Jake Allen

SC2GM

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May 16, 2016
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I would trade for Allen, but Blues should admit that his contract is bad and they have to keep 50% of his salary for their signing mistake based on expectations.
I should get an additional pick because goalies are easy to get and Allen is signed till summer 2021. If Blues don't want I would sign Lehtonen atm.

I guess Blues would keep Allen.

If we can get rid of Allen without having to give up at least 1 first round pick, then tell us where to send the fruit basket, the thank you card, and where would you like to go on a date with Allen? If it's actually possible to do a deal like this and we haven't... then there isn't enough time in one's life to give an adequate amount of face palming. Thank god the Blues defense has been good over the years. If only people had any idea just how bad this guy is.
 

Stealth JD

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Somebody has to be the worst starting-goalie in the NHL. Unfortunately for STL, they banked their present on a guy who turned out to be just that. He's literally a replacement-level goalie who can get white hot for a couple of weeks every year. Over the past three years he's proven that the remarkable play is the exception and the inconsistent play is the norm. Can't see him getting another NHL contract unless it's with a rebuilding team in need of a back-up to eat rubber en route to a tank job.
 
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Bleedred

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He's barely an average starting goalie, I'd say there might be 6 or 7 in the league that are worse than him, as far as starters go.

He'll be a backup after this, unless he improves and wins a starting job somewhere after signing, or signs with some rebuilding team that has a couple of backups as their tandem. Much like the Canucks right now.
 

Bleedred

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Funny thing and I was just talking about this last night, he was one of the most overrated prospects a few years back. He was talked about as much as Gibson and Vasilevskiy at that time. I seriously think it's because he was a prospect for what was a really strong team at that time. And for what I think is a really strong team right now, but he's their achilles heel. And Chad Johnson isn't good enough insurance.

Somebody has to be the worst starting-goalie in the NHL. Unfortunately for STL, they banked their present on a guy who turned out to be just that. He's literally a replacement-level goalie who can get white hot for a couple of weeks every year. Over the past three years he's proven that the remarkable play is the exception and the inconsistent play is the norm. Can't see him getting another NHL contract unless it's with a rebuilding team in need of a back-up to eat rubber en route to a tank job.
I don't think he's the worst starting goalie in the NHL, but I figure there's an elite echelon, there's about 15-18 starting goalies that have little difference and are interchangeable, then there's about 5-7 poor starters in a bottom of the barrel echelon.

For me, Allen is bordering on the average and bottom of the barrel echelon. The bottom of the barrel for me as far as starters go are probably Markstrom, Elliott, Howard, Schneider, Mrazek/Darling or whoever their starter is in Carolina. Craig Anderson should be in that group if his current play this year doesn't sustain itself. Still too much of a question mark for Hutton to say if he belongs here as a starter or not, but he's started out pretty good. I also think Allen, Martin Jones and Mike Smith are bordering this pile of trash, which Allen seems to be dangerously close to.
 

SC2GM

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I don't think he's the worst starting goalie in the NHL, but I figure there's an elite echelon, there's about 15-18 starting goalies that have little difference and are interchangeable, then there's about 5-7 poor starters in a bottom of the barrel echelon.

For me, Allen is bordering on the average and bottom of the barrel echelon. The bottom of the barrel for me as far as starters go are probably Markstrom, Elliott, Howard, Schneider, Mrazek/Darling or whoever their starter is in Carolina. Craig Anderson should be in that group if his current play this year doesn't sustain itself. Still too much of a question mark for Hutton to say if he belongs here as a starter or not, but he's started out pretty good. I also think Allen, Martin Jones and Mike Smith are bordering this pile of trash, which Allen seems to be dangerously close to.

This is where people really miss the point of just how god awful Allen is. Everyone considers goalies like Elliot and Hutton to be bottom of the barrel for starters, if they should even be starting. I'm not going to debate that one way or the other. The point is, if you hold this belief, then you need to compare apples and apples...

