Around the NHL 2023-2024

[Stupendous Yappi]

Ignoring the rebuild ramifications, I’d get a lot of enjoyment if the Blues knocked Vegas out of the wildcard spot.

The don’t expect it, but if Binnington has anything to say about it maybe it’s possible.

 

[stl76]

Ignoring the rebuild ramifications, I’d get a lot of enjoyment if the Blues knocked Vegas out of the wildcard spot.

The don’t expect it, but if Binnington has anything to say about it maybe it’s possible.

The thought had occurred to me but didn’t want to post and jinx anything haha

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

The thought had occurred to me but didn’t want to post and jinx anything haha

The Blues are beyond jinxable this season. Bad results are welcomed. Good individual player efforts can still be celebrated. If the goalies can get them into the postseason, who’s to say they can’t win a series?

If they just roll over and die, we’ll scout the draft.

 

[Spear]

The Blues are beyond jinxable this season. Bad results are welcomed. Good individual player efforts can still be celebrated. If the goalies can get them into the postseason, who’s to say they can’t win a series?

If they just roll over and die, we’ll scout the draft.

So, in the words of Doris Day, Que Sera Sera

 

[bleedblue1223]

Ignoring the rebuild ramifications, I’d get a lot of enjoyment if the Blues knocked Vegas out of the wildcard spot.

The don’t expect it, but if Binnington has anything to say about it maybe it’s possible.

Hockey world would go crazy. Would they dare root for the most hated player to knock out the most hated team?

 

[Xerloris]

Ignoring the rebuild ramifications, I’d get a lot of enjoyment if the Blues knocked Vegas out of the wildcard spot.

The don’t expect it, but if Binnington has anything to say about it maybe it’s possible.

Could you imagine, after what Vegas did at the deadline missing the playoffs?

 

[Drubilly]

I’m assuming that scenario is why Vegas didn’t trade their ‘24 1st.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I’m assuming that scenario is why Vegas didn’t trade their ‘24 1st.

The 24 draft is in Vegas, so that's why IMO. You can always put draft protection on a pick to keep it.

 

[STL fan in MN]

At least the Penguins are having fun with it.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Pirates

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

It gives me great, great joy to see Patrick Kane's Detroit Red Wings lose their 6th game in a row. They're getting outscored by an average of 5.3-1.8 during that stretch.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

It gives me great, great joy to see Patrick Kane's Detroit Red Wings lose their 6th game in a row. They're getting outscored by an average of 5.3-1.8 during that stretch.

i'm so tired of hearing how yzerman is some genius. he seems pretty mid to me. lightning never won until after he left. and while it's easy to say he took over crappy detroit team, they are still kinda crappy all these years later. and they have bunch of money tied up in mediocre vets. color me unimpressed with the yzerplan.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

i'm so tired of hearing how yzerman is some genius. he seems pretty mid to me. lightning never won until after he left. and while it's easy to say he took over crappy detroit team, they are still kinda crappy all these years later. and they have bunch of money tied up in mediocre vets. color me unimpressed with the yzerplan.

I got blasted this week for having the gall to ask something along the lines of 'At what point Steve Yzerman was going to be held accountable and not given a free pass?'

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I got blasted this week for having the gall to ask something along the lines of 'At what point Steve Yzerman was going to be held accountable and not given a free pass?'

you're not wrong. he obviously has incredible amount of good will left over from his playing days and it blinds them. any objective assessment would have him on hot seat, but that fan base still worships him. they can't- or at least won't- see it.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I got blasted this week for having the gall to ask something along the lines of 'At what point Steve Yzerman was going to be held accountable and not given a free pass?'

Probably long before Brendan Shanahan gets held accountable and is no longer given a free pass.

 

[Eldon Reid]

The thing with Stevie Y is he really hasn't had a ton of good trades. The 2 major fleecing were the following:

Sergachev for Drouin

Then McDonagh & Miller for spare parts.

Maybe Bishop trade too.

Other than that he hasn't done much and he had ton of top end draft picks. They had a few picks deeper in draft make an impact. But that goes to the scouting IMO more than GM.

