training camp 2021

[JohnLennon]

I'm biased and there is zero chance. Only if somebody on left side gets injured and even after that there is Gunnar who is imo 7th guy + he can play both sides and Walman who looked really impressive.

Blues depth on left side is deep. Same breath Scandella doesnt impres me at all. Too slow.

Side note I dont see the hype behind Perunovich. I view Walman is miles ahead of him.

Krug - Parayko
Scandella - Faulk
Dunn - Bortuzzo
Gunnar
Mikkola/Walman
Perunovich - Reinke

Btw Dunn was huge let down. He didnt look good at all. Sloppy and slow. But all that doesnt matter. They all are in Chief's ranking upper. Prospect need to be amazing to get success and icetime vs vet's.

Well unfortunately they just put Walman on waivers. I think he's better than Juulsen, who was taken by FLA, so hard to believe Walman is not taken.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Well unfortunately they just put Walman on waivers. I think he's better than Juulsen, who was taken by FLA, so hard to believe Walman is not taken.

Maybe. If so, good for him. This is the time of year you can sneak quality guys through waivers more easily. It points to him being on the taxi squad, but if he can secure an NHL spot instead more power to him. I really don’t see a scenario where he was going to break into the NHL on the Blues.

 

[Ranksu]

Whether or not Mikkola could replace him now, he was very good last season. Try not to let your biases rewrite history in your mind.

Worth of that money?

 

[rumrokh]

Worth of that money?

I'm not sure what we're talking about anymore. You said he doesn't impress you at all and he's too slow. Was that last year, when he wasn't under the current contract? Or were you happy with his play last year and your opinion is only about the contract, not the player? Or are you simply moving the goalposts?

 

[Brian39]

I’d like to hear more about your thoughts on Binnington’s declining performance as the season progressed and dismal performance in the postseason. The trend is concerning. That’s more what I think will dictate how many starts go to each player, not simply fatigue.

I think my main thought is that I don't really agree with the premise. Like almost every non-elite goalie he had ups and downs, but I wouldn't really say it was a "trend" of declining performance. And since he posted a .926 through the first 2 months of the season he was either going to regress to the mean or be the best goalie in the league.

.912 in starts 1-10
.939 in starts 11-20
.896 in starts 21-30
.886 in starts 31-40
.921 in starts 41-50

That stretch between starts 21-30 included the Leafs game where he allowed 4 on 11 before getting yanked and the Avs game where he allowed 7 on 41 shots. 5 of those 10 games were against top 10 offensive teams. It is worth noting that he allowed three or fewer goals in 7 of these 10 starts and allowed two or fewer in 5 of the 10 starts. He got blown up a couple times vs top offensive teams in the league but was otherwise very solid. Excluding the Leafs/Avs games his SV% for the other 8 was .921 in this stretch. That just isn't a period of decline.

The stretch between starts 31-40 included the Avs game where he allowed 4 on 11 before getting yanked. We only played 3 top 10 offenses in this stretch, but we also only played two teams in the bottom 10. Not a hard stretch, but a pretty average one. This is the 10 game stretch that was concerning and he responded by posting a .921 before COVID shut things down.

Let's look at the numbers month-to-month:

.918 in October
.934 in November
.904 in December
.866 in January
.908 in February
.934 in March
.914 if you combine February and the 3 games in March

Again, that just isn't really declining performance as the season goes on. Month to month goalie stats are almost always all over the map and there are just a handful of elite guys who are consistently good. He had an awful January (where I thought he looked tired and was pretty regularly asking why he was top 3 in the league in starts when Allen was playing so well). Other than that he bookended his year with 2 above average stretches of play and another couple stretches of okay play.

This is what average starting-caliber goaltending looks like with a heavy workload. You get average goaltending about half the time and then some stretches of outliers going each way. I don't think there are 10 goalies in the league who would have been more consistent AND ended the year with a higher SV% with the workload he faced. I think a ton of people vastly underestimate his workload. There were only 5 goalies who had a higher expected goals against. 4 of those 5 guys had a negative GSAA. The other guy won the Vezina. There was only won other goalie in the top 10 goalies in expected goals against who had a positive GSAA. He was the Vezina winner in 2018/19. Binner was one of just 7 guys to start 50 games and he was 6th in TOI. My opinion is that we asked waaaay too much of him, but that is probably a different discussion.

As for the playoffs, I don't have enough info to have a strong opinion. It could be that the Canucks scouted him and figured something out in his game. It could be that their counterpunch style was a bad matchup. It could be that he was one of our guys who got COVID and he was just gassed. It could be just a completely random slump. The only thing I'm comfortable saying is that it wasn't a simple continuation of any downward trend. His play had been trending upwards for the last month+ of the season and then we took 4+ months off.

