Around the NHL 2023-2024

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I'm excited to see what Patrick Roy does in his second go-round. Word is he nearly got the job with the Blue Jackets prior to the Babcock hire and that his intensity has softened a bit. Always great to see a legend back into the fold.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I'm excited to see what Patrick Roy does in his second go-round. Word is he nearly got the job with the Blue Jackets prior to the Babcock hire and that his intensity has softened a bit. Always great to see a legend back into the fold.

he did a great job in q with ramparts.

 

[joe galiba]

Columbus got called for 100% the same exact interference call Neighbors got called on last night - Jackets were on a PP and one of their forwards posted up at the blue line, got skated into, and got called for interference.

Bringing this up for everyone to know that the NHL officiating just sucks, there's no bias against us

lazy referee, someone falls down, ref wasn’t looking or half saw something out of the corner of their eye, and threw their hand up
if you miss a call you miss a call, but don’t guess

 

[HellOnIce]

Devils fan here - we're dying to get rid of Lindy Ruff, and there's some talk about Berube. Other than the win/loss record - we don't see you guys too much out here, so would love to know any thoughts on him. Kind of coach, systemically things you liked, didn't like, how was he with young guys, etc.

 

[Xerloris]

Devils fan here - we're dying to get rid of Lindy Ruff, and there's some talk about Berube. Other than the win/loss record - we don't see you guys too much out here, so would love to know any thoughts on him. Kind of coach, systemically things you liked, didn't like, how was he with young guys, etc.

He will motivate a team like no other but IMO if your team is not ready for a real push he's not the coach for you. If you think you're lacking motivation for a playoff push it's likely he could get you over the hump.

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

Maybe this is old news but it’s the first I’m hearing it. Watching the Flyers and Sens game, Weekes mentioned Tarasenko had a multi year offer from SJ, but opted for the 1 year Ottawa deal instead. Makes me love Vladdy even more

 

[shpongle falls]

Looks like Corey Perry is signing with the Oilers.

 

[Xerloris]

Looks like Corey Perry is signing with the Oilers.

Not gonna lie, I would have liked him with the Blues because he's a dick.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Looks like Corey Perry is signing with the Oilers.

f*** Corey Perry, and f*** the Oilers.

 

[Frenzy31]

Who cares?

 

[Brockon]

That was a horrible decision the moment it was even brought up for consideration. I never understood letting a better and cheaper version of Krug go just to bring in the older, worse and more expensive player.

I disliked exposing Dunn over Krug for the Seattle expansion draft, but you're definitely using a hindsight bias here.

Dunn was not a better player than Krug at the conclusion of the 20-21 season. He was a player that struggled to meaningfully earn ice time in the 19-20 season before Krug was here to directly compete for defensively sheltered offensive minutes:
2017-18 17:14 atoi 75/82gp
2018-19 17:32 atoi 78/82gp
2019-20 16:16 atoi 71/82gp
2020-21 19:15 atoi 43/56gp...

Under Berube, Dunn's ice time was falling season by season as he wasn't a trusted defensive stalwart and he didn't mesh well with our available defensive partners for their roles (him and Larsson pair very well for the Kraken).

Interesting thing to consider is Krug vs Dunn stats for the 2020-21 season

Dunn 19:15 atoi, oZS 60.8%, CF 54.3%, PP Toi 72.6 - 7 PPP
Krug 22:33 atoi, oZS 58.0%, CF 53.9%, PP Toi 145.9 - 13 PPP

The arrival of Krug saw Dunn hit new career highs with an expanded role, and earn criticisms for his defensive lapses. I thought it was idiotic to let a young defender on a cheap deal like Dunn be exposed at age 25 to the expansion process in favour of the vet...

But Krug was the newly signed player producing in line with his 0.6 PPG career numbers, had just logged a new career high in atoi and was undergoing team adjustments, which most players take a year to really show their best. Another consideration needs to be the perception of a contender exposing a new addition to the expansion process, you don't attract free agent signings to a small market team by treating the players that do choose to sign with you poorly.

