Confirmed with Link: Torey Krug (7 years @ $6.5m)

[Blanick]

I am trying very hard to keep the Krug signing and Pietrangelo situation separate in my head. I like Krug as a player but have this strong feeling that he is going to be Brewer'd by Blues fans. You know... hatred by association.

Another thing I am interested to see play out is, assuming AP signs with Vegas, the tampering allegations. Nobody is talking about it right now but there was a lot of smoke before FA with several credible hockey sources discussing it.

Overall I am not as upset as I thought I would be and am more interested to see how this all plays out in the end.

 

[Stealth JD]

Army should be excoriated for choosing Faulk and Krug over Petro. There’s not a font massive enough to represent the scale of ineptitude that has transpired; if #27 indeed does now sign elsewhere.

 

[Celtic Note]

I am trying very hard to keep the Krug signing and Pietrangelo situation separate in my head. I like Krug as a player but have this strong feeling that he is going to be Brewer'd by Blues fans. You know... hatred by association.

Another thing I am interested to see play out is, assuming AP signs with Vegas, the tampering allegations. Nobody is talking about it right now but there was a lot of smoke before FA with several credible hockey sources discussing it.

Overall I am not as upset as I thought I would be and am more interested to see how this all plays out in the end.

I think we already had our Brewer in Faulk.

 

[JoshFromMO]

I think we already had our Brewer in Faulk.

Even better, now we have 2 Brewers

 

[Celtic Note]

Even better, now we have 2 Brewers

The way I see it we now have the equivalent of Parayko, Brewer and Shattenkirk as our top three D.

 

[Ranksu]

I think we already had our Brewer in Faulk.

Even better, now we have 2 Brewers

 

[67Blues]

You guys have chance to make a influence not paying and send a message Pietro leaving makes difference I'm not going to pay.

That would make a mark on front office that it does matter what fans, community and legacy means.

Why? I'm a Blues hockey fan not a Petro only fan or an "I hate Army" fan. I sat through that 2005-2006 season and the only good thing was the $1 hotdogs they'd throw out on really low attendance nights. Bring on the season and lets just see what happens. If everyone keeps this up, the GDT will look like Dallas.

 

[TheDizee]

same people freaking out over 27 are largely the same ones who flipped out when we traded elliott. "we just traded the goalie who took us to the conference finals!" sounds pretty similar to "we just let the cup winning captain walk!"

blues will be fine with or without him. they are a better team with him yes but he clearly didnt think 8x8 was good enough for him to sign. quite honestly a 38+ yr old dman making 8 million years from now is incredibly stupid anyways as hes gonna fall off by then.

i still think hes gonna resign here for some reason and id be ok with that too, but the extreme freakouts over 27 on here is so overblown

 

[Ranksu]

same people freaking out over 27 are largely the same ones who flipped out when we traded elliott. "we just traded the goalie who took us to the conference finals!" sounds pretty similar to "we just let the cup winning captain walk!"

blues will be fine with or without him. they are a better team with him yes but he clearly didnt think 8x8 was good enough for him to sign. quite honestly a 38+ yr old dman making 8 million years from now is incredibly stupid anyways as hes gonna fall off by then.

i still think hes gonna resign here for some reason and id be ok with that too, but the extreme freakouts over 27 on here is so overblown

We're better team with Pietro, price of maybe his last years aren't worth of that contract, but maybe not? What is our purpose? Win Cup when our best players are in their primes, now? Or be mediocre and hope the best?

 

[Blanick]

Am I happy that Pietrangelo is likely gone? No, of course not.
Do I think we are a better team with the moves made? Not necessarily.
Do I think the sky is falling? No it's not.
Will we be as good defensively? Probably not but it is important to remember our strength is TEAM defense.
Do I think we will still be a cup contender? Yes, I do.

Why? Because overall this is still a very good hockey team.

I am sad to see Pietrangelo go, he is one of my favorite Blues ever, but we will be fine. Many of us have seen this before, a lot us lived through Hull leaving and Pronger being traded for peanut but, and this is important to remember, the teams they left behind were significantly weaker than this current one. It sucks that Pietrangelo isn't a Blue but I will say this again, we will be fine.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

The Blues never did great against Vegas. Vegas with Petro on it against the Blues. Ouch.

You only have one note, but you toot that horn for all it’s worth.