Elliot with the Blues was a god. Elliot compared to what Allen has done is like comparing Dominik Hasek to Jake Allen...

Elliot with the Blues: .925 save %, 25 shutouts, and a record of 104-46.

Allen: .912 save %, 16 shutouts, and a record of 118-73.

If Elliot is bottom of the barrel, then... what does that make Jake Allen? Yeah...

Hutton with the Blues: .923 save %, 7 shutouts, and a record of 30-15.

Allen has never outperformed a goalie that people are reluctant to even call decent, yet... "Allen isn't the problem." In fact, his numbers always pale by a large margin... It's not hard to figure out the guy sucks. You can deduce that starting Allen over anyone else in the league can result in at least a 5 to 10 % decrease in winning %.
 
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Pizza!Pizza!

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After his contract is up, what do you think his future will be? I'm not expecting him to finish out his contract with the Blues at this point but does he turn it around in another city? Does he become a career backup or is he just plain out of the league at that point? Guy has been a loser in every level he's played. In juniors he choked in the playoffs, in the World juniors he choked in the Gold medal game, in the AHL (even when he won goalie of the year) he choked in the playoffs.

Since being a starter with the Blues he has lost his job twice to the backup, had to be told to stay home from a road trip on a couple of occasions so he could get his mind straight. He continues to get worse and worse every year.

So what does everyone think? Where will he be in a few years?

I think in 3 years he'll be playing children's birthday parties and bat mitzvahs.
 
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sfvega

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It amazes me that people still find reason after reason why Allen isn't a bad goalie. The defense breaks down, bad deflections, sure. But when he loses his post, when he overcommits and loses his crease because he has terrible positioning, when his glove can't find a weak wrister? Who can we shift the blame to on those? Mike Yeo? Brodeur didn't work with him enough? People need to stop with the "Here's why Jake Allen's bad game has nothing to do with Jake Allen" line of logic that they ALWAYS seem to start at. Our defense sucks right now, but Allen has fallen apart each of the past two seasons as well when our defense has been anywhere from 'better than this garbage' to 'actually good'. If this were a blip on the radar, I think more people would give him the benefit of the doubt, but this is the new normal for Allen since the 2016-17 season. But as long as anyone on the ice plays worse than Allen, then he's not a bad goalie. Ok.

4 of the 5 goals in game 1 and 2 of 3 last night weren't on the goalie imo. I know that isn't the whole season, but those are 2 games off the top of my head where Allen was let down by the team in front of him.

People forget that Hutton had terrible numbers for a long stretch last year too. I don't think much of Allen, but the defense in front of him has been just as inconsistent and at times amateurish as he has over the last year. That's why Hutton had terrible numbers for a stretch last year too, because the defense just switches off too much

Hutton's "long stretch" was about 4-5 games, stretched out because Allen had become the starter again. If we're holding that against him, then why can' we hold this start of the season against Allen? Or, say, all of last season?
 
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BrokenFace

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It amazes me that people still find reason after reason why Allen isn't a bad goalie. The defense breaks down, bad deflections, sure. But when he loses his post, when he overcommits and loses his crease because he has terrible positioning, when his glove can't find a weak wrister? Who can we shift the blame to on those? Mike Yeo? Brodeur didn't work with him enough? People need to stop with the "Here's why Jake Allen's bad game has nothing to do with Jake Allen" line of logic that they ALWAYS seem to start at. Our defense sucks right now, but Allen has fallen apart each of the past two seasons as well when our defense has been anywhere from 'better than this garbage' to 'actually good'. If this were a blip on the radar, I think more people would give him the benefit of the doubt, but this is the new normal for Allen since the 2016-17 season. But as long as anyone on the ice plays worse than Allen, then he's not a bad goalie. Ok.



Hutton's "long stretch" was about 4-5 games, stretched out because Allen had become the starter again. If we're holding that against him, then why can' we hold this start of the season against Allen? Or, say, all of last season?