 

[Majorityof1]

The thing with Stevie Y is he really hasn't had a ton of good trades. The 2 major fleecing were the following:

Sergachev for Drouin

Then McDonagh & Miller for spare parts.

Maybe Bishop trade too.

Other than that he hasn't done much and he had ton of top end draft picks. They had a few picks deeper in draft make an impact. But that goes to the scouting IMO more than GM.

The thing with Doug Armstrong is he really hasn't had a ton of good trades. The 2 major fleecing were the following:

ROR for Tage et al

Then Buch for spare parts

Maybe the Schenn trade too

Other than that he hasn't done much and he had a couple high end picks. They had a several late first to picks deeper in draft make an impact. But that goes to the scouting IMO more than GM.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

The thing with Stevie Y is he really hasn't had a ton of good trades. The 2 major fleecing were the following:

Sergachev for Drouin

Then McDonagh & Miller for spare parts.

Maybe Bishop trade too.

Other than that he hasn't done much and he had ton of top end draft picks. They had a few picks deeper in draft make an impact. But that goes to the scouting IMO more than GM.

Well it's actually the bolded as to why Yzerman is highly regarded. He took the job in Tampa Bay and left with a few of the major voices in scouting from Detroit with him. While Detroit has Datsyuk and Zetterberg as their Claim-to-Fame in scouting, Detroit had a remarkable European team in scouting that led to picks like Tatar and Nyquist later in drafts. These guys came with Stevie Y and is what, I believe, led to Tampa's run of exceptional Euro talents for years.

I'll give credit that Y had an eye for talent, at least from a business side, and did build a team that was in multiple Eastern Conference Championships before their Cup winning days. But I also think his legacy isn't perfect nor infallible. I don't think his moves in Detroit have done much and I think the picks they've had should be leading to greater results.

Funnily enough, Detroit had some poor N.A. picks, so I wonder if the N.A. scouting team was left for a reason.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

The GM is responsible for his scouting department. He is responsible for the calls on who gets drafted. I don’t have a problem giving a guy credit when those scouting teams are high functioning.

 

[bleedblue1223]

The GM is responsible for his scouting department. He is responsible for the calls on who gets drafted. I don’t have a problem giving a guy credit when those scouting teams are high functioning.

Especially when the GM is also the President of Hockey Ops. Even if we want to credit the scouting staff for their work with the draft or development groups for taking the draft picks and turning them into quality pros, it's Army that is putting that group together and either making a final decision or knowing when to trust those guys to make the decisions.

That's why I'm more reluctant than others to jump on the fire Army wagon. How we judge Army is more than just what happens at the NHL level. I think this upcoming draft and next 2 summers will be very big for our future, and I still view them very optimistically, as opposed to pessimistic.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

The GM is responsible for his scouting department. He is responsible for the calls on who gets drafted. I don’t have a problem giving a guy credit when those scouting teams are high functioning.

Part of any job is to know when to trust the experts you oversee or interact with heavily.

 

[Brian39]

I have zero problem giving Yzerman credit for his work in Tampa. He is the GM who hired Cooper to an AHL job out of the USHL and is also the GM who promoted him to the NHL a few years later. His staff had tremendous success finding genuine contributors outside the 1st round (Kucherov, Point, Palat, Gudas, Cirelli, Joseph, and Colton) and Vasilevski was a great pick at #19. He flubbed the Drouin pick, but managed to sell him for Sergachev 4 years later. I think it is very fair to credit him with building one of the better cores this league has seen in the cap era.

However, I have been fairly unimpressed by his work in Detroit. He had to dig the Wings out of a massive hole and I think the idea of a long, patient process was absolutely the correct one for that team. And I really like the prospect pool that he's built. A bunch their prospects are high end and developing right on schedule. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on 'patience' until this deadline.

