Speculation: Armchair GM Thread

[Porter Stoutheart]

I'm surprised we aren't in the mix for Mittelstadt. He seems like the kind of wishy-washy #2C the Preds might like to use in place of Svechkov?

 

[BigFatCat999]

I wonder if Trotz is on the phone now

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

It has been speculated that NHL GMs are under orders to keep any of their wheeling and dealing under wraps during the break, so as not to distract from the silly tournament. So we may have to wait a couple weeks for any new news.

 

[Armourboy]

If trades overshadow your tournament then it wasn't much of one to start with.

 

[wmupreds]

If trades overshadow your tournament then it wasn't much of one to start with.

Kind of silly anyway. I don't understand how keeping hockey on peoples' minds is somehow a bad thing.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I suspect that sort of thing won't work in the modern world anyway. It's an old school mentality. But even if there are a lot of old school GMs still around, they still are going to tell players, and there is now a whole social media world that is going to run with things, so they may have figured out that there's really no way to control this kind of information release. Better to not bother. So I doubt any information embargo is really going to stand up in practice.

 

[Soundgarden]

Looks like we claimed Englund from LA off waivers.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Looks like we claimed Englund from LA off waivers.

It gives me some optimism about us potentially trading Lauzon and/or Schenn?

Picking up Friedman and now Englund could be good news on that front?

As I understand it, Englund is a pretty tough depth guy, no puckhandling or puck movement whatsoever, but frankly we do need somebody who will just be big and mean where it really counts most - in front of Saros. If he plays an old school throwback stay-at-home style, that's good. For now. It's not like the bar to improving our defense is very high atm.

Of course it could also mean they are planning to keep Stastney in Milwaukee, and/or send Wilsby back, and/or some of the injuries we have are going to last longer than we hoped. So who knows.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

It gives me some optimism about us potentially trading Lauzon and/or Schenn?

Picking up Friedman and now Englund could be good news on that front?

As I understand it, Englund is a pretty tough depth guy, no puckhandling or movement whatsoever, but frankly we do need somebody who will just be big and mean where it really counts most - in front of Saros. If he plays an old school throwback stay-at-home style, that's good. For now. It's not like the bar to improving our defense is very high atm.

Of course it could also mean they are planning to keep Stastney in Milwaukee, and/or send Wilsby back, and/or some of the injuries we have are going to last longer than we hoped. So who knows.

Hasn't Schenn been good in the playoffs? Would be great to get a pick for him at the deadline (or ASAP)

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Hasn't Schenn been good in the playoffs? Would be great to get a pick for him at the deadline (or ASAP)

I don't know, Trotz seemed to reference it when he signed him, but even waaaay back then Schenn was only a part time player for the Cup runs in Tampa? And that was like 5 years ago?

Regardless, there is a perception around the league that he is good, he some of that "intangibles" magic attached to his name, so if we can leverage that to get anything back for him, that'd be great. We can frame it as rewarding Schenn with a chance to win a Cup and participate in the playoffs again, whatever sells it.

 

[Softball99]

Schenn is BoroCop with a cup. But, with Bruno trying to challenge his inner Zidlicky, maybe his value has risen lol.

 

[Top 6 Spaling]

I am choosing to believe we brought in two Dmen because one/both of Schenn or Lauzon are on the move

 

[herzausstein]

I want to believe this guy and the future considerations fella are solely to boost AHL depth and play as 7th dman so we dont have to continue to steal from MIL. I can also see us sending Wilsby, Svechkov, Kemell, and L'Heureux back down as the season is a complete bust. Take some contracts at the deadline for a pick to help facilitate trades and maybe move schenn, lauzon, and nyquist.

But this guy is probably seen as our savior. We lost our way with the lauzon injury. We arent hard enough to play against.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Twitterverse seems to think this is sign lay on may be out for year.

 

[Armourboy]

It's probably just depth so they can rest some guys with injuries if they need too. Even Trotz has figured out this season is over so might as well start prepping for the next.

 

[wmupreds]

Schenn is BoroCop with a cup. But, with Bruno trying to challenge his inner Zidlicky, maybe his value has risen lol.

Frankly I think Boro was better than Schenn.

 

[Legionnaire11]

Frankly I think Boro was better than Schenn.

Once upon a time Schenn was a much better player than Borowiecki. But in terms of their Predators tenure? Boro all day for me. He wasn't particularly good, but at least he was fiery and brought a needed dimension of toughness to the team. Schenn is just kind of there, on his best days.

 

[wmupreds]

I thought Boro was a real solid 6/7 for us, even outside of the toughness. He knew his limitations and played a simple, solid game. Don't really care about the fighting but he actually used hitting pretty effectively unlike certain current Preds that find themselves out of position all the time.

