Around the NHL 2024-2025

[Davimir Tarablad]

Mikkola's biggest issue was consistency, he'd spend a few games looking like a solid #4, then he'd have games where he'd look completely overwhelmed. He's definitely ironed out that issue over the past few years (for the most part)

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

We’re gonna get Mikkola talk every day aren’t we?

 

[Mike Liut]

Isn’t Loof a better version of Mikkola?

 

[ChicagoBlues]

mikkola was not used in the proper roles here. he is a last pairing d-man and was constantly being put out with top pairs.

when he was not overused or misused, he was quite solid here.

I agree. Mikkola was as advertised. For me, I file this in my WTF folder.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Isn’t Loof a better version of Mikkola?

Not Finnish enough

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Isn’t Loof a better version of Mikkola?

He’s a smaller version, so likely no.

 

[Ranksu]

Was anyone really clamoring to keep him at the deadline 2 years ago? No.

He couldn’t make a breakout pass to save his life 2 years ago. He’s gotten better since then. He’d be nice to have now but there was really no indication he was going to take the step he did or that he even wanted to re-sign with STL. It absolutely made sense to trade him.

I think Army has blow up few good dmen on Blues. Dunn, Walman and Mikkola. They all florish in few years after they are gone.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Once again, there was no indication that he DIDN’T want to re-sign in STL.

Was anyone on this board smart and recognized that Mikkola was pretty solid and did a lot of things well? Yes, there were some of us. Not all of us flipped our shit every time he caused a turnover. That happens with young d-men. He was showing improvement and was playing mostly fine, and he was a late bloomer so it made sense to give him more time. The revisionist history that we just had to trade him is some high-tier coping though.

To me, the thought that we should’ve prioritized the guy that had 0 goals and 3 assists in 50 games that season is the revisionist history. Young guy making mistakes? He was 27. Even Tucker and Borts out produced him in fewer games that season. And we had Leddy, Krug and Scandella locked in on the left side at the time with Tucker pushing. Mikkola hadn’t shown much at that point. I’m happy for him that he’s bloomed at age 28/29 but that’s not common or something I’m really going to blame Army for not seeing coming.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

To me, the thought that we should’ve prioritized the guy that had 0 goals and 3 assists in 50 games that season is the revisionist history. Young guy making mistakes? He was 27. Even Tucker and Borts out produced him in fewer games that season. And we had Leddy, Krug and Scandella locked in on the left side at the time with Tucker pushing. Mikkola hadn’t shown much at that point. I’m happy for him that he’s bloomed at age 28/29 but that’s not common or something I’m really going to blame Army for not seeing coming.

I think the issue is that we preferred Scandella to Mikkola/Walman. We signed Scandella to 4x$3.275 when Mikkola and Walman were already right there, way cheaper, and just as good (if not better). Scandella was garbage, hurt all the time, and already 29.

Scandella was a really good defenseman for Minnesota, when he was 23-26. Leddy was really good with the Blackhawks when he was first coming into the league. Krug was really good for Boston. I think Army gets enamored by older defensemen who were good when they were younger, without considering that they aren't those players anymore. It's a weird lack of self-reflection on his part that he has had several good, young defensemen over the years who could have had similar careers if he hadn't blocked their path with older guys with big contracts.

Part of that is a "win now" mentality, but I guess I just kind of fundamentally disagree that the best way to do that is by blocking and then getting rid of your young players.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I think the issue is that we preferred Scandella to Mikkola/Walman. We signed Scandella to 4x$3.275 when Mikkola and Walman were already right there, way cheaper, and just as good (if not better). Scandella was garbage, hurt all the time, and already 29.

Scandella was a really good defenseman for Minnesota, when he was 23-26. Leddy was really good with the Blackhawks when he was first coming into the league. Krug was really good for Boston. I think Army gets enamored by older defensemen who were good when they were younger, without considering that they aren't those players anymore. It's a weird lack of self-reflection on his part that he has had several good, young defensemen over the years who could have had similar careers if he hadn't blocked their path with older guys with big contracts.

