Confirmed with Link: Vrana @50%

Mike Liut

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Kappy no doubt is over paid, watching a game a few weeks ago, you had Kappy in the top 6 and Vrana on a checking line....thats how messed up the Blues under Brube have become.

You have no second line center, you have a scorer playing on a checking line...its insanity.

I would imagine Berube's biggest fear this season was being forced into a position to play Kyrou and Vrana on the same line....10+ million of cap hit playing zero two way hockey and scoring very few goals.....

Brett Hull says, yeah, what’s the problem lol
 

Reality Czech

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Doing a little research on Vrana and his issues with past coaches. I've found some interesting articles with some quotes that sound awfully similar to what people are speculating the issue is with Berube and the Blues.

“I am very disappointed by Jakub Vrána,” Sykora said as translated by RMNB’s Alexandra Petáková. “He doesn’t battle [for the puck], he’s invisible. A few moments were enough to assure me that he has celebrity manners. I don’t know if he learned that from someone in Washington but he should quickly forget it. I remember the evaluation of his presentation in junior national teams, he was unwilling to work for it. He basically just waits for a pass on a break where he can use his shot. He’s not active on his own. Even though he’s a successful young player, he’s getting recognition in the NHL. But to me his performance in the national team is a big disappointment.”


“He’s not going to play tonight by the way. Just to let you know that,” Trotz said. “I’m going to pull him out tonight. He’s a good young player and I think he’s going to have a real good career. Just like all young players, there’s a difference between being involved and just participating. Right now, I feel, as a young player it’s a grind in this league, he’s in that participation mode rather than involvement mode.

“We’re going to have a talk. I have full confidence that he’s getting the message that it’s important to be there every night in terms of that involvement and that’s where his production will come about. He’s going to come out tonight and he’ll go back in.”


“We’ve had many conversations just about his play with regard to the competitiveness of it and the speed of it. He is a very skilled player but there are other aspects of the game that are very important. We’re looking for a higher level of play.”

 
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Ted Hoffman

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Holy f***, look at all these coaches dogging the shit out of Vrana. No way it's because Vrana gets to loafing and not playing hard and feels entitled at times, it's gotta be a conspiracy among the coaches around the league and they're spreading it around the world.
 

Reality Czech

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Holy f***, look at all these coaches dogging the shit out of Vrana. No way it's because Vrana gets to loafing and not playing hard and feels entitled at times, it's gotta be a conspiracy among the coaches around the league and they're spreading it around the world.

I thought this quote from the first article was a low blow, though it did make me chuckle.

An anonymous member of the Czech media explained the benching saying that Vrana is a “dick” – a personal insult that may leave many Caps fans scratching their heads.

I certainly hope Vrana has grown up and matured from his early days, but there are no shortage of players who have the hands for the NHL but not the personality and/or brain. Berube has been diplomatic in his comments and isn't the type to single out players individually to the media, but we can read between the lines.
 
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Blueston

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Holy f***, look at all these coaches dogging the shit out of Vrana. No way it's because Vrana gets to loafing and not playing hard and feels entitled at times, it's gotta be a conspiracy among the coaches around the league and they're spreading it around the world.
It's obviously Berube's fault for not giving him enough power play time. As the last article explains, its never Vrana's fault. "Laviolette isn’t the first coach to reduce Vrana’s minutes at the professional level. He has also been benched by Todd Reirden, Barry Trotz, Troy Mann of the Hershey Bears, as well as during the 2019 World Championship. He is only 25 years old, and he has a new chance to rewrite the current narrative and turn his career around. But if he isn’t able to, Jeff Blashill could be the next coach on that list."
 
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Davimir Tarablad

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Kappy no doubt is over paid, watching a game a few weeks ago, you had Kappy in the top 6 and Vrana on a checking line....thats how messed up the Blues under Brube have become.

You have no second line center, you have a scorer playing on a checking line...its insanity.

I would imagine Berube's biggest fear this season was being forced into a position to play Kyrou and Vrana on the same line....10+ million of cap hit playing zero two way hockey and scoring very few goals.....
He played over 15min/game with the Blues last year, so clearly Berube felt he was worth playing last year. Maybe he'd have kept that ice time if he actually put in the effort this year
 

Beauterham

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Just wondering, if we haven't waived him due to a possible pending trade, what can we possibly get for him in return at this point?

