Confirmed with Link: Berube out, Bannister in

[ezcreepin]

Elliote needs a comb

LMAAAOOOO Oh Bruce, love the dude

 

[LogosBlue]

Keep drinkin' that DA koolaid boys. That's a cold-hearted beverage.

It can't be his fault, he just makes all the decisions.

 

[Brian39]

Same with Chuckie Sideburns. Completely braindead to let him walk. He would have signed with us for peanuts and he's a late bloomer. Anyone with eyes could see he was maturing into a really good goalie. Not DA.

Did his agent tell you that in writing so you could share or is this just your gut feeling?

He signed a 3 year deal as a UFA that doubled his career earnings to that point in his career. He hasn't made nearly enough money for it to make any sense for him to take a discount and term was always going to be the issue for us. It was reported that he was seeking term before free agency started and then he got exactly that. Washington was able to give him multiple seasons of a clear path to an NHL job with guaranteed NHL money. It was crystal clear that Hofer was going to get an NHL shot sooner than later and that we very much could not give Lindgren the inside track to an NHL job for more than 1 season.

It would have made zero sense for Lindgren to give up term to stay here and zero sense for the organization to put a roadblock up for Hofer by committing 3 years to Lindgren. He got a $3.3M deal from a team that didn't have a well-regarded goalie prospect that oculd potentially challenge him for at least the first 2 years of the contract. What exactly would his incentive been to sign here for peanuts?

Lindgren did not have a good season last year and I don't see him making any meaningful difference in our 2022/23 season. And currentl, I'd rather have Hofer developing as the NHL backup than having Lindgren being the backup behind Binner this year.

 

[stlbluz]

Any reason Ott wasn't given temporary reigns?

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I remember when Curtis Sanford won his first 5 games for us in the 2002-03 season, across 2 stints. 1.61 GAA, .928 SV%, people went f***ing nuts, wanted him to be our #1 guy in net for the next 10 years. And then Detroit lit him up for 3 goals on 10 shots in 24:42, and he got pulled and we didn't see him again that season.

And that same season, after an early loss Fred Braithwaite went 5-1-0 and through 7 games he was 5-1-1, 1.96, .905 and people wanted him to be our starter in net ... and the rest of the way he was 7-8-3, 3.03, .876 - and then 4-11-1, 3.31, .897 the following season.

Hell, I remember Chad Johnson winning back-to-back games in the 2018-19 season and people started speculating whether we'd found another Carter Hutton, maybe we should make him the starter ahead of Jake Allen, ... and he went 0-4-0, 5.05, .832 until we finally waived him and called up Binnington. [And then he went to Anaheim and went a further 0-5-0, 3.75, .872 and was out of the league for good.]

Those were great times. Still just as funny now as they were then. Maybe people need to quit getting attached to great statistics from really small sample sizes and pretending that's a definite sign of everything to expect in the future.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Would Buchnevich be available as a trade asset?

Sure, why not?

Actually, we’re hoping to re-sign him. But for good return he’s probably available. I also think he is a smart target for a playoff team, and will contribute more than Tarasenko or OReilly did.

 

[LogosBlue]

Did his agent tell you that in writing so you could share or is this just your gut feeling?

He signed a 3 year deal as a UFA that doubled his career earnings to that point in his career. He hasn't made nearly enough money for it to make any sense for him to take a discount and term was always going to be the issue for us. It was reported that he was seeking term before free agency started and then he got exactly that. Washington was able to give him multiple seasons of a clear path to an NHL job with guaranteed NHL money. It was crystal clear that Hofer was going to get an NHL shot sooner than later and that we very much could not give Lindgren the inside track to an NHL job for more than 1 season.

It would have made zero sense for Lindgren to give up term to stay here and zero sense for the organization to put a roadblock up for Hofer by committing 3 years to Lindgren. He got a $3.3M deal from a team that didn't have a well-regarded goalie prospect that oculd potentially challenge him for at least the first 2 years of the contract. What exactly would his incentive been to sign here for peanuts?

Lindgren did not have a good season last year and I don't see him making any meaningful difference in our 2022/23 season. And currentl, I'd rather have Hofer developing as the NHL backup than having Lindgren being the backup behind Binner this year.

I got his agents writing right here buddy!! 1.1 mil a year is peanuts to this franchise. I would have committed for 3 years if that was what he wanted. He may have taken a two year deal if we upped it to 1.25 and performance bonuses. We signed Greiss for 1.25 and he sucked (and we all knew he would). Yet another DA bonehead move we all knew would fail. Good job Dougy!!

