Around the NHL 2024-2025

[BlueMed]

I'm extremely interested in Petey for the right price.

Robert Thomas is the only asset that is truly untouchable in a Petey deal for me. The contractual risk of Petey vs Thomas is just too much for me. I'm not completely sold that Petey will be the better player over the next 7 years. But even if you convince me of that with 100% certainty, I don't think the margin will outweigh the contract differences.

I would include any other asset we hold in a deal for Petey. I wouldn't make significant additions to some of those assets and I'd be willing to overpay in 'quantity' in order to avoid including certain assets.

I'd trade Kyrou for Petey 1 for 1 and frankly I'm not sure that the Canucks will get a better offer than that unless they are content with getting the highest value futures package offered. Kyrou had more points than Petey in 2021/22 despite playing fewer games. Petey obviously had better years in 2022/23 and 2023/24 (102 points and 89 points), but Kyrou is outscoring him this year. Petey is the better player and plays a more valuable position, but the gap is probably not much larger than the gap in their contracts. Kyrou can't block a deal to Vancouver (unlike lots of the 'better' players they could target) and he has significant term left on his deal (unlike lots of the younger 'better' players they could target). We have the cap space to fit Petey in a 1 for 1 swap with Kyrou (unlike a decent chunk of teams looking to make a 'hockey trade' of their $8M-$9M player for Petey's $11.5M).

I hope that we are offering Kyrou for Petey 1-for-1 and hoping that Vancouver can't drive up the market. But push comes to shove, I'd add futures to Kyrou. I wouldn't include Lindstein or Jiricek, but they could pick their favorite one of our D prospects besides those two. I'm not including Dvorsky, but I could get talked into any of our other forward prospects. They would have to add future draft capital to their side of the deal to get a guy like Snuggy or Stenberg, but I could see the logic in giving them a really nice D+2 or D+3 aged 1st rounder in exchange for a future 1st to help their goal of keeping a current window open. I'm really pleased with the development of the forwards we've grabbed in the middle rounds the last few drafts and I'm still fine giving Dean a couple years to see what is there. But I'd be more than content losing any one of those guys to tip the scales on a Petey deal.

If Vancouver wants to make a hockey trade instead of flipping Petey for pure futures, I'm not sold that they will find a better offer than one centered around Kyrou. We can add some mid-value prospects and/or include a high value prospect nearing NHL-readiness for a 1st rounder that wouldn't help them until years down the line. We have a couple vets that we could retain 50% on.

I think a Kyrou-for-Petey deal framework is a fairly reasonable discussion and probably gives us the ability to beat the offers of most teams.

And while Petey's contract carries its own risks, I very much believe that a Thomas/Petey 1A/1B punch down the middle would be a Cup-caliber center duo and I'd be fully content having that duo locked in at a combined $19.725M for 6 seasons (plus whichever portion of this season you may or may not get depending on when the trade takes place). Limit Dvorsky's NHL games to 9 this season and then we'd have 3 more years with him on an ELC starting in a 3C role behind that duo next year. Bridge him after that and we could genuinely be looking at half a decade of a top 5 NHL center trio before Dvorsky is even due a serious contract. Thomas and Petey's contracts would have 1 and 2 years left and the cap will have risen $20M+ by then, so you could absolutely extend Dvorsky at market value by then.

Army took advantage of Edmonton's cap situation to pry a couple talented young players free. He took advantage of Buffalo to pry ROR away. We've spent thousands of words talking about how a successful non-tear-down-re-whatever likely requires him to find a way to pry an elite talent out of someone. This is one of those handful of situations where such a talent may be available. I want to see Army get aggressive chasing him even though the contract is a tough pill to swallow. Our cap structure is positioned to swallow that pill.

I completely agree, although one issue I could see Army frowning upon is the signing bonus installment in EP's contract. Next year, EP will receive a 10 million dollar SB with several 5 million dollar SB after that. Looking at Thomas's, Kyrou's, and Buch's contracts, none of them have any SB whatsoever. That seems to be important to the ownership group, but I'm not sure that would be a dealbreaker.