Vegas is a good team. They’re having to make sacrifices from their roster to just become cap compliant, and more still to afford Pietro. Stastny is already gone, and there are rumors about Martinez and others, lack of interest in Fleury, etc. Pretending we can forecast how next year will look before the rosters are known is foolishness. It’s not that hard to imagine a situation where Vegas spoils their chemistry, depletes too much depth and the addition of Pietro doesn’t make up the difference.

For my money, Colorado is still the team to catch up with.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Even better, now we have 2 Brewers

Where is notenoughbrewer when you need him?

 

[kimzey59]

You only have one note, but you toot that horn for all it’s worth.

Vegas is a good team. They’re having to make sacrifices from their roster to just become cap compliant, and more still to afford Pietro. Stastny is already gone, and there are rumors about Martinez and others, lack of interest in Fleury, etc. Pretending we can forecast how next year will look before the rosters are known is foolishness. It’s not that hard to imagine a situation where Vegas spoils their chemistry, depletes too much depth and the addition of Pietro doesn’t make up the difference.

For my money, Colorado is still the team to catch up with.

Colorado is still in good position; but I think losing Zadorov will bite them in the butt.
They weren't exactly a defensive powerhouse beforehand, and losing Zad's has created a real hole in their top 4. They have the Cap space to fix the problem, but I think they made a mistake with that move. They didn't need more offense.

 

[67Blues]

Just keep in mind that as of early January 2019, a lot of people were ready to give Petro away for a bag of dirty practice pinnies. My how times have changed. I'm not going to spend the time rehashing that, but I'm going to bet some folks on here who are upset where also ready to throw Petro out back then. @Blanick probably stated it best in his post above.

 

[execwrite1]

Regarding signing bonuses and escrow -

Here's what I don't understand. The escrow system was created to give the owners insurance if revenues don't meet expectations. Some salary is held back and when the final revenues are tallied, the players either get the money back or owners keep some of it (I think).

So why are some players allowed to avoid the escrow system through signing bonuses and keep their money instead of having it go through escrow? Isn't this a giant loophole that a few top players can use while all the others have to take the risk of losing money?

 

[Xanadude]

Am I happy that Pietrangelo is likely gone? No, of course not.
Do I think we are a better team with the moves made? Not necessarily.
Do I think the sky is falling? No it's not.
Will we be as good defensively? Probably not but it is important to remember our strength is TEAM defense.
Do I think we will still be a cup contender? Yes, I do.

Why? Because overall this is still a very good hockey team.

I am sad to see Pietrangelo go, he is one of my favorite Blues ever, but we will be fine. Many of us have seen this before, a lot us lived through Hull leaving and Pronger being traded for peanut but, and this is important to remember, the teams they left behind were significantly weaker than this current one. It sucks that Pietrangelo isn't a Blue but I will say this again, we will be fine.

Agreed. Losing Petro hurts on multiple fronts, and admittedly we look like a worse team now than we did in the cup year. But we didn't turn into Buffalo (I trust our coaching and vet leadership), the offseason isn't over (Dunn + Bozak gives us space for a solid UFA forward or middle sixer in a hockey trade, and all that potential LTIR space theoretically allows us to spend more) and we have a few kids left in the pipeline who could make a real difference (Mikkola, Perunovich, Kyrou, Kostin).

Do I expect us to be a dynasty or something? No, I think we're probably a first/maybe second round exit team if this is our playoff roster. But while I'd love to jump in a time machine and tell DA about COVID before he trades for Faulk, etc., I'm not salty.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Well....we've certainly had our share of drama these last few weeks.

Bring on January 2021!!!!

2020 sucks

 

[Vektor]

Army should be excoriated for choosing Faulk and Krug over Petro. There’s not a font massive enough to represent the scale of ineptitude that has transpired; if #27 indeed does now sign elsewhere.

Idk what language is needed to explain that it was never Krug and Faulk over Petro. Petro got offered the money he wants, just not the structure which has nothing to do with either of those signings.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Because what you're implying is that the structure of the deal, the actual dollars and bonuses per year, couldn't be worked out, but that the salary cap hit could've been agreed upon. That, just based on how GMs and others talk about contract negotiations, are things that are of little importance when compared to just a base line salary per year, or at least this is what I'm gathering reading your posts (if I'm wrong I apologize).

What you're saying about the contract negotiation I guess could be true theoretically, but if both sides have agreed on a pretty sweetheart deal for the Blues (assuming it's anything less than 8 mil), then I have to imagine that they would've gotten the deal done. Based on comparables, AP should get 9.5, but he probably wont. If they agreed at something like 7.75, your difference there is 1.75 per year, for 8 years thats 14 mil lost on the table. I think at that point, Armstrong could've/would've looped that difference in performance bonuses, etc, but given the team the flexibility to add other players.