At the end of the day, we're talking about a 19 start stretch where he posted an .887, compared to the .926 he posted over his other 31 starts. And then an awful playoff bubble where he didn't look remotely comfortable on pretty much every shot he faced. I think this is much more attributable to what happens when an average goalie is asked to handle an elite workload. You are going to have up and down swings.

I have my concerns with Binner, but they aren't any more than they were on the eve of the season opener last year.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I think my main thought is that I don't really agree with the premise. Like almost every non-elite goalie he had ups and downs, but I wouldn't really say it was a "trend" of declining performance. And since he posted a .926 through the first 2 months of the season he was either going to regress to the mean or be the best goalie in the league.

.912 in starts 1-10
.939 in starts 11-20
.896 in starts 21-30
.886 in starts 31-40
.921 in starts 41-50

That stretch between starts 21-30 included the Leafs game where he allowed 4 on 11 before getting yanked and the Avs game where he allowed 7 on 41 shots. 5 of those 10 games were against top 10 offensive teams. It is worth noting that he allowed three or fewer goals in 7 of these 10 starts and allowed two or fewer in 5 of the 10 starts. He got blown up a couple times vs top offensive teams in the league but was otherwise very solid. Excluding the Leafs/Avs games his SV% for the other 8 was .921 in this stretch. That just isn't a period of decline.

The stretch between starts 31-40 included the Avs game where he allowed 4 on 11 before getting yanked. We only played 3 top 10 offenses in this stretch, but we also only played two teams in the bottom 10. Not a hard stretch, but a pretty average one. This is the 10 game stretch that was concerning and he responded by posting a .921 before COVID shut things down.

Let's look at the numbers month-to-month:

.918 in October
.934 in November
.904 in December
.866 in January
.908 in February
.934 in March
.914 if you combine February and the 3 games in March

Again, that just isn't really declining performance as the season goes on. Month to month goalie stats are almost always all over the map and there are just a handful of elite guys who are consistently good. He had an awful January (where I thought he looked tired and was pretty regularly asking why he was top 3 in the league in starts when Allen was playing so well). Other than that he bookended his year with 2 above average stretches of play and another couple stretches of okay play.

This is what average starting-caliber goaltending looks like with a heavy workload. You get average goaltending about half the time and then some stretches of outliers going each way. I don't think there are 10 goalies in the league who would have been more consistent AND ended the year with a higher SV% with the workload he faced. I think a ton of people vastly underestimate his workload. There were only 5 goalies who had a higher expected goals against. 4 of those 5 guys had a negative GSAA. The other guy won the Vezina. There was only won other goalie in the top 10 goalies in expected goals against who had a positive GSAA. He was the Vezina winner in 2018/19. Binner was one of just 7 guys to start 50 games and he was 6th in TOI. My opinion is that we asked waaaay too much of him, but that is probably a different discussion.

As for the playoffs, I don't have enough info to have a strong opinion. It could be that the Canucks scouted him and figured something out in his game. It could be that their counterpunch style was a bad matchup. It could be that he was one of our guys who got COVID and he was just gassed. It could be just a completely random slump. The only thing I'm comfortable saying is that it wasn't a simple continuation of any downward trend. His play had been trending upwards for the last month+ of the season and then we took 4+ months off.

At the end of the day, we're talking about a 19 start stretch where he posted an .887, compared to the .926 he posted over his other 31 starts. And then an awful playoff bubble where he didn't look remotely comfortable on pretty much every shot he faced. I think this is much more attributable to what happens when an average goalie is asked to handle an elite workload. You are going to have up and down swings.

I have my concerns with Binner, but they aren't any more than they were on the eve of the season opener last year.

Nice post.

One other question: Do you agree with Berube’s heavy usage of Binnington? I know you’ve cited studies in the past that support using the backup on a back-to-back, basically showing the value of the rested starter.

 

[Brian39]

Nice post.

One other question: Do you agree with Berube’s heavy usage of Binnington? I know you’ve cited studies in the past that support using the backup on a back-to-back, basically showing the value of the rested starter.

Not at all. It is easily my biggest criticism of Berube.

But frankly, it might be an organizational issue. Yeo and Hitch did the same thing with Allen post-Elliott.

In 2018/19, Allen had played in 34 of our first 41 games before Binner took over. I get that Johnson wasn't good, but Allen was on pace to lead the league in starts with a sub-.900 in mid December.

In 2017/18, Allen played 33 of our first 41 games, putting him on pace for 66 starts. Allen played well in this stretch, but Hutton posted a .946 during the same stretch and could barely get on the ice. Allen was then godawful in January/February and Hutton took his job before getting hurt down the stretch.

in 2016/17, Allen played 32 of our first 41 games in his first season as a clear cut starter with Elliot gone.

