2021 Off Season Discussion Thread

[Beauterham]

His name was Nate Schmidt

Unfortunatly, that ship has sailed, but would've loved to get him. Especially because he was traded for just a 3rd.

Just wondering if there's someone else, don't have a name popping in my head at the spot.

 

[Vincenzo Arelliti]

Haven't looked at Capfriendly yet, but isn't there a good top-4 lefthanded defender to be found who is either underperforming, payed a little bit too much or is just in need of a change of scenery we can swap for Tarasenko (/and possibly Scandella)?

I agree that that position is probably our biggest necessity at the moment.

Lindholm at 5M is almost exactly what we need. Ducks may want to hold onto him through the rebuild, but I’m not certain. He’s not the 1D they were hoping he’d be.

Not sure who would be a better fit that hasn’t been mentioned before.

edit: Leddy would have been a nice add. He, Lindholm, and Hanifin have been three guys I’ve been interested in for a while. Cam Fowler also interests me despite his obvious downsides in age and cap hit.

 

[simon IC]

Some interesting defensemen becoming UFA's in 2022. Including Ekholm, Manson, Chiarot, Nutivaara ... Now, not all will make it to UFA, but it could be interesting.

 

[Reality Czech]

I see that Gudbranson is still unsigned. Not an exciting name but could provide what we need on defense at a relatively low cost.

Or possibly Coburn, though not sure how much either guy has left.

 

[simon IC]

I see that Gudbranson is still unsigned. Not an exciting name but could provide what we need on defense at a relatively low cost.

I would not hate it. Bortuzzo is always getting injured, so Gudbranson could platoon the 3rd RD spot with Robert. My only concern is Gudbranson's lack of speed. I wonder if Santini might be a better internal candidate.

 

[Ranksu]

I prefer Santini. Some way underrated depth dmen. Sheltered minutes and he is just fine.

 

[Ranksu]

Some interesting defensemen becoming UFA's in 2022. Including Ekholm, Manson, Chiarot, Nutivaara ... Now, not all will make it to UFA, but it could be interesting.

I think you forgot Parayko.

 

[WeWentBlues]

Chara?

 

[Celtic Note]

This is the type of article I would expect from the Athletic and I am by no means a big Bernie fan, but there are some well researched and developed thoughts.

Bernie: By Adding Saad And Buchnevich, The Blues Begin To Restore Lost Strength Of Berube Hockey - Scoopswithdannymac.com

I think it’s fair to say that Bernie is onto something regarding play style. But it may be a bit over sold. Schwartz always bought into the Berube way. Whoever you claim as his replacement is a virtually lateral move. Saad seems like the best comparable.

Replacing Hoffman/Tasenko is a bigger realignment. Buch certainly helps fill holes we were missing. But we still have work to do. We really need to cleanup the defense and figure out another sound forward once Tarasenko departs. In a lot of ways I feel like we are halfway there. If we see a big evolution in our young guys, you can cut that in half (assuming our vets don’t fall off).

On D, there is a lot to consider. How is Parayko’s health? Will Krug improve defensively? Will Faulk maintain consistency? How will our breakout look without a guy like Dunn on one of the pairings? Will our D be able to bring the level of shutdown D to maintain that Berube way? There are way too many unanswered questions that need positive results for us to succeed. I think we need a very strong two-way D who is better on the backend than anything we currently have outside of a healthy Parayko.

Also, as Bernie briefly mentioned, we got really good goaltending from Binner. We need that again. It hasn’t been to the level that we needed recently.

 

[fishsandwichpatrol]

I don't really follow offseason stuff but it's looking like this will be a very interesting season indeed. Guess the last big thing that needs to happen is finding out where Vlad goes and how we fill that hole.

 

[WeWentBlues]

Maybe Bernie can start contributing Blues content to The Athletic. Big improvement over Judas Rutherford

 

[stl76]

We need to dump the Scandella contract first; which I am all for.

Scandella is probably one of Army's worst mistakes. Such a warm body and does nothing for the lineup.

Scandella has been worth every penny of his contract IMO. He's been a legit #4 defensive dman signed to a very reasonable $3.275 mill cap hit. The guy has eaten a LOT of tough defensive minutes (including PK and defensive zone starts against tough QoC) for the Blues and had pretty good results overall. +/- has obvious flaws as a stat, but I think it's telling that Scandella had the best +/- of all Blues defensemen last season despite logging some very difficult minutes.