Part of that is a "win now" mentality, but I guess I just kind of fundamentally disagree that the best way to do that is by blocking and then getting rid of your young players.

It worked out when Army went out and got 33 year old Cam Fowler. Bouwmeester was 29. Gunnarsson was 29 and was solid for us.

Mikkola has emerged for sure, but I feel pretty confident saying that every team has a few prospects that aged out before they turned into solid players. I'm not sold on Walman being anything special. Even Dunn has fans frustrated in Seattle this season with his lackluster defensive play this season.

Prospects reach the end of their runway with teams all the time. You can't retain everybody, especially if you're looking to win within a current competitive window.

 

[STL fan in MN]

I think the issue is that we preferred Scandella to Mikkola/Walman. We signed Scandella to 4x$3.275 when Mikkola and Walman were already right there, way cheaper, and just as good (if not better). Scandella was garbage, hurt all the time, and already 29.

Scandella was a really good defenseman for Minnesota, when he was 23-26. Leddy was really good with the Blackhawks when he was first coming into the league. Krug was really good for Boston. I think Army gets enamored by older defensemen who were good when they were younger, without considering that they aren't those players anymore. It's a weird lack of self-reflection on his part that he has had several good, young defensemen over the years who could have had similar careers if he hadn't blocked their path with older guys with big contracts.

Part of that is a "win now" mentality, but I guess I just kind of fundamentally disagree that the best way to do that is by blocking and then getting rid of your young players.

Now this overall sentiment is something I could agree with. I too would’ve liked for some of these guys to have gotten more of a shot or gotten more or a look sooner. That said, it’s also on the young guys to force the issue. To grab the role and not make the GM consider going out and finding someone better. I mean, you could say the same today with Kessel. He’s had every opportunity to grab the 3RD spot and hasn’t. And now at least us fans are talking about going out and obtaining someone like Perbix to be the 3RD. If the young guy wants then role then he needs to go grab it!

Specific to Scandella though, the Blues signed him in April 2020 after he looked good next to Parayko after we traded for him. As we now know via hindsight, the wheels fell off and he wasn’t very good the last year or two of his contract. But when that decision had to be made in 2020, I will simply have to disagree that Walman and/or Mikkola were just as good if not better. At that point, Mikkola had played 5 NHL games in his career and Walman 1. Scandella was signed to be in our top-4 whereas Mikkola and Walman would’ve been clawing to try to earn a #5-7 job. Mikkola and Walman weren’t even established NHLers at that point.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

It worked out when Army went out and got 33 year old Cam Fowler. Bouwmeester was 29. Gunnarsson was 29 and was solid for us.

Mikkola has emerged for sure, but I feel pretty confident saying that every team has a few prospects that aged out before they turned into solid players. I'm not sold on Walman being anything special. Even Dunn has fans frustrated in Seattle this season with his lackluster defensive play this season.

Prospects reach the end of their runway with teams all the time. You can't retain everybody, especially if you're looking to win within a current competitive window.

Fowler worked out, yes. To the surprise of basically everyone! Broken clocks / blind squirrels / etc.

I hated Gunnarsson pretty much from the moment he got here though, so I don't find his inclusion persuasive.

J-Bo had a 574-game Iron Man streak when he got here. He was widely understood to be a premier defensive player, and was a no-brainer to play in our top-4. I disagreed at the time and still now in retrospect with our usage of him, but he was a good player. He didn't take any prospects' job, since we didn't have any equivalent players in the system.

Scandella was brought in to BUF to stabilize their d-corps and failed so hard he almost dropped out of the league entirely. BUF paid a hefty price to get him from MIN, and then three years later got just a 4th rounder from MTL for his services. Then we inexplicably gave MTL that 4th back, and added a 2nd rounder for his services. There were many warning signs on his way in, and giving him a 4-year contract based on a 20-game sample size (where he scored all of 1 point) was a bad decision.