Schenn is just cooked. He probably was better than Boro earlier in his career but he can't skate anywhere near well enough to be an everyday guy at this point. Probably would be OK enough as a 7.

 

[Predsanddead24]

We also don't do Schenn any favors with the situations we put him in or the system we attempt to play. I thought last season when we put him and Stastney together that they made a perfectly adequate 3rd pair where Stastney could cover for Schenn's lack of skating ability and Schenn could play more of a bruiser role.

 

[herzausstein]

I remember Boro fondly as a real team player. Schenn is actually a decent 6th dman but he keeps getting elevated due to the idiocy of the coaching staff. That isnt his fault

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

It does if he stinks and you need another goalie. No one wants to be burning 14+ million on goalies.

Switching back to this thread for the goalie discussion.... I think the other thing you have to worry about is Expansion Drafts again. The Cap hit might be mitigated somewhat by the new Cap risers (at least for the next few years - while Saros hopefully at least remains "serviceable"). But now that franchise valuations are all tipping way past $1Billion now, owners are going to ask for and receive huge new expansion fees, so they'll be salivating over that opportunity. Whatever keeps the revenues growing.

And then you're faced with being locked into protecting all of our NMC guys in an Expansion Draft, including Saros, even if we ever have anybody pushing him. (Like Askarov would have been, or maybe if we're lucky Annunen could be now). So you could lose any affordable young challengers who come along.

OR... sure... you might be forced into a buyout. So that we can watch that contract stick around for another decade. The buyout hit itself won't be too onerous, at least once we get past the initial front-load years and into the final 5 years of the contract. At that point it should be just around $2.33M. So again, not a total albatross to carry that number for 10 years. Although how bad will Saros have to be for Trotz to bite that bullet as opposed to just letting a younger challenger go instead?

 

[Armourboy]

Switching back to this thread for the goalie discussion.... I think the other thing you have to worry about is Expansion Drafts again. The Cap hit might be mitigated somewhat by the new Cap risers (at least for the next few years - while Saros hopefully at least remains "serviceable"). But now that franchise valuations are all tipping way past $1Billion now, owners are going to ask for and receive huge new expansion fees, so they'll be salivating over that opportunity. Whatever keeps the revenues growing.

And then you're faced with being locked into protecting all of our NMC guys in an Expansion Draft, including Saros, even if we ever have anybody pushing him. (Like Askarov would have been, or maybe if we're lucky Annunen could be now). So you could lose any affordable young challengers who come along.

OR... sure... you might be forced into a buyout. So that we can watch that contract stick around for another decade. The buyout hit itself won't be too onerous, at least once we get past the initial front-load years and into the final 5 years of the contract. At that point it should be just around $2.33M. So again, not a total albatross to carry that number for 10 years. Although how bad will Saros have to be for Trotz to bite that bullet as opposed to just letting a younger challenger go instead?

Whatever the answer is you can bet it will probably be the wrong decision.

 

[originalpredfan]

Just an observation, but has anyone else noticed that ever since we brought in the "Goalie Whisperer" Mitch Korn our goaltending has gone down hill. Perhaps Mr. Korn does not have the answers after all. Apparently he hasn't been able to identify and correct the problem. Yes I know he has no say in Bruno's system or our questionable defensive players and strategy.

 

[glenngineer]

I honestly think he's dealing with an eye issue, much like Rinne did at this age. He went to a doc, found his eyes had deteriorated some, got a prescription and all was well again.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Just an observation, but has anyone else noticed that ever since we brought in the "Goalie Whisperer" Mitch Korn our goaltending has gone down hill. Perhaps Mr. Korn does not have the answers after all. Apparently he hasn't been able to identify and correct the problem. Yes I know he has no say in Bruno's system or our questionable defensive players and strategy.

I don't know, he's probably not dealing directly with players anymore, just whispering instead to his coaching staff (Vanderklok and Barron) in more of a senior advisory role? Or maybe not, who knows. He has to be over 60 now right? You'd think he's not down on the ice with them or anything anyhow?

I mean, all goalies are going to whiff on some shots once in a while. I guess it just gets really hard to differentiate the normal rate of that vs. also getting beat 3 or 4 times when your team defensive play sucks so bad. Saros has looked "off" to me, both last season and this one. But that was after the few before where I think we were all praising some tweaks in his game where he wasn't playing as deep as he used to and was doing better at keeping his upper body upgright, which seemed to be meeting with success. I don't think he's backtracking on those earlier improvements or doing anything else differently, but I'm not sure?

Or as glen says above, maybe it is as simple as eyesight. You'd really think at the NHL level that a team would be all over this for their goalies, though. Like mandatory periodic testing or something, so that it shouldn't ever slip through the cracks.