I don't understand how signing a #4 defensive dman to a $3.275 mill contract could possibly be considered "one of Army's worst mistakes." Wasn't that long ago we signed Gunnarsson to play a very similar role on a very similar contract...

 

[Reality Czech]

Scandella has been worth every penny of his contract IMO. He's been a legit #4 defensive dman signed to a very reasonable $3.275 mill cap hit. The guy has eaten a LOT of tough defensive minutes (including PK and defensive zone starts against tough QoC) for the Blues and had pretty good results overall. +/- has obvious flaws as a stat, but I think it's telling that Scandella had the best +/- of all Blues defensemen last season despite logging some very difficult minutes.

I don't understand how signing a #4 defensive dman to a $3.275 mill contract could possibly be considered "one of Army's worst mistakes." Wasn't that long ago we signed Gunnarsson to play a very similar role on a very similar contract...

Agree 100%, not sure where all the Scandella hate is coming from. Dude puts it on the line every night and eats up tough minutes. With Parayko being out for so long, he was invaluable last year.

 

[stl76]

Agree 100%, not sure where all the Scandella hate is coming from. Dude puts it on the line every night and eats up tough minutes. With Parayko being out for so long, he was invaluable last year.

I think part of the problem is that too many people still mistakenly think of Scandella as a JBouw replacement. I can understand the misconception, Scandella was brought in shortly after JBouw's heart incident and initially slotted into JBouw's spot on a pairing w/ Parayko.

However, Scandella was never really a JBouw replacement, he was a Gunnarsson replacement. We are still looking for an actual JBouw replacement (whether that would be 1 player stepping up or a combination of several picking up the slack).

 

[Reality Czech]

I think part of the problem is that too many people still mistakenly think of Scandella as a JBouw replacement. I can understand the misconception, Scandella was brought in shortly after JBouw's heart incident and initially slotted into JBouw's spot on a pairing w/ Parayko.

However, Scandella was never really a JBouw replacement, he was a Gunnarsson replacement. We are still looking for an actual JBouw replacement (whether that would be 1 player stepping up or a combination of several picking up the slack).

Those are pretty big shoes to fill. I'm not sure it's even possible to measure Jay's contribution to the team, but he was still one of the best pure defenders in the league right up till the end of his career, when healthy. Scandella is not at Bo's level but he provides pretty good value and stability on a team that doesn't have many pure defenders. I watched almost every game last year and never did I think "man Scandella sucks, I wish he wasn't on the team." Not sure what's the issue with him for some fans.

 

[Majorityof1]

Maybe Bernie can start contributing Blues content to The Athletic. Big improvement over Judas Rutherford

The snide "judas" comment shows that you don't really care about the quality of his reporting. You are only mad that he didn't tow the company line. Somehow he betrayed the Blues even though he owed them absolutely nothing. They don't pay him, and they don't even really give him access aside from press conferences which they are required to do.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Agree 100%, not sure where all the Scandella hate is coming from. Dude puts it on the line every night and eats up tough minutes. With Parayko being out for so long, he was invaluable last year.

Ahhhh....I'm sorry, but once again, the stats simply don't back that up. Scandella was our second leading PKer in overall ice time. (Just above ROR). The Blues were a bottom 5 PK team in the league. Scandella was also caved in on possession HARD. He had the third worst Corsi among D-men (Mikkola and Gunnarson [worst] were under him) and 5th worst overall (Bozak and Joshua were under him). Fenwick (unblocked shots) he was 4th worst overall, with only Bozak, Gunnarson, and Joshua under him. His Fenwick Rel was also 4th worst on the team. And don't give me that "He played hard minutes" crap, he was never out there against top lines. That was Krug/Parayko then Krug/Faulk.....then Walman/Parayko.

So basically, he was a shit PKer who was also getting getting caved in on possession 5v5 against competition that wasn't -that- difficult. Now I know what you're thinking - if all that's true, how did he lead in +/-? The answer, frankly, is luck. Scandella had the best PDO on the team by far at 103.2. He had the highest on ice shooting % among all D at 9.8 and ALSO the highest Save % for at 93.4. He was a sub-replacement level player who was making 3.25M against the cap last season.

Now this season might be different, but he's a guy where we could do a lot better for the money we're investing in him.

 

[simon IC]

I agree with stl76 and Reality Czech. Scandella is a fine #4-5 D, and I have no issue with his contract. He gets compared unfairly to Bouwmeester, whose shoes are virtually impossible to fill. IMO, Scandella is not the problem with our defense.

