Blues 2016 Offseason Thread Part II

[EastonBlues22]

They are sure talking an awful lot about what they're going to do when they don't have the puck this offseason, while being awful silent on what they're going to do when they do have possession.

 

[STL fan in MN]

I like how when a young player struggles, it's because Hitch is holding him back or brainwashing him but when a young player does well, it's because they're doing it in spite of Hitch.

I've got my own criticisms of Hitch but I don't see Jaskin's somewhat stalled development among them. It's not like Jaskin was some super stud sniper and Hitch turned him into a grinder. Jaskin has always been a meat and potatoes type of player. Go back and look at his 99 pt season in the Q. Most of his points were scored in the dirty areas via a grinding, effort, power forward style. His actual stick and shooting skills were never elite. To me, he's simply coming up a bit short now that he's playing at a much higher level. I think he has it in him to get over the hump and become a solid everyday top-9 player but I just don't see his struggles as Hitch's fault.

 

[ManyIdeas]

I'm still blaming usage. Dude doesnt need to be on a line with backes and brouwer like he was last year. Have him clean up the garbage for others.

The way i look at it, fabbri steen and schwartz should be the 3 top 9 LWs, put jaskin on one of those lines for a bit and have him play trash man with some skill on his line.

 

[BlueDream]

Jaskin's shot is bad. You simply can't be a good goal scorer with a shot like that - and he got lucky one season. Hitch isn't to blame for Jaskin's lack of NHL skill.

 

[Renard]

I like how when a young player struggles, it's because Hitch is holding him back or brainwashing him but when a young player does well, it's because they're doing it in spite of Hitch.

I've got my own criticisms of Hitch but I don't see Jaskin's somewhat stalled development among them. It's not like Jaskin was some super stud sniper and Hitch turned him into a grinder. Jaskin has always been a meat and potatoes type of player. Go back and look at his 99 pt season in the Q. Most of his points were scored in the dirty areas via a grinding, effort, power forward style. His actual stick and shooting skills were never elite. To me, he's simply coming up a bit short now that he's playing at a much higher level. I think he has it in him to get over the hump and become a solid everyday top-9 player but I just don't see his struggles as Hitch's fault.

Hitch has been a big fan of Jaskin right from the start. Maybe the brainwashing was done by Jaskin on Hitch.

 

[Brian39]

Has Wild lost such a big names like we did: Backes, Brouwer and Elliott? They have their core in. + BB are their head coach. I think we've viewed our position too optimistic, there is impact loosing Backes and biggest impact has we lost Elliott. Allen just doesn't have poise to play high level majority of season, its too IF situation. He could, but I just don't believe and also pointing injuries happends and Hutton isn't the man who can take his spot.

No they didn't. They were also 20 points behind us last year, finished with 38 wins and will have year-older versions of Parise, Pominville, Staal, Koivu and Suter leading the charge.

As mentioned earlier, Perron should be able to replace the production of Brouwer. If he is here, Sobotka replaces a good chunk of what Backes provides defensively. Finally, you are acting like Allen is a gigantic question mark. Allen played more games than Elliott last year, was playing great with a starter's workload for the first half of the season and has generally thrived when he gets numerous starts in a row. There is no reason to believe we won't get at least league average goaltending next year and lots of reasons to think Allen will be above average.

Injuries can happen, but it would be insane for injuries to be any worse than last season. Any injury streak major enough to completely derail us would derail any team considered a contender. Obviosly we could lose Allen, Petro and Tarasenko at the same time and be in trouble. But no more trouble than if the Hawks lost Keith/Crawford/Kane or the Stars lost Benn/Segui/Klinberg.

We probably won't have quite as good of a regular season as last year, but it isn't going to be the 20+ points change in standings required for us to slide behind Minnesota (especially since they didn't do much to get actively better over the summer).

 

[Splatter]

 

[542365]

That could get interesting. I'm not entierly sure I love the idea of handicapping our best Dman, but if he can play the left side effectively, a pairing with Petro and Parayko/Shatty could really be great.

 

[Ranksu]

That could get interesting. I'm not entierly sure I love the idea of handicapping our best Dman, but if he can play the left side effectively, a pairing with Petro and Parayko/Shatty could really be great.

That could also mean we propably could(should extend Shattenkirk too.

Pietro - Shattenkirk
Jbo - Parayko
Gunnar - Edmundson/Lindbohm/Bortuzzo

Jbo - Parayko had chemistry last pre-season, but can Shattenkirk play toughest minutes and what about could Parayko either, but I split them, giving advance to Shattenkirk play #1 pair when he's hitting his prime and pointing too Parayko fits with Jbo.

Only problem is 3rd pair. We know Lindbohm can play off-side, but what happends to Edmundson?

If Blues would extend Shattenkirk that would mean, we could protect 4+4+1.

Tarasenko, Stastny, Steen, Schwartz, Pietrangelo, Jbo/Edmundson, Shattery, Gunnar + Allen

 

[2 Minute Minor]

These comments say more about Bouwmeester than anything else.

 

[Brian39]

That could also mean we propably could(should extend Shattenkirk too.