Goalies take even longer than defensemen to mature. Hoefer is a project who probably won't even be here in 2 years. Lindgren would have been a great backup signing. Make Hoefer earn his spot in camp instead of handing it to him. How does our goaltending depth chart look now? Subban...need i say more.

 

[Majorityof1]

Dunn leaving has been explained about as often as Pietrangelo leaving has been discussed. And no one was missing Dunn his first season in Seattle when he was still tragic defensively.

People still disagreed about letting Dunn go even during his first year in seattle. @Celtic Note has been a consistent voice of disent about letting Dunn go.

just cause you explain something doesn't make the issue settled. "I've explained thus before". So what? I have had lots of stuff explained to me that was dead wrong.

 

[Thallis]

Dunn leaving has been explained about as often as Pietrangelo leaving has been discussed. And no one was missing Dunn his first season in Seattle when he was still tragic defensively.

I was missing him. I wanted to protect him in the expansion draft. This isn't just hindsight, it was the obvious pick even with Tarasenko exposed. Dunn was a good defenseman who was still developing but didn't get the rope he needed here when he got moved up to a higher role.

 

[Majorityof1]

I got his agents writing right here buddy!! 1.1 mil a year is peanuts to this franchise. I would have committed for 3 years if that was what he wanted. He may have taken a two year deal if we upped it to 1.25 and performance bonuses. We signed Greiss for 1.25 and he sucked (and we all knew he would). Yet another DA bonehead move we all knew would fail. Good job Dougy!!

Goalies take even longer than defensemen to mature. Hoefer is a project who probably won't even be here in 2 years. Lindgren would have been a great backup signing. Make Hoefer earn his spot in camp instead of handing it to him. How does our goaltending depth chart look now? Subban...need i say more.

If you are unironically parroting a Dizee shtick as a legitimate argument, you really should reassess everything you think you know about hockey, and really everything.

As an example, you cannot offer a performance bonus to a 28 year old. It's only allowed on older players and ELCs.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

People still disagreed about letting Dunn go even during his first year in seattle. @Celtic Note has been a consistent voice of disent about letting Dunn go.

just cause you explain something doesn't make the issue settled. "I've explained thus before". So what? I have had lots of stuff explained to me that was dead wrong.

I've had lots of stuff explained to me that was "absolutely correct" that really wasn't, but people kept repeating it like if they said it yet another time, it has to be correct.

Dunn is gone, no one is going back in time and changing that. Same thing applies for god knows how many other players we've debated in this forum and across the internet over the decades. I don't know what is gained by constantly complaining about someone not being here and pretending that whatever some guy is doing elsewhere, he absolutely would have done the same exact thing here.

People love to play that game all the time - ____ happened elsewhere, if X had happened and that guy was on our team it all would have happened here too!, which they then draw conclusions from assuming it has to be true, and there is no possible way it would have turned out otherwise. And probably 98% of the time, it's "... and things would have gone so much better / be so much better for us." The 1983 draft, picking / not picking whoever else in the draft, Brett Hull, a Hall of Fame's worth of goalies, another Hall of Fame's worth of prospects, Dunn, Walman, Fabbri, Husso, Mikkola, Reaves years back, the neighbor's dog, the neighbor's best friend's dog, ... no one in that group ever thinks about the flip side: if we'd have done X, it's entirely possible [totally different outcome here than what's really happened elsewhere].

It's like crying about how back in 7th grade, little Susie Smith dumped you and she went on to marry Johnny Jones and they have a great life together, and you sit and dwell on it and you just know if she hadn't dumped you then, you two would have stayed together and you'd have a great life too. No, you don't f***ing know. Maybe you might have a great life together. Maybe she would have dumped you the following year. You might have dumped her for someone else at some point. Your life might be even worse. You might be f***ing dead instead. You have no f***ing clue what would have happened, so quit pretending you do by assuming all kinds of rosy stuff and then pretending it definitely would have happened, no question about it.

Deal with the reality that exists, not the one you want to imagine exists after however many favorable assumptions that get you there.

 

[stlbluz]

I got his agents writing right here buddy!! 1.1 mil a year is peanuts to this franchise. I would have committed for 3 years if that was what he wanted. He may have taken a two year deal if we upped it to 1.25 and performance bonuses. We signed Greiss for 1.25 and he sucked (and we all knew he would). Yet another DA bonehead move we all knew would fail. Good job Dougy!!