Similarly, NYI gave up Leddy for Richard Panik, who only had 4 more NHL games left in him, and a 2nd. A nominal fee at best, they were trying to get rid of him. We paid way more for him less than 2 years later, when the signs of wear and tear were already very apparent. We included Walman in that trade, who later went on to fetch SJS a 1st rounder.

I don't think it's crazy to say based on the body of evidence that we overvalue veteran dmen on the decline, and undervalue our own defensive prospects.

 

[Beninnola]

Fowler worked out, yes. To the surprise of basically everyone! Broken clocks / blind squirrels / etc.

I hated Gunnarsson pretty much from the moment he got here though, so I don't find his inclusion persuasive.

J-Bo had a 574-game Iron Man streak when he got here. He was widely understood to be a premier defensive player, and was a no-brainer to play in our top-4. I disagreed at the time and still now in retrospect with our usage of him, but he was a good player. He didn't take any prospects' job, since we didn't have any equivalent players in the system.

Scandella was brought in to BUF to stabilize their d-corps and failed so hard he almost dropped out of the league entirely. BUF paid a hefty price to get him from MIN, and then three years later got just a 4th rounder from MTL for his services. Then we inexplicably gave MTL that 4th back, and added a 2nd rounder for his services. There were many warning signs on his way in, and giving him a 4-year contract based on a 20-game sample size (where he scored all of 1 point) was a bad decision.

Similarly, NYI gave up Leddy for Richard Panik, who only had 4 more NHL games left in him, and a 2nd. A nominal fee at best, they were trying to get rid of him. We paid way more for him less than 2 years later, when the signs of wear and tear were already very apparent. We included Walman in that trade, who later went on to fetch SJS a 1st rounder.

I don't think it's crazy to say based on the body of evidence that we overvalue veteran dmen on the decline, and undervalue our own defensive prospects.

I’m super curious to know

What exactly is discussed and what commitments are made when trades and contracts occur, especially with older d men.

I feel a lot of the decision making is based on ice time and roles, but when we see contracts we see nothing about icetime and roles.

I’ve always felt it’s hard to evaluate the defense when we’re in the dark over how roles are handled and what that means for developing players and icetime.

Ps: I tried to tell yall Fowler was a good idea ad museum the day of the tx

 

[Brian39]

I think the issue is that we preferred Scandella to Mikkola/Walman. We signed Scandella to 4x$3.275 when Mikkola and Walman were already right there, way cheaper, and just as good (if not better). Scandella was garbage, hurt all the time, and already 29.

It is simply not true that Mikkola/Walman were "already right there, way cheaper, and just as good (if not better)" than Scandella when that acquisition and extension was done. Mikkola and Walman had played a combined 6 NHL games when we acquired Scandella to play as Parayko's partner on our shutdown pair that played one of the most difficult matchup assignment roles in the league. It is absolute nonsense to claim that either was remotely ready for that or would have been effective in that role for a team that was in the middle of a Cup-defense season.

Then in 2020/21, Scandella resoundingly outplayed Mikkola and Walman during their rookie seasons. And then he did it again in 2021/22. From the moment Scandella was brought in through the 2021/22 season, the Blues outscored opponents 93-75 with him on the ice at 5 on 5. In the same timeframe, we got outscored 68-51 with Mikkola on the ice at 5 on 5 and 25-19 with Walman on the ice at 5 on 5.

The team was trying to win games at this time and Scandella absolutely gave them a better chance of doing that than Mikkola or Walman when he got here and in the first half of his contract.

It was the end of 2022 when Scandella's body started breaking down. We brought in Leddy at the deadline, which I think made sense for a team that finished with 109 points. I didn't like that Leddy was the guy we decided to bring in, but the decision to bring in a vet to fill the role made tons of sense. And then Leddy had 5 points and was a +4 in 9 playoff games and was our top LHD in those playoffs by a mile. That team gave the Avs their only real series of their 3 rounds in the West and many people around here believe that we would have won if Binner hadn't gotten hurt in game 3. We would have gotten absolutely curb stomped by the Avs without Leddy in that series.