I am holding this season and last season against Allen. I'm just holding the way the Blues play in front of him accountable too. This year, last year, and years prior in the playoffs.
 

sfvega

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I am holding this season and last season against Allen. I'm just holding the way the Blues play in front of him accountable too. This year, last year, and years prior in the playoffs.

The guys who have made the most mistakes in front of him will be gone soon (JayBo, Gunnar, Bort) because they can't hack it. One would hope Allen would follow for the same reason, but that contract doesn't lend itself to such a situation. So......yet again.....Allen will be given the chance to prove himself, and I'd be willing to bet the results are the same they've been recently.
 

Bleedred

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This is where people really miss the point of just how god awful Allen is. Everyone considers goalies like Elliot and Hutton to be bottom of the barrel for starters, if they should even be starting. I'm not going to debate that one way or the other. The point is, if you hold this belief, then you need to compare apples and apples...

Elliot with the Blues was a god. Elliot compared to what Allen has done is like comparing Dominik Hasek to Jake Allen...

Elliot with the Blues: .925 save %, 25 shutouts, and a record of 104-46.

Allen: .912 save %, 16 shutouts, and a record of 118-73.

If Elliot is bottom of the barrel, then... what does that make Jake Allen? Yeah...

Hutton with the Blues: .923 save %, 7 shutouts, and a record of 30-15.

Allen has never outperformed a goalie that people are reluctant to even call decent, yet... "Allen isn't the problem." In fact, his numbers always pale by a large margin... It's not hard to figure out the guy sucks. You can deduce that starting Allen over anyone else in the league can result in at least a 5 to 10 % decrease in winning %.
I'll go with that. I'm not disagreeing with you.

It's just that Elliott has been bad everywhere but the Blues, but he's almost always (or always period?) been the better goalie when both and he and Allen were on the Blues. Hutton was solid, but I'm still a little skeptical that he's a good starter. He was a very good backup there and they probably should have kept him, rather than signed Johnson (who fluctuates from year to year) to be Allen's backup.
 

Tryblot

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Even in game 5 though, the Blues only scored 1 goal total. Allen was poor, but so was the offense. If the team really had "figured the wild out", they would have scored more. If you can't handle and respond to "momentum change" as a player, you don't deserve to make a deep playoff run.

And of course the Blues have scored timely goals in the playoffs before, but it's not nearly enough. Just like Allen has made many timely saves (the 2017 series with the Wild alone had plenty), yet he didn't show up consistently enough. To be clear I think you're right about Allen, I just don't like people forgetting about the more constant problems with the offense to blame the relatively new problem that is Allen

You can say the Blues only scored goal but the game is COMPLETELY different if the Wild don't score on that awful first shot. You have to take that into account. You can't say "if he saved that the game still would have been 3-1" because it wouldn't have. I really believe had Allen not let that in, St. Louis wins that game. They were so dominant the game before that and were completely dominating that game until that shot gave new life to the Wild. They were dead in the water and it changed everything.
 

Captain Creampuff

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He's a pretty terrible goalie. That said, our problem has not only been Allen, but our team defense has been garbage.
 

Atas2000

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After his contract is up, what do you think his future will be? I'm not expecting him to finish out his contract with the Blues at this point but does he turn it around in another city? Does he become a career backup or is he just plain out of the league at that point? Guy has been a loser in every level he's played. In juniors he choked in the playoffs, in the World juniors he choked in the Gold medal game, in the AHL (even when he won goalie of the year) he choked in the playoffs.

Since being a starter with the Blues he has lost his job twice to the backup, had to be told to stay home from a road trip on a couple of occasions so he could get his mind straight. He continues to get worse and worse every year.

So what does everyone think? Where will he be in a few years?
The proper question here is when do the Blues consider sorting out their goaltending?
 

KirkAlbuquerque

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I called it a few seasons ago that he was no better than an average goalie. People can’t admit or realize that a goalies basic stats are very dependent on the quality of his team. Advanced goalie stats are starting to catch on at least .
 

