Blues Discussion Thread 2018-2019

[AjaxManifesto]

STLToday's lack of moderation has cause it to become a complete cesspool. For some people it's the pessimism olympics where they all try to be the first one to hate on important players. For others its a contest to see who can hate the other guy the most, so if the other guy talks about how good a player is, the side that doesn't like him suddenly hates the player and only wants to point out his mistakes.

It's interesting that you need a Facebook account to log in. So you know exactly who these people are. You would think the opposite would be true: they would moderate themselves to be almost bland in their commentary because we can find out who they are where they live and work.

 

[TK 421]

From a personnel standpoint we will unquestionably be better off, I can't see how anyone could argue otherwise. You really only had Thompson available this year from our prospect group at forward and even he wasn't ready yet with this being his 1st full year of NA pro.

Next season you're adding Fabbri, Thomas, Foley, Kyrou, Kostin to Thompson and Soshnikov. That's quite a lot more skill and options than what we had to work with this year. That means much better competition in camp and much better depth to combat the inevitable injuries and that's just our prospects. Armstrong will still be looking to trade for a forward at the draft, especially with how embarrasing this season was. We'll still be looking to replace Stastny whether that's via trade or FA, don't be surprised if he goes after Tavares AND trades for another center. Remember we could easily start Thomas at RW and as much as I love him at center he would be a RW in the scenario where the Blues acquire 2 centers this off season.

On defense Walman is a year closer and according to our new friends in the Binghamton org he was a standout player for them with serious lightsaber Photoshop potential which has to count for something.

In goal we have an excellent option to Allen that I see some people overlooking. Husso has more pro experience than some seem to realize, this guy has looked pressure in the face and it ran away recognizing that Ville has the serial killer death glare. Even early to mid 80's Gary Busey would run away in terror and he could have kicked God's ass. Pfft..that scene from Silver Bullet? A mere werewolf throwing mid 80's Gary Busey?... sorry..having a tough time believing that giant plot hole. But I digress...

Husso is ready folks. Don't give me that crap about not being ready, nothing fazes that guy. He is as cool as they come.

The only impediment to a better year next season is Yeo. He simply cannot be allowed to stay after this horrible season. He is directly responsible for being unable to rally this group during the abyssal period, the PP and some very questionable usage of players. He seemed completely at a loss to explain why we were struggling or what to do to fix it and mark my words, we will be complaining about all the same things next year if he is still HC. We'll just have better personnel for a marginally better result that may see us a squeek in to the PO's.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

I understand people getting hung up on the Chicago game since it is the most recent game that can be pointed to where we missed out on points that we could have gotten. Jake was the biggest factor in that loss. I've no problem calling him out for that. My problem is just loading him down like he's the person responsible for the seasons woes. We were shut out 8 times this season and scored only once in 10 games. Those are games where you are not even giving your goaltender a chance. I didn't even bother checking two goal games, which is still below league average for scoring, but there were several where both of our goalies won games where we only scored twice. In those instances the goalies bailed them out. I assume you probably think Braden Holtby is a good goaltender. He's currently .001 sv% better than Allen and gives up a quarter of a goal per game more than Allen. The Caps are in the playoffs. Why? Because they can score. Look, I'm not saying Allen was good this year, he wasn't, but I don't see how anyone can look at the team this year and say he's the biggest problem. He's not at all. A lack of scoring is the main problem right now. That is why I advocate for fixing that first before going after a lesser problem that is currently more difficult to fix without hurting the teams future.

Last night I looked at the box scores for each game over the season. A nice walk down memory lane (oh how I am depressed and miss hockey already...remember the excitement in Oct and Nov!). Anyhow, there are some real gems in there where we were putrid (often at home) when we needed to be at least okay enough to get to OT.

 

[Dbrownss]

I'm not saying they won't make the team, I'm saying we shouldn't expect them to be difference makers on the PP immediately. It's the emergence of the prospects that makes it difficult for me to see a spot for Berglund...