Scandella was a really good defenseman for Minnesota, when he was 23-26. Leddy was really good with the Blackhawks when he was first coming into the league. Krug was really good for Boston. I think Army gets enamored by older defensemen who were good when they were younger, without considering that they aren't those players anymore. It's a weird lack of self-reflection on his part that he has had several good, young defensemen over the years who could have had similar careers if he hadn't blocked their path with older guys with big contracts.

Part of that is a "win now" mentality, but I guess I just kind of fundamentally disagree that the best way to do that is by blocking and then getting rid of your young players.

I've got a good chunk of time for the philosophical argument about whether this team should have been prioritizing development over winning once Petro walked.

But that doesn't mean that the vets brought in weren't better at helping the team win games than the young guys who we could have been developing. Mikkola and Walman were tangibly worse players as they cracked the NHL than Scandella. We got worse results with them on the ice than we did from Scandella (and eventually the early part of Leddy's tenure here). They were absolutely not capable of playing adequate on a high end shutdown pair for a team trying to win games.

Edit: To be clear, I've had plenty of issues with the way the D has been handled/constructed since June of 2018. I think that there has been a domino effect of mistakes that has been Army's largest failing as our GM. But I very much think that Scandella and Leddy were better players upon arrival than people give them credit for and I certainly don't believe that Mikkola or Walman were remotely close to their levels in their first couple NHL seasons. And while LEddy's contract eventually created a roadblock, Scandella's $3.25M didn't. The AAV was very much low enough to slide him to the bottom pair in favor of MIkkola on the 2nd pair (with a raise) if Mikkola had played well enough to jump Scandella on the depth chart.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

It is simply not true that Mikkola/Walman were "already right there, way cheaper, and just as good (if not better)" than Scandella when that acquisition and extension was done. Mikkola and Walman had played a combined 6 NHL games when we acquired Scandella to play as Parayko's partner on our shutdown pair that played one of the most difficult matchup assignment roles in the league. It is absolute nonsense to claim that either was remotely ready for that or would have been effective in that role for a team that was in the middle of a Cup-defense season.

Then in 2020/21, Scandella resoundingly outplayed Mikkola and Walman during their rookie seasons. And then he did it again in 2021/22. From the moment Scandella was brought in through the 2021/22 season, the Blues outscored opponents 93-75 with him on the ice at 5 on 5. In the same timeframe, we got outscored 68-51 with Mikkola on the ice at 5 on 5 and 25-19 with Walman on the ice at 5 on 5.

The team was trying to win games at this time and Scandella absolutely gave them a better chance of doing that than Mikkola or Walman when he got here and in the first half of his contract.

It was the end of 2022 when Scandella's body started breaking down. We brought in Leddy at the deadline, which I think made sense for a team that finished with 109 points. I didn't like that Leddy was the guy we decided to bring in, but the decision to bring in a vet to fill the role made tons of sense. And then Leddy had 5 points and was a +4 in 9 playoff games and was our top LHD in those playoffs by a mile. That team gave the Avs their only real series of their 3 rounds in the West and many people around here believe that we would have won if Binner hadn't gotten hurt in game 3. We would have gotten absolutely curb stomped by the Avs without Leddy in that series.


I've got a good chunk of time for the philosophical argument about whether this team should have been prioritizing development over winning once Petro walked.

But that doesn't mean that the vets brought in weren't better at helping the team win games than the young guys who we could have been developing. Mikkola and Walman were tangibly worse players as they cracked the NHL than Scandella. We got worse results with them on the ice than we did from Scandella (and eventually the early part of Leddy's tenure here). They were absolutely not capable of playing adequate on a high end shutdown pair for a team trying to win games.

Edit: To be clear, I've had plenty of issues with the way the D has been handled/constructed since June of 2018. I think that there has been a domino effect of mistakes that has been Army's largest failing as our GM. But I very much think that Scandella and Leddy were better players upon arrival than people give them credit for and I certainly don't believe that Mikkola or Walman were remotely close to their levels in their first couple NHL seasons. And while LEddy's contract eventually created a roadblock, Scandella's $3.25M didn't. The AAV was very much low enough to slide him to the bottom pair in favor of MIkkola on the 2nd pair (with a raise) if Mikkola had played well enough to jump Scandella on the depth chart.