Pietro - Shattenkirk
Jbo - Parayko
Gunnar - Edmundson/Lindbohm/Bortuzzo

Jbo - Parayko had chemistry last pre-season, but can Shattenkirk play toughest minutes and what about could Parayko either, but I split them, giving advance to Shattenkirk play #1 pair when he's hitting his prime and pointing too Parayko fits with Jbo.

Only problem is 3rd pair. We know Lindbohm can play off-side, but what happends to Edmundson?

If Blues would extend Shattenkirk that would mean, we could protect 4+4+1.

Tarasenko, Stastny, Steen, Schwartz, Pietrangelo, Jbo/Edmundson, Shattery, Gunnar + Allen

Count me in as part of the group that would love to see Petro moved to the left side if he can in fact handle it. That gives us way more options at D and I agree that it makes extending Shatty a realistic (and dare I say smart) option.

I'd still probably protect 7F and 3 D since a LD Petro makes Gunnar or J-Bo a little more expendable. Given our depth at D in the prospect pipeline, I'd rather protect 2nd/3rd line forwards than 3rd pairing D men. Either way, this would certainly give us more flexibility heading into the expansion draft and flexibility is always a positive.

 

[Brian39]

These comments say more about Bouwmeester than anything else.

I guess so, but it probably isn't anything that isn't already well known. Petro is undoubtedly a better top pairing guy than J-Bo, Shatty is significantly worse on his off side and Parayko is pretty clearly being groomed to be a top end NHL D man. I think you would be hard pressed to find many people who think J-Bo is anything higher than the 4th best D man on the team. Even those who think he is would have to concede that he is at best the 3rd best D man and will almost certainly be passed on the depth chart by Parayko sooner rather than later.

I can really dig a top 4 of Pietrayko and J-Bo/Shatty.

 

[Ranksu]

Count me in as part of the group that would love to see Petro moved to the left side if he can in fact handle it. That gives us way more options at D and I agree that it makes extending Shatty a realistic (and dare I say smart) option.

I'd still probably protect 7F and 3 D since a LD Petro makes Gunnar or J-Bo a little more expendable. Given our depth at D in the prospect pipeline, I'd rather protect 2nd/3rd line forwards than 3rd pairing D men. Either way, this would certainly give us more flexibility heading into the expansion draft and flexibility is always a positive.

For a million times, who is player in recent history who have slide to his off-side and played toughest minutes and do it with dominate performance? Is there dmen who has done it? This is just general question for everyone.

 

[EastonBlues22]

For a million times, who is player in recent history who have slide to his off-side and played toughest minutes and do it with dominate performance? Is there dmen who has done it? This is just general question for everyone.

Nobody recent comes to mind off the top of my head, at least not after they established themselves at the NHL level, but generally that's not the sort of thing that you ask your best defenseman to do.

Doesn't necessarily mean that at least some of them couldn't have done it at a very high level if they were asked.

I guess what I'm saying is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, if you're familiar with that phrase.

 

[Dbrownss]

I doubt it'll last. Looking good on your offside is easy to do when playing for team Canada. He was mainly with Burns 5 on 5 so that's a decent indicator of possible success with Shattenkirk. Playing left side to Doughty doesn't count.

 

[Frenzy31]

For a million times, who is player in recent history who have slide to his off-side and played toughest minutes and do it with dominate performance? Is there dmen who has done it? This is just general question for everyone.

Due to the lack of top pairing RHD - there have been more then a few LHD that have had to make the switch. I wish I could come up with a specific name, but I know that there have been a few that have had to make the switch.

Now the question is have they had to play on the top pairing and that I don't know.

 

[Klank Loves You]

Pietro on the left side is a worthwhile experiment, but it's difficult to believe that he can play at 100% up to his potential. Im also not convinced Pie + Shatty will mesh well. Correct me if im wrong, but we've seen that pairing before, right?

 

[Brian39]

For a million times, who is player in recent history who have slide to his off-side and played toughest minutes and do it with dominate performance? Is there dmen who has done it? This is just general question for everyone.

I can't think of names off of the top of my head, but I tend to agree with Easton. It is rare to have 3 guys on one side who are all better than the best option on the other side, so this is a situation that doesn't exactly have an easy comparable. While I concede that I can't think of another player who has done this, I also can't think of another team that was in this situation.

I'm not extremely confident that it will work, but I think it is certainly worth trying. Petro hasn't looked 'off' to me in the small sample size I have seen so far and I'm going to be watching him closely for the rest of the tournament. If he looks fine against these stacked international rosters (albeit on the most stacked team), I think it is worth trying him on the left side for the first month or so. If it works, we gain a boatload of flexibility and remove a lot of question marks from out back end. If it doesn't, I think it will cost us at most 2-3 points in the standings over a 6 week period. That's a gamble worth taking in my mind.