Schwartz - Schenn - __?__
Fabbri - __?__ - Tarasenko
Steen - Thomas - __?__

A prospect is taking one of the RW spots, so if we're retaining Berglund then there is a chance he is a top-6 RW'er if Kyrou/Thompson needs more time. Getting a second line RH, RW to play on that third line gives us a lot more flexibility.

Everyone is talking about upgrading wingers... so is the idea to trade Fabbri? Or are we not playing any wing prospects? If it is neither of those then it means moving both Berglund and Sobotka out of the top-9.

Right now I've got Fabbri/Berglund for the same spot. I don't see it as a big problem to use Steen and Berglund on the 3rd line with Thomas. IF things work out for St. Louis and our biggest gripe is Steen or Berglund as the 3RW, then that's a success. I know I'm putting more faith in Kyrou, but given his comments about disappointment in not making the roster, I can see him pushing hard in the offseason. Also Yeo/Army said they gave alot of thought to keeping him with the Blues. Adding his skating ability to the PP will add something this team doesn't have outside of Dunn.

 

[Spektre]

Berglund wasn’t a healthy scratch for no reason. He disappeared for more games than he showed up in. If he can be traded for a decent return I don’t see Army would turn it down.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Blaming Yeo feels a lot like a knee jerk reaction by a fan base who isn’t used to missing the playoffs and wants an easy person to pin the situation on. This fan base, maybe more than others, looooves them a good scapegoat.

This is the first full season that Yeo has been a coach, and in his tenure we’ve traded our top 2 centers (Lehtera and Stastny), a top 4 defenseman, brought in only one guy to replace them (Schenn). Add on top of that the fact that we took major injuries to Schwartz, Fabbri, Sanford, Berglund, and Bouwmeester, and we’re down an awful lot of bodies. None of Barbashev, Thompson or Blais were really ready to replace any of those names.

So what choice did Yeo have but to play guys where they didn’t belong? Guys took on bigger minutes against tougher competition, and with a front-loaded schedule, the mid-season swoon was probably going to happen regardless of whether Allen collapsed or not. The two are probably pretty closely related: others have noted that Allen’s stats really aren’t *that* bad, but our offense went dry as soon as Schwartz got injured. Without any firepower, Yeo could bag skate the team all he wanted, it wasn’t going to make much difference.

As for the power play, obviously things need to change there. But that’s also a personnel question to a certain extent. I’d definitely take a look at bringing in a different assistant coach to take those duties on.

With a better, healthier roster next season, I’m not concerned about what Yeo can do. We’ve made the right moves even when they were hard, and I sincerely believe that our bottom 6 will be better next season. We’re on the right track, we just need to stay the course. Our young guys will have another year under their belts, and hopefully we’ll see those investments pay dividends. I don’t see how any of that has to do with Mike Yeo as a coach.

Take a deep breath everybody, it will all be ok.

 

[TruBlu]

Blaming Yeo feels a lot like a knee jerk reaction by a fan base who isn’t used to missing the playoffs and wants an easy person to pin the situation on. This fan base, maybe more than others, looooves them a good scapegoat.

This is the first full season that Yeo has been a coach, and in his tenure we’ve traded our top 2 centers (Lehtera and Stastny), a top 4 defenseman, brought in only one guy to replace them (Schenn). Add on top of that the fact that we took major injuries to Schwartz, Fabbri, Sanford, Berglund, and Bouwmeester, and we’re down an awful lot of bodies. None of Barbashev, Thompson or Blais were really ready to replace any of those names.

So what choice did Yeo have but to play guys where they didn’t belong? Guys took on bigger minutes against tougher competition, and with a front-loaded schedule, the mid-season swoon was probably going to happen regardless of whether Allen collapsed or not. The two are probably pretty closely related: others have noted that Allen’s stats really aren’t *that* bad, but our offense went dry as soon as Schwartz got injured. Without any firepower, Yeo could bag skate the team all he wanted, it wasn’t going to make much difference.