I'd imagine we will have to retain 50% of his current caphit (so with the wings retaining 50% of his contract that would put his caphit at around 1.3 million?) and possibly eat up an expiring contract to get at least some positive value in return? 5th round pick or something like that (mostly because we're taking on a contract in this scenario).
 

Stupendous Yappi

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Just wondering, if we haven't waived him due to a possible pending trade, what can we possibly get for him in return at this point?

I'd imagine we will have to retain 50% of his current caphit (so with the wings retaining 50% of his contract that would put his caphit at around 1.3 million?) and possibly eat up an expiring contract to get at least some positive value in return? 5th round pick or something like that (mostly because we're taking on a contract in this scenario).
Could get future considerations or an AHL guy. It would basically be a favor to the other team to avoid the uncertainty of a waiver claim.

If they need help making the salary work, maybe the Blues could squeeze a little more value by taking on a bad contract.
 
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Majorityof1

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"There comes a point where you start to feel you're hampering a guy's career. You know? He want;s to play hockey. And it wasn't working here, for whatever reason....It felt like we were derailing Jacob's [Vrana] career." - Doug Armstrong

Understandably lost in all of the Berube news is this bit from the press conference. That sure doesn't sound like Doug thinks it is 100% on Vrana. It sounds like he didn't 100% approve of the fact Vrana was getting benched. Now maybe I am reading too much into it, or reading it wrong. Maybe I am reading it right, and Doug is wrong. But it sure sounds like the GM thinks this was on management/coaching to some extent.
 
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BlueDream

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"There comes a point where you start to feel you're hampering a guy's career. You know? He want;s to play hockey. And it wasn't working here, for whatever reason....It felt like we were derailing Jacob's [Vrana] career." - Doug Armstrong

Understandably lost in all of the Berube news is this bit from the press conference. That sure doesn't sound like Doug thinks it is 100% on Vrana. It sounds like he didn't 100% approve of the fact Vrana was getting benched. Now maybe I am reading too much into it, or reading it wrong. Maybe I am reading it right, and Doug is wrong. But it sure sounds like the GM thinks this was on management/coaching to some extent.
Think that’s just Armstrong being nice and not completely ruining the rest of Varna’s trade value in case some team still wants to call us in the future and offer a late pick for him. If he truly thought he wasn’t being handled properly, then I don’t think he would have waived him.

That’s always been Armstrong’s MO, he won’t publicly bash a player - he will just find them a new home when it’s not working out here anymore.
 

Blueston

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"There comes a point where you start to feel you're hampering a guy's career. You know? He want;s to play hockey. And it wasn't working here, for whatever reason....It felt like we were derailing Jacob's [Vrana] career." - Doug Armstrong

Understandably lost in all of the Berube news is this bit from the press conference. That sure doesn't sound like Doug thinks it is 100% on Vrana. It sounds like he didn't 100% approve of the fact Vrana was getting benched. Now maybe I am reading too much into it, or reading it wrong. Maybe I am reading it right, and Doug is wrong. But it sure sounds like the GM thinks this was on management/coaching to some extent.
he was being nice. he tried to give the guy away and nobody would take him. what is he supposed to say? the guy is a dog and we want him far away from team?
 
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Majorityof1

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Think that’s just Armstrong being nice and not completely ruining the rest of Varna’s trade value in case some team still wants to call us in the future and offer a late pick for him. If he truly thought he wasn’t being handled properly, then I don’t think he would have waived him.

That’s always been Armstrong’s MO, he won’t publicly bash a player - he will just find them a new home when it’s not working out here anymore.

he was being nice. he tried to give the guy away and nobody would take him. what is he supposed to say? the guy is a dog and we want him far away from team?

I mean maybe. Maybe he is being nice. But there is a lot of room between saying Vrana brought it on himself and "we were deraling his career". Just say "Vrana has a lot of great skills, but our roster and gameplan required him to do a lot of things he never was relied on to do before. Ultimately it wasn't a great fit, but we are hoping to find a place where he can thrive." Instead he said "Yea, I walked in the room and was like holy shit, we are not playing Vrana AGAIN!!! I feel like we are derailing his career"

But end of the day, we each have our own opinions on this, and we are going to filter Army's comments through that lens.
 

simon IC

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His demotion to the AHL might be to keep his influence away from the team. I don't like the term "dressing room cancer" but it might be appropriate in this case.
 
