Blues Trade Proposals 2021-2022 Part 3

[shpongle falls]

This is a squad that wasn’t good enough a year ago, and is objectively worse now by any metric you look at as it stands.

Not to mention Tarasenko walks in a year, who knows what happens with O’Reilly and we weren’t able to capitalize on Kyrou’s fluke season and trade him off.

I mean maybe, but i’m an eternal optimist. In the playoffs against the Avs, this team was a healthy Binnington and a healthy Krug away from being a legit threat to the Avs. Perunovich stepped in and performed admirably well for the most part, he’s only going to get better. Having Leddy around for a full season should help a lot. We lost Perron but out of all the quality of players we have at least one of them will surprise and breakout and produce for us this coming season i bet.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Double jujitsu magic ninja moves by DA this off-season are becoming less and less likely.

 

[Brian39]

This is a squad that wasn’t good enough a year ago, and is objectively worse now by any metric you look at as it stands.

Not to mention Tarasenko walks in a year, who knows what happens with O’Reilly and then you are looking at Thomas/Buch/Schenn and a whole lot of question marks

The top 4 teams in the West last year all got objectively worse. So did Tampa. So did the President's Trophy winning Panthers. So did the Leafs. So did the Rangers. There is a very good argument that our losses were less severe than all of those other teams.

Welcome to a flat salary cap.

 

[Falco Lombardi]

I mean maybe, but i’m an eternal optimist. In the playoffs against the Avs, this team was a healthy Binnington and a healthy Krug away from being a legit threat to the Avs. Perunovich stepped in and performed admirably well for the most part, he’s only going to get better. Having Leddy around for a full season should help a lot. We lost Perron but out of all the quality of players we have at least one of them will surprise and breakout and produce for us this coming season i bet.

The eye test has never failed more than Blues fans watching Nick Leddy. That was a horrific extension.

I love being optimistic but let me bring you down to reality.

We had 9 20 goal scorers, an unheard of amount. We were already due for regression to the mean before losing one of the highest volume shooters on the team in Perron. Barbashev and Kyrou are the likeliest options for regression and if Kyrou ain’t scoring, he is actively hurting you.

But it goes beyond that. We were told the window is now right? That’s why we signed Schenn to an inexplicable 8 year contract (that likely forces out ROR btw) to keep the cap number down right?

If the window is now, then you go get a superstar when he’s available regardless of the cost. There’s nothing on this roster that should have been off limits, with the possible exception of Robert Thomas.

We didn’t do that and to be fair, there probably wasn’t anything that could have been done with the offer Florida brilliantly offered. Two high end players but not as good as Tkachuk on expiring deals? Fantastic job by Florida

 

[ChicagoBlues]

The eye test has never failed more than Blues fans watching Nick Leddy. That was a horrific extension.

I love being optimistic but let me bring you down to reality.

We had 9 20 goal scorers, an unheard of amount. We were already due for regression to the mean before losing one of the highest volume shooters on the team in Perron. Barbashev and Kyrou are the likeliest options for regression and if Kyrou ain’t scoring, he is actively hurting you.

But it goes beyond that. We were told the window is now right? That’s why we signed Schenn to an inexplicable 8 year contract (that likely forces out ROR btw) to keep the cap number down right?

If the window is now, then you go get a superstar when he’s available regardless of the cost. There’s nothing on this roster that should have been off limits, with the possible exception of Robert Thomas.

We didn’t do that and to be fair, there probably wasn’t anything that could have been done with the offer Florida brilliantly offered. Two high end players but not as good as Tkachuk on expiring deals? Fantastic job by Florida

Hard disagree, yo.

Leddy is smart and smooth and he, as an athlete, should age well. The last year is prolly gonna be bad, but hopefully not the last two years.

Acquiring MT for this season would have meant giving up assets necessary to win a Cup. If I was to entertain having MT on the team, then it would be without subtracting anyone significant from the roster.

An mostly-unchanged roster with MT in the lineup makes us more difficult to play against and increases our chances to win the Cup, but he has to show up for the playoffs.

Giving up what it would have taken to get MT would be a wash. Cup chances static.

Kyrou is going to score. It's what he does. And RT is due for a bump in goal scoring.

We will have a more offensively active and higher-scoring 4th line as well. No offense to Toropchenko, but he's not an offensive dynamo......until he takes that step.

 

[ItsOnlytheRiver]

The eye test has never failed more than Blues fans watching Nick Leddy. That was a horrific extension.

I love being optimistic but let me bring you down to reality.

We had 9 20 goal scorers, an unheard of amount. We were already due for regression to the mean before losing one of the highest volume shooters on the team in Perron. Barbashev and Kyrou are the likeliest options for regression and if Kyrou ain’t scoring, he is actively hurting you.

But it goes beyond that. We were told the window is now right? That’s why we signed Schenn to an inexplicable 8 year contract (that likely forces out ROR btw) to keep the cap number down right?

If the window is now, then you go get a superstar when he’s available regardless of the cost. There’s nothing on this roster that should have been off limits, with the possible exception of Robert Thomas.