As for the power play, obviously things need to change there. But that’s also a personnel question to a certain extent. I’d definitely take a look at bringing in a different assistant coach to take those duties on.

With a better, healthier roster next season, I’m not concerned about what Yeo can do. We’ve made the right moves even when they were hard, and I sincerely believe that our bottom 6 will be better next season. We’re on the right track, we just need to stay the course. Our young guys will have another year under their belts, and hopefully we’ll see those investments pay dividends. I don’t see how any of that has to do with Mike Yeo as a coach.

Take a deep breath everybody, it will all be ok.

It's nice to see someone lay it out like that. I try to take the long view and not get caught up in the moment when it comes to the toils we've faced. This is without a doubt a much weaker team than we've had in years. I think many have forgotten that this was another year of retool. DA said it himself when we started the transition. Even minor retools don't happen in a year. I think the early success of the team probably got people's hopes up; mine included. Ultimately the team returned to earth and produced an outcome that is equal to the strength of the team. Anyway, the future looks bright. I think DA is working at getting guys to fit our current core, and also stocking the cupboard with young prospects to start taking over in a few years when our current core is nearing that 30 years old mark.

 

[Blanick]

Blaming Yeo feels a lot like a knee jerk reaction by a fan base who isn’t used to missing the playoffs and wants an easy person to pin the situation on. This fan base, maybe more than others, looooves them a good scapegoat.

This is the first full season that Yeo has been a coach, and in his tenure we’ve traded our top 2 centers (Lehtera and Stastny), a top 4 defenseman, brought in only one guy to replace them (Schenn). Add on top of that the fact that we took major injuries to Schwartz, Fabbri, Sanford, Berglund, and Bouwmeester, and we’re down an awful lot of bodies. None of Barbashev, Thompson or Blais were really ready to replace any of those names.

So what choice did Yeo have but to play guys where they didn’t belong? Guys took on bigger minutes against tougher competition, and with a front-loaded schedule, the mid-season swoon was probably going to happen regardless of whether Allen collapsed or not. The two are probably pretty closely related: others have noted that Allen’s stats really aren’t *that* bad, but our offense went dry as soon as Schwartz got injured. Without any firepower, Yeo could bag skate the team all he wanted, it wasn’t going to make much difference.

As for the power play, obviously things need to change there. But that’s also a personnel question to a certain extent. I’d definitely take a look at bringing in a different assistant coach to take those duties on.

With a better, healthier roster next season, I’m not concerned about what Yeo can do. We’ve made the right moves even when they were hard, and I sincerely believe that our bottom 6 will be better next season. We’re on the right track, we just need to stay the course. Our young guys will have another year under their belts, and hopefully we’ll see those investments pay dividends. I don’t see how any of that has to do with Mike Yeo as a coach.

Take a deep breath everybody, it will all be ok.

I agree to an extent, I was always lukewarm on the Yeo signing though. My biggest concern is that all of his issues in Minnesota that got him fired seems to have followed him to St. Louis. The horrid PP, mid season slump and questionable in game calls were the exact things that Wild fans warned us of. Since firing Yeo those things have been corrected in Minnesota so that means that Yeo is the common denominator.

There are two main reason I am willing to give Yeo another shot. First, we were the second in man games lost this year. That is a very difficult thing to overcome for any head coach. Second the Blackhawks are bringing back Quennville who was who I would have wanted. Since Q is off the board and we were injury riddled I think that buys Yeo one more year. The one caveat that I would put in though is that we need to go after an offensive minded assistant to take over the PP which was an absolute mess and I have zero confidence in Yeo to be the one to fix it.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Are we even sure about the division of duties among the coaching staff? I guess I’m just confused as to why Yeo is taking the heat for the bad PP instead of, say Berube, who is ostensibly filling the role Kirk Muller had. I ask because if Berube isn’t in charge of the PP... what was he doing? I mean, the buck eventually stops at Yeo, it’s his coaching staff, but I’m not seeing anybody complaining about Berube when the PP was supposedly his job.