It was 3 straight years where Allen was on pace for 60+ starts at the halfway mark of the season. To put that in perspective, there were only 28 instances of a goalie hitting the 60 start mark in a season throughout that 3 year window. Despite losing his #1 job twice in that 3 year period, Allen somehow finished 14th in total starts from 2016/17-2018/19. Think about how many games Binner played down the stretch in 2018/19 and how many Hutton played down the stretch in 2017/18. For 3 straight years we spent the first half of the season trotting out Allen on the workload of an elite goaltender even though his largest issue was consistency. I complained about it with Allen and I complained about it last year with Binner.

Last year marked the 4th straight season that our goaltender was top 10 in starts at the halfway point of the season and I'm not sure we have had a top 10 goalie on the roster in any of those seasons. For two of those seasons we had a top 5 backup in the NHL playing behind him.

I loathe how the Blues are one of the last teams to figure out that your goalie shouldn't be playing 60+ starts a night unless he is a truly elite guy. I'm worried we will decide that Binner should be that guy and pay him like a truly elite guy.

 

[Em etah Eh]

i'd rather clifford take punches in the face than blais. rivalries and physicality will go up with pure interdivisional play until round 3 of the playoffs. clifford can take the brunt and sammy can try to be something more than 4th liner.

If Sammy plays the way he’s supposed to play he’s going to have to answer the bell and eat some punches from time to time. And I’m okay with that.

 

[EXTRAS]

Will kostin make it?

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Will kostin make it?

To NA this year? As an NHL regular in the future? To dinner on time?

 

[EXTRAS]

To NA this year? As an NHL regular in the future? To dinner on time?

He didn't even come back to the nhl this season? Oh my.

 

[BlueDream]

He didn't even come back to the nhl this season? Oh my.

Yeah, but it’s really not a big deal. He’s 21 and when looking at our team, he wouldn’t have cracked the lineup anyway. He’ll get a shot at it next year in camp.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

He didn't even come back to the nhl this season? Oh my.

Apparently having visa issues. But he hasn’t been producing in KHL so expectations are lessening.

 

[Mike Liut]

Hoffman’s one timer gives me wood

 

[Em etah Eh]

Hoffman’s one timer gives me wood

That’s all? Not composite?

 

[BlueDream]

All our guys cleared waivers so that’s good. Interested to see the taxi squad that I’m assuming will be set later today.

I swear NHL waivers are the most random thing ever. The players that get claimed are almost never the ones you expect.

 

[Cheeaa]

That’s all? Not composite?

Gives me an Easton aluminum.

 

[JohnLennon]

So let me get this straight. Since AHL starts Feb 5th and guys like Walman, Mikkola and Perunovich are likely AHL bound... are they one the taxi squad up until AHL starts in February? You'd have to hope they get some game time in before then, apart from AHL camp, no?

 

[Ranksu]

All our guys cleared waivers so that’s good. Interested to see the taxi squad that I’m assuming will be set later today.

I swear NHL waivers are the most random thing ever. The players that get claimed are almost never the ones you expect.

Which guys we had on waivers. I know Walman was One, but others?

 

[Domme90]

What is with Kyrou?

 

[Bluesnatic27]

What is with Kyrou?

What do you mean?

He's been pretty damn good all through camp and looks to have a spot in the starting top-9 at this point.

 

[finnishflash13]

What is with Kyrou?

He's not on the ice today due to cap issues apparently.

 

[Domme90]

But he can play if Longterminyury kicks in?

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

He's not on the ice today due to cap issues apparently.

Do you have some link of information for this?

CapFriendly shows him on the AHL roster, so I guess he was sent down (and is waiver exempt). This could be a bookkeeping move to help the salary cap, even if its just for a day at a time, but I don't see why he wouldn't be able to continue to practice as usual since there is a taxi squad. Maybe the numbers (6 max) on the taxi squad are too big right now? I think Kyrou is still going to be starting tomorrow and this is just cap shenanigans.

 

[Reality Czech]

Do you have some link of information for this?

CapFriendly shows him on the AHL roster, so I guess he was sent down (and is waiver exempt). This could be a bookkeeping move to help the salary cap, even if its just for a day at a time, but I don't see why he wouldn't be able to continue to practice as usual since there is a taxi squad. Maybe the numbers (6 max) on the taxi squad are too big right now? I think Kyrou is still going to be starting tomorrow and this is just cap shenanigans.

The Blues site lists Kyrou on the taxi squad but only 22 players on the active roster. Perhaps they have to wait for day 1 of the season to LTIR Tarasenko?