Goalies take even longer than defensemen to mature. Hoefer is a project who probably won't even be here in 2 years. Lindgren would have been a great backup signing. Make Hoefer earn his spot in camp instead of handing it to him. How does our goaltending depth chart look now? Subban...need i say more.

When did we move Zherenko?

 

[Brian39]

I got his agents writing right here buddy!! 1.1 mil a year is peanuts to this franchise. I would have committed for 3 years if that was what he wanted. He may have taken a two year deal if we upped it to 1.25 and performance bonuses. We signed Greiss for 1.25 and he sucked (and we all knew he would). Yet another DA bonehead move we all knew would fail. Good job Dougy!!

Goalies take even longer than defensemen to mature. Hoefer is a project who probably won't even be here in 2 years. Lindgren would have been a great backup signing. Make Hoefer earn his spot in camp instead of handing it to him. How does our goaltending depth chart look now? Subban...need i say more.

First: any contract including performance bonuses would have been rejected by the league. Those are against the rules for UFAs under 35. So no, he wouldn't have taken that.

Second: Why would he have been interested in leaving $800k on the table with less job security?

Third: A 3 year term for a position with just 2 NHL roster spots is not peanuts. As I stated in my post, term was the hang up, not the dollar amount.

Fourth: Our goaltending depth chart looks good right now. We have a guy playing like a legit #1, a rookie backup who is just 23 years old and developing right on trajectory, and a 22 year old who is playing great in the AHL. Subban isn't remotely important to our goalie depth chart and I genuinely have no clue why you would bring up the 4th string goaltender when talking about the merits of an NHL backup.

Fifth: You talk about signing Lindgren as a backup and then immediately talk about a training camp battle. Why would Lindgren want to be part of a camp battle that could potentially end his NHL career instead of going to a team who guaranteed him a backup job? Why would he leave $800k on the table for that objectively reduced job security?

You haven't presented anything to support the idea that anything the Blues could/would/did offer him would be more enticing than what he got with Washington. He played 5 NHL games for our organization and his agent (correctly) told him that his Calder Cup run and brief NHL stint in 2021/22 was enough to get him genuine NHL job security and guaranteed dollars. Why would he pass that up to take an objectively less appealing role with a team that he played 5 games for? He would had to have been crazy to leave anything on the table that summer.

 

[Majorityof1]

I've had lots of stuff explained to me that was "absolutely correct" that really wasn't, but people kept repeating it like if they said it yet another time, it has to be correct.

Dunn is gone, no one is going back in time and changing that. Same thing applies for god knows how many other players we've debated in this forum and across the internet over the decades. I don't know what is gained by constantly complaining about someone not being here and pretending that whatever some guy is doing elsewhere, he absolutely would have done the same exact thing here.

People love to play that game all the time - ____ happened elsewhere, if X had happened and that guy was on our team it all would have happened here too!, which they then draw conclusions from assuming it has to be true, and there is no possible way it would have turned out otherwise. And probably 98% of the time, it's "... and things would have gone so much better / be so much better for us." The 1983 draft, picking / not picking whoever else in the draft, Brett Hull, a Hall of Fame's worth of goalies, another Hall of Fame's worth of prospects, Dunn, Walman, Fabbri, Husso, Mikkola, Reaves years back, the neighbor's dog, the neighbor's best friend's dog, ... no one in that group ever thinks about the flip side: if we'd have done X, it's entirely possible [totally different outcome here than what's really happened elsewhere].

It's like crying about how back in 7th grade, little Susie Smith dumped you and she went on to marry Johnny Jones and they have a great life together, and you sit and dwell on it and you just know if she hadn't dumped you then, you two would have stayed together and you'd have a great life too. No, you don't f***ing know. Maybe you might have a great life together. Maybe she would have dumped you the following year. You might have dumped her for someone else at some point. Your life might be even worse. You might be f***ing dead instead. You have no f***ing clue what would have happened, so quit pretending you do by assuming all kinds of rosy stuff and then pretending it definitely would have happened, no question about it.

Deal with the reality that exists, not the one you want to imagine exists after however many favorable assumptions that get you there.

Obviously, everything we discuss here is worthless in the grand scheme of things. But it's worth examining why we gave up on players, why they had success elsewhere. If little Susie Smith dumped you and went on to have a great life, maybe you should figure out where you screwed up, so it doesn't happen with little Natalie Next.

Self reflection is a good thing. Reflecting on potential mistakes in the past for the Blues to determine the course of the team's future is as valuable as anything else we can discuss.

