GDT: Blues @ Trashville

[mk80]

Too many missed opportunities tonight. And a very flat 3rd period until it was too little too late.

At least the empty net daggers didn’t come when Bannister pulled Binnington with 11 minutes left.

 

[Majorityof1]

yes, we need high-end talent. and if we aren't gonna pick top 5 it's huge crapshoot, but we were never gonna tank bad enough to pick that high. i like our scouting team and the results they seem to be getting last few years. and i don't see huge difference between picking 8-16 this year.

If there is no difference, why was your earlier post, let's tank and get a higher pick? Picking higher is always better. Also, there is a clear top 8 this year according to many. We could have been in the top 8 if our results matched our play.

Again, nothing that should or could have been done about it. But we are a bottom 8 team with top half of the league first line. goalies and a surprising Neighbours. Give us average goaltending and subtract the post-coaching change bump, we would have finished in the bottom 8.

Bannister must have a huge parley on the Blues giving up the most empty net goals in the past 10 years, the Blues being the first team to average 10 seconds or less of empty net play before each goal is scored, and having the Blues for the least amount of goals scored while their goalie is pulled.

He must have panicked when the Blues scored that 6 on 4 PP/Empty net goal, so he decided to leave Binner out at the next faceoff then told Faulk to “do your thing buddy” while giving him a thumbs up.

I mean sure, blame Bannister and not the team for being in that situation to begin with, or the GM for assembling the team that sucked so bad this year. It's fairly common to pull the goalie with a face-off in the o-zone. Maybe not that early, but that was desperation.

 

[stl76]

If you would have told me at the start of this season that the Blues would be playing meaningful games in April, I would have been surprised.

 

[TheDizee]

If you would have told me at the start of this season that the Blues would be playing meaningful games in April, I would have been surprised.

But they really arnt meaningful at all. this season has been over for months. they are not a serious playoff contending team.

 

[Blueston]

If there is no difference, why was your earlier post, let's tank and get a higher pick? Picking higher is always better. Also, there is a clear top 8 this year according to many. We could have been in the top 8 if our results matched our play.

Again, nothing that should or could have been done about it. But we are a bottom 8 team with top half of the league first line. goalies and a surprising Neighbours. Give us average goaltending and subtract the post-coaching change bump, we would have finished in the bottom 8.

i said not huge difference. it's obviously better to pick higher than lower. i think they are on same tier, so not huge difference, but there are still preferences amongst the tier. there are 6 teams within 3 points of us. and all but the wild are actually decent shots at making playoffs in east so i anticipate a few of them will pass us now that we are realistically dead. if we aren't playing the kids remainder of the season at this point..

 

[TheOrganist]

The Blues better hit on all their 1st rounders from 2023. This “re-tool” was basically a 1 yr thing where we chose one small stretch of time to strategically get worse. For the next two years this is what it’s gonna be. Unless we get incredibly lucky we aren’t getting a stud top pairing defenseman in the draft if you’re picking 14-18. Ya sure, this little run was for fun a minute but long-term it blows and it’s something many fans feared…being in that no-man’s land of not contending and not blowing bad enough for an extended period.

 

[Mike Liut]

The Blues better hit on all their 1st rounders from 2023. This “re-tool” was basically a 1 yr thing where we chose one small stretch of time to strategically get worse. For the next two years this is what it’s gonna be. Unless we get incredibly lucky we aren’t getting a stud top pairing defenseman in the draft if you’re picking 14-18. Ya sure, this little run was for fun a minute but long-term it blows and it’s something many fans feared…being in that no-man’s land of not contending and not blowing bad enough for an extended period.

Don’t be surprised to see Army move our 1st and both 2nds for nhl players.

 

[Drubilly]

Don’t be surprised to see Army move our 1st and both 2nds for nhl players.

I would think anyone (excluding Thomas and most likely Neighbours) and anything is on the table this offseason. Actuary be damned!

 

[Spektre]

I would think anyone (excluding Thomas and most likely Neighbours) and anything is on the table this offseason. Actuary be damned!

