makes a living telling coaches/organizations/players what they could be doing better.

 

[Beninnola]

It’s pretty ironic that you’re calling people giving credit to the coach a “full blown idiot” because you clearly just don’t understand how important coaching is. Full stop.

Like, we’ve seen this happen with the team time and time again when a great coach takes over. Your last question about “why wouldn’t we be in the same spot with Bannister?” is mind boggling. That’s like saying that we would have won the Cup if we kept Yeo instead of firing him in favor of Berube, because why wouldn’t we have? The team would have just somehow figured it out, right?

I’m sure the drastic change we saw when the team went from bad to the top of the league when we replaced Davis Payne with Hitchcock was a coincidence too, right? Because as you said with Montgomery, Hitch didn’t take a single shift.

You are just severely underrating coaching in every regard, and showing that you don’t understand how much they affect the game. The players don’t just “start playing better” randomly. It’s due to systems and what they’re being taught in the film room and at practice, etc. There’s a ton that goes into it. And by the way, I see you haven’t given credit to Monty for the team not missing a beat while without Parayko and Buch. But somehow Bannister gets to use the injury excuses. Cmon man, look at the underlying numbers. The Blues have been the best defensive team in the NHL over the past couple months. Bannister never achieved anything close to that, but you want to act like this is just chance or something. Montgomery’s track record speaks for itself, it’s crazy how he lucked into having the best regular season of all time in Boston a couple years ago too, huh? Surely Bannister could achieve all this stuff, because…reasons.

Bannister took over last year and then the team outperformed, almost made the playoffs.

Then the guy started the season with Buchnevich as a center, half a blue line, then lost Broberg and Thomas, then was fired.

I was happy when we signed Monty. I think he’s a good coach.

It’s disingenuous to then take this heater were on and say bannister sucks while restricting the aggregate stat you’re using’s sample size to the “obviously going to be bad” part of bannisters career.i think our outperformance is depth chart driven. We have leverage almost every night. I don’t like the stat comparison argument where it’s bannister had this stat and now it’s this stat so therefore bannister sucks and its all because of Monty. I think Monty can be good and that previous argument not true.

It’s irritating to me and I’m not drew bannister nor related. I’m fighting for a dude who isn’t getting a fair look. That’s where I’m at.

I don’t want him over Monty. I dont want him as our coach. I don’t think he deserves to be shit on. He was doing fine and then opportunity occurred and that’s that. This is the point I wanted to make and I’m sorry I devolved it to the other stuff. Monty gets credit from me. It’s not 70%. We’re on a heater. If you look at any teams stats while they’re on a winning streak: they’re going to be among the best in the league. What if we also used stats from before 4 nations when he was our coach and we were below .500? Of course these things take time, but so did acquiring players and players becoming healthy. It’s more likely to me the players being acquired and becoming healthy is why we’re winning, but also includes positive contribution from a good coach.

Here’s my compromise:

I’ll compare bannisters takeover to end of srason to Monty’s takeover to end of season. After this season can see how much better Monty’s run was - things like goals per 60 and other rate metrics will be interesting, far more interesting than an aggregating metric. I can get behind that better than I can get behind the current framing, and it would include a large amount of similar games for both guys.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Bannister took over last year and then the team outperformed, almost made the playoffs.

Then the guy started the season with Buchnevich as a center, half a blue line, then lost Broberg and Thomas, then was fired.

I was happy when we signed Monty. I think he’s a good coach.

It’s disingenuous to then take this heater were on and say bannister sucks while restricting the aggregate stat you’re using’s sample size to the “obviously going to be bad” part of bannisters career.

It’s irritating to me and I’m not drew bannister nor related. I’m fighting for a dude who isn’t getting a fair look. That’s where I’m at.

I don’t want him over Monty. I dont want him as our coach. I don’t think he deserves to be shit on. He was doing fine and then opportunity occurred and that’s that. This is the point I wanted to make and I’m sorry I devolved it to the other stuff.

I don’t think the point is that bannister was terrible. I didn’t think he deserved to be fired (I also was opposed to berube being fired, fwiw). But if you can’t see that Monty is clearly a better coach who has been big part of our resurgence, that is where we are going to disagree

 

[Mike Liut]

Hot take…

Kyrou will score more goals than Tarasenko in his career.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Hot take…

Kyrou will score more goals than Tarasenko in his career.

If Kyrou stays healthy it wouldn't surprise me

 

[TheOrganist]

Pretty good breakdown of what's changed in terms of 'systems' for the Blues on the most recent run. Spoiler for the end, they ask Goyens "what percentage of the Blues turnaround would you attribute to coaching" His answer: 70%

I love this stuff. Thanks for posting. Really great breakdown of our system that limits rush chances. Kind of shows how well our forwards are checking and the commitment to back pressure that enables the D to give up the line a bit but then pounce when forwards create turnovers and then go the other way quickly.