I think it's fine to think that way, and to an extent you're right re: the older guys giving us a better shot in the moment at winning a playoff series. I just disagree that it's a good long-term strategy.

But you've got to at least recognize that we are (or have) extending some charity to guys like Bolduc, Snuggerud, and Neighbours that we haven't extended to young defensemen in the past. Bolduc didn't find his footing until midway through this season. Snuggerud had doggie doo doo on-ice results for most of his games this season. Neighbours had an adjustment window that we powered through. Even Tucker got some leeway once Monty took the helm. That isn't usual for us; it's pretty atypical when compared against the last decade plus. So if we're giving young guys a shot now, and it's atypical, that necessarily means that it wasn't that way before, and therefore we didn't give guys the same runway previously. If you didn't come in ready to play right away (e.g. Parayko, Thomas, etc), then we didn't have a whole lot of time for you as recently as like 2 years ago.

I think that's an excellent development, but I'm concerned that Army seems eager to turn the page back and re-raise expectations. That's good, we should always have our expectations high, but my concern is that he'll stop giving runway to prospects right as we're about to have a massive influx of them. There's a balance between throwing young guys to the wolves (like Buffalo) and giving them a chance to get settled. All I'm saying is that we've gone too far in the other direction for a long time, and that's a reason why we had to go into a "retool."

I think ultimately the grass was greener on guys like Scandella, Faulk, Leddy, and Krug than what we signed up for, and we would have been better off in most of those cases just standing pat and giving the young guys an extended shot.

 

[Brian39]

Scandella was brought in to BUF to stabilize their d-corps and failed so hard he almost dropped out of the league entirely. BUF paid a hefty price to get him from MIN, and then three years later got just a 4th rounder from MTL for his services. Then we inexplicably gave MTL that 4th back, and added a 2nd rounder for his services. There were many warning signs on his way in, and giving him a 4-year contract based on a 20-game sample size (where he scored all of 1 point) was a bad decision.

Getting teams to retain salary costs you assets in a hard cap league. We didn't have the cap space to fit his full cap hit. Buffalo didn't want to pay the couple million dollars in real money to shop him with retention. Montreal was happy to pay cash to flip him for surplus draft capital. They bought an asset (Scandella) to flip for futures by being willing to write a check for 7 figures of cash.

Similarly, NYI gave up Leddy for Richard Panik, who only had 4 more NHL games left in him, and a 2nd. A nominal fee at best, they were trying to get rid of him.

The Isles were 'trying to get rid of him' a week before the expansion draft where they potentially could have lost him for nothing. They also didn't retain any salary. Do you think these factors could impact the market?

We paid way more for him

"Way more."

We also gave up a 2nd (a nominal fee at best) and then the extra stuff was Walman and Sunny. Sunny wasn't at all living up to his $2.75M AAV at the time and was struggling to stay healthy. A year later, Detroit moved him for a 4th and then a few months after that we signed him to a league minimum deal.

Detroit also retained 50% on the contract, which again, generally costs assets.

We included Walman in that trade, who later went on to fetch SJS a 1st rounder.

Which is the only real asset we gave up in addition to the 'nominal fee' 2nd rounder. He very much wasn't viewed as a high value asset at the time and I find it odd that you leave out the part where Detroit had to pay a 2nd to get rid of him between our trade and the one where San Jose got a 1st.

 

[Louie the Blue]

Fowler worked out, yes. To the surprise of basically everyone! Broken clocks / blind squirrels / etc.

Just not true. I had posted here well a year and a half before mentioning how Fowler would be a fit (I have texts to a friend going back to 2021 how I viewed him as a fit too).

My point with there being 29 other teams are that there’s still options.

I’d have to do more research on each roster to give an example that I think could be viable for a swap.

Glancing really quickly, I could see Anaheim being a fit due to their cap space. Would need to be centered around someone like Strome if a direct 1 for 1 or Fowler if Blues want to add to Krug and upgrade D.