 

[Thallis]

Maybe Bernie can start contributing Blues content to The Athletic. Big improvement over Judas Rutherford

No matter how bad you think JR has gotten there's no chance that Bernie is an upgrade to him

 

[WeWentBlues]

No matter how bad you think JR has gotten there's no chance that Bernie is an upgrade to him

Normally I'd agree but JR has been that bad

 

[ChicagoBlues]

I am happy with Scandella. I don’t get the grief.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

Normally I'd agree but JR has been that bad

Given Bernie’s “coverage” of the Cardinals, I would hold serious doubt he would be better in a sport he has written nothing about.

JR is a bad, but there is always worse.

 

[Louie the Blue]

The snide "judas" comment shows that you don't really care about the quality of his reporting. You are only mad that he didn't tow the company line. Somehow he betrayed the Blues even though he owed them absolutely nothing. They don't pay him, and they don't even really give him access aside from press conferences which they are required to do.

JR tries too hard to publish column like postings instead of being more of a beat writer. What purpose did the article he dropped at midnight have other than repeating what he already wrote?

Derrick Goold, for the Post-Dispatch, is an excellent beat writer for the Cardinals. JR was when he was at the PD, but him trying to being something he isn’t dilutes his writing. Thomas is OK for the PD, but he has fairly limited connections and is coming from covering football.

Bernie used to be a good columnist, but I think personal problems and his ego impact his work now.

 

[Thallis]

Normally I'd agree but JR has been that bad

I guess you don't remember when Bernie made up the Blues having locker room issues and essentially running Oshie out of town. JR isn't a great hockey guy, but Bernie will be straight up dishonest for clicks.

 

[stl76]

Ahhhh....I'm sorry, but once again, the stats simply don't back that up. Scandella was our second leading PKer in overall ice time. (Just above ROR). The Blues were a bottom 5 PK team in the league. Scandella was also caved in on possession HARD. He had the third worst Corsi among D-men (Mikkola and Gunnarson [worst] were under him) and 5th worst overall (Bozak and Joshua were under him). Fenwick (unblocked shots) he was 4th worst overall, with only Bozak, Gunnarson, and Joshua under him. His Fenwick Rel was also 4th worst on the team. And don't give me that "He played hard minutes" crap, he was never out there against top lines. That was Krug/Parayko then Krug/Faulk.....then Walman/Parayko.

So basically, he was a shit PKer who was also getting getting caved in on possession 5v5 against competition that wasn't -that- difficult. Now I know what you're thinking - if all that's true, how did he lead in +/-? The answer, frankly, is luck. Scandella had the best PDO on the team by far at 103.2. He had the highest on ice shooting % among all D at 9.8 and ALSO the highest Save % for at 93.4. He was a sub-replacement level player who was making 3.25M against the cap last season.

Now this season might be different, but he's a guy where we could do a lot better for the money we're investing in him.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Scandella didn't play with Parayko or against top lines, but it's demonstrably false.

Scandella's most common d partners 5v5 were Dunn (307:34), Faulk (243:55) and Parayko (130:19). His time with Dunn was mostly 2nd pairing minutes when Parayko was injured. When healthy, Parayko was primarily paired with Scandella (130:19) and Krug (126:55), with Walman (86:03) and Dunn (85:49) also seeing some time.

According to PuckIQ, Scandella (143.3) was second on the Blues in TOI played against "Elite" QoC behind Faulk (162.7) and just ahead of Krug (143.1) - PuckIQ | Woodmoney

Overall, Scandella had a 43.6% oZS% last season, but even that relatively low number is inflated from the minutes he played with Dunn (likely because the coaches didn't trust Dunn in the dzone). According to NaturalStatTrick, Scandella - Dunn had an oZS% of 52.88%. When Scandella was paired with Faulk (43.75%) and Parayko (31.71%), the oZS% dropped quite a bit and I would wager the defensive assignments where a LOT tougher in terms of QoC (again, likely because the coaches didn't trust Dunn defensively). - Defensive Pairs - Natural Stat Trick

Was Scandella perfect? No, of course not, and nobody is saying he was. Were Scandella's contributions worth $3.275 mill against the cap? Yes, IMO. Did Scandella eat a lot of tough defensive minutes against other team's top lines? Abso-f***ing-lutely.