Blues 2024 Off-Season Trade Proposals Thread

[wiscrev]

Its pretty difficult for me to see us following a path like Vegas.

We aren’t willing or able to do the things they are. We haven’t shown we are willing to structure contracts the way premier UFAs and even those less than them expect. So we need to calibrate our expectations for top UFAs.

We also haven’t shown we are willing to weaponize LITR. I realize this wasn’t in your reply but I would rather get ahead of it.
Vegas won by doing this. Army isn’t a fan of the LITR loophole if second hand accounts are accurate.

We are not and will not be Vegas without significant change in our organization. We don’t operate like them on so many levels. Using them as an example to me is inherently flawed as such.

For Vegas it is "Yu live by the sword, you die by the sword." I truly believe that there will come a day when UFA's will not want to go there because of the way they operate, money or not. They will give you the money and then, eventually, treat you like %$$#^.

 

[Reality Czech]

Its pretty difficult for me to see us following a path like Vegas.

We aren’t willing or able to do the things they are. We haven’t shown we are willing to structure contracts the way premier UFAs and even those less than them expect. So we need to calibrate our expectations for top UFAs.

We also haven’t shown we are willing to weaponize LITR. I realize this wasn’t in your reply but I would rather get ahead of it.
Vegas won by doing this. Army isn’t a fan of the LITR loophole if second hand accounts are accurate.

We are not and will not be Vegas without significant change in our organization. We don’t operate like them on so many levels. Using them as an example to me is inherently flawed as such.

Not to mention the fact that the NHL basically gift wrapped Vegas a contender via their extremely friendly expansion draft rules. They didn't pay their half a billion dollar fee to start in the basement of the league.

 

[Celtic Note]

For Vegas it is "Yu live by the sword, you die by the sword." I truly believe that there will come a day when UFA's will not want to go there because of the way they operate, money or not. They will give you the money and then, eventually, treat you like %$$#^.

Not sure. There are a lot of people willing to take the mistreatment if they get paid what they want and how they want.

I don’t agree with their approach, but enough people do that I am guessing it continues. Plus there is this fetishization with Vegas for many.

 

[wiscrev]

Not sure. There are a lot of people willing to take the mistreatment if they get paid what they want and how they want.

I don’t agree with their approach, but enough people do that I am guessing it continues. Plus there is this fetishization with Vegas for many.

I won't disagree with that.

 

[oPlaiD]

How do you suggest we position ourselves for top pick? Should we trade away our top players (Thomas, Parayko, Binny, etc..) so that we can lose more? Then we need not just 1 stud but additional ones to replace top guys we dumped. Or do you want us just to try to lose? Like tell guys to not win? Because that doesn't seem like great way to build champ either. Most teams picking at top of draft aren't doing it by choice; given choice teams should want to be better.

If we traded Buch for futures instead of extending him we'd already be in a position to likely get a top 10 pick and maybe better. Our aging defense is another year older and we most likely won't get as great a season of goaltending as we did last year, nor last a season as healthy as we did last year. We've managed to outperform our underlying metrics in most of the recent seasons people think we've been trending in the right direction, but so far we haven't managed to maintain that into the next season.

We should be more focused on stockpiling talent through the draft right now so we can have a wave of cost controlled talent coming into the lineup on the back half of Thomas and Kyrou's contracts. Instead we're extending Buch, hurting our draft capital, and reducing the chances we have to really line up a solid competitive window around the real talent we do have on the current roster.

That said I still think our chances of finishing in the bottom 10 are much higher than most seem to think around this forum, but I think Armstrong's retooling of the bottom 6 may have avoided that outcome. It's kind of weird since it feels like our team lacks star talent, but the bottom 6 was one of our biggest weaknesses last season. The defense isn't elite and needs to be reworked to really catapult us higher, but they're mostly serviceable, for now.

Edit:

Well, JFresh's post-free agency projections places us as a bottom 8 team with 83 points, for whatever value you want to put on that.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1809252496851738920

If moving Buch instead of extending him loses us 2-3 points in the standings, we'd be a bottom 5 projection.

 

[PocketNines]

Vegas is a playground town for young rich athletes at that stage of their lives. There's no way around the fact that this has some appeal, even if it's only for a few years. Part of it is that when teams visit to play you they are generally a lot more jazzed up to socialize and do the things these guys want to do in their off times. It's not Ottawa or Winnipeg. It's a buzzier place.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

If we traded Buch for futures instead of extending him we'd already be in a position to likely get a top 10 pick and maybe better. Our aging defense is another year older and we most likely won't get as great a season of goaltending as we did last year, nor last a season as healthy as we did last year. We've managed to outperform our underlying metrics in most of the recent seasons people think we've been trending in the right direction, but so far we haven't managed to maintain that into the next season.