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ezcreepin

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Holy f***, look at all these coaches dogging the shit out of Vrana. No way it's because Vrana gets to loafing and not playing hard and feels entitled at times, it's gotta be a conspiracy among the coaches around the league and they're spreading it around the world.
Dude you are dead right, he was shafted by not playing on the top line and top powerplay unit consistently. I am more concerned the league hasn't looked into this tbh
 

Ted Hoffman

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"There comes a point where you start to feel you're hampering a guy's career. You know? He want;s to play hockey. And it wasn't working here, for whatever reason....It felt like we were derailing Jacob's [Vrana] career." - Doug Armstrong

Understandably lost in all of the Berube news is this bit from the press conference. That sure doesn't sound like Doug thinks it is 100% on Vrana. It sounds like he didn't 100% approve of the fact Vrana was getting benched. Now maybe I am reading too much into it, or reading it wrong. Maybe I am reading it right, and Doug is wrong. But it sure sounds like the GM thinks this was on management/coaching to some extent.
I heard some of that, and I was typing other stuff and didn't come back to it. I didn't know what to make of it at the time, and watching it again I ... I have questions.

If you think we were derailing his career but you just fired the head coach - who, I guess maybe was the problem, but early on you said you felt personally responsible and kind of talked about the players not giving effort but danced all around blaming anyone for anything - then why is he going to Springfield? Just because he cleared waivers doesn't mean he has to get sent down; you can keep him on the roster the rest of the season if you want and pretend nothing ever happened, there's no requirement to assign him anywhere after he clears waivers. Why isn't he staying with the roster and getting a shot with the interim head coach to try and get his career back on the tracks? What is it about going to Springfield that's going to get him suddenly back on track that won't happen if he stays with the NHL club?

He'll find his scoring touch, regain his confidence, find energy and get renewed and be ready to come back and play with lots of vigor? OK, maybe - and all of that will be against AHL competition that he's probably (a lot) better than. Does that tell anyone around the league what he's going to do at the NHL level again, where the players are (a lot) better? If he goes to Springfield and doesn't get his shit straight, then you've really derailed his career - and then what?

If you just listen to the that line in isolation, you're probably oh, OK, that makes sense, tra-la-la-la-la. If he'd just left it at "... and it wasn't working here," you'd have said well, there you go, it just didn't work out and called it a day. But when he tagged that last part on and you try to reconcile that with other things that were said in that press conference, ... something doesn't add up.
 

Stupendous Yappi

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His demotion to the AHL might be to keep his influence away from the team. I don't like the term "dressing room cancer" but it might be appropriate in this case.
That’s how it looked in Detroit. That’s how it looks here.

Without speculating too much, this suggests to me there may be some off ice behavior (such as too much partying) that is viewed detrimentally. But his on ice activities didn’t help offset any negatives like that.
 

Majorityof1

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That’s how it looked in Detroit. That’s how it looks here.

Without speculating too much, this suggests to me there may be some off ice behavior (such as too much partying) that is viewed detrimentally. But his on ice activities didn’t help offset any negatives like that.
If that is the case, why would Armstrong say "we" as in the Blues were derailing his career? Why be nice and lie if it's because he is partying too much? He would just no comment a situation where drugs/partying by the player were the cause.
 
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Stupendous Yappi

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If that is the case, why would Armstrong say "we" as in the Blues were derailing his career? Why be nice and lie if it's because he is partying too much? He would just no comment a situation where drugs/partying by the player were the cause.
What does Armstrong gain by ruining whatever reputation/future Vrana has in hockey? They’ve taken steps to remove his influence. They’ve exhausted trade and waiver claims.

“If you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”

Obviously it’s not JUST off ice stuff, if that is a factor at all. But if it’s working on ice there is more incentive to try and work through things. For Vrana, that incentive doesn’t exist.
 
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Majorityof1

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What does Armstrong gain by ruining whatever reputation/future Vrana has in hockey? They’ve taken steps to remove his influence. They’ve exhausted trade and waiver claims.

“If you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”

Obviously it’s not JUST off ice stuff, if that is a factor at all. But if it’s working on ice there is more incentive to try and work through things. For Vrana, that incentive doesn’t exist.
He might have nothing to gain, but he has something to lose with that wording. Saying we are derailing a players career who you just sent to AHL is nit a good look for future players. As I said before, there is a lot of ways to be nice without going that far. And I especially don't think he'd go that far if it was a drug/partying issue. That is on the player, why bend over to protect someone who is actively hiring their own career and your team?

We have zero evidence drugs/partying are involved. You are using his past against him and judging him for previous struggles.
 
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