Otherwise, I agree with the general framework of the deal. I can't realistically see Kyrou playing his entire contract on this team despite demonstrating visible improvements on his defensive game. We continue to hear from our scouting department how important it is for players to fit in with Blues culture (blue-collar work ethic, physicality, directness, and 2-way abilities). It's the same reason why I believe Army adores Jake Neighbours; culture matters to this organization. On top of Kyrou, this team has an abundance of prospects like you mentioned and will face a surplus of LW prospects in 2026. Currently we already have Buchnevich, Holloway, and Neighbours as our top 3 LW's. We also have Kaskimaki, Stenberg, and Pekarcik potentially 2 seasons away, and Ondrej Kos 3 seasons away. Moving Holloway to a center position could work if he can improve his faceoff percentage (currenly only 40%), but we would lose his relentless forechecking. Also, Neighbours won't be moving to the right side given that Kyrou, Snuggerud, and Bolduc are already there. Someone has to go.

Kyrou + Kaskimaki+ Dean should warrant serious consideration from Vancouver's end.

 

[Xerloris]

How does this quarter century team shit work because they didn't list Demitra, Weight, or Kariya and as much as I love Vladdi those 3 I just listed are better than Him, Steen and Backes.

 

[Brian39]

What about Barzal? He is from BC so might waive. Isles have to realize their core ain’t winning as is. Haven’t seen this one mentioned, but seems like potential base of trade to me.

I didn't realize Barzal was from the area. I think that there are probably more Canadian guys with their hometowns on their NTC lists than people would like to admit, but that probably does increase the chances he'd waive to go there. But I still have a hard time believing he'd be eager to leave New York to pay more taxes, deal with worse travel, and deal with the crazy media that comes with the Canucks.

Even if it did, Vancouver would have to take back salary in addition to Barzal. The Isles are already into LTIR with about $150k of cap space. They will be right at the cap if/when guys return from LTIR. They would need to free up another $2.5M (ish) to swap Barzal for Petey. Vancouver would probably have to take on Casey Cizekas ($2.5M for 2 more years beyond this one) since every other potential cap dump inexplicably has a 16+ team no trade list.

Worth noting that Barzal has been playing wing for a couple years now. He slid over to accommodate Horvat and I'm sure he could slide back to center. But he has been truly awful at the dot for his entire career.

Kyrou has also meaningfully outscored Barzal over the last several years. In his last 4 seasons (274 games played), Kyrou has 111 goals and 247 points. In his last 5 seasons (283 games played), Barzal has 72 goals and 243 points.

Barzal is a year older, has had noticeably more trouble staying in the lineup than Kyrou, makes $1M a year more than Kyrou, and he has struggled a good amount in the 17 games he's played this year (3 goals and 8 points). Both have 6 more years on their deals beyond this season. He's always been a giveaway machine because he absolutely thrives carrying the puck (which results in more giveaways that you can live with compared to guys who aren't relied upon that way), but his 24 giveaways to just 4 takeaways this year is a pretty troubling development.

I'm not sold Barzal would waive, but even if he did I'm not sold that 'he used to be a center who was awful at the dot' is worth taking on 2.5 years of dead cap on Cizekas, the extra cap he makes over Kyrou, the increased injury risk, and overlooking the concerns about his play this season. We need a center too and I absolutely would not trade Kyrou for Barzal and Cizekas.

 

[Brian39]

I completely agree, although one issue I could see Army frowning upon is the signing bonus installment in EP's contract. Next year, EP will receive a 10 million dollar SB with several 5 million dollar SB after that. Looking at Thomas's, Kyrou's, and Buch's contracts, none of them have any SB whatsoever. That seems to be important to the ownership group, but I'm not sure that would be a dealbreaker.

We generally won't give out signing bonuses, but we proved that we will acquire a deal with bonuses when we traded for ROR. Our willingness to pay out a $7.5M bonus the day we acquired him (and then a $5M bonus each following summer) was crucial to landing him. Buffalo made it clear that they would not trade him if they had to pay the bonus, so signing bonuses shouldn't be the deal breaker. How they make it harder to get out of a contract in the future should be a consideration, but the simple existence of a bonus shouldn't be a poison pill.

I think the NMC would be a greater issue. I'd hope that we wouldn't make that an auto-rejection, but the difficulty of getting out of his deal if things go south is part of the math.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I didn't realize Barzal was from the area. I think that there are probably more Canadian guys with their hometowns on their NTC lists than people would like to admit, but that probably does increase the chances he'd waive to go there. But I still have a hard time believing he'd be eager to leave New York to pay more taxes, deal with worse travel, and deal with the crazy media that comes with the Canucks.