From another post:

If the two sides had agreed on $7.75M per but AP wanted the first 3 years to be 8/11/11 with signing bonuses of 7/6/6 while DA wanted those first 3 years to be 7/8/8 with signing bonuses of 1/3/4, there's a huge gap there. That's an ask of 30M of salary, $17M in signing bonus vs. an offer of $23M in salary, $8M in signing bonus. That first year is probably getting pro-rated because we're not playing a full season in '20-21; if they go in understanding that and figure we'll play 60% of it, AP is looking to get $7.6M for '20-21 while DA is trying to pay $4.6M. That's not an insignificant gap.

I'll say it again: it's not all about the average salary. It's all about the details on how that comes together. Throw in asks/offers on NTC/NMC, and it should be really easy to see that well they agreed on term and average value misses a shitload of critical pieces that are important to both sides.

To the comment on agreeing on structure (which I'm going to interpret as "how long the contract is, how much each year will be, salary and bonuses defined"): it's not apparent at all that they were ever in agreement on that, or that they were even close on that. If someone has a source that says they really were, I'd like to see it - but what I've seen is that Armstrong wanted Pietrangelo to agree on total years/dollars before discussing any details underneath, and Pietrangelo wasn't willing to do that without an idea of what the details would be.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I am still holding out for a happy ending. Pietrangelo circles back and accepts the Blues offer.

• Krug - Pietrangelo
• Scandella - Parayko
• Mikkola/Gunnarsson - Faulk
• Bortuzzo

Dunn traded. Not perfect, but I could live with it.

Thing is, it's not that out of the question that Dunn evolves into what Krug does. If so, you have that role filled, 6 years younger, at half the salary or less. Even if you "only" get 80% of the production, you're getting that at a significantly lower cost.

Which again begs the question: if you think we could still bring back Pietrangelo, why did we need to sign Krug?

 

[BlueOil]

it's like getting shattenkirk back in the line up, i'm not as twisted up about it though

krug is a decent consolation prize if petro is actually gone and bolsters a fairly weak left side

 

[illinidave]

My biggest problem is that we just got worse defensively with AP out and JF/TK in. Unless Faulk/Krug significantly spike up the scoring, I fear we’re going to give up more goals and start losing more of the closer games we were winning. Our goalies traditionally depended on our strong D to prevent the dangerous shots and regain puck possession and drive transition. Will be interesting to see JB50’s stats in this contract year...

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Regarding signing bonuses and escrow -

Here's what I don't understand. The escrow system was created to give the owners insurance if revenues don't meet expectations. Some salary is held back and when the final revenues are tallied, the players either get the money back or owners keep some of it (I think).

So why are some players allowed to avoid the escrow system through signing bonuses and keep their money instead of having it go through escrow? Isn't this a giant loophole that a few top players can use while all the others have to take the risk of losing money?

Yes, it's stupid. No, it didn't get fixed. Yes, it shifts the escrow burden on all the other players who don't have signing bonuses. Yes, you'd think they [those players who don't get signing bonuses] would say something.

No, they don't because ... add this to the list of things the rank-and-file NHLPA doesn't question that ultimately acts against their best interest.

 

[EastVillageBlues]

We will need to adjust.

Losing Bow and Petro in the same year is not going to bode well in terms of what we can do in the D-zone.

The solution is to keep spending time in our own zone to a minimum. Of course that would entail getting out as soon as we can (by having a top notched transition game); and have excellent possession in the O-zone (by having great zone entry and make creative and cohesive plays). I think we now actually have the D-corps personnel to do that now.

If Dunn resigns (big assumption which may not happen), and Perunovich makes the team (which I think is more likely than not); we would have one of the best groups of PMD in the league. We should take advantage of that. And the fact that nearly all of our forwards are good at possession and are competent at at least participating in plays up the ice really helps too (as long as we keep guys like DLR off the roster as much as possible).

I think it should be doable. The team will have a very different look, but should be entertaining as well. We will need to somehow get another forward that has a legitimate shot from the circle if Tank is out most of the season. We should have cap space to make that happen if Tank is out.

 

[Spektre]

Well I’m going to be pulling for Krug to succeed pretty hard. I love rooting for the underdogs and with all the drama around his signing I think he qualifies