I’d be fine with Krug + 25th Overall + a prospect(Bolduc) or a future 2024 pick for Fowler.

 

[Brian39]

I think it's fine to think that way, and to an extent you're right re: the older guys giving us a better shot in the moment at winning a playoff series. I just disagree that it's a good long-term strategy.

But you've got to at least recognize that we are (or have) extending some charity to guys like Bolduc, Snuggerud, and Neighbours that we haven't extended to young defensemen in the past. Bolduc didn't find his footing until midway through this season. Snuggerud had doggie doo doo on-ice results for most of his games this season. Neighbours had an adjustment window that we powered through. Even Tucker got some leeway once Monty took the helm. That isn't usual for us; it's pretty atypical when compared against the last decade plus. So if we're giving young guys a shot now, and it's atypical, that necessarily means that it wasn't that way before, and therefore we didn't give guys the same runway previously. If you didn't come in ready to play right away (e.g. Parayko, Thomas, etc), then we didn't have a whole lot of time for you as recently as like 2 years ago.

Does anyone disagree that we (and all NHL teams) treat young players different in a retool/rebuild than they do when they are in a perceived Cup window?

I think that's an excellent development, but I'm concerned that Army seems eager to turn the page back and re-raise expectations. That's good, we should always have our expectations high, but my concern is that he'll stop giving runway to prospects right as we're about to have a massive influx of them. There's a balance between throwing young guys to the wolves (like Buffalo) and giving them a chance to get settled. All I'm saying is that we've gone too far in the other direction for a long time, and that's a reason why we had to go into a "retool."

Everyone has to retool eventually. We would have started a retool in 2020/21 if we hadn't acquired/extended vets who would be better in the short term at the expense of the long term. I think giving the left side of the D group to Dunn, Mikkola, and Walman in 2020 would have triggered a retool. Again, I get the argument for that, but I also don't think that it was crazy not to actively retool when we still had a big chunk of the Cup team and had looked great up until the COVID playoff bubble.

I think ultimately the grass was greener on guys like Scandella, Faulk, Leddy, and Krug than what we signed up for, and we would have been better off in most of those cases just standing pat and giving the young guys an extended shot.

I just cannot agree that the grass was greener with Scandella. We were the defending Cup champs, sitting at the top of the Western Conference, and our best LHD suffered a wholly unexpected, career ending cardiac episode on the ice. I genuinely can't fathom a better time to prioritize the short term over the long term. You owe it to your team not to just plug that hole with an AHL call up and his extension was low enough that a young guy could have played their way past him from the 3rd pair. I'm glad we didn't give up our 1st that year (Neighbours) to make an even bigger trade too.

Faulk has been pretty damn good here for a long time and hasn't blocked any prospects. While I think that his acquisition/extension is one component of the domino effect of mistakes, his play has been well worth what we gave up (in terms of asset cost, cap commitment, and taking up a roster space).

I agree on Krug. I wanted to give Dunn that role and spend cap elsewhere at the time.

I can't agree with Leddy. The team wildly outperformed expectations in 2021/22 and LHD was a clear issue. I have no problem taking a shot in the moment that season. And by the time we gave him the extension, Mikkola hadn't seized his opportunity. He didn't look ready to play a top pair role in 2022/23, which is what we needed (and filled) with the Leddy extension. We had started to figure out that Krug needed to be a 2nd pair guy at even strength so it was obvious that Parayko's partner was going to have a huge amount of responsibility. 2022/23 ended up being a disaster, but I can't fault the front office for believing that it had turned a corner in 2021/22 after a middling 2020/21 season and bringing back Leddy to play that role.

All in all, I think the issue/mistake/problem with the D construction was trying to replace Petro and (insert #4 caliber D man) with Faulk and Krug. I don't think the issue was just prioritizing vets in general and I think that Leddy and Scandella both exceeded expectations (and whatever internal options we could have used). They broke down at the end (as expected), but I have them (and the organizational philosophy to get them) way down the list of reasons the team eventually had to enter the retool.