I doubt we ever know how much Berube/Armstrong/pro scouts opinions influenced Krug vs Dunn staying with that last defenseman protection slot (or if the expectation was Tarasenko would be chosen over Dunn because the Kraken should be drafting a winning team, rather than a team expected to be in the basement and trying to choose young players over the BPA). I'd really love to hear how some of that discourse went down, especially seeing how the outcome has looked for us now...

 

[Brian39]

I disliked exposing Dunn over Krug for the Seattle expansion draft, but you're definitely using a hindsight bias here.

@Vladys Gumption is one of a handful of posters here that were critical of the Krug contract from the day it was signed on the premise that he was an overpaid redundancy given our roster at the time. Dunn was always a part of that discussion.

Dunn was absolutely not better than Krug on the day of the signing or the day of the expansion draft. But there were a non-insignificant amount of people here saying that Dunn would be cheaper and better over the life of Krug's remaining contract at that stage of the game. No hindsight is needed for that and I'm about 95% sure that @Vladys Gumption was part of that group.

 

[PocketNines]

From a hockey perspective the decision to protect Krug over Dunn was not correct when it was made, and that was my stated opinion before it happened. It was not tough to see.

But everyone understands that Doug Armstrong sometimes has to make the smarter hockey decision take a back seat. Krug's contract was the end of Dunn, that moment.

That hit on Thomas was devastating to this organization because it mindcaptured our GM and launched an ongoing cascade of disaster with the defense. Armstrong loved that hit, he got the starbursts from it and they have never stopped.

 

[oPlaiD]

Protecting Krug over Dunn never made sense.

Krug may have been a better player at the time, but the value he provided versus his cap hit was much less than Dunn.

Our current roster is filled with guys who are producing at or below their cap hit, and it's a symptom of decisions like this one compounding over time. You can't win in the NHL, especially after multiple years of zero cap increases, without getting surplus value. Yet right now we have 5 defensemen signed for multiple years who are producing at or below their cap hit. Our forwards are in a similar situation, especially now that Thomas and Kyrou's extensions are active.

One of the most annoying things about it to me is Armstrong is one of the poster children of "hockey as a business" and making decisions detached from emotion, yet one of the primary justifications made for protecting Krug is you don't hurt relationships with newly signed UFAs.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Protecting Krug over Dunn never made sense.

Krug may have been a better player at the time, but the value he provided versus his cap hit was much less than Dunn.

Our current roster is filled with guys who are producing at or below their cap hit, and it's a symptom of decisions like this one compounding over time. You can't win in the NHL, especially after multiple years of zero cap increases, without getting surplus value. Yet right now we have 5 defensemen signed for multiple years who are producing at or below their cap hit. Our forwards are in a similar situation, especially now that Thomas and Kyrou's extensions are active.

One of the most annoying things about it to me is Armstrong is one of the poster children of "hockey as a business" and making decisions detached from emotion, yet one of the primary justifications made for protecting Krug is you don't hurt relationships with newly signed UFAs.

krug was always gonna be protected the moment he was signed. that may well have been a mistake, but that was where we went wrong on him. would have obviously been better to have not signed him.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

I disliked exposing Dunn over Krug for the Seattle expansion draft, but you're definitely using a hindsight bias here.

No hindsight bias here. I was adamantly against the Krug signing from the very beginning for a multitude of reasons. I’ve been very consistent in my stance that Krug was not a good fit and we should not have signed him.

I’m also perfectly willing to admit that at the time he was signed, Krug was more productive offensively. But I felt at the time Dunn had the potential to exceed Krug’s contributions, and at a lower cap hit for a good chunk of that time.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

 

[mk80]

Thank you to the Islanders for taking him before we could!

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Thank you to the Islanders for taking him before we could!

i take that as us just casting a wide net. i imagine DA talked to lots of folks that we haven't heard of too. we had plenty of time that if we wanted to hire him, we could have. i don't believe he was ever our guy. hopnestly, not sure who our guy is if not bannister, but i don't think it was ever likely to have been roy. and i say that as someone who thinks roy did great job in quebec and think he could be nice fit for the isles.

 

[BlueDream]

i take that as us just casting a wide net. i imagine DA talked to lots of folks that we haven't heard of too. we had plenty of time that if we wanted to hire him, we could have. i don't believe he was ever our guy. hopnestly, not sure who our guy is if not bannister, but i don't think it was ever likely to have been roy. and i say that as someone who thinks roy did great job in quebec and think he could be nice fit for the isles.