 

[Celtic Note]

yes, we need high-end talent. and if we aren't gonna pick top 5 it's huge crapshoot, but we were never gonna tank bad enough to pick that high. i like our scouting team and the results they seem to be getting last few years. and i don't see huge difference between picking 8-16 this year.

I would rather move up spots in drafts and give our quality scouting staff a greater opportunity to get their guy than hope he falls. Dvo worked out for us last year but what happens if we win a few more games? Now we are down a tier from where our scouts defined them. Granted Dvo hasn’t become anything yet and we don’t know how the rest of the draft will course out, but I take a few spots higher over winning a few more games given where we are right now.

 

[Celtic Note]

The Blues better hit on all their 1st rounders from 2023. This “re-tool” was basically a 1 yr thing where we chose one small stretch of time to strategically get worse. For the next two years this is what it’s gonna be. Unless we get incredibly lucky we aren’t getting a stud top pairing defenseman in the draft if you’re picking 14-18. Ya sure, this little run was for fun a minute but long-term it blows and it’s something many fans feared…being in that no-man’s land of not contending and not blowing bad enough for an extended period.

Short term feel good moments mean very little if it is at the expense of the long term and prolonged ones IMO. But that’s coming from a guy who is willing to sacrifice at the expense of his immediate feelings. Whether that’s a good idea or not, who knows? The human psyche is complicated.

 

[TheOrganist]

Short term feel good moments mean very little if it is at the expense of the long term and prolonged ones IMO. But that’s coming from a guy who is willing to sacrifice at the expense of his immediate feelings. Whether that’s a good idea or not, who knows? The human psyche is complicated.

When Krug & Faulk lead your team in ice-time in a game to effectively save your season what more needs to be said. And they aren't going anywhere most likely for at least two years. Beating a dead horse but it is what it is...I would've been fine with bottoming out for a few years.

 

[ort]

They need to commit to a rebuild and stop trying to be a playoff team. Desperately trying to maintain a playoff bubble team with duct tape and zip ties for a few more years is not going to cut it. It will just extend the pain while our rivals keep getting handed superstar 18 years olds on a silver platter.

When do the Blues get their 18 year old superstar? Never? Feels like never...

 

[Cotton McKnight]

Stick a fork in this team and embrace the rebuild Doug! This constant season long edging of "we're good enough with what we have" then acting like a bunch of loser B.S. needs to stop, or Doug needs to go. Now we just have to guess what ownership is thinking.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Looking back on last night:

No, Binnington probably didn't have a good game. He's had a hell of a lot of great ones this season. Probably bailed us out to help us get 2 points more times than we should have. I'm not going to shit on him for last night.

I'm really not going to shit on him for last night because for all the shots we fired off - 47 on net, 83 total - our top guys needed to play their best and we needed support from the bottom 6. We got neither of those, which meant everything would have come down to Binnington, save our ass yet again! That underscores the lack of depth, and lack of quality depth, we have on this roster.

This is a roster that over an 82-game season simply isn't a playoff team unless Binnington is at a Vezina level and Thomas/Kyrou/Buchnevich are playing at a PPG pace. It took that and Neighbours having a monster breakout year to get us to here. Beyond that, you look at this roster and is there anyone you think wow, they really underperformed this year? Schenn at 17-22-39 is well off last year's pace, but honestly I think many of us wondered how long he'd keep up what he was doing. Hayes at 13-16-29 might be a little low, but I don't think anyone was expecting 50 points out of him. Everyone else you'd say yeah, kind of lines up with what I'd expect, nothing stands out.

And that really sums up the roster: a little overperformance covered for a little underperformance, but in the end this team played about where we all expected with goaltending stealing arguably a dozen points. While Thomas might get a little better, Kyrou might get a little better, we hope MV63 maintains this season's outburst if not improves on it, there's a lot of guys you look at and think yeah, that's about what we'll get next year and some of them are on the wrong side of 30 so you think maybe they'll be a little worse. Absent changes to the roster, it's probably an 86-88 point team if you get the same goaltending, a 78-point team if not.

 

[Blueston]

They need to commit to a rebuild and stop trying to be a playoff team. Desperately trying to maintain a playoff bubble team with duct tape and zip ties for a few more years is not going to cut it. It will just extend the pain while our rivals keep getting handed superstar 18 years olds on a silver platter.

