GDT: Defending Stanley Cup Champ Blues vs. Chicago - 7:30| My How The Turn Tables|

[Brian39]

I actually don’t mind going with Allen tonight. He’s been in a bit of a groove and he’s better on the road. I’m okay with monitoring Binny’s workload and we may as well try to take advantage of Allen while he’s hotZ

Same. Of the next 3, this is the game I would want to play Allen in. Barring any illness/injury/concern, I'd play Allen tonight and next Tuesday against Buffalo while giving Binner the other 6 games between now and 12/19/19. That keeps Allen away from Western Conference playoff teams and sets up Binner with a light workload before asking him to start 4 games in 7 nights (all at home) against Vegas, Colorado, Edmonton and Chicago. I want Binner starting against Vegas, Colorado and Edmonton and don't want to start Allen at home on a Saturday (that Chicago game). So rest up Binner a bit in the next 8 days to prep for that.

 

[Ginger Papa]

Last season, the Blues lost several games to a poor Blackhawks team. I don’t have very high expectations, but I hate losing to these chumps.

Glad to have Bortuzzo back for this one.

I look at our forward group and wonder how we ever score any goals, but the boys keep chugging along and finding ways to win.

Wouldn't mind an OT win to give them a point and hurt their tank a bit, but I don't care all that much. By the time they're competitive again we'll likely be on the downswing after Binnington retires and President of Hockey Operations Alexander Steen is forced to make some tough decisions regarding aging forwards Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou.

Would love to bury Chicago further on our way to leading the West by a wider margin.

A perfect time to post this nsfw photo of me again.

Yikes, how is a team that bad so tight against the cap? That's embarrassing.

That being said, we absolutely cannot lose to these chumps playing one man down. The Blues are probably due an "off" game considering the injuries but please not tonight!

I'd keep Walker up on the first line until he gives up a reason not to. He looked great there once Chief moved him up. I kind of like Thomas on the third line because we need someone to drive the play and make that line more of a threat.

The cost of keeping the band together

Canucks fan coming in support.

I grew up in Williams Lake, B.C. watching Chief play for our hometown Jr. AA Mustangs before he hit the WHL.

I hope your boys get down into the low areas and really work the dirty regions hard tonight against the filthy birds from the mid area.

Cheers from the West - Go Blues!

P.s. Any updates on Klim's shoulder?

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Not enough cap space??????

Wow

 

[STL BLUES]

BTO & the Chuck Norris Division

Barbashev - Bozak - Brouwer
MacEachern - de la Rose - Walker

More Please...!

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

NHL network picked the hawks to win and the “highlight package” during the segment was Tampa scoring a bunch of goals on Chicago and this it...makes sense

 

[Falco Lombardi]

Chicago literally can’t skate a full team tonight. Please don’t lose this.

 

[mk80]

The RW tiebreaker is more meaningful than Chicago getting a loser point. Plus I don’t want to ever let Chicago score a goal or hear that damn song. Don’t tell me it’s a home game!

Admittedly I actually really like that goal song.

Anything else regarding Chicago, let's do our part to help them along with their draft lottery chances! Also I know they're tight against the cap as a lot of teams are, but man not having cap space to call someone up from Rockford?! If I was the owner I'd be in my GM's office ASAP telling him I'm thinking of clearing his salary off my business cap space, I mean that's just a entire new level of poor management of cap space.

 

[Brian39]

Admittedly I actually really like that goal song.

Anything else regarding Chicago, let's do our part to help them along with their draft lottery chances! Also I know they're tight against the cap as a lot of teams are, but man not having cap space to call someone up from Rockford?! If I was the owner I'd be in my GM's office ASAP telling him I'm thinking of clearing his salary off my business cap space, I mean that's just a entire new level of poor management of cap space.

They have 4 guys who are out with illness and/or minor enough injuries that they aren't using IR. One of them (Lehner) was replaced with an AHL call up, who took up pretty much all of the open cap space they had. They also have another guy on LTIR already.

The majority of teams in the league would struggle or be unable to fit a call up under the cap with 4 simultaneous injuries that couldn't get LTIR relief. We are currently using $1.5 mil of LTIR in order to deal with our injuries. If all 4 of our injuries were short term and not long term, we would have had to dress less than 20 at least once in the last couple weeks. The only silver lining about Tarasenko's injury is that it removed the cap crunch this year by giving us basically a $7.5 mil cushion.

Chicago has done a poor job with the cap the last few years, but this really isn't an example of that.

 

[Brockon]

Admittedly I actually really like that goal song.

Anything else regarding Chicago, let's do our part to help them along with their draft lottery chances! Also I know they're tight against the cap as a lot of teams are, but man not having cap space to call someone up from Rockford?! If I was the owner I'd be in my GM's office ASAP telling him I'm thinking of clearing his salary off my business cap space, I mean that's just a entire new level of poor management of cap space.

Chelsea Dagger is the song of nightmares past. Catchy, but my god the past it dregs up was painful before seeing our boys hoist the Cup.

Yeah I'd think Stan is going to be getting some pressure to move some cap soon - if he can't manage to find a way to keep a full lineup on the ice there's going to be questions about his ability to keep Gustafsson, Strome and others around this summer when they need their new deals.