In a buyer's market with Larkin getting injured, I think he did a huge disservice to that franchise by standing pat. He could have upgraded the middle of the lineup without giving up any pick/prospect that was among his 10 most valuable futures assets. He could have made a notable acquisition with a 2nd rounder and a prospect who is outside their internal top 6-7 guys. I understand not going all-in this year by trading a top prospect or a 1st rounder, but that wasn't the cost required to make meaningful upgrades at this deadline. Giving that team some help to make the playoffs for the first time in years should have been a priority worth giving up a couple mid-value futures assets that are frankly unlikely to turn into difference-makers given the crowded prospect pool ahead of them.

They have a top 5 prospect pool and they own a draft pick in every single round of every future draft. Failing to leverage that for any help in a buyer's market given heir place in the standings approaching the deadline was a huge failure in my eyes. It erases a ton of my willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt on preaching patience. Not every team should be satisfied 'just making the playoffs' but the Red Wings should absolutely view 'just making the playoffs' as a tangible goal right now.

 

[bleedblue1223]

Yeah, he did a good job of building a roster with depth, but for some reason has a reluctance to make a big move. Similar to Jersey not being more aggressive with a goalie, or Carolina typically not being as aggressive with the roster they have.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I have zero problem giving Yzerman credit for his work in Tampa. He is the GM who hired Cooper to an AHL job out of the USHL and is also the GM who promoted him to the NHL a few years later. His staff had tremendous success finding genuine contributors outside the 1st round (Kucherov, Point, Palat, Gudas, Cirelli, Joseph, and Colton) and Vasilevski was a great pick at #19. He flubbed the Drouin pick, but managed to sell him for Sergachev 4 years later. I think it is very fair to credit him with building one of the better cores this league has seen in the cap era.

However, I have been fairly unimpressed by his work in Detroit. He had to dig the Wings out of a massive hole and I think the idea of a long, patient process was absolutely the correct one for that team. And I really like the prospect pool that he's built. A bunch their prospects are high end and developing right on schedule. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on 'patience' until this deadline.

In a buyer's market with Larkin getting injured, I think he did a huge disservice to that franchise by standing pat. He could have upgraded the middle of the lineup without giving up any pick/prospect that was among his 10 most valuable futures assets. He could have made a notable acquisition with a 2nd rounder and a prospect who is outside their internal top 6-7 guys. I understand not going all-in this year by trading a top prospect or a 1st rounder, but that wasn't the cost required to make meaningful upgrades at this deadline. Giving that team some help to make the playoffs for the first time in years should have been a priority worth giving up a couple mid-value futures assets that are frankly unlikely to turn into difference-makers given the crowded prospect pool ahead of them.

They have a top 5 prospect pool and they own a draft pick in every single round of every future draft. Failing to leverage that for any help in a buyer's market given heir place in the standings approaching the deadline was a huge failure in my eyes. It erases a ton of my willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt on preaching patience. Not every team should be satisfied 'just making the playoffs' but the Red Wings should absolutely view 'just making the playoffs' as a tangible goal right now.

Agreed. Building prospect pool is great but at some point you need to actually convert them to nhl players who help you win. Tampa didn’t do it until he left and he ain’t doing it in Detroit when they needed it. His deadline inaction this year was egregiously bad.

 

[Brian39]

Agreed. Building prospect pool is great but at some point you need to actually convert them to nhl players who help you win. Tampa didn’t do it until he left and he ain’t doing it in Detroit when they needed it. His deadline inaction this year was egregiously bad.

I'll pushback on the Tampa part of it. In his last 4 full seasons as Tampa's GM, they made it to the Conference Final 3 times (going to the Cup Final in one of those years). They made it to game 7 in each of the two Conference Final rounds that they lost. They also had an additional trip to the Conference Final in his 1st year as GM. These do not include the 2018/19 President's Trophy winning season where he was still with the organization after announcing that he wouldn't be extending there.

They did a ton of winning. He objectively built a great NHL roster in Tampa and the core of that team remained the same when they finally got over the hump. I don't think it is at all fair to say that GM-level organizational changes were responsible for them getting over the hump, but even if they were it is still clear that Tampa was a top 5 NHL team before ever getting over the hump.

I strongly disagree with any notion that his time in Tampa was anything less than a massive success.