Even if it did, Vancouver would have to take back salary in addition to Barzal. The Isles are already into LTIR with about $150k of cap space. They will be right at the cap if/when guys return from LTIR. They would need to free up another $2.5M (ish) to swap Barzal for Petey. Vancouver would probably have to take on Casey Cizekas ($2.5M for 2 more years beyond this one) since every other potential cap dump inexplicably has a 16+ team no trade list.

Worth noting that Barzal has been playing wing for a couple years now. He slid over to accommodate Horvat and I'm sure he could slide back to center. But he has been truly awful at the dot for his entire career.

Kyrou has also meaningfully outscored Barzal over the last several years. In his last 4 seasons (274 games played), Kyrou has 111 goals and 247 points. In his last 5 seasons (283 games played), Barzal has 72 goals and 243 points.

Barzal is a year older, has had noticeably more trouble staying in the lineup than Kyrou, makes $1M a year more than Kyrou, and he has struggled a good amount in the 17 games he's played this year (3 goals and 8 points). Both have 6 more years on their deals beyond this season. He's always been a giveaway machine because he absolutely thrives carrying the puck (which results in more giveaways that you can live with compared to guys who aren't relied upon that way), but his 24 giveaways to just 4 takeaways this year is a pretty troubling development.

I'm not sold Barzal would waive, but even if he did I'm not sold that 'he used to be a center who was awful at the dot' is worth taking on 2.5 years of dead cap on Cizekas, the extra cap he makes over Kyrou, the increased injury risk, and overlooking the concerns about his play this season. We need a center too and I absolutely would not trade Kyrou for Barzal and Cizekas.

Yeah, I’d want actual value on top of barzal.

 

[Spektre]

The Avs push Benson into their goalie and then Benson scores lol

The announcers don’t even know the rules if a goalie gets hurt, dumbasses

Avs challenge for goalie interference wow, they should get a penalty on top of their goalie getting hurt

lol penalty on Avs

 

[Reality Czech]

Just saw this article about a potential Toews comeback. I think enough time has passed since him and the Hawks owned us, and it would be a great story if he could come back and finish his career in a better way.

A New Report Suggests Jonathan Toews Has Interest From Teams

The Chicago Blackhawks had a lot of great years with Jonathan Toews. Now, it sounds like he's drawing interest from teams.

ca.sports.yahoo.com

 

[bleedblue1223]

Nah, f*** him.

 

[joe galiba]

Just saw this article about a potential Toews comeback. I think enough time has passed since him and the Hawks owned us, and it would be a great story if he could come back and finish his career in a better way.

A New Report Suggests Jonathan Toews Has Interest From Teams

The Chicago Blackhawks had a lot of great years with Jonathan Toews. Now, it sounds like he's drawing interest from teams.

ca.sports.yahoo.com

I don't get it, he wasn't very good the last few years
is he mysteriously going to suddenly improve after a couple seasons off?

 

[Frenzy31]

Signing bonuses are paid at the start do the season. I am sure most teams would rather pay the player over the course of the season. I would be curious about the tax issues caused by Bonus vs salary.

 

[Brian39]

I don't get it, he wasn't very good the last few years
is he mysteriously going to suddenly improve after a couple seasons off?

I have no clue if he has anything left in the tank, but he missed a full season due to a long term health problem and then continued missing time with the same issue once he returned. Toews has described his health issues as long COVID, a chronic immune response system, and 'other issues' and eventually left mid-season citing his deteriorating health. He very clearly wasn't at 100% health in those last couple years.

Getting healthy (or learning to effectively manage a chronic immune issue) is a pretty significant factor toward being able to perform athletically.

I'm not confident that he's going to be the old Toews again and there are plenty of reasons to believe that a 36 year old body isn't going to be able to effectively return to form after a long time away from the game. But his play deteriorated due to health issues that he is pretty clearly saying are now in the past.

 

[Xerloris]

I have no clue if he has anything left in the tank, but he missed a full season due to a long term health problem and then continued missing time with the same issue once he returned. Toews has described his health issues as long COVID, a chronic immune response system, and 'other issues' and eventually left mid-season citing his deteriorating health. He very clearly wasn't at 100% health in those last couple years.