We didn’t do that and to be fair, there probably wasn’t anything that could have been done with the offer Florida brilliantly offered. Two high end players but not as good as Tkachuk on expiring deals? Fantastic job by Florida

Need to be able to award more than one like.

 

[Falco Lombardi]

The top 4 teams in the West last year all got objectively worse. So did Tampa. So did the President's Trophy winning Panthers. So did the Leafs. So did the Rangers. There is a very good argument that our losses were less severe than all of those other teams.

Welcome to a flat salary cap.

The flat cap didn’t force us to spend 16 million dollars on a 5th LHD on a one way contract.

 

[Falco Lombardi]

Hard disagree, yo.

Leddy is smart and smooth and he, as an athlete, should age well. The last year is prolly gonna be bad, but hopefully not the last two years.

Acquiring MT for this season would have meant giving up assets necessary to win a Cup. If I was to entertain having MT on the team, then it would be without subtracting anyone significant from the roster.

An mostly-unchanged roster with MT in the lineup makes us more difficult to play against and increases our chances to win the Cup, but he has to show up for the playoffs.

Giving up what it would have taken to get MT would be a wash. Cup chances static.

Kyrou is going to score. It's what he does. And RT is due for a bump in goal scoring.

We will have a more offensively active and higher-scoring 4th line as well. No offense to Toropchenko, but he's not an offensive dynamo......until he takes that step.

Well the good news for Leddy is that if he somehow convinced you last year was good, then the bar that he has to clear the next few years is low enough to crawl over

 

[RN61k]

We need to still trade Vladi maybe to NJ for a package of 3 picks and/ or players. Not sure what that would look like maybe Kevin Bahl, Mercer, and 2nd?

what? you really think the devils are including mercer in a trade for vladi who can walk in a year? He's probably of their untouchables along with L. Hughes. Hell, I doubt they would even trade holtz for him. We saw the return for patches and bjorkstrand, literally nothing. Cap space is at a premium right now, I would be happy to get a late first or just ride it out with vladi for the year.

I feel like it's a similar situation to calgary this past year with gaudreau where they can't really trade him for futures during the season because they are contending. We know vlad is probably not going to be resigning but trading him during the season would make us a worse team objectively.

 

[Zachary Hines]

I have an interesting why not offer sheet Kakko ( if you can still OS players)?

We cap dump Scandella(anywhere) and Vladi (NJ or Isles).

Work out some other trade for oliver kylington. Since they have a bunch of solid dman with the addition of Weegar.

 

[Zachary Hines]

what? you really think the devils are including mercer in a trade for vladi who can walk in a year? He's probably of their untouchables along with L. Hughes. Hell, I doubt they would even trade holtz for him. We saw the return for patches and bjorkstrand, literally nothing. Cap space is at a premium right now, I would be happy to get a late first or just ride it out with vladi for the year.

I feel like it's a similar situation to calgary this past year with gaudreau where they can't really trade him for futures during the season because they are contending. We know vlad is probably not going to be resigning but trading him during the season would make us a worse team objectively.

He still wants out so why not get something while we still can. Does Bjorkstrom even compare?

 

[Zachary Hines]

Patches is similiar to vladi but Vegas was over cap right? So they where between a rock and a hard place. Blues arent that strapped especially if we shed Scandella which is only a matter of time.

 

[Ranksu]

This is a squad that wasn’t good enough a year ago, and is objectively worse now by any metric you look at as it stands.

Not to mention Tarasenko walks in a year, who knows what happens with O’Reilly and then you are looking at Thomas/Buch/Schenn and a whole lot of question marks

And not to mention we are still missing top2 LHD. Krug is Shattenkirk 2.0 and we are paying to him 2.6mill.$ more than Shattery.

 

[Reality Czech]

So can the creepy MT obsession end now?

Dude, it's the biggest story in hockey right now, why wouldn't we talk about it? I'm just happy we had something else to talk about for a little while than the same old topics.

 

[Zezel’s Pretzels]

DA can’t be done making moves can he? Roster is absolutely worse now than it was last year.

They lost two guys, and only one of those two was unexpected. Then DA signed an absolutely core star in the making for 8 years. Built a stable of 4th line options and at minimum a stud AHL roster with very little money available.

Not sure what people expected. I know it sucks to lose DP57 but cmon folks…

 

[Zezel’s Pretzels]

This is a squad that wasn’t good enough a year ago, and is objectively worse now by any metric you look at as it stands.

Not to mention Tarasenko walks in a year, who knows what happens with O’Reilly and then you are looking at Thomas/Buch/Schenn and a whole lot of question marks

Um, kinda auspicious that you intentionally left Kyrou out of that future calculus. He’s kind of a big deal.

Try Thomas, Kyrou, ROR, Buch, Schenn, Saad with Neighbours and Bolduc on the rise. Parayko, Faulk, Krug, Leddy. Binny.

We are a competitive team and one of the better in the West.