We should be more focused on stockpiling talent through the draft right now so we can have a wave of cost controlled talent coming into the lineup on the back half of Thomas and Kyrou's contracts. Instead we're extending Buch, hurting our draft capital, and reducing the chances we have to really line up a solid competitive window around the real talent we do have on the current roster.

That said I still think our chances of finishing in the bottom 10 are much higher than most seem to think around this forum, but I think Armstrong's retooling of the bottom 6 may have avoided that outcome. It's kind of weird since it feels like our team lacks star talent, but the bottom 6 was one of our biggest weaknesses last season. The defense isn't elite and needs to be reworked to really catapult us higher, but they're mostly serviceable, for now.

Edit:

Well, JFresh's post-free agency projections places us as a bottom 8 team with 83 points, for whatever value you want to put on that.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1809252496851738920

If moving Buch instead of extending him loses us 2-3 points in the standings, we'd be a bottom 5 projection.

The question I would ask is whether the difference between picking 12th or wherever versus the 7th without buchy is likely to yield a player as good as buchy? Because if we got a HAUL for buchy, which was what I wanted at last tdl, that I see benefit of, but if it’s just a late 1st and meh prospect, we are likely better keeping buchy and whatever pick we earn. Because buchy is really good and chances of drafting someone that good is pretty small and folks tend to dismiss that.

If we keep buchy and binner and parayko, with youth we already have, we’re not that far away from being potentially a really good team in a couple years. If we subtract bulk of our good players to get higher picks we push that further out and at that point we need to ask whether it makes more sense to deal Thomas too. And at that point we have blown it all up and we are looking at maybe a decade of crappy hockey and then who knows. But hey, this could be year at least one of buffalo or Ottawa or Detroit finally makes playoffs, so the long rebuild path maybe still could work.

 

[Stealth JD]

If we traded Buch for futures instead of extending him we'd already be in a position to likely get a top 10 pick and maybe better. Our aging defense is another year older and we most likely won't get as great a season of goaltending as we did last year, nor last a season as healthy as we did last year. We've managed to outperform our underlying metrics in most of the recent seasons people think we've been trending in the right direction, but so far we haven't managed to maintain that into the next season.

We should be more focused on stockpiling talent through the draft right now so we can have a wave of cost controlled talent coming into the lineup on the back half of Thomas and Kyrou's contracts. Instead we're extending Buch, hurting our draft capital, and reducing the chances we have to really line up a solid competitive window around the real talent we do have on the current roster.

That said I still think our chances of finishing in the bottom 10 are much higher than most seem to think around this forum, but I think Armstrong's retooling of the bottom 6 may have avoided that outcome. It's kind of weird since it feels like our team lacks star talent, but the bottom 6 was one of our biggest weaknesses last season. The defense isn't elite and needs to be reworked to really catapult us higher, but they're mostly serviceable, for now.

Edit:

Well, JFresh's post-free agency projections places us as a bottom 8 team with 83 points, for whatever value you want to put on that.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1809252496851738920

If moving Buch instead of extending him loses us 2-3 points in the standings, we'd be a bottom 5 projection.

What the hell did Minnesota do to leap in the projected standings?

 

[oPlaiD]

What the hell did Minnesota do to leap in the projected standings?

Who knows. JFresh commented on that saying it loves Kaprizov/Erikson Ek etc. But yeah, most confusing result on there.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Who knows. JFresh commented on that saying it loves Kaprizov/Erikson Ek etc. But yeah, most confusing result on there.

“Why is Minnesota so high??”

“IDK! My model really likes Kaprizov/EE/Boldy!”

“Ok, but does that make any sense? Pass the sniff test?”

“IDK! But you should totally take this seriously!”

Same sort of crap Dom would post. None of these guys have come close yet on trying to create a model that encapsulates everything to properly project things.

 

[Xerloris]

“Why is Minnesota so high??”

“IDK! My model really likes Kaprizov/EE/Boldy!”

“Ok, but does that make any sense? Pass the sniff test?”

“IDK! But you should totally take this seriously!”

Same sort of crap Dom would post. None of these guys have come close yet on trying to create a model that encapsulates everything to properly project things.

We should send Dizee to make his own projection lists and shit talk Dom and jfresh. I think it would make a really fun twitter thread.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

Not to mention the fact that the NHL basically gift wrapped Vegas a contender via their extremely friendly expansion draft rules. They didn't pay their half a billion dollar fee to start in the basement of the league.

This is revisionist history. Nobody thought that team was going to be that good in year one.