 

[Mike Liut]

If Kyrou stays healthy it wouldn't surprise me

Tarasenko has 6 - 30G season, Kyrou already has 3 at 25 yrs old.

 

[TheOrganist]

Bannister took over last year and then the team outperformed, almost made the playoffs.

Then the guy started the season with Buchnevich as a center, half a blue line, then lost Broberg and Thomas, then was fired.

I was happy when we signed Monty. I think he’s a good coach.

It’s disingenuous to then take this heater were on and say bannister sucks while restricting the aggregate stat you’re using’s sample size to the “obviously going to be bad” part of bannisters career.i think our outperformance is depth chart driven. We have leverage almost every night. I don’t like the stat comparison argument where it’s bannister had this stat and now it’s this stat so therefore bannister sucks and its all because of Monty. I think Monty can be good and that previous argument not true.

It’s irritating to me and I’m not drew bannister nor related. I’m fighting for a dude who isn’t getting a fair look. That’s where I’m at.

I don’t want him over Monty. I dont want him as our coach. I don’t think he deserves to be shit on. He was doing fine and then opportunity occurred and that’s that. This is the point I wanted to make and I’m sorry I devolved it to the other stuff. Monty gets credit from me. It’s not 70%. We’re on a heater. If you look at any teams stats while they’re on a winning streak: they’re going to be among the best in the league. What if we also used stats from before 4 nations when he was our coach and we were below .500? Of course these things take time, but so did acquiring players and players becoming healthy. It’s more likely to me the players being acquired and becoming healthy is why we’re winning, but also includes positive contribution from a good coach.

Here’s my compromise:

I’ll compare bannisters takeover to end of srason to Monty’s takeover to end of season. After this season can see how much better Monty’s run was - things like goals per 60 and other rate metrics will be interesting, far more interesting than an aggregating metric. I can get behind that better than I can get behind the current framing, and it would include a large amount of similar games for both guys.

I wish I had the last 30 seconds of my life back.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Tarasenko has 6 - 30G season, Kyrou already has 3 at 25 yrs old.

Tarasenko would have had a ton more if it wasn't for his shoulder.

 

[Xerloris]

Bannister took over last year and then the team outperformed, almost made the playoffs.

Then the guy started the season with Buchnevich as a center, half a blue line, then lost Broberg and Thomas, then was fired.

I was happy when we signed Monty. I think he’s a good coach.

It’s disingenuous to then take this heater were on and say bannister sucks while restricting the aggregate stat you’re using’s sample size to the “obviously going to be bad” part of bannisters career.i think our outperformance is depth chart driven. We have leverage almost every night. I don’t like the stat comparison argument where it’s bannister had this stat and now it’s this stat so therefore bannister sucks and its all because of Monty. I think Monty can be good and that previous argument not true.

It’s irritating to me and I’m not drew bannister nor related. I’m fighting for a dude who isn’t getting a fair look. That’s where I’m at.

I don’t want him over Monty. I dont want him as our coach. I don’t think he deserves to be shit on. He was doing fine and then opportunity occurred and that’s that. This is the point I wanted to make and I’m sorry I devolved it to the other stuff. Monty gets credit from me. It’s not 70%. We’re on a heater. If you look at any teams stats while they’re on a winning streak: they’re going to be among the best in the league. What if we also used stats from before 4 nations when he was our coach and we were below .500? Of course these things take time, but so did acquiring players and players becoming healthy. It’s more likely to me the players being acquired and becoming healthy is why we’re winning, but also includes positive contribution from a good coach.

Here’s my compromise:

I’ll compare bannisters takeover to end of srason to Monty’s takeover to end of season. After this season can see how much better Monty’s run was - things like goals per 60 and other rate metrics will be interesting, far more interesting than an aggregating metric. I can get behind that better than I can get behind the current framing, and it would include a large amount of similar games for both guys.

Wow, that's weird that Bannister had Buch at center because the day Monty got hired he said Buch was a winger, plain and simple. it's almost like the coach had a f***ing choice and Bannister is shitty at his job and made a shitty choice.

 

[PeoriaBlues309]

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in this debate is how Buch completely threw Bannister under the bus right before he was let go about the lack of offense being coached during camp and practices.

 

[TheOrganist]

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in this debate is how Buch completely threw Bannister under the bus right before he was let go about the lack of offense being coached during camp and practices.

We have one of the best offensive minds in hockey and there is a guy arguing that mind hasn’t made a seismic difference in our underlying metrics and offensive output. I was at the Montreal game last week and I witnessed some of the most beautiful designed breakouts I’ve ever seen from a Blues team.