Nah, we really didn’t have plenty of time because 15 games is really not enough to evaluate Bannister. So just because we didn’t hire Roy doesn’t indicate our interest level was low or anything like that. We should give Bannister a real chance before moving on so that we can be confident we’re making the right decision.

 

[wiscrev]

Thank you to the Islanders for taking him before we could!

No kidding. Don't want any part of that air/hot head.

 

[ezcreepin]

I feel like there's some revisionist history going on here with Dunn. At the time, he was nowhere near ready to take over a top 4 spot, and when given the chance to play in that role, he struggled a lot. When Petro left/not signed, we lost our best pp quarterback (Petro was more than that) and had to replace that production somewhere. Amrstrong made a heavy handed move by locking up a guy who consistently hit 20 pp points which forced Petro to leave. Whether or not Krug would replace Petro was not the question at the time because we knew he couldn't fill those shoes, but he was definitely more qualified to lead the left side than Dunn ever showed.

At this point now, Petro has shown he's not really slowing down and Dunn has emerged as a top pairing offensive defenseman while Krug has had to meander his way between borderline useful top 4 d-man. Knowing what we know now with the team crumbling after just a few short years, obviously we would've rather signed Petro or just ran with Dunn, but Armstrong's thinking at that time had some merit. He just never replaced the defensive production.

 

[Reality Czech]

I feel like there's some revisionist history going on here with Dunn. At the time, he was nowhere near ready to take over a top 4 spot, and when given the chance to play in that role, he struggled a lot. When Petro left/not signed, we lost our best pp quarterback (Petro was more than that) and had to replace that production somewhere. Amrstrong made a heavy handed move by locking up a guy who consistently hit 20 pp points which forced Petro to leave. Whether or not Krug would replace Petro was not the question at the time because we knew he couldn't fill those shoes, but he was definitely more qualified to lead the left side than Dunn ever showed.

At this point now, Petro has shown he's not really slowing down and Dunn has emerged as a top pairing offensive defenseman while Krug has had to meander his way between borderline useful top 4 d-man. Knowing what we know now with the team crumbling after just a few short years, obviously we would've rather signed Petro or just ran with Dunn, but Armstrong's thinking at that time had some merit. He just never replaced the defensive production.

I'm not so sure Petro isn't slowing down but time will tell. Agree with the rest of your post though. Dunn didn't show anything that would make me think he had 70 point top pair potential. I also think Larsson helps mask a lot of his defensive deficiencies.

On an unrelated note, I'm reading a lot of comments from Detroit fans saying Perron seems cooked. Maybe not re-signing him wasn't such a bad move? At least not at the number he wanted.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I'm not so sure Petro isn't slowing down but time will tell. Agree with the rest of your post though. Dunn didn't show anything that would make me think he had 70 point top pair potential. I also think Larsson helps mask a lot of his defensive deficiencies.

On an unrelated note, I'm reading a lot of comments from Detroit fans saying Perron seems cooked. Maybe not re-signing him wasn't such a bad move? At least not at the number he wanted.

The amount of hate DA got by not re-signing Perron last season was crazy to me.

 

[Majorityof1]

On an unrelated note, I'm reading a lot of comments from Detroit fans saying Perron seems cooked. Maybe not re-signing him wasn't such a bad move? At least not at the number he wanted.

The amount of hate DA got by not re-signing Perron last season was crazy to me.

He has more points than any wing on our team besides Kyrou and Buch. He would be 5th on our team in points. He us 1 point less than Schenn and 1 more than Hayes with 4 less games played. He's has showed extreme loyalty to the team and is a good influence on younger players.

I'd rather have had him than Vrana and they make about the same amount aav. He probably would have taken less to sign here had we gone 2 years like Detroit did. Plus he had great chemistry with ROR. Maybe both he and ROR would have been better last year if he was here. I think despite being "cooked" it was still a mistake to let him go.

Edit- perron makes more than Vrana. I forgot about his retention. He makes a bit more than Kapanen as well, but less than a mil. I'd rather have Perron than either.