Goaltending and Coaching: Last two areas to address

carter333167

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Apr 24, 2013
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Apart from some tinkering here and there (perhaps to maximize assets, make room for rookies and maybe get us back into the first round next year), I would say that Army has done his job with the forwards and D-Men.

IMO, goaltending now stands out as the largest issue for the Blues with coaching being the next issue.

What should be our plan for addressing the above? How much of a leash does Jake get this year? Will they give Husso adequate NHL time to continue his development?

How about Yeo? What if he follows his usual trajectory with a huge mid-season swoon and/or simply can't architect a good power play?

Please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts.
 

brokeu91

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Jul 4, 2017
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Rhode Island
What I'm hoping for is that with the additions that we've made, we will be able to give Allen some goals. This should let him not have to hold onto as many razor thin goal margins, which should help his confidence and he won't make as many mistakes.

Of course this could just be the psychiatrist in me speaking and I could be completely wrong, but I hope I'm right because no way is Armstrong moving that contract
 
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TheBluePenguin

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Apr 15, 2015
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Don't think either of these are going to be addressed after the great day yesterday, Yeo and Allen were both given a ten roster to succeed this year if they fail then we move on next season
 

Celtic Note

Living the dream
Dec 22, 2006
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Yeo will at least be given a full year to coach this team. Armstrong realizes the mess dumped on him last year. Now that he has a legitimately competitive roster, Yeo gets his chance to put his mark on the team. It’s quite a bit different for a coach when he doesn’t have to be mister triage.
 

Majorityof1

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Mar 6, 2014
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“Now that Berglund and Sobotka are gone, you’re requisite whipping boys for the 2018-19 season will be Mike Yeo and Jake Allen.”

You couldn’t even wait 12 hours to start complaining again? STOP THE MADNESS AND LET YOURSELF BE HAPPY

Are they whipping boys or legitimate issues that need to be addressed? Allen was bad last year and the team would have been a lot worse without Hutton's play. We no longer have Hutton, nor would we expect him to repeat last year's performance. I am not expecting that out of Johnson either, so Allen has to step up. I don't think its an argument that competitive teams don't often have their starter sporting a .906 save percentage. Nor is it debatable that being 2nd last in the league on the Powerplay is not ideal. We got the pieces for our PP now, but the problem wasn't just lacking a RHS before. It was poorly coached, or poorly executed, or both, too. I don't think a thread asking about either is complaining, or whipping the whipping boy, or any other exaggeration. Its asking, here are two known issues, do we need to examine them further? Have we fixed them (with Johnson + Van Ryn)? Can we power through with our other improvements? Is there anything we can do to help at this point with very little cap space?

I got lots of respect for you Morty, you know that. But the madness was screaming at him for wanting to discuss legitimate questions on a hockey discussion forum. @carter333167 's post wasn't inflammatory in the least.
 
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bleedblue1223

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Jan 21, 2011
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“Now that Berglund and Sobotka are gone, you’re requisite whipping boys for the 2018-19 season will be Mike Yeo and Jake Allen.”

You couldn’t even wait 12 hours to start complaining again? STOP THE MADNESS AND LET YOURSELF BE HAPPY
Lets be honest, they would've been whipping boys regardless, they already were last season.
 

bleedblue1223

Registered User
Jan 21, 2011
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Yeo will at least be given a full year to coach this team. Armstrong realizes the mess dumped on him last year. Now that he has a legitimately competitive roster, Yeo gets his chance to put his mark on the team. It’s quite a bit different for a coach when he doesn’t have to be mister triage.
Exactly. This is Yeo's test now, and he'll have a real chance to actually succeed with it.
 

WATTAGE4451

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Jan 4, 2018
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I think people will be happy with johnson. Before last year, he had good career numbers as a backup. Its unfair to judge him by last year cuz buffalos defense was seriously terrible. We have a solid defense and career backups lately have thrived under our defense. He might not be as good as elliott or hutton was with us, but I think his numbers will look much better than last season
 

Robb_K

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Apr 26, 2007
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I think people will be happy with johnson. Before last year, he had good career numbers as a backup. Its unfair to judge him by last year cuz buffalos defense was seriously terrible. We have a solid defense and career backups lately have thrived under our defense. He might not be as good as elliott or hutton was with us, but I think his numbers will look much better than last season
I agree. I think he'l play just fine behind our defence, because he has positioned himself well over most of his career, so far, and he's also got decent reflexes. I think he'll also be capable of taking on a heavier game load at times, if Allen gets in a funk. But, he's also not well enough established to block Husso from getting a trial when he is ready.
 

