Half-Assed GDT: Blues @ CBJ - Preseason game #4 Away Game

[BuLLeT1291]

Or see how truly committed the ownership group is and waive him.

Oh cmon, Gunnar is not waive worthy. He is a perfect 3rd pairing LHD and there would be teams out there that would be interested. TOR possibly?

 

[simon IC]

Oh cmon, Gunnar is not waive worthy. He is a perfect 3rd pairing LHD and there would be teams out there that would be interested. TOR possibly?

Yeah, we're not waiving Gunnarsson or Bortuzzo to keep Schmaltz. I do think a trade is coming, though.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Oh cmon, Gunnar is not waive worthy. He is a perfect 3rd pairing LHD and there would be teams out there that would be interested. TOR possibly?

There is no universe where Gunnarsson is “perfect” for any role at this stage of his career except you don’t have to feel bad about putting him in the press box. He has consistently been one of the worst dmen in the league for several seasons now by just about every metric. He is paid far too much for a role which could be performed just as well by a guy making the league minimum, and usually those guys are better anyways. He is on the wrong side of 30 and just had two surgeries on his legs, hasn’t participated in contact drills as far as we know, and hasn’t drawn into any games.

If we were smart, we would IR him for the season, let him collect his paychecks and then move on next summer. If the choice today is to lose Gunnar or Schmaltz to waivers, the decision makes itself. You go with the young, promising, right-handed shot guy you’ve invested years of development into and who scored PPG in the AHL last year. If we refuse to send Thomas back to the OHL because “he’s proved all he can there,” then the same principle ought to apply to Schmaltz. You don’t give up guys like him to try to wring out the dirty mop water from an injured vet on the last year of his contract. You can either lose one or you lose both. Gunnar’s potential contributions are low enough where it doesn’t make sense to risk losing Schmaltz’s potential contributions on the bet that Gunnar somehow turns it all around.

If a team wants a player like Gunnar, they can have him for free on the waiver wire. Nobody is going to trade anything for a player like him in his situation. And if they do, I hope we play them a lot this year because he is by far the weakest player on our roster today, and was pushing Sobotka for those honors last year as well.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

A little harsh on Gunnarsson there, but the argument to keep Schmaltz is sound.

 

[mw2noobbuster]

Thomas had 3 primary assists this game. Pretty damn good.

 

[Majorityof1]

A little harsh on Gunnarsson there, but the argument to keep Schmaltz is sound.

The best argument to move on from Gunnarsson is that he is a dated asset. It is difficult to envision a scenario where we re-sign him. Our top 4 is set going forward. I can imagine re-signing J-Bo to a much lower AAV deal, especially if he stays injury free and skating like he did last game So our Left side is set. Even if its not, there will be better bottom-pairing D on the market than where Gunnar is now. Bortuzzo is a better #6/7 D than Gunnarsson. He is cheaper, provides an element we don't have as much of in the top 4 (physicality) and is one of our better D at playing his off-side.

Schmaltz we have for 2 years and have the option to sign him after as a still RFA after this contract. So at the minimum he is could be around for 3 years, 2 of which are very affordable. I believe he still has some upside left to tap, at least in terms of adjusting to the NHL. So even if Gunnarsson is slightly better option now, that is one year vs 3. Plus potential upside and cap implications in favor of Schmaltz. It really is a no brainer to me. Trade Gunnarsson if you can, waive him if you can't. The only reason not to is some weird sense of loyalty as he signed at what was then a small discount to play with us. But injuries have taken their toll. We should also show some measure of loyalty to a guy who has earned his shot and never complained (to my knowledge) about being blocked by great RHD at the NHL level and give Schmaltz a chance.

Oh also, organizationally, we have better depth coming up on the left side. If we move Schmaltz, we have Pie, Parayko, Bortz and Reinke as guys with a shot of cracking the NHL, and that's it. For LHS, we have Walman, Mikkola, Perunovich, Wotherspoon. Noel, Borque, Anderson, Tucker Butler and Lindbohm are all LHS D. At least 4-5 have a good shot of eventually being capable of playing in the NHL in a pinch for injury call-up if not more.

 

[NUhockey]

Just curious, how has Nolan Stevens looked? I saw he had 17 min of ice time last night.

 

[Oberyn]

Just curious, how has Nolan Stevens looked? I saw he had 17 min of ice time last night.

Ok, nothing really stood out about him. Thought he looked a bit clumsy at times. He's going to need at least a year or two in the AHL.

 

[rumrokh]

Just curious, how has Nolan Stevens looked? I saw he had 17 min of ice time last night.

He's been inconsistent. Some good, some not-so-good. He works hard and has some jam to his game. He has little flashes of offensive awareness/ability that I, personally, can't tell whether or not will ever consistently translate at the NHL level. I think that's because he needs to get quicker. I'm very interested to see what kind of year he has in the minors and how he looks in camp next season. Because I think there's more there, but he hasn't impressed, yet.

 

[Oberyn]

The Blais-Thomas-Kyrou was line a lot of fun to watch. Sad to see Fabbri have to leave early, but Blais did a great job of integrating himself onto that line. I've always been a fan of Kyrou, but even I didn't anticipate him looking this good, granted it is still preseason. However, Columbus dressed a lot of their regulars and Kyrou didn't look out of place at all.

