2019-20 Minor League Thread - Rampage/Oilers

[Coach Nate]

Welp, the Blues AHL team is, once again, a tire fire. So...yay?

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Welp, the Blues AHL team is, once again, a tire fire. So...yay?

Not like

 

[Ranksu]

Welp, the Blues AHL team is, once again, a tire fire. So...yay?

Why is that?

 

[MissouriMook]

Welp, the Blues AHL team is, once again, a tire fire. So...yay?

Any idea why Husso didn't play today? Seems like that's two in a row for Wilcox.

 

[Coach Nate]

Any idea why Husso didn't play today? Seems like that's two in a row for Wilcox.

Husso played both games this past weekend.

 

[MissouriMook]

Husso played both games this past weekend.

Thanks, Nate. For some reason I thought Husso played Friday night and Wilcox played Saturday night.

 

[Coach Nate]

Why is that?

Offense has dried up. Defensive breakdowns all over the ice. Lack of discipline from leaders and top prospects alike at the absolute worst times.

Earlier this season the process looked good, but the results were inconsistent. In their last 5 games they are 0-4-1 and look like complete garbage. So the process has flown right out the f'n window.

 

[Blueston]

Offense has dried up. Defensive breakdowns all over the ice. Lack of discipline from leaders and top prospects alike at the absolute worst times.

Earlier this season the process looked good, but the results were inconsistent. In their last 5 games they are 0-4-1 and look like complete garbage. So the process has flown right out the f'n window.

You think it is because too many key players got called up or is it coaching or ???

 

[Ranksu]

Offense has dried up. Defensive breakdowns all over the ice. Lack of discipline from leaders and top prospects alike at the absolute worst times.

Earlier this season the process looked good, but the results were inconsistent. In their last 5 games they are 0-4-1 and look like complete garbage. So the process has flown right out the f'n window.

Nothing to do about Kyrou and Mikkola out?

 

[Vincenzo Arelliti]

Losing Mikkola isn't helping the defense, and losing Kyrou is a huge loss to the offense. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, but I would expect they would be similar to a McDavid situtaion in that Kyrou was responsible for around 20-35% of the offense in some way or form when he was on the team.

But the structure is really out of wack right now regardless. Some of that is from losing players like Mikkola and having a lot of call ups and people on different lines, but it's also just a lot of undisciplined play from some frustrated players. Nolan and Kostin in particular have committed some penalties that have put their teams behind due to their frustrations.

We've been needing to add some more offensive talent to the team for a while to make them legit contenders. The D-core and goaltending should be decent enough, but Walker, Kyrou, Vecchione, Kostin, and Nolan isn't enough offensively. Poganski is good, but he shouldn't be relied upon as a top-6 scorer on your team. The defense has a disproportionate hand in the offense as well -- we're not getting enough from the forwards.

Check out Pouliot. +/- is dumb, but it does tell a bit of a story here.

Scorers by Pt/G
Kyrou .94
Walker .92
Pouliot .85
Vecchione .70
Reinke .65
Poganski .58
Stevens .58
Darcy .55

In general, we have 2.5 first line talents when Kyrou is there, and only 1.5 when he isn't. Vecchione is more of a 2nd liner on a good team. Poganski, Stevens, and Darcy should be making a killer 3rd line, but all of them are required to be pulling major weight because of the lack of offensive talent.

I really wish we would use some lower picks to improve the AHL team. I think what we would lose in lottery tickets we would gain in boosting the development of the players we already have.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

The Rampage (Los Chimuelos - meaning “dude missing teeth”) game was televised in my area today. Those Chimuelos jerseys are incredible. The numbers are written out of bone. The crest is a big Day of the Dead skull, purple with bands of red, yellow and blue around the waist, socks and cuffs.

I’m watching it on delay tonight, but Walker scores early and Mikkola is of course in the line-up.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

View media item 6933

 

[ItsOnlytheRiver]

Love em

 

[Jessica]

They will be auctioned off in March.

 

[ezcreepin]

Losing Mikkola isn't helping the defense, and losing Kyrou is a huge loss to the offense. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, but I would expect they would be similar to a McDavid situtaion in that Kyrou was responsible for around 20-35% of the offense in some way or form when he was on the team.

But the structure is really out of wack right now regardless. Some of that is from losing players like Mikkola and having a lot of call ups and people on different lines, but it's also just a lot of undisciplined play from some frustrated players. Nolan and Kostin in particular have committed some penalties that have put their teams behind due to their frustrations.

We've been needing to add some more offensive talent to the team for a while to make them legit contenders. The D-core and goaltending should be decent enough, but Walker, Kyrou, Vecchione, Kostin, and Nolan isn't enough offensively. Poganski is good, but he shouldn't be relied upon as a top-6 scorer on your team. The defense has a disproportionate hand in the offense as well -- we're not getting enough from the forwards.

Check out Pouliot. +/- is dumb, but it does tell a bit of a story here.

Scorers by Pt/G
Kyrou .94
Walker .92
Pouliot .85
Vecchione .70
Reinke .65
Poganski .58
Stevens .58
Darcy .55

In general, we have 2.5 first line talents when Kyrou is there, and only 1.5 when he isn't. Vecchione is more of a 2nd liner on a good team. Poganski, Stevens, and Darcy should be making a killer 3rd line, but all of them are required to be pulling major weight because of the lack of offensive talent.