 

[LogosBlue]

If you are unironically parroting a Dizee shtick as a legitimate argument, you really should reassess everything you think you know about hockey, and really everything.

As an example, you cannot offer a performance bonus to a 28 year old. It's only allowed on older players and ELCs.

Yeah, I had no idea there was an age restriction on performance bonuses. I guess i'm just saying, it could have been worked out as there was not a very high threshold to meet.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Wasn't Lindgren offered a extension, but declined it to go to free agency for more term? I have a vague memory of Armstrong saying something about him offering Him and Joshua extensions but they declined them?

 

[LogosBlue]

When did we move Zherenko?

He's still in the system as you know. Having Subban on a depth chart at all is not good.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Wasn't Lindgren offered a extension, but declined it to go to free agency for more term? I have a vague memory of Armstrong saying something about him offering Him and Joshua extensions but they declined them?

What’s the story on Charlie Lindgren? Did the Blues sign Thomas Greiss before Lindgren signed with the Capitals, or was it visa versa? — James W.

The Blues wanted Lindgren, but Washington was offering more term (three years, $3.3 million). So Lindgren went to the Capitals, and the Blues responded by signing Greiss. As you probably know, the goalie market was pretty bleak this summer, but the 36-year-old Greiss does bring experience (347 NHL games) at an AAV ($1.25 million) that fits the team’s cap situation. There wasn’t going to be a great solution after inevitably losing Husso.

Via The Athletic

 

[Brian39]

What’s the story on Charlie Lindgren? Did the Blues sign Thomas Greiss before Lindgren signed with the Capitals, or was it visa versa? — James W.

The Blues wanted Lindgren, but Washington was offering more term (three years, $3.3 million). So Lindgren went to the Capitals, and the Blues responded by signing Greiss. As you probably know, the goalie market was pretty bleak this summer, but the 36-year-old Greiss does bring experience (347 NHL games) at an AAV ($1.25 million) that fits the team’s cap situation. There wasn’t going to be a great solution after inevitably losing Husso.

Via The Athletic

And pre-free agency, Lindgren's agent gave JR a quote about how lot's of team's need goalies, he thought his client was in a good spot to get several offers, and confirmed that he was having good communication with the Blues:

“Yes, he wants a one-way deal, and he played well enough that he will get a one-way deal,” Hankinson said. “There is a big need for goaltenders, so Charlie is in a really good spot. He’ll have a lot of options where to go just because he’s ‘been there, done that.’ He fits right into the NHL room, as you saw with the connection he made with the Blues players and fans.

“The Blues had a good spot for him last year and hopefully that continues. We’ll see in the next few days what happens, but the communications are strong between us and the Blues.”

 

[Blueston]

 

[Linkens Mastery]

(Ctrl+v of what I said on the Blues threads.)

"Not a fan of that comment.

Don't get me wrong, I've said similar about old co-workers and supervisors. But, this was not the time to make that type of comment."

 

[Drubilly]

(Ctrl+v of what I said on the Blues threads.)

"Not a fan of that comment.

Don't get me wrong, I've said similar about old co-workers and supervisors. But, this was not the time to make that type of comment."

Sooooooo you're saying someone should "beat the piss out of Kyrou"?

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Sooooooo you're saying someone should "beat the piss out of Kyrou"?

Nope, not at all. Should everyone who doesn't get along with their supervisor get the piss beat out of them? No. All I said was it wasn't the time to make that comment.

 

[BlueDream]

So when this move first happened I said I had mixed feelings on it. But gotta be honest, the more I have thought about it over the past day, the more I like it.

Something needed to change badly. We can talk about the roster all we want but our play has been trending down for years now. Even after Covid when we still had guys like ROR, Perron and Dunn on the team, we started getting outplayed more often than not and obviously it got worse last year and this year. There are a lot of people responsible for that and Armstrong is one of them, but the head coach is also at the top of that list.

Berube had no idea how to answer the media’s questions anymore as to why this was happening and nothing was changing. You could sense he didn’t know what to do anymore and his message had gone rotten. Combine this with the fact that other players now seem to do almost immediately better as soon as they go to a different team, and that’s another poor reflection of what Berube was running here.

He obviously did a lot of good things for us. But it’s been 5 years. That’s when time is up for a lot of coaches, and it is that time for Berube.

 

[Drubilly]

Nope, not at all. Should everyone who doesn't get along with their supervisor get the piss beat out of them? No. All I said was it wasn't the time to make that comment.

I know sir, just being a smartass. I try to keep it light on here. I mean really we're just bunch of d-bags on the internet.