When do the Blues get their 18 year old superstar? Never? Feels like never...

i don't mean to call you out, bc this is a common belief, but i call bs on this. tanking is fools gold. sure it would be great to get next superstar, but that isn't really the point. bottoming out has worked so well for buffalo and detroit and columbus and..

 

[PocketNines]

If Dvorsky, Stenberg and Lindstein turn out to be the real deal – let's just say for sake of argument all three turn out to be top 6/top 4 stalwarts – then I think you have the makings of a core given the quality goaltending + Thomas and Neighbours. Supplementing the forward roster would not be daunting if you have two real centers in Thomas and Dvorsky and also two real scoring capable shit disturbers who play the game with 200' intensity in Neighbours and Stenberg.

Parayko + Lindstein + Kessel is a chunk of what you would need on the back end but it's not all of it. You'd be in position to make a trade for one of the two big pieces you'd still need with that. But you really need the one guy we always talk about and most likely they have to draft that other guy, which as we have been focused on all season is probably doable this year if only they were to get a top 12 pick. They are about two extra losses away from the top 12, but it feels honestly like an impossibility to me that the outcome of this "race" will be that the Blues somehow plunge below the other teams. It has been incredibly frustrating all year to watch them just relentlessly keep themselves from getting what they need.

 

[Spektre]

i don't mean to call you out, bc this is a common belief, but i call bs on this. tanking is fools gold. sure it would be great to get next superstar, but that isn't really the point. bottoming out has worked so well for buffalo and detroit and columbus and..

The last full rebuild the Blues went through seemed to work out with getting a Cup. If they would have embraced more of a rebuild approach before this season started, it would have helped. Getting a top 5 pick is not fool's gold.

Are you saying the Blues stand to get just as good of a prospect at 15-16th overall vs 5th overall?

 

[Thallis]

i don't mean to call you out, bc this is a common belief, but i call bs on this. tanking is fools gold. sure it would be great to get next superstar, but that isn't really the point. bottoming out has worked so well for buffalo and detroit and columbus and..

It worked out pretty well for Tampa, Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh, LA, Colorado. Trying to compete for the playoffs every year has not worked out for Nashville, Calgary, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Philadelphia, or the Islanders either. Tanking has a better hit rate than not tanking.

 

[PocketNines]

The bottom line is that it's dishonest for Armstrong to say the Blues can't survive in STL by bottoming out when the Blues were literally a "make the playoffs" team for decades without real success and they finally bottomed out, committed to a rebuild, and rebuilt a Cup winner with those players. It's an absurdity

 

[Ted Hoffman]

It worked out pretty well for Tampa, Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh, LA, Colorado. Trying to compete for the playoffs every year has not worked out for Nashville, Calgary, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Philadelphia, or the Islanders either. Tanking has a better hit rate than not tanking.

I do get the idea behind it, so I'm not saying it's all wrong, but I think we need to distinguish between "really bottoming out and doing it in style" and "bottoming out, but not intending to do so." I suspect one of those explains more than the other.

If Dvorsky, Stenberg and Lindstein turn out to be the real deal – let's just say for sake of argument all three turn out to be top 6/top 4 stalwarts – then I think you have the makings of a core given the quality goaltending + Thomas and Neighbours. Supplementing the forward roster would not be daunting if you have two real centers in Thomas and Dvorsky and also two real scoring capable shit disturbers who play the game with 200' intensity in Neighbours and Stenberg.

Parayko + Lindstein + Kessel is a chunk of what you would need on the back end but it's not all of it. You'd be in position to make a trade for one of the two big pieces you'd still need with that. But you really need the one guy we always talk about and most likely they have to draft that other guy, which as we have been focused on all season is probably doable this year if only they were to get a top 12 pick. They are about two extra losses away from the top 12, but it feels honestly like an impossibility to me that the outcome of this "race" will be that the Blues somehow plunge below the other teams. It has been incredibly frustrating all year to watch them just relentlessly keep themselves from getting what they need.

