20 Blues in 2020-21

[execwrite]

Article in The Hockey News projects the Blues lineup in 2020-21. They miss a few key players

How about this Blues team in 2020-21 (three seasons from now)

Allen
Husso

Parayko Walman
Pietrangelo Edmundson
Schmaltz Dunn

Schwartz Thomas Tarasenko
Fabbri Kyrou Kostin
Schenn Barbashev Thompson
Kaspick Musil Poganski

Other guys - Blais, Stevens, Toropchenko, Sanford (added), Vannelli, Mikkola, Andersson, Fitzpatrick

Click to read more...

 

[Splatter]

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?p=135267959#post135267959

Yeah. I mentioned it a few days ago. This concept turned out pretty bad for most teams.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

Article in The Hockey News projects the Blues lineup in 2020-21. They miss a few key players

How about this Blues team in 2020-21 (three seasons from now)

Allen
Husso

Parayko Walman
Pietrangelo Edmundson
Schmaltz Dunn

Schwartz Thomas Tarasenko
Fabbri Kyrou Kostin
Schenn Barbashev Thompson
Kaspick Musil Poganski

Other guys - Blais, Stevens, Toropchenko, Vannelli, Mikkola, Andersson, Fitzpatrick

Personally I'd go with(well hope for)

Fabbri/Schenn-Tarasenko
Schwartz-Thomas-Kostin
Barbashev/Thompson/Kyrou(several combos could exist)
Blais-Musil-Sanford
Paajarvi(I expect him to stick around)

Walman-Pietrangelo
Dunn-Parayko
Edmundson-Schmaltz
Mikkola

Allen
Husso

With a little luck with these players all at least hitting their potential floor or better, this is a very good team. Fast, has some size, can definitely score some goals.

 

[execwrite]

Personally I'd go with(well hope for)

Fabbri/Schenn-Tarasenko
Schwartz-Thomas-Kostin
Barbashev/Thompson/Kyrou(several combos could exist)
Blais-Musil-Sanford
Paajarvi(I expect him to stick around)

Walman-Pietrangelo
Dunn-Parayko
Edmundson-Schmaltz
Mikkola

Allen
Husso

With a little luck with these players all at least hitting their potential floor or better, this is a very good team. Fast, has some size, can definitely score some goals.

Nice. I'm looking for more grit and penalty killers on the fourth line

 

[thigpen]

Personally I'd go with(well hope for)

Fabbri/Schenn-Tarasenko
Schwartz-Thomas-Kostin
Barbashev/Thompson/Kyrou(several combos could exist)
Blais-Musil-Sanford
Paajarvi(I expect him to stick around)

Walman-Pietrangelo
Dunn-Parayko
Edmundson-Schmaltz
Mikkola

Allen
Husso

With a little luck with these players all at least hitting their potential floor or better, this is a very good team. Fast, has some size, can definitely score some goals.

As I said in another thread about the team in a few years, Schenn isn't likely to be re-signed IMO. I think Army will want to spend that cap space on cheaper youngsters and pay those core FA's and RFA's that need raises. But I could be surprised.

And while I'd love to see our fourth line filled from within the system, seems like GMs/coaches love they some nearly washed up vets playing for nearly league minimum on the fourth line.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Panarin-Barbashev-Tarasenko (Barbashev drives the net, Panarin and Tarasenko do their thing, game over. Dominant first line)
Schwartz-Kyrou-Kostin (Kyrou and Schwartz make plays, Kostin finishes)
Steen-Fabbri-Schenn (Quality two-way scoring line)
Sanford-Musil-Thompson/Jaskin (A little more size, Musil and Thompson can PK, but still a potent scoring threat)

Walman-Pietrangelo (Prototypical first line pairing. Both are speedy and responsible enough to pinch, and funnel pucks towards the net)
Edmundson-Parayko (Don't mess with a good thing)
Dunn-Schmaltz (Dunn goes wild while Schmaltz plays the Edmundson role here)

Allen-Husso (Reverting back to the 1A/1B arrangement)

 

[MissouriMook]

This is a harder exercise than it seems at first glance. Here is who I think has a reasonable chance of being on the roster in three seasons:

LW: Fabbri, Schwartz, Steen, Sobotka, Blanford, Paajarvi, Blais
C: Stastny, Barbashev, Berglund, Thomas, Musil
RW: Tarasenko, Schenn, Kostin, Kyrou, Thompson
LD: Dunn, Walman, Edmundson, Mikkola, Bouwmeester
RD: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Schmaltz, Bortuzzo
G: Allen, Husso

Obviously all of the prospects aren't necessarily going to be NHL ready by then, and some may never be, but the more guys that are ready sooner, the more interesting the roster moves will be. Just looking at the forward positions I have 17 guys who are candidates to be under contract in three years, and only a few of them are really 13th and 14th forward candidates.