I loved Berube’s work with the prospects last year in Chicago, and if nothing else, seeing Veilliuex’s (sp) poor work in San Antonio this year casts that in sharp relief. But I’m not sure the issues we saw on the PP this year weren’t in his wheelhouse as opposed to Yeo.

Idk, food for thought I guess

 

[TheDizee]

do not pencil in fabbri for anything. he has shown he should be playing in bubble wrap until he proves otherwise. banking on him to fill a top 6 role is a STUPID plan if thats what they intend.

they need to bring in 2 top 6 forwards, with one of those being a center if they want to do damage next season. if only tweaks are done, this will be another fringe playoff team.

 

[Reality Czech]

That is what I see. We finished 24th in the league in scoring. Our D is top 5 in the league in scoring. That tells me our forwards are absolutely putrid. We iced a first line, a third line, and two fourth lines this season. That isn't going to cut it. Jake isn't the biggest problem on this team, and there are currently no options to replace him. The scoring burned us time and time again in games where both Allen and Hutton played lights out, yet we end up with a loss. The first order of business should be to get two top six forwards.

Yep. Allen could have played A LOT better, but if we score an extra .3 goals per game that would have probably translated to enough extra points to make the playoffs. Allen's mistakes would not have been so glaring if we had even a league average scoring team.

Not sure how much blame Army deserves for this. On one hand, getting Schenn saved us from being even worse offensively. The Fabbri injury was devastating and none of the bottom tier guys stepped up (and most took a step back it seems). Aside from trading more future assets, I'm not sure what else they could have done this year. I think the Blues were just hopeful that this team would be able to pull it together. Most of us recognize why they didn't make moves for the short term, but it sucks that things didn't go our way. But when you have no 2nd line and rely on a handful of guys to score, that leaves little margin for error. The Western Conference is no joke, teams don't just back into the playoffs in this conference.

Now the onus is on this management to make those moves to take us to the next level. Lots of options on the table, so it will be really interesting to see what route they decide to go.

 

[TruBlu]

Saw an interesting couple of stats for the Blues this season. Missed tying the fewest number of goals on the power play in a season by 1 goal. We had 38, the franchise record for the fewest is 37. We also set a new franchise record for fewest goals in the first period.

 

[HighNote]

We're 6th in goals against in the league. That's probably surprising to some people, but do you want to hear something even more telling?

In the top 17 teams in the league in fewest GA, we're 1 of 2 teams that aren't in the playoffs (Dallas is the other one). There are eleven teams that have more goals against than us that are in the playoffs.

This is why I'm reluctant to gift wrap Allen in a trade. I'd like to see where we stand when we aren't in the same boat as the likes of Ottawa and Carolina in goals for. Fix the PP (seriously we have too much talent to be 30th in the league, we need to be at least in the top half of the league), and add some players that are an actual scoring threat. Get the defense in on the offense like we did early in the year. There's too much pressure on 2-3 players to score.

 

[carter333167]

We're 6th in goals against in the league. That's probably surprising to some people, but do you want to hear something even more telling?

In the top 17 teams in the league in fewest GA, we're 1 of 2 teams that aren't in the playoffs (Dallas is the other one). There are eleven teams that have more goals against than us that are in the playoffs.

This is why I'm reluctant to gift wrap Allen in a trade. I'd like to see where we stand when we aren't in the same boat as the likes of Ottawa and Carolina in goals for. Fix the PP (seriously we have too much talent to be 30th in the league, we need to be at least in the top half of the league), and add some players that are an actual scoring threat. Get the defense in on the offense like we did early in the year. There's too much pressure on 2-3 players to score.

This has much more to do with Hutton (and our defense) than with Allen. Allen ranked near the very bottom for starting goaltenders, if not at the outright bottom, of most meaningful goalie statistics in 2017. He's significantly worse than a number of backups as well.