TheDizee

Trade Jordan Kyrou ASAP | ALWAYS RIGHT
Apr 5, 2014
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johnson was outplaying elliott in calgary and people love elliott here for whatever reason

he will be a fine backup
 
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DatDude44

Hmmmm?
Feb 23, 2012
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BOBROVSKY and RINNE are UFA’s next year.....and bouw and Gunnar opens up 8.3 mill for us next year, add in Jakes 4.3 and I think we can make a serious run at one of them
 

Majorityof1

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Mar 6, 2014
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johnson was outplaying elliott in calgary and people love elliott here for whatever reason

he will be a fine backup

I don't think the question was about our backup. Its about the other guy, the one a few people love for whatever reason, but can't seal a post or keep from sliding out of the net to save his life. The one Elliot outplayed his entire time here yet we went with the loser who proceeded to play the worst hockey of his career when absolutely gifted the starting gig. The headcase, you know the one, he's kitten soft.
 
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bluebird enthusiast

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Dec 3, 2014
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What I'm hoping for is that with the additions that we've made, we will be able to give Allen some goals. This should let him not have to hold onto as many razor thin goal margins, which should help his confidence and he won't make as many mistakes.

Of course this could just be the psychiatrist in me speaking and I could be completely wrong, but I hope I'm right because no way is Armstrong moving that contract

Keeping this in mind, we need to be careful in the event a decent free agent starter pops up. With Husso on deck, I'd hate to tie up more money in goaltending given our situation.
 
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Halak Ness Monster

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Nov 11, 2010
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St. Louis, MO
What I'm hoping for is that with the additions that we've made, we will be able to give Allen some goals. This should let him not have to hold onto as many razor thin goal margins, which should help his confidence and he won't make as many mistakes.

I'm of the belief that if you have to worry about your goalie's confidence issues in July...you don't have a Cup quality goalie.

Allen isn't good enough. You can't trust him. We know this.
 
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Halak Ness Monster

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Nov 11, 2010
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Based on our history, Chad Johnson will have a .925 save percentage and people will be clamoring for him to start.

This would continue to say a lot about Jake Allen.

Everyone loves to defend Allen by saying the team in front of him didn't play well on nights he struggled. "Losing is a team effort!"

Then you look at what Brian Elliott and Carter Hutton did behind that same team and you realize...Allen just stinks.

If Chad Johnson does the same...it should really speak volumes.
 
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TheDizee

Trade Jordan Kyrou ASAP | ALWAYS RIGHT
Apr 5, 2014
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rinne is too old to be a answer unless hes brought in on a hasek-detroit like basis

doubt thats realistic anyways, i havent looked at preds cap but cant imagine them letting rinne go
 
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DatDude44

Hmmmm?
Feb 23, 2012
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rinne is too old to be a answer unless hes brought in on a hasek-detroit like basis

doubt thats realistic anyways, i havent looked at preds cap but cant imagine them letting rinne go
I could see them handing the keys to Saros. They’re gonna want to keep and pay ekholm and Josi and maybe try to get another top9 fwd..... not sure they could do that if they’re paying rinne 8mill a year
 

Ranksu

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Johnson will get dumped to waivers and Husso will take his spot and become #1 goaltender in Blues. Allen will be back-up boy.




uzpnr9nn4vi01.jpg
 
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CaliforniaBlues310

Registered User
Apr 9, 2013
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San Pedro, CA.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see King Douglas try and move Allen+ this offseason for someone like Bob, Schneider, Rask(heard he’s potentially available and would be my number 1 choice).

Also, as far as the powerplay, we just added a bunch of pieces to ours.

I’d run these as our two PP units

Thomas-O’Reilly
Parayko-Tarasenko
Pietrangelo

Bozak-Schwartz
Perron-Schenn
Dunn

1st unit would work best as a pure umbrella setup, and the 2nd would probably be best as an umbrella/overload hybrid.
 

TruBlu

Registered User
Feb 7, 2016
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I think this is the last year DA will tolerate the inconsistency. Allen doesn't have any excuses this year, because we should be able to give him some goal support. I've never been a goalie, but it seems that confidence is one of the major things goalies have to have going for them, and Jake has been up and down the whole time he's been a starter. He has to find a way to center himself and be more consistent or he may be moved. I have faith that he'll get it together, but goal tending appears to be the biggest question mark now that the scoring has been addressed.
 

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