If we traded Buch and got what the laughable return was for Hertl, I would understand the whole fire him because that's horrible. Army was right to hang on to him. You can probably get lot better return, especially once you know whether he wants to sign with Blues or not. Then you can decide what to do and get a better return during off season than at the trade deadline.
Blues Trade Proposals 2023-2024
- Thread starter simon IC
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Good points, and it's not mentioned enough how awful things looked after the 17-18 season. I really still can't believe the Blues won a cup in my lifetime - full stop. But the 180 we did from where we were just prior to that is almost forgotten.
I don't share the abject fatalism about our current predicament - we have more talent on the horizon than any point I can recall. I never shared the rage over Pietrangelo choosing LV's offer over ours, but it boggles my mind that some are still stewing over it. I always expected the NTCs DA handed out like Haloween candy would come back to bite us, and disagreed from the jump with some head-scratching acquisitions and contract extensions were doomed from the moment we made them (e.g. Scandella, Krug, Hayes) so yeah, it's not all roses right now. It's a bit like we're rafting on a stagnant pond hoping to find a current to ride. I might be the only one still bathing in the afterglow of 2019. but from the minute we closed out our cup run my sense of urgency about the Blues vanished - maybe forever. my biggest complaint is that we're just not a very interesting team to watch play right now, but I believe that will change "reasonably soon".
That is my concern as well. Army has been very creative in his solutions at times with the ROR/Schenn deals, the attempted Krug trade, etc. But he's also made some big mistakes in signing guys when he's felt under the gun. As the previous poster mentioned, this is the first time in a while that he's had to spend. But will he make those pressure mistakes this off-season? I'd almost rather go into next season with cap flexibility and see what we can make happen.
bleedblue1223
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Skjei and some of those do make sense, but I do think we should limit any offer to 3 years, with maybe a slight overpay on cap hit if we have to. Or we look at guys closer to the end or coming off down years, Brodie or OEL as a couple examples, and maybe there would be other buyout options, similar to how Florida got OEL. I don't think we need to solve our defense, but we can improve it with stopgaps that don't harm our long-term cap situation.
I'm the same for the forwards. Similar to how Dallas signed Pavelski, Duchene, target 3 years at the most and maybe someone that won't have a ton of interest after being bought out, but still has offense in them. We don't needing anything amazing, but we need a quality 2nd line.
Since we aren't a contender, it'll be tough, but we'll at least have an opportunity.
I'm the same for the forwards. Similar to how Dallas signed Pavelski, Duchene, target 3 years at the most and maybe someone that won't have a ton of interest after being bought out, but still has offense in them. We don't needing anything amazing, but we need a quality 2nd line.
Since we aren't a contender, it'll be tough, but we'll at least have an opportunity.
Let's not rpetend he didn't gather all the ingredients needed for the cup because he did. They just needed to be reshuffled a little to get it just right. Did that take luck? Maybe but he knew he assembled a roster that should have been good enough to win and he was right.
That's my thinking. We need an lhd and 2c bad, but the low-term high-salary stopgap might not be the worst idea. Especially if we can move Faulk or buy out Krug, we can take the decent cap we'll have this offseason to shore up our major weaknesses and make a better club for our young guys to come up in. If we're starting the year with Kessel, Bolduc, Snuggerud on the roster, that gives us even more cap flexibility.
Giving Stephenson or Lindholm at C or a Skeji or Edmunson at D an overpriced 2-3 year deal doesn't cripple us and creates another deadline rental to sell if the rebuild goes sideways. Heck, I'm not opposed to a similar contract for Buch either-I'd take his age 31-34 years happily, it's year 35+ I'd want to avoid.
Snubbed4Vezina
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I think I'd puke if our defensive addition this offseason was OEL.
PeoriaBlues309
Registered User
For real lol, and it’s not like we weren’t a Cup contender going into that season. It’s why the first few months were such a disappointment for our fans, and even the national media kept questioning why weren’t playing well.
bleedblue1223
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LetsGoBooze
Trade Kyrou in a hockey trade!
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Perennial is a little facetious. Last year we selected right at 10, our first top 10 pick since 2008. Hopefully we do select within the top 10 again this year (its close), but calling the Blues a team that perennially selects in the top 10 is well off base. Were coming off an extended competitive window over the last 10+ years that netted us a recent, first ever, Cup. If it takes a couple years to right the ship, im perfectly ok with that. I think a lot of casual fans are either younger, have recency bias, or are completely driven by emotion(glad they arent the GM). Its very common for all teams to move in and out of competitive windows, and there is no doubt we have stepped outside and are now looking in. But with the asset accumulation DA did last year at the deadline, and having a young Thomas and Kyrou to build a core around, we are in no way as bad of shape as many are making it out to be. A couple more shrewd moves over the next 2-3 seasons and some solid development from our prospects and we should be right back into another decade of legitimately chasing the cup.
I don’t see how we are legit competitors for the foreseeable future - meaning at least 3 more years, but it could be 5. Things could get ugly - and by that I mean being a bubble team going nowhere for a long time.
Snubbed4Vezina
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Mikkola has looked solid on the Panthers too, and we all know the type of player he is. OEL is inconsistent. Decent one season, garbage the next. He's also 32 and injury prone. Hard pass for me.