Also, most of the best players they got were via trade, where another team should’ve just let Vegas take someone on their unprotected list instead. There’s a reason nobody fell for it again during Seattle’s draft.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Dallas is such a weird team to try and mimic though. They went from being the best team in the West in 2015-2016, with Benn winning the Art Ross - to being almost the worst team in the West in 2016-2017, even though they didn't really have any major injuries and they brought back the majority of the same team. Then they have what has to be the best first three selections of any draft any franchise has had ever (Not counting the soon to be trio of Dvo/Stenberg/Lindstein ofc ) in Miro/Oett/Robertson.

That's a tough nut to crack - Dallas basically drafted three of the five best players in the ENTIRE draft in 2017. I think any team that can pull that off becomes a contender pretty damn quick. I agree with Blueston though, we need to concern ourselves with outputs - if we have a draft like Dallas in 2017, it doesn't matter where we draft, all that matters is that we drafted the top player at each position in the draft.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

“Why is Minnesota so high??”

Granola?

 

[Reality Czech]

This is revisionist history. Nobody thought that team was going to be that good in year one.

Also, most of the best players they got were via trade, where another team should’ve just let Vegas take someone on their unprotected list instead. There’s a reason nobody fell for it again during Seattle’s draft.

True, but the expansion draft set them up for future success. They got 3 first round picks right off the bat and a lot of really good players since teams could only protect 7-3-1 or 4-4. Maybe no one expected it at the time, but it was pretty obvious soon after the expansion draft that they were positioned to be pretty good in the near future. The expansion draft rules allowed them to collect those assets which they later used in trades.

Yeah, obviously no one "fell" for it with Seattle because they saw how much it benefitted Vegas and hurt the teams that made those expansion-draft trades.

 

[WeWentBlues]

True, but the expansion draft set them up for future success. They got 3 first round picks right off the bat and a lot of really good players since teams could only protect 7-3-1 or 4-4. Maybe no one expected it at the time, but it was pretty obvious soon after the expansion draft that they were positioned to be pretty good in the near future. The expansion draft rules allowed them to collect those assets which they later used in trades.

Yeah, obviously no one "fell" for it with Seattle because they saw how much it benefitted Vegas and hurt the teams that made those expansion-draft trades.

I also wonder how much Ron Francis overplayed his hand. Remember readings reports at the time that he was trying to strong arm everyone and pretty much had egg on his face when it was all said and done.

 

[Thallis]

True, but the expansion draft set them up for future success. They got 3 first round picks right off the bat and a lot of really good players since teams could only protect 7-3-1 or 4-4. Maybe no one expected it at the time, but it was pretty obvious soon after the expansion draft that they were positioned to be pretty good in the near future. The expansion draft rules allowed them to collect those assets which they later used in trades.

Yeah, obviously no one "fell" for it with Seattle because they saw how much it benefitted Vegas and hurt the teams that made those expansion-draft trades.

They got good players because teams wanted to protect worse players. It wasn't the rules, it was gms being dumb. Also Karlsson shot like 20% the next year and scored 40 goals for the only time in his career.

 

[TurgPavs]

Citation not found.

Various google searches with the terms Snuggarud, NIL, deal, money, amount, etc return no such reports. However, there are tons of recent articles that indicate that NIL money isn't making a huge impact in hockey yet. The head of Dinky Town Athletics was quoted just 2 months ago estimating that NIL hockey money is going to pick up significantly 'sometime in the next 18 months.' He is the main voice pushing for increased money in hockey and even he isn't boasting about the money already being here. A mid-6-figure NIL deal would be truly historic in hockey. It would put his collective on the map and loudly broadcast to every NCAA player/recruit that Minnesota was the top dog by a mile. And yet he won't go into any specifics about amount.

Every article to be found surrounding NIL money in hockey indicates that there isn't substantial money yet.

Michigan's players started an NIL Club where the players on the team interact with any fans who pledge/donate money. Today, they are sitting at $220 dollars raised this month (their goal is $480). The University-wide Michigan NIL collective doesn't even offer hockey merch for the hockey players to profit.

I can't find anything that remotely resembles a report that Snuggy got the type of package you are suggesting.

Snuggy and Matthew Wood, each received over 200K+ from The DT Collective, and its likely more then that, as some of their deals will continue to pay out, i.e. personalized products, shirts, jersey's etc.
College Hockey is the 3rd highest revenue producing college sport, behind football and Men's Basketball, and Minnesota Hockey has been in the top 3 highest producing programs for years.
Snuggy;s decision was also before the announcement of the NCAA Revenue Sharing.
So either go the the AHL make 80K a season, or Make double, triple that amount for the next 2 years at Minnesota, be the big man on campus and then become a UFA.
What would you do?

 

[tfriede2]

Snuggy and Matthew Wood, each received over 200K+ from The DT Collective, and its likely more then that, as some of their deals will continue to pay out, i.e. personalized products, shirts, jersey's etc.
College Hockey is the 3rd highest revenue producing college sport, behind football and Men's Basketball, and Minnesota Hockey has been in the top 3 highest producing programs for years.
Snuggy;s decision was also before the announcement of the NCAA Revenue Sharing.
So either go the the AHL make 80K a season, or Make double, triple that amount for the next 2 years at Minnesota, be the big man on campus and then become a UFA.
What would you do?