 

[Zezel’s Pretzels]

At this juncture, I don’t care if it’s bad asset management. Ride it out with 91 one more season, and hope by some miracle we can retain him a few more years at a reasonable cap hit. He’s a good dude and loves the city. Who knows?

 

[Reality Czech]

Um, kinda auspicious that you intentionally left Kyrou out of that future calculus. He’s kind of a big deal.

Try Thomas, Kyrou, ROR, Buch, Schenn, Saad with Neighbours and Bolduc on the rise. Parayko, Faulk, Krug, Leddy. Binny.

We are a competitive team and one of the better in the West.

Everyone knows Armstrong isn't the kind of guy to blow up a long-term plan on a whim, so it should surprise no one that he didn't blow up the team to get Tkachuk. If there had been a deal to made moving certain players (Tarasenko, for example) maybe he pulls the trigger, and I have no doubt he at least looked into the possibility.

At this juncture, I don’t care if it’s bad asset management. Ride it out with 91 one more season, and hope by some miracle we can retain him a few more years at a reasonable cap hit. He’s a good dude and loves the city. Who knows?

I think online fans worry a lot more about "asset management" than GMs do. Yes, there are situations where it is wise to trade a guy before UFA but it's simply not possible or realistic to trade every single UFA-to-be. I feel like many fans always seem to focus on the future rather than the present and they are willing to make the team worse in the present for the possibility that the team might be better in a couple years.

There are several reasons why it doesn't make sense to trade Tarasenko now (his NTC, that we likely would get little value back, plus the fact that we are trying to compete for a Cup right now). Plus, as you said who knows....maybe Tarasenko stays after this year. Regardless, the Blues will have gotten 10 years and 6-7 30-goal seasons out of a former 16th overall pick so I don't think anyone in the Blues organization feels like we didn't get good "value" out of Tarasenko, even if he walks as UFA. As we have seen in recent years, simply having cap space is a real asset to teams and allows for other moves to be made.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

If the window is now, then you go get a superstar when he’s available regardless of the cost.

I can understand feeling that the team got worse. I can’t understand how anyone can look at the package that Calgary just got and think there’s any possible way the Blues could match that without making the team worse.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Im not sure how Kyrou is one of the top 2 players to regress. It's not like he has a history of being a bottom 6 player who went on a hot streak.

1st full year he had 55GP 14G 21A 35P (52 point pace)
2nd full year he had 74GP 27G 48A 75P (83 point pace)

That's fairly normal pace for a 22-23 year old player.

Hell look at Tarasenko's pace his 22-23YO seasons.

22YO 64GP 21G 22A 43P (55P pace)
23YO 77GP 37G 36A 73P (77P pace)

Very similar production, very bad defensive players, the only big difference is Tarasenko was a better shooter and Kyrou a better passer.

 

[LogosBlue]

Vladi (and maybe Krug) is this year's Stasny. I can definitely see DA holding him until he gets a contender to bite on the return he wants. If he gets that return this summer great. He may pull the trigger. I'd be looking for futures for next year's draft. 1st and 2nd round picks.

Glad we passed up on MT. The ask was just too steep. No way I'm giving up that much for him, even if those top tier players are on the last year of their contract. Not worth it.

 

[Falco Lombardi]

Um, kinda auspicious that you intentionally left Kyrou out of that future calculus. He’s kind of a big deal.

Try Thomas, Kyrou, ROR, Buch, Schenn, Saad with Neighbours and Bolduc on the rise. Parayko, Faulk, Krug, Leddy. Binny.

We are a competitive team and one of the better in the West.

I’m not a believer in Kyrou and was hoping he would be part of a trade for someone I was

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I’m not a believer in Kyrou and was hoping he would be part of a trade for someone I was

I feel like you and Armstrong have very different views of Kyrou. Especially seeing how Armstrong has said repeatedly that Kyrou is part of the core and his next priority to get signed long term.

 

[Reality Czech]

Vladi (and maybe Krug) is this year's Stasny. I can definitely see DA holding him until he gets a contender to bite on the return he wants. If he gets that return this summer great. He may pull the trigger. I'd be looking for futures for next year's draft. 1st and 2nd round picks.

Glad we passed up on MT. The ask was just too steep. No way I'm giving up that much for him, even if those top tier players are on the last year of their contract. Not worth it.

I get the feeling that both Tarasenko and the Blues are already set on one last run together, and I would be shocked if he's moved at this point. Regarding UFA guys, it's pretty simple. Teams only move them if they have no chance to contend. If the wheels fall off the Blues this year, it's possible Tarasenko is moved at three deadline but that's the only way.

Regarding Tkachuk, it really came down to which team could realistically fit him in (after eliminating teams Tkachuk would not sign with). Few teams could make the cap work trading a futures heavy package so it makes sense in retrospect that a team would swap out soon to be FAs for Tkachuk. Still I'm surprised Florida actually had the balls to pull the trigger.

 

[WeWentBlues]

Now that the Tkachuk saga is permanently over, I can go back to sulking about Perron.

Easily one of Armstrong's worst offseasons.