Edit: For the record, I think 90% Petro on the left side is an upgrade over all 3 of our studs on the left side with J-Bo on the top pairing. I think J-Bo would suddenly look really good as a 2nd pairing D man and the WCH has confirmed my belief that Parayko can handle top 4 minutes if he has a good partner. Even if it doesn't maximize Petro's performance, I think our blueline as a whole is significantly better that way. Especially if Schmaltz can make the jump to our 3rd pair at some point this season. But again, this is assuming that Petro can remain mostly as good on the left side.

 

[STL fan in MN]

For a million times, who is player in recent history who have slide to his off-side and played toughest minutes and do it with dominate performance? Is there dmen who has done it? This is just general question for everyone.

Scott Niedermayer was an elite D-man that was a lefty that made a HOF career playing the right side.

I will say though that since the pool of d-men in the league is roughly 60% lefty (not actual left handed but plays lefty) it's much more common for a lefty to play the right side than vice versa. Righties are generally at a premium so there's very rarely a glut of righties so righties pretty much always play the right side. Lefties oftentimes have to move to the right side as on average, teams have more lefties than righties. This means that most lefties have developed playing some on the right side whereas few figures have much of any experience playing the left side.

As for Petro, I'd say it's worth a look but they've already tried him on the left side so it's not like this is a new idea. Perhaps it goes better than the last time they tried it but I doubt it.

 

[Brian39]

Scott Niedermayer was an elite D-man that was a lefty that made a HOF career playing the right side.

I will say though that since the pool of d-men in the league is roughly 60% lefty (not actual left handed but plays lefty) it's much more common for a lefty to play the right side than vice versa. Righties are generally at a premium so there's very rarely a glut of righties so righties pretty much always play the right side. Lefties oftentimes have to move to the right side as on average, teams have more lefties than righties. This means that most lefties have developed playing some on the right side whereas few figures have much of any experience playing the left side.

As for Petro, I'd say it's worth a look but they've already tried him on the left side so it's not like this is a new idea. Perhaps it goes better than the last time they tried it but I doubt it.

My optimism is partially based on who his partner will be. Either he gets paired with Shatty and can focus almost exclusively on defense for the first 2 months or he is with Parayko and Parayko shows no sign of sophomore slump. Either of those options would take some pressure off of him to be 100% perfect, which I don't remember being the case last time we tried it.

 

[carter333167]

For a million times, who is player in recent history who have slide to his off-side and played toughest minutes and do it with dominate performance? Is there dmen who has done it? This is just general question for everyone.

Doughty plays his offside extremely well.

If I were going to rank our RHD in ability to play the offside, it would be Petro, Parayko (Parayko has been rotating to the offside a bit during the WC games) and Shatty.

Still, Parayko plays very well with Gunny and that could be a 25 minute reliable pairing so I'd rather see Shatty moved up there than Colton. I like the idea of a Petro Pairing and a Parayko Pairing...the two pairings could eat up 50 minutes a night...what an advantage.

Article on Petro playing the left side (apologies if it has already been posted):

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/worl...s-pietrangelo-feeling-ease-playing-left-side/

 

[BlueDream]

I don't really consider moving Petro to the left as that realistic of an option full-time. Yes, it's nice to know that it can be done. And admittedly, I've only seen one of Canada's full games, and some snip-its of the others. From what I've seen, Pietrangelo hasn't been bad, but he hasn't been as smooth as he normally is on the right side, either. So I think the idea of him transitioning over to the left side with the Blues is still a bit far-fetched, and probably only needs to be done when we are down by a goal and need to load up Pietrangelo, Parayko and Shattenkirk.

I mean, if Armstrong decided to put Bouwmeester on Team Canada then it would be pretty hypocritical to think that him and Hitchcock don't think he can be our #1 LHD anymore.

 

[Renard]

Nobody recent comes to mind off the top of my head, at least not after they established themselves at the NHL level, but generally that's not the sort of thing that you ask your best defenseman to do.

Doesn't necessarily mean that at least some of them couldn't have done it at a very high level if they were asked.

I guess what I'm saying is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, if you're familiar with that phrase.

Doug Harvey and Bobby Orr did it.

 

[bleedblue1223]

If Petro can play the left full-time moving forward, then that will making signing Shattenkirk a lot more easier, and that should be plan A at this point. Find a way to extend Shattenkirk and make it work for a defensive composition point of view.

 

[Brian39]

I don't really consider moving Petro to the left as that realistic of an option full-time. Yes, it's nice to know that it can be done. And admittedly, I've only seen one of Canada's full games, and some snip-its of the others. From what I've seen, Pietrangelo hasn't been bad, but he hasn't been as smooth as he normally is on the right side, either. So I think the idea of him transitioning over to the left side with the Blues is still a bit far-fetched, and probably only needs to be done when we are down by a goal and need to load up Pietrangelo, Parayko and Shattenkirk.

I mean, if Armstrong decided to put Bouwmeester on Team Canada then it would be pretty hypocritical to think that him and Hitchcock don't think he can be our #1 LHD anymore.

Devil's advocate: They are currently playing Petro on the left for Team Canada while J-Bo is a healthy scratch. They might not think J-Bo is incapable of being a #1 LHD, but I don't think it is at all hypocritical to think that they believe Petro is a better #1 LHD.