Do you see any way he is the coach of the next cycle for the Blues? The guy to develop the young players coming in for a few years (maybe being replaced when the team is a contender, maybe not)?I'm not there yet. I'm getting increasingly closer, but I do think that we have shown genuine improvement in our defensive structure. I have an increasingly long list of complaints about Berube, but he has a gaudy ring from 2019 that (I believe justifiably) gives him a long leash and benefit of the doubt.
I'm not calling it inevitable yet. I'm still happy to give him another 20 games or so before forming an opinion about whether he is a lame duck.
I just see no way that's how it plays out. And I think Berube is actually a really good developmental coach. But I think coaches DO have a shelf life and he appears to have lost the thread in strategy. The defensive system last year was a wreck. Special teams were both terrible. What did the Blues do well? I know we can always upgrade players, but the coaching bears some responsibility there.
Whew! So he can retain trade value even if he gets scratched so much he doesn't score much. (Maybe they're scratching him to avoid an injury before the trade deadline?)They actually do now on NHL edge. Vrana actually has the highest speed burst on the team this year at 22.75 mph, where Kyrou and Parayko are at 22.36 and 21.88mph respectively. The point is that he has the kind of speed that can't be taught, but what can be taught is how to use it to knife through the NZ and create rush offense. Hoffman didn't have anything close to that.