What is our vision? Do we want to be “competitive” and be a bubble team over the next few years while we wait for our prospects to develop? I honestly don’t know.
stl76
No. 5 in your programs, No. 1 in your hearts
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What’s a greater risk: being unable to exit a “to the studs” rebuild or being “a bubble team going nowhere for a long time”?
In a lot of ways, I think the risk is lower with the second option.
JR piece on Athleic gave Blues a 2 out of 10 on the deadline. Saying because Blues have so many bad contracts they couldn't do anything.
NO JR it was the players like crap that didn't allow Army to do anything.
NO JR it was the players like crap that didn't allow Army to do anything.
You’re both right?
i don't understand why some folks want to buy guys out. we will have plenty of cap room next couple years. the guys folks are clamoring to buy out are overpaid, but are still comfortably among our top 12f or top 6d. but even if we could replace them with better players, we aren't gonna be contenders next couple years regardless. if we buy guys out we get hit for twice the length of remaining contract, which means it could stretch out into years we might otherwise be good. and for what? so we can miss playoffs by 4 points instead of 7 next year? is that valuable enough to muck up what should be our good years?
MissouriMook
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It’s essentially a math problem in my view. All hypothetical of course, but I would rather spend a total of $9.5 million on a top pairing LD and a league minimum 3rd pair prospect and pay another $2 million on a Krug buyout than spend $6.5 million on Krug and whatever $5 million will get me.
BadgersandBlues
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Unless we can sign Hanifin there's no reason to buy anyone out. Even then I'm not sure we'd need to unless DA pulls some Schenn/RoR magic out of his hat again.
Reality Czech
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So in other words, let's criticize Doug endlessly for his perceived mistakes while giving him no credit for his success? Got it. The Blues have the most wins in the West since he became GM so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he knows what he's doing.
I honestly don't understand what people get out of repeating the same complaints over and over and over again. Fans act like he should be able to remake the entire team immediately but obviously these things take time. Making moves in real life isn't as easy as many fans seem to think it is. Yeah it's been a rough year but not sure what everyone else was expecting. The constant negativity around here is really annoying.
My thought is that the best trade offer was something that will be completed after the season before the draft. There was no reason to do it now and it may have a negative effect on the picks involved.
TheOrganist
Don't Call Him Alex
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So in your opinion there should be no accountability for closing the teams competitive window 3, possibly 4 yrs earlier than it should if he had made the proper calculations as a manager post-Cup? You don’t think the fanbase has a right to be pissed off about the State of the Franchise? “Remaking the team takes time” is a ridiculous comment considering he has, is and will spend a majority of his time having to clean up f*** ups of his own doing. And now it’s clear we’re up shits creek for the foreseeable future.
PocketNines
Cutter's Way
Super rough time for the resident Armstrong Apologist here. It is true a reality check is needed.
For me firing Armstrong is now correct and it has little to do with his success at this deadline, it's just that this deadline was the end of the road. With the deadline passed there is no major Blues-related business left for him to do. Any schmo can sell Buch at the next deadline for the standard price. Some other schmo can clear out the crap that Armstrong is tied to. Seriously, what bit of business must this guy manage?
I think people are really confused here. If a guy fails for valid reasons he still failed. The market may have completely tied his hands. Yep, he put himself in a position where the market might not bail his dumb ass out. Foreseen risk. I thought it would happen but waited til it did. Now if this guy had actual GM talent, he could have dealt his way out of it. But he is not that guy, so circumstances dominate him just as he set it up to happen.
This team is never going to win with a guy like Kyrou on it. How can someone watch hockey for a long time but not get that? But that's what Armstrong thinks is winning hockey, he locked it up with lust. You can't get rid of Kyrou, on whose stick puck possession and winning hockey goes to die, until you toss the GM overboard first. I do think Stillman cares less about winning than about his relationship with Doug so Doug will screw it up even more on the way down the next year+
If they freefall enough over these last 18 games maybe they luck out in the draft. But Binnington is going to get a few more wins against a soft stretch schedule.
For me firing Armstrong is now correct and it has little to do with his success at this deadline, it's just that this deadline was the end of the road. With the deadline passed there is no major Blues-related business left for him to do. Any schmo can sell Buch at the next deadline for the standard price. Some other schmo can clear out the crap that Armstrong is tied to. Seriously, what bit of business must this guy manage?
I think people are really confused here. If a guy fails for valid reasons he still failed. The market may have completely tied his hands. Yep, he put himself in a position where the market might not bail his dumb ass out. Foreseen risk. I thought it would happen but waited til it did. Now if this guy had actual GM talent, he could have dealt his way out of it. But he is not that guy, so circumstances dominate him just as he set it up to happen.
This team is never going to win with a guy like Kyrou on it. How can someone watch hockey for a long time but not get that? But that's what Armstrong thinks is winning hockey, he locked it up with lust. You can't get rid of Kyrou, on whose stick puck possession and winning hockey goes to die, until you toss the GM overboard first. I do think Stillman cares less about winning than about his relationship with Doug so Doug will screw it up even more on the way down the next year+
If they freefall enough over these last 18 games maybe they luck out in the draft. But Binnington is going to get a few more wins against a soft stretch schedule.