Really happy to see Thomas get on the scoreboard as well with 3 primary assists. One thing I disliked about Thomas' game was him constantly trying to feather backhand passes through the middle, I don't think a single one made it to its intended recipient. Other than that, his skill and hockey IQ was on full display.

I've liked what I've seen of Schmaltz so far. His puck moving ability is a tremendous asset, I'd go as far as to say he's probably top 3 on the Blues D in that department. He moves the puck quickly and crisply. There was one moment in the Blues zone where Schmaltz had it in the corner and he made a really nice backhand pass to a Blues forward for a clean breakout. I still see a lot of room for improvement on the defensive side of things, but he's come a long way from his first stint in the NHL where he looked too scared to do anything. I really don't want to lose him on waivers.

Husso didn't get much work but he looked rock solid as usual. I think he'll want that first goal back, but that was also some poor defensive coverage on the Blues part.

Jaskin had a nice snipe and looked as he usually does, still a decent 4th lien option. Barbashev is quickly getting surpassed and I don't think he's magically going to improve overnight. I thought Sundqvist looked pretty good, definitely a PK option if the Blues need one.

Overall, can't really complain about the game last night other than the Fabbri injury. Columbus dressed a lot of their regulars and got outshot 28-17 with most of the play being dictated by the Blues.

 

[542365]

Just curious, how has Nolan Stevens looked? I saw he had 17 min of ice time last night.

I question his conditioning, but that may be unfair. I'm sure his dad wouldn't allow him to come to training camp out of shape, but he just always looks like he's running on fumes after 20 seconds or so on the ice. I know his foot speed isn't great, but it seems exacerbated by his conditioning. I've liked him in the prospect camps, but he's been overshadowed by quite a few guys in the preseason games.

 

[MissouriMook]

A little harsh on Gunnarsson there, but the argument to keep Schmaltz is sound.

Agreed. I see three preferable outcomes that, if possible, could be better than simply letting him live out his contract on IR.

1. Trade him for a conditional pick and retain up to 50% of his salary for the year. This saves at least $1.45M in cap space.

2. Place him on waivers and send him to San Antonio to showcase him for a trade. We can only bury $1.025M of his $2.9M cap hit, but this saves us $325K in cap space having Schmaltz on the roster over Gunnarsson.

3. Place him on waivers and he gets claimed. Boom! We're out from under the contract and he's someone else's issue now.

Keep in mind, the situation with his injury dictates a lot of what can and can't be done. You can't just keep him on IR the whole season if he is healthy enough to play. At the same time, you can't place him on waivers if he is still hurt and no one will trade for him if he is. I get that leaving him on LTIR all year removes him as a distraction, but when and if he gets healthy there are three new options available that I feel are better.

 

[The Note in MI]

I am stuck at work, really hoping we get a recording of this one.

We need a replay of that 2nd Blais goal, that was insane. It looked like NHL players v. a bantam team.

Really hope I can see some clips from this game. Sounds like the rookies have been electric. Don’t really know how you could leave Blais off the team with the preseason he’s having. Kyrou, too.

Man I really hope @The Note in MI has YouTube of this for me to watch later.

Time to check out the SA PP unit

All in good time my friends.

Working on making the video now. Have to splice it all together because the hospital Internet was being a touch buggy. Missed the first part of the first period up to the Cbus goal, and the initial few minutes of period 2. The audio recorded up until the middle of the second or so I think it was. Not sure why that happened either. Really been trying to finagle things together while at work, also trying to not look bad when I have patients walk by and I have a phone open to sports radio and my iPad playing hockey so I had to be incognito. Unfortunately means when the feed dropped I lost those first parts of period 1 and 2.

Will clip videos of the Second Blais goal for sure. Didn’t get the first one on video. Blues twitter has that one briefly.

 

[Majorityof1]

Keep in mind, the situation with his injury dictates a lot of what can and can't be done. You can just keep him on IR the whole season if he is healthy enough to play. At the same time, you can place him on waivers if he is still hurt and no one will trade for him if he is. I get that leaving him on LTIR all year removes him as a distraction, but when and if he gets healthy there are three new options available that I feel are better.

I think you meant can't in those bolded sentences. You can't keep him on IR if healthy and you can't waive him if hurt. At least that is the way the rule reads, teams have done a good job keeping players on IR when healthy. Soshnikov was on IR until he was traded to us and then miraculously cleared as soon as Toronto got some value out of him.

 

[The Note in MI]

Here you go party people

 

[Blanick]

Here you go party people

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

 

[HighNote]

Here you go party people

Around 48:00 is that nice passing play where Blais scored. That was a thing of beauty.

 

[DoubleK81]

A You can't just keep him on IR the whole season if he is healthy enough to play.

Sure you can, just ask Toronto and Joffrey Lupul.

 

[BlueDream]

Thanks for posting. Even Thorburn played a solid game tbh.

I can't remember the last time we had this much talent. To see late round picks like Husso, Blais and Mikkola shine is just tremendous.