I can see Stan's inability to navigate out of the corner he's painted himself into costing him his job if he can't move the cap to retain guys this summer. They have 15/23 guys under contract for next year and 12.3m in cap - with no starter or backup, their #2 Dman and a few expiring RFAs in Strome and Kubalik unsigned.

 

[Brian39]

Chelsea Dagger is the song of nightmares past. Catchy, but my god the past it dregs up was painful before seeing our boys hoist the Cup.

Yeah I'd think Stan is going to be getting some pressure to move some cap soon - if he can't manage to find a way to keep a full lineup on the ice there's going to be questions about his ability to keep Gustafsson, Strome and others around this summer when they need their new deals.

I can see Stan's inability to navigate out of the corner he's painted himself into costing him his job if he can't move the cap to retain guys this summer. They have 15/23 guys under contract for next year and 12.3m in cap - with no starter or backup, their #2 Dman and a few expiring RFAs in Strome and Kubalik unsigned.

This seems like as good a time as any to point out that our D group currently costs $3.75 mil less against that Cap than Chicago's.

 

[WATTAGE4451]

When: Monday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: United Center
Watch: FOX Sports Midwest, FOX Sports GO
Listen: 101 ESPN, NHL App

*Guessing on the D-pairs with Bortz back*
Schwartz - Schenn - Thomas
Sanford - O'Reilly - Perron
Barbashev - Bozak - Brouwer
MacEachern - de la Rose - Walker

Parayko - Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester - Faulk
Bortuzzo - Dunn

Binnington


VS.

Saad-Toews-Nylander
DeBrincat-Dach-Kane
Kubalik-Kampf-Shaw
Smith-Carpenter-Highmore

De Haan-Seabrook
Maatta-Gustafsson
Koekkok-Murphy

Crawford​

Those arent the lines.

Morning skate had
Schwartz schenn walker
Sanford oreilly perron
Barbashev bozak thomas
Macmac de la rose Brouwer

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

Lets go Blues !!!

 

[BlueKnight]

Lets go Blues!!!!

 

[Majorityof1]

To be fair, the Crawford contract was a good one, but completely unpredictable circumstances derailed it and forced them to invest even deeper into goaltending. He was a top 5-10 goalie in each of the 3 first years of that deal, winning another Cup and posting a .924, .924 and .918 through 55+ starts in those 3 seasons. He was posting a .929 through 27 starts in the 4th year when he sustained a head injury and/or developed vertigo issues. He didn't play in the rest of that season, wasn't the same when he eventually returned in year 5 (last year) and was in and out of the lineup with injuries. That prompted them to feel a need to have a legitimate #2/tandem guy given the uncertainty around Crawford. Chicago gave out some stupid contracts, but the money invested in goal is just bad luck.

I also wouldn't say that Keith is an overpay, even at 36. The offense hasn't been there this year, but he is logging 23:50 a night, had 40 points last year, and is posting decent possession metrics. He's not the elite D he used to be, but his cap hit is still just $5.5 mil per year. That' about market value for an underwhelming 24 minute a night guy.

Toews and Seabrook are just brutal contracts though.

Agreed on the goalies. I wasn't making a judgement, just stating facts. Either goalie is worth the price tag when healthy and playing (Lehner less so). Circumstances forced them to pay for both though, and it is hard to field a team when paying $10+M on goalies and $21M on 2 forwards.

As for Keith, he has been pretty "meh" in the games I have seen. I haven't dug into his advanced stats or watched even most of his games, so I could be wrong. He may be getting 23 minutes, but how much of that is the rest of Chicago's D core? His is a contract I would be totally fine if he was on my team given his level of production currently, because of what he did on the front part of the contract where it was a total steal. Its not at all crippling by itself. However, if he somehow got out of his deal with the hawks, I wouldn't sign him to a 3x$5.5 deal today. So that is why I think its a slight overpay. Not on the level of Toews and Seabrook obviously, and I could be misjudging based on incomplete info.

 

[mk80]

They have 4 guys who are out with illness and/or minor enough injuries that they aren't using IR. One of them (Lehner) was replaced with an AHL call up, who took up pretty much all of the open cap space they had. They also have another guy on LTIR already.

The majority of teams in the league would struggle or be unable to fit a call up under the cap with 4 simultaneous injuries that couldn't get LTIR relief. We are currently using $1.5 mil of LTIR in order to deal with our injuries. If all 4 of our injuries were short term and not long term, we would have had to dress less than 20 at least once in the last couple weeks. The only silver lining about Tarasenko's injury is that it removed the cap crunch this year by giving us basically a $7.5 mil cushion.

Chicago has done a poor job with the cap the last few years, but this really isn't an example of that.

That's true, I didn't take into consideration LTIR relief and all of that.

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

mac mac

 

[rainier]

Goal

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

MacMac!

 

[Dr Robot]

Kerber pronounces Kirby Dachs name Derpy Doc.

 

[CraftyVeteran]

hahahah love that Crawford glove action.

 

[mk80]

Good start on another depth goal by Maceachern!

 

[BlueKnight]

MacMac

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Depth is good.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Boo boo

 

[CraftyVeteran]

lolwut.