The key to all of this is the timing. And more likely than not, it involves handing the reins to Hofer and hoping he can do the job. I don't think this is an incorrect view, but I think the "how" could be a real impediment and it could easily turn into a slow churn since "stay competitive, make the playoffs" is a high short-term concern.

 

[TheOrganist]

If Dvorsky, Stenberg and Lindstein turn out to be the real deal – let's just say for sake of argument all three turn out to be top 6/top 4 stalwarts – then I think you have the makings of a core given the quality goaltending + Thomas and Neighbours. Supplementing the forward roster would not be daunting if you have two real centers in Thomas and Dvorsky and also two real scoring capable shit disturbers who play the game with 200' intensity in Neighbours and Stenberg.

Parayko + Lindstein + Kessel is a chunk of what you would need on the back end but it's not all of it. You'd be in position to make a trade for one of the two big pieces you'd still need with that. But you really need the one guy we always talk about and most likely they have to draft that other guy, which as we have been focused on all season is probably doable this year if only they were to get a top 12 pick. They are about two extra losses away from the top 12, but it feels honestly like an impossibility to me that the outcome of this "race" will be that the Blues somehow plunge below the other teams. It has been incredibly frustrating all year to watch them just relentlessly keep themselves from getting what they need.

Agree with this that there are pieces in place down the road but that's the problem...it's down the road. And they are missing numero uno piece of a gifted two way, all-situations defenseman which they could've acquired through the draft if Armstrong was willing for the team to suck for two more years while we rode out some really shitty contracts. The timeline actually would've been perfect to suck for two more years. Then Krug, Faulk & Schenn are all on the way out, 85% of your most important prospects have ripened and are ready to produce at the NHL level, and you have two more drafts of accruing some even more integral pieces. It's fairly idiotic, narrow minded thought process of trying to resurrect the roster.

 

[Thallis]

I do get the idea behind it, so I'm not saying it's all wrong, but I think we need to distinguish between "really bottoming out and doing it in style" and "bottoming out, but not intending to do so." I suspect one of those explains more than the other.

I think the only two not intending to there are maybe LA and Colorado? The Blues are also a maybe in there we did willingly exit the lockout with Patrick Lalime as our goalie and Eric Brewer as our 1D. Honestly now that I think back that was more of an intentional tank too with the Lauries stripping the team to make it easier to sell. There's degrees of rebuilds, like you can point to Vancouver as not bottoming out, but they were absolutely rebuilding and picked 5, 5, 7, 10 4 years in a row and that's where they got Pettersson and Hughes. The point is that pushing for the playoffs forever is purgatory. We either get really lucky like Boston, we have a bad year and hit hard on a top 5 pick like Dallas did, or we all get tired enough of mediocrity that we commit after wasting a few years. We're 2 years in now how patient are we willing to be?

 

[PocketNines]

12-24 months is the arrival horizon IMO for the top talent among Dvorsky/Stenberg/Lindstein/23 draft class. They'll probably be approximately what they are now til then which is a 9th-11th team in the 16 team conference.

26-27 could be the beginning of a competitive window, and if they were to score a top defenseman this draft with their first pick then he would likely hit that too. It could be a raw good team like the 11-12 Blues. The 10-11 Blues were also not that terrible but just got destroyed by midseason by injuries. (That was the Thornton Perron year.)

 

[Blueston]

The last full rebuild the Blues went through seemed to work out with getting a Cup. If they would have embraced more of a rebuild approach before this season started, it would have helped. Getting a top 5 pick is not fool's gold.

Are you saying the Blues stand to get just as good of a prospect at 15-16th overall vs 5th overall?

The last rebuild netted us ej and Petro and oshie and bunch of other guys who had little to do with Cup. Petro was important part of it, but ROR and binny and jaybo and parayko and tank and Schwartz and the rest weren’t because we bottomed out.

As to whether we will get as good a prospect at 16 as 5, on average better prospects are generally picked higher. However, there are myriad of elite players picked outside top 10- pasta, fox, mcavoy, point, josi, thomas, slavin, Kucherov, Marchand, barzal, Larkin, etc.. so it’s not like you can’t get franchise player if you don’t pick in top 5.