Getting healthy (or learning to effectively manage a chronic immune issue) is a pretty significant factor toward being able to perform athletically.

I'm not confident that he's going to be the old Toews again and there are plenty of reasons to believe that a 36 year old body isn't going to be able to effectively return to form after a long time away from the game. But his play deteriorated due to health issues that he is pretty clearly saying are now in the past.

It's probably a side effect from the experimental vaccine

 

[StlBigFly]

Toews seems like a Boston gamble eh?

They tried Tyler Johnson which seemed like a big stretch.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Toews seems like a Boston gamble eh?

They tried Tyler Johnson which seemed like a big stretch.

Probably Toronto

 

[Reality Czech]

Probably Toronto

Could definitely see him playing for hometown Winnipeg. The three teams cited in the article make sense, Winnipeg, Toronto or Colorado.

 

[joe galiba]

I have no clue if he has anything left in the tank, but he missed a full season due to a long term health problem and then continued missing time with the same issue once he returned. Toews has described his health issues as long COVID, a chronic immune response system, and 'other issues' and eventually left mid-season citing his deteriorating health. He very clearly wasn't at 100% health in those last couple years.

Getting healthy (or learning to effectively manage a chronic immune issue) is a pretty significant factor toward being able to perform athletically.

I'm not confident that he's going to be the old Toews again and there are plenty of reasons to believe that a 36 year old body isn't going to be able to effectively return to form after a long time away from the game. But his play deteriorated due to health issues that he is pretty clearly saying are now in the past.

post-viral fatigue syndrome would be difficult for a professional athlete to play through, but he missed a whole year, came back and was kind of ok on a bad team and then the next year, he fell off a cliff and then missed all of last year again
if it was still the post-viral issue for his play, I would think the first year back would have been worse than the 2nd
although, I guess it could be two separate issues

 

[SirPaste]

How does this quarter century team shit work because they didn't list Demitra, Weight, or Kariya and as much as I love Vladdi those 3 I just listed are better than Him, Steen and Backes.

If your talking just their Blues careers than I would have all 3 above Weight and Kariya pretty easily. Demitra on the other hand does seem like an oversight.

 

[joe galiba]

If your talking just their Blues careers than I would have all 3 above Weight and Kariya pretty easily. Demitra on the other hand does seem like an oversight.

I would put Demitra above Perron as a player, but Demitra was only with the Blues for 4 seasons in the time frame
ROR would be the only forward where it would be close and the cup is certainly a factor there
I think, for once, the NHL got this correct

and our D is stacked

 

[SirPaste]

I would put Demitra above Perron as a player, but Demitra was only with the Blues for 4 seasons in the time frame
ROR would be the only forward where it would be close and the cup is certainly a factor there
I think, for once, the NHL got this correct

and our D is stacked

Yea I agree actually, I didn't realize it was only 4 seasons for Demitra included. Perron is actually right behind him by like 30ish points in all time Blues scoring and had all those in the last 25 years and that would far surpass only 4 seasons of Demitra's scoring.

 

[StlBigFly]

Probably Toronto

Imma add a third team to the list.

Wings

Kane and Debrincat probably need a toews.

Maybe if toews isnt a fit for a contender he chills in Detroit for a few years.

 

[TheOrganist]

Vancouver continues their “Rangers of the West” routine. Shutout at home against Nashville? That’s baddddd.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Vancouver continues their “Rangers of the West” routine. Shutout at home against Nashville? That’s baddddd.

In their defense, they were without Hughes, EP, Hronek, and Demko. That is helluva lot of talent missing.

 

[TheOrganist]

In their defense, they were without Hughes, EP, Hronek, and Demko. That is helluva lot of talent missing.

True, but just in a general sense they are having one of those Ranger-esque years of inner turmoil and seem ripe to be caught by one of the three teams chasing them.

 

[PocketNines]

man that is actually a very very tough question, Demitra or Perron. Perron is probably my favorite NHL player to ever play, that I have ever watched. But I have nothing but love for Demitra too and they were both exceptional

 

[Reality Czech]

Just noticed PO Joseph has been playing over 20 minutes per game since returning to the Penguins. Injuries are a huge reason why, but nice to see him getting more playing time (even if he's got 0 points and is -6 in 6 games).