 

[TruBlu]

This has much more to do with Hutton (and our defense) than with Allen. Allen ranked near the very bottom for starting goaltenders, if not at the outright bottom, of most meaningful goalie statistics in 2017. He's significantly worse than a number of backups as well.

I think his post had more to do with our lack of scoring being the big issue, and less to do with our goaltending. We aren't giving up a lot of goals, but still didn't make the playoffs. That points to anemic offense when we are near top of the league in fewest goals allowed. That's how I took it.

 

[carter333167]

I think his post had more to do with our lack of scoring being the big issue, and less to do with our goaltending. We aren't giving up a lot of goals, but still didn't make the playoffs. That points to anemic offense when we are near top of the league in fewest goals allowed. That's how I took it.

Fair enough. I took it as, "we are excellent in goals against so we don't want to gift wrap Allen," and I was just pointing out that Allen had very little to do with us being excellent in goals against.

 

[carter333167]

Who else woke up feeling a bit empty today? September seems like a long time to wait for Blues hockey.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

Who else woke up feeling a bit empty today? September seems like a long time to wait for Blues hockey.

Definitely a rough night last night, and like you said, it feels like a LONG wait. I’m on the optimistic side that Army can deliver another great draft/off-season like last year. I think a lot of us have been anxious for the potentially very exciting offseason, but it does feel too early.

 

[TruBlu]

Turning my sights to the lottery, draft, and July 1st after the playoffs. For now, I'm hoping the jets get put out immediately and then rooting for Boston for backes, and Tampa in the east.

 

[carter333167]

Turning my sights to the lottery, draft, and July 1st after the playoffs. For now, I'm hoping the jets get put out immediately and then rooting for Boston for backes, and Tampa in the east.

I can't even imagine this place if we win the lottery...1.8% chances be damned!

I know I'll catch crap for this but I am rooting for the Jets b/c I like their fans as another small market fanbase, I want them to crush the Preds and I would like to see Stas raise the Cup (with the obvious downside that we will hear daily and in perpetuity from Ranksu that Laine >>>>>>>>Tarasenko).

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Who else woke up feeling a bit empty today? September seems like a long time to wait for Blues hockey.

Whole day has been gloomy. It's more than just the Blues being knocked out. I'll miss the game night atmosphere.

 

[TheDizee]

Who else woke up feeling a bit empty today? September seems like a long time to wait for Blues hockey.

not me, this team has been really bad since december. they are even lucky they made it to game 82 with a chance still. if the avs were even halfway decent they would have buried us 2 weeks ago.

 

[carter333167]

Whole day has been gloomy. It's more than just the Blues being knocked out. I'll miss the game night atmosphere.

5-6 months until game night atmosphere..effin brutal. The only brightside is that I think a few of our younger guys, mainly Parayko, could benefit from the extra time off. It gives them them time to rest, condition AND work on some skill refinement. I think Parayko will do it given his work ethic.

 

[TruBlu]

I can't even imagine this place if we win the lottery...1.8% chances be damned!

I know I'll catch crap for this but I am rooting for the Jets b/c I like their fans as another small market fanbase, I want them to crush the Preds and I would like to see Stas raise the Cup (with the obvious downside that we will hear daily and in perpetuity from Ranksu that Laine >>>>>>>>Tarasenko).

I just can't pull myself to root for the jets knowing it lowers our pick. Although, it probably won't matter much that far down in the first.

 

[Itsnotatrap]

I can't even imagine this place if we win the lottery...1.8% chances be damned!

I know I'll catch crap for this but I am rooting for the Jets b/c I like their fans as another small market fanbase, I want them to crush the Preds and I would like to see Stas raise the Cup (with the obvious downside that we will hear daily and in perpetuity from Ranksu that Laine >>>>>>>>Tarasenko).

Moved to the Nashville area in December, coinciding perfectly with our collapse, and my immediate family are all very happy and excited Predator fans. I’m counting on the Jets to deliver a healthy dose of pain and humility regardless of draft pick implications.