Do you have a citation? Interesting stuff.

 

[stl76]

Closest thing I could find to “The DT Collective”:

Dinkytown Athletes

Dinkytown Athletes is an official NIL Collective of Gopher Athletics Play Video OFFICIAL NIL COLLECTIVE OF GOPHER ATHLETICS HELPING ATHLETES SUCCEED IN SPORTS, ACADEMIA AND THE WORLD Dinkytown Athletes provides a platform for student-athletes at the University of Minnesota to create and develop...

dinkytownathletes.com

Some interesting info on Dinkytown Athletes here:

Connecting Gophers athletes to the money: These boosters are making it happen

The name, image and likeness era is part of a dramatic makeover in college sports — and is creating opportunities for passionate fans to get involved in ways that previously would have violated NCAA rules. Here's how that's playing out at the University of Minnesota.

m.startribune.com

Article seems mostly focused on college football, but there were some quotes that could be relevant:

Dinkytown Athletes launched in September 2022 and became the official NIL collective for Gophers athletics.

…

Since its inception, DTA has provided support to 222 Gophers athletes. Burns said the collective is most heavily involved with football, men's and women's basketball, men's hockey and volleyball.

…

Dinkytown Athletes was in a better position to help this offseason — Burns agreed with Fleck's estimation that DTA had roughly eight times as much money to work with in 2023 than 2022.

 

[tfriede2]

Closest thing I could find to “The DT Collective”:

Dinkytown Athletes

Dinkytown Athletes is an official NIL Collective of Gopher Athletics Play Video OFFICIAL NIL COLLECTIVE OF GOPHER ATHLETICS HELPING ATHLETES SUCCEED IN SPORTS, ACADEMIA AND THE WORLD Dinkytown Athletes provides a platform for student-athletes at the University of Minnesota to create and develop...

dinkytownathletes.com

They do have some Snuggerud merchandise - this company appears to be selling the merchandise and has contracts with individual athletes to receive royalties on the sales (my guess). I’d be very surprised if they’re signing fixed price contracts on top of royalties, though.

 

[TurgPavs]

They do have some Snuggerud merchandise - this company appears to be selling the merchandise and has contracts with individual athletes to receive royalties on the sales (my guess). I’d be very surprised if they’re signing fixed price contracts on top of royalties, though.

DTA has roughly 60 partners and its growing quickly. Most NIL Deals are layered with both upfront cash and royalty payments, depending on the partnership.
For instance, most of the DTA Athletes have a royalty deal that is tied to Folly Coffee, Yelloh Delivery, personalized products, etc.
Many have deals that are paid outright.
Derek Burns is the driving force of DTA, however it' John and Nancy Lindahl, who are pouring money into the Collective.
The whole Women's Volleyball Team has a pretty sweet NIL Package, thanks to Nancy Lindahl.

The way the NIL Deals are being set up, and with the New Revenue Sharing Model in College Sports, there is going to be a shift of more players staying in college over signing deals, its really just the tip of the iceberg with this situation.
My Son will be a senior in HS this year, he is pretty damn good at Football, and the NIL Deals being thrown his way, are pretty legit, His Girlfriend is at an SEC school on a Softball Scholarship, and her NIL Package was 37K for her first season, with a royalty on all personalized items sold on at the stadium shop and book store. She also signed a deal with the Ford dealership in that town and has a leased car that cost her $10 a month.

 

[Brian39]

Snuggy and Matthew Wood, each received over 200K+ from The DT Collective, and its likely more then that, as some of their deals will continue to pay out, i.e. personalized products, shirts, jersey's etc.

Again, citation not found. You typing a number you like is not a citation.

So far, you have not provided a single shred of support for your claim that they are getting unprecedented hockey NIL money.

 

[Brian39]

So either go the the AHL make 80K a season, or Make double, triple that amount for the next 2 years at Minnesota, be the big man on campus and then become a UFA.
What would you do?

I would hope that his agent family advisor knows what a 'signing bonus' is and would understand what his actual compensation would entail. That seems like a fairly low hurdle to clear, but here we are. If no one has told this kid that he gets a signing bonus each year of his ELC then it wouldn't surprise me if he is making horrible financial decisions.

 

[bleedblue1223]

The whole discussion feels kind of pointless anyway. I'm not saying it's a 100% guarantee that he signs with us at the end of his NCAA season, but if there was a greater risk of him wanting to go UFA route, I think we would've heard about it by now. A family advisor dropping hints or some other leak about how talks weren't going anywhere, teams contacting the Blues, etc.