I know many expect this to be Stastny's last year here, and that may be the case, but there will also be guys like Berglund, Schenn and Steen who may get pushed out, especially if they can be moved to improve the team at the center position. That is still the one area where we will need at least two guys to step forward as Top 6 caliber centers, especially in the absence of Stastny, or look outside the organization to someone like Tavares or Duchene. Barbashev certainly seems to be moving that direction, but as we all know development is rarely linear, and who knows how and if he will progress this season.

 

[Brian39]

This is a harder exercise than it seems at first glance. Here is who I think has a reasonable chance of being on the roster in three seasons:

LW: Fabbri, Schwartz, Steen, Sobotka, Blanford, Paajarvi, Blais
C: Stastny, Barbashev, Berglund, Thomas, Musil
RW: Tarasenko, Schenn, Kostin, Kyrou, Thompson
LD: Dunn, Walman, Edmundson, Mikkola, Bouwmeester
RD: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Schmaltz, Bortuzzo
G: Allen, Husso

Obviously all of the prospects aren't necessarily going to be NHL ready by then, and some may never be, but the more guys that are ready sooner, the more interesting the roster moves will be. Just looking at the forward positions I have 17 guys who are candidates to be under contract in three years, and only a few of them are really 13th and 14th forward candidates.

I know many expect this to be Stastny's last year here, and that may be the case, but there will also be guys like Berglund, Schenn and Steen who may get pushed out, especially if they can be moved to improve the team at the center position. That is still the one area where we will need at least two guys to step forward as Top 6 caliber centers, especially in the absence of Stastny, or look outside the organization to someone like Tavares or Duchene. Barbashev certainly seems to be moving that direction, but as we all know development is rarely linear, and who knows how and if he will progress this season.

That's a fair point. You are 100% correct that development isn't linear and Barby could flounder this year. However, I'd be shocked if he busts completely and isn't at least a low-end 2nd line center in 3 years. I think he is about 1 step away from being an average 2nd line center and would be really surprised if he doesn't take that step at some point before 2020.

We are thinner at C than other positions, but a lot would have to go wrong for us to not have at least 1 top 6 center for 2020 already in the organization. I think our biggest issue at C is still a lack of a guy who can be one of the 10-15 best centers in the league. I'm pretty confident that we will be fine at 2C and 3C, but I'm not as confident that one of our internal pieces becomes a true 1C.

 

[MissouriMook]

...

We are thinner at C than other positions, but a lot would have to go wrong for us to not have at least 1 top 6 center for 2020 already in the organization. I think our biggest issue at C is still a lack of a guy who can be one of the 10-15 best centers in the league. I'm pretty confident that we will be fine at 2C and 3C, but I'm not as confident that one of our internal pieces becomes a true 1C.

I couldn't agree more, and we are going to need one of our draftees to at least get into the conversation if we have hopes of winning the Cup with this group. I don't know if you saw the Top 20 centers "right now" list on NHL Network this weekend, but it was pretty clear that you have to go pretty far back to find a Cup winner who wouldn't have had at least one C on this list at the time they won it. That issue may be the thing that makes the difference between being a perennial 2nd-3rd round team and a legitimate Cup challenger.

If you go back to 2003, the Devils had Gomez/Nieuwendyk/Maddon up the middle. Then again, they also had Niedermeyer and Stevens on D and Brodeur in goal. I'm not sure our blueline and goalie situation is strong enough yet to make that much of a difference. Since 2003, every team to win the Cup has had at least one guy in the conversation of being a Top 10-15 C in the league, or at least one that was on that trajectory (thinking specifically about Getzlaf here) and actually got there.

 

[lakai17]

Dunn isn't going to be on the 3rd pairing.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Dunn isn't going to be on the 3rd pairing.

The way our d-corps is developing, it won't matter which pairing he plays on.

 

[Burynai]

Good lord....is there anything we can do to bring a top line C in (Tavares) so we can rid ourselves of this continuous cycle of 1st and 2nd round bounces??? Still look extremely weak up the middle w/ these examples.

 

[Ranksu]

Good lord....is there anything we can do to bring a top line C in (Tavares) so we can rid ourselves of this continuous cycle of 1st and 2nd round bounces??? Still look extremely weak up the middle w/ these examples.

Draft high, I don't believe we can get 1c for UFA market or trading block. Blues doesn't sink that badly, I see drafting high won't happend any near future. Team will just bleed away superstars likeTarasenko, Pietro, Schwartz, Parayko and Fabbri without real 1c then we can draft high after they are out of their prime years. Something like +10-years and we might see drafted 1c.