I really wish we would use some lower picks to improve the AHL team. I think what we would lose in lottery tickets we would gain in boosting the development of the players we already have.
View attachment 294701

I've been a big fan of improving the farm team to help younger players develop, the only issue being that you have to have a certain number of "veteran" players to prospects on the team, which can make it difficult for us right now to have a productive and competitive team. I usually look at some prospects producing well or could have potential to produce throughout the year and I like to post my thoughts in the proposal forum, but a lot of what I want to do revolves around reclamation projects of high draft picks that want to be traded or have been given a bad hand.

I really like trying to attract college free agents after their season is over because you don't lose any assets, and they are further in their development and can help right away in the minors or NHL. I think with us being a Stanley Cup champion team, there's a possibility of some players liking their chances of winning a cup quickly, and if they believe they are good enough, would sign here. A lot of those free agents (if they're good) prefer their hometown or a bad team with lots of ice time. I think the Blues need to start drafting boom/bust prospects after the 1st and 2nd rounds more often if we want to improve the offense down in SA, since we seem to be drafting 2nd line ceiling/4th line floor players most of the time. We've gotten pretty lucky with Blais and maybe Stevens if he can find his scoring touch soon, otherwise it's a team of grinders. Not necessarily bad, but when Kyrou is like 30% of your goals created, that doesn't seem to be a good look.

 

[Coach Nate]

Kostin with a monster game (1g-2a plus GWG with 1.3 seconds left in OT). Hoping this gets him going on a more consistent basis.

Scary moment, Evan Polei got into it with Mascherin of the Stars after an interference call and was opened up. Word out of Cedar Park is that shortly after leaving the ice, Polei collapsed and went unconscious and was taken to the hospital. No updates on his condition as of this morning.

For those that don't know, I am very anti-fighting. Stuff like this is a big part of it. Both guys left injured and didn't return (Mascherin landed awkwardly on his shoulder). The night before Dotchin got into a fight and is now out injured as well (hand).

 

[Coach Nate]

I tell you what, Kostin's deficiencies (of which there are many) are much easier to overlook when he's scoring goals like he has been over the last 2 weeks.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I tell you what, Kostin's deficiencies (of which there are many) are much easier to overlook when he's scoring goals like he has been over the last 2 weeks.

What are his deficiencies. I'd be curious to hear the opinion of someone that watches him.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

Nate when you have some time can you give us a breakdown on Reinke? The offensive numbers look very promising but I haven’t seen him play and am curious about his defensive play

 

[Renard]

Normally, parent teams are in big cities and minor league affiliates are in much smaller cities. But in the case of the St. Louis Blues, the situation is reversed. San Antonio is now a much larger city than St. Louis.

Anyway, I went to the Rampage home game on January 3, 2020. The opposing team was called the Griffins, and proved to be much better than the Rampage.

I had completely forgotten about an acquisition - a tall center named Joshua. But he didn't get much ice time. I had almost forgotten about Borgman - he didn't get much ice time either. Just on the penalty kill.

It seems that Pouliot made the AHL all star team, and he was on the ice a lot when the Rampage was on the power play.

I liked the play of Nathan Walker. He was fast, alert and feisty. He looked like a guy who has played 300 minor league games.

I didn't see anyone else who seemed able to come up and help the Blues this season. I wish I had better news.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I hope Walker gets to be part of the post-season depth. I'm sure it would take several injuries to get to him, but he compares favorably to some of the younger players if you have a must-win game. I like his hockey sense and skill level.

I'm just 3 hours from San Antonio (used to be to the north, but now to the south). But if I'm honest, it just seems like too much hassle to try to get there for a game right now. Maybe next year when it will have been so long since I've seen live hockey.

 

[Blueston]

I will preface this by admitting that I haven't been able to watch basically any Rampage games this year, but how much of them being a "tire fire" is essentially by design?

We have complete control over them and our priority is to develop players for the big club, both for long-term impact like Kyrou and for fill-ins in case of injury. As such, it would make sense to want them to play essentially same system as we do. But of course our system is predicated on having D like Petro and Parayko that can exert their will all over ice and centers like ROR who do same. Obviously SA doesn't have players like that so id they tried to play like us would likely not look very good.

So while it might look like their coaching staff is a disaster because the team is over-matched playing this way, could it be that they are getting players ready to help us they are doing great work by essentially taking one for the team? Anyway, that is my theory. Anyone who watches them regularly able to shed light?

 

[542365]

Former Blues prospect Glenn Gawdin is tied for 4th in scoring in the AHL. It's a bit strange that the Blues never offered him a contract(or so it appears). He didn't really light it up in the WHL until his overage season, but for a 4th round pick he always had pretty solid numbers. I wonder if he'll get a chance in Calgary this year. Still just 22 years old.

 

[Blueston]

Former Blues prospect Glenn Gawdin is tied for 4th in scoring in the AHL. It's a bit strange that the Blues never offered him a contract(or so it appears). He didn't really light it up in the WHL until his overage season, but for a 4th round pick he always had pretty solid numbers. I wonder if he'll get a chance in Calgary this year. Still just 22 years old.

I always thought so too.

 

[Frenzy31]

Former Blues prospect Glenn Gawdin is tied for 4th in scoring in the AHL. It's a bit strange that the Blues never offered him a contract(or so it appears). He didn't really light it up in the WHL until his overage season, but for a 4th round pick he always had pretty solid numbers. I wonder if he'll get a chance in Calgary this year. Still just 22 years old.

He missed significant time the D+2.