This year's team really plays up and down to the opponent and thats will have cost them home ice vs the sharks. The blues are a very good team that can make teams look bad offensively so I won't be too mad about this one, but the effort against the red wings and many other bottom feeders beat them this year. Plus ROR is my favorite non VGK player. I wonder if GMGM ever made an offer because the blues gave up very little for him. I think some of the talk about him being a selfish person could have been a factor of some teams staying away, but he's like a Stastny but younger and a better version in all aspects.
These 2 losses do hurt because they would be right up the sharks butt for home ice advantage with 2 wins that seemed possible with one being an almost sure win on paper and the other that is toss up. Playing at the blues who have been hot and on the road with many players out just seemed like a 30% chance of winning to me, but if they had beaten Detroit maybe they could have kept the train rolling.
I hope Merrill is in before Miller and Holden in the playoffs, but I think Holden will play over the both of them. I doubt Holden is tradable either. He's over paid by 1.2M and gets caught staring at the puck and doesn't move his feet until it's too late far too often that leads to goals a high danger chance more than the amount of good plays he makes that takes away potential goals from the opposition.
Tuch has really fell off a cliff too. I wonder if he is too immature to handle the fame and money he got with his contract and enjoys too many late nights on the town. I don't know if he has a no trade clause, but if Gusev was coming over maybe I'd explore how much they could get back for him since next year there will be tough choices to be made over who gets extensions and who doesn't receive one. I think there would be a decent amount of teams that would want a young player his potential and decent contract with the years remaining.