 

[Mike Liut]

Tarasenko would have had a ton more if it wasn't for his shoulder.

He was pretty much a 35g scorer

 

[BlueDream]

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in this debate is how Buch completely threw Bannister under the bus right before he was let go about the lack of offense being coached during camp and practices.

Bannister received a vote for “worst coach” in the player poll earlier this season. Wonder if it was Buch.

 

[Dr Robot]

So the debate revolves around Bannister was an okay coach who had a slow/unlucky start to the season. Monty is a good coach having a strong/lucky end to it. Am I understanding the last page or so correctly?

 

[PeoriaBlues309]

We have one of the best offensive minds in hockey and there is a guy arguing that mind hasn’t made a seismic difference in our underlying metrics and offensive output. I was at the Montreal game last week and I witnessed some of the most beautiful designed breakouts I’ve ever seen from a Blues team.

I know we had our slump before the 4N tourney, but it was noticeable from the very beginning of Monty’s tenure that they were finally free to do their thing in the offensive zone. That first game against the Rangers was such a breath of fresh air lol.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

He was pretty much a 35g scorer

After his shoulder injuries outside of one season he was never the same.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Guys I think we found Bannister's burner account.

Sorry man, but Bannister was a dogshit head coach. All of our underlying metrics with him as HC were terribad dating back to last year as well. I've told this story before, but I was falling asleep during games at the beginning of this season - I have never had this happen before and since Monty became HC I've never even been close to that again.

Bannister is a terrible head coach. Full stop. He was bouyed by Binner being a Vezina caliber goalie last year as well as massive luck in OT to get the record that he did. All of our players look better under Monty then they ever did under Bannister.

Bannister is a dogshit head coach.

 

[shpongle falls]

Good clip explaining how Monty’s system works, I’ve never played hockey so I appreciate insight like this.

 

[Reality Czech]

Hot take…

Kyrou will score more goals than Tarasenko in his career.

The fact that scoring is up around the entire league will give Kyrou a better chance. 35-40 goals put you among the league leaders 10 years ago. Let's see if Kyrou can finish top 5 in the league in goals 3 years in a row like Vladi did.

But Tarasenko was also injured for a big chunk of his prime so that deserves to be mentioned as well. Not sure why this comparison is necessary.

 

[Beninnola]

Wow, that's weird that Bannister had Buch at center because the day Monty got hired he said Buch was a winger, plain and simple. it's almost like the coach had a f***ing choice and Bannister is shitty at his job and made a shitty choice.

I’m 99.9999% sure the decision to play Buchnevich at center comes from above the head coach in both cases, and especially an interim head coach. This would seem to me to be a group decision made by the entire leadership team. I’m not faulting or praising either coach.

Doug also previously mentioned that things like playing Bolduc were a condition of Bannister’s hire.

Monty and Doug both recently mentioned that they meet twice a day.

Doug appears to micro the team in some ways and I personally find that to be appropriate because he makes sound decisions, in my opinion, with the proper outlook and framework. He isn’t deciding to do X or Y to save his job, or get some emergency results while forsaking medium and long term, or anything like that. For example - forcing Bolduc into the lineup is paying off now. Had the coach just picked the best player available back when Bolduc needed icetime maybe he isn’t dressing, and so maybe Bolduc isn’t getting the results today. I’m not praising bannister for this - he was told to do it. I don’t think this is Doug just saying what he wants and that’s that - I think the entire leadership group is debating these higher level concepts and then reaching consensus as a group. Our front office has a huge amount of hockey brainpower. They aren’t ignoring it.

 

[Mike Liut]

The fact that scoring is up around the entire league will give Kyrou a better chance. 35-40 goals put you among the league leaders 10 years ago. Let's see if Kyrou can finish top 5 in the league in goals 3 years in a row like Vladi did.

But Tarasenko was also injured for a big chunk of his prime so that deserves to be mentioned as well. Not sure why this comparison is necessary.

Because most don’t appreciate Kyrou

 

[Reality Czech]

Because most don’t appreciate Kyrou

Most seems a little harsh but yes, some people surely don't. But let's also appreciate how great Vladi was during his prime. I wonder what his numbers would have looked like had he not gotten injured.

I will say I'm impressed with how Kyrou is growing as a player. He clearly wants to be a better all around player and is working hard at that.

 

[ArenaRat]

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in this debate is how Buch completely threw Bannister under the bus right before he was let go about the lack of offense being coached during camp and practices.

While true, this probably had zero impact on DA's decision. He wanted Monty, Monty was suddenly available, and he made the move. No matter what anyone thinks/thought of Bannister, this was happening.