And at the end of the day, I'd still take Broberg and Fowler right now over any of the LHD we've lost and seen succeed elsewhere.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Carolina looks much smaller than Florida. I looked it up and the Canes are not exactly a small team, but the Panthers are bigger.

EDIT: And they got smaller after the Necas/Rants moves netted Stankoven.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I think it's fine to think that way, and to an extent you're right re: the older guys giving us a better shot in the moment at winning a playoff series. I just disagree that it's a good long-term strategy.

But you've got to at least recognize that we are (or have) extending some charity to guys like Bolduc, Snuggerud, and Neighbours that we haven't extended to young defensemen in the past. Bolduc didn't find his footing until midway through this season. Snuggerud had doggie doo doo on-ice results for most of his games this season. Neighbours had an adjustment window that we powered through. Even Tucker got some leeway once Monty took the helm. That isn't usual for us; it's pretty atypical when compared against the last decade plus. So if we're giving young guys a shot now, and it's atypical, that necessarily means that it wasn't that way before, and therefore we didn't give guys the same runway previously. If you didn't come in ready to play right away (e.g. Parayko, Thomas, etc), then we didn't have a whole lot of time for you as recently as like 2 years ago.

I think that's an excellent development, but I'm concerned that Army seems eager to turn the page back and re-raise expectations. That's good, we should always have our expectations high, but my concern is that he'll stop giving runway to prospects right as we're about to have a massive influx of them. There's a balance between throwing young guys to the wolves (like Buffalo) and giving them a chance to get settled. All I'm saying is that we've gone too far in the other direction for a long time, and that's a reason why we had to go into a "retool."

I think ultimately the grass was greener on guys like Scandella, Faulk, Leddy, and Krug than what we signed up for, and we would have been better off in most of those cases just standing pat and giving the young guys an extended shot.

Most recently, I would argue Perunovich had more than a fair shake before they moved on.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Carolina looks much smaller than Florida. I looked it up and the Canes are not exactly a small team, but the Panthers are bigger.

EDIT: And they got smaller after the Necas/Rants moves netted Stankoven.

Records aside, the 3 best teams in East are all in the Atlantic. Carolina keeps getting swept in Conference finals because they keep facing better teams, but Florida seems like a particularly bad matchup for them.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

Just not true. I had posted here well a year and a half before mentioning how Fowler would be a fit (I have texts to a friend going back to 2021 how I viewed him as a fit too).

Hell, it goes back even further for Fowler discussion, I remember my first post here being about trading Shattenkirk for Fowler.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Canes forwards average weight 198.75; average height 6'1"
Panthers forwards average weight 196.33; average height 6'2"

Canes defensemen average weight 205.5; average height 6'1"
Panthers defensemen average weight 207.5; average height 6'3"

I used numbers on NHL dot com.

 

[ezcreepin]

There's a long list of defenseman the Blues have had that go on to have good, productive careers. Dunn, Mikkola, Walman, Cole, Petro (sigh). This isn't anything new to the league and frankly, none of those guys outside of Petro had solidified themselves as people you could genuinely count on. Now, you could say that you take the good with the bad, but again, I personally don't think there was enough good to justify keeping them in the roles they would be used in. Petro was a blunder, sure, but Dunn had been in the league for 4 years up to that point and still had some pretty large deficiencies. Mikkola was a solid, quick, agile defender who took many penalties given his games played and ice time, AND who handled the puck at that time like it was a live grenade. Loved the player, hated the things I saw on the ice. Walman was a player I wanted to see success here, but he never established himself with the limited amount of time he had. I think it required him getting thrown to the wolves on a bad team for him to find what game he needs to play and he's turned into a good offensive weapon. Cole is old news but same thing.

We have done fairly well with forwards whether that's holding on to them too long and they turn into something good or our scouting can see talent, but defense is hit or miss a lot of the time OR we give up quickly with the wrong players. Goaltending we do well. That's just how it is right now.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Mikkola with a goal. A deflection, but it is his.