BrokenFace

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You can say the Blues only scored goal but the game is COMPLETELY different if the Wild don't score on that awful first shot. You have to take that into account. You can't say "if he saved that the game still would have been 3-1" because it wouldn't have. I really believe had Allen not let that in, St. Louis wins that game. They were so dominant the game before that and were completely dominating that game until that shot gave new life to the Wild. They were dead in the water and it changed everything.

The Blues also averaged 2.33 goals for per game that series. Maybe 1 goalie out of the 16 in the playoffs a given year can win like that. I agree that Allen is a problem, but the longer lasting problem has been the offense. In 2013 Brian Elliot had a GAA under 2 in our series with the Kings and the Blues still got eliminated. Loss of momentum doesn't excuse offense that incompetent
 
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Tryblot

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The Blues also averaged 2.33 goals for per game that series. Maybe 1 goalie out of the 16 in the playoffs a given year can win like that. I agree that Allen is a problem, but the longer lasting problem has been the offense. In 2013 Brian Elliot had a GAA under 2 in our series with the Kings and the Blues still got eliminated. Loss of momentum doesn't excuse offense that incompetent

With the way the Blues were peppering Dubnyk and dominating the Wild in game 5 they were going to score more goals eventually. The Wild goal gave them new life. You hear announcers talk about this all the time, this isn't just some made up thing they talk about. Momentum is real.

2013 was a completely different team so that series has nothing to do with this offense.
 

airbus220

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If we can get rid of Allen without having to give up at least 1 first round pick

If I could get a 2nd rd pick I would take the chance.
Would get Allen for 2.175M cap hit for this and the next 2 seasons. Allen would be #41 in cap hit.
I would not give him starter workloads and I'm sure Allen would improve each year.
 

Tryblot

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If I could get a 2nd rd pick I would take the chance.
Would get Allen for 2.175M cap hit for this and the next 2 seasons. Allen would be #41 in cap hit.
I would not give him starter workloads and I'm sure Allen would improve each year.

lol good luck with that.
 

SC2GM

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If I could get a 2nd rd pick I would take the chance.
Would get Allen for 2.175M cap hit for this and the next 2 seasons. Allen would be #41 in cap hit.
I would not give him starter workloads and I'm sure Allen would improve each year.
If we don't end up with a first round pick in the off season (O'Reilly deal), there might be some reluctance to give up a second round pick next year. But, hey... you can always trade for another pick if you really want one.

This is one of the worst signings that could've been made. If you're not willing to take back money on this guy, then when will you? We're eating money as is, watching this guy perform like a bum, while paying him as a starter who has the capabilities of one. May as well be paying a fan 5 million a year to go to games and just watch... that would be far less detrimental. Would prob increase ticket sales a lot, too, as people would think "maybe I'm next."

It's a real bad situation. Clearly they want Allen to claw his value back up. But, it's a hostile environment. Everyone either hates the guy or should... Fans can't stand the guy. The defensemen aren't even aren't even making an attempt to stand up for him when opponents run into him. It's a black eye for everyone involved. Everyone wants to play better, but... you are what you are...

Thus, from the Blues perspective, your proposal is more than fair and there is zero reason for us to not accept it. If Husso managed to be worse, then hey... we could recoup the money on a talent show or something, cause that would be an amazing feat.
 
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airbus220

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If we don't end up with a first round pick in the off season (O'Reilly deal), there might be some reluctance to give up a second round pick next year. But, hey... you can always trade for another pick if you really want one.

This is one of the worst signings that could've been made. If you're not willing to take back money on this guy, then when will you? We're eating money as is, watching this guy perform like a bum, while paying him as a starter who has the capabilities of one. May as well be paying a fan 5 million a year to go to games and just watch... that would be far less detrimental. Would prob increase ticket sales a lot, too, as people would think "maybe I'm next."

It's a real bad situation. Clearly they want Allen to claw his value back up. But, it's a hostile environment. Everyone either hates the guy or should... Fans can't stand the guy. The defensemen aren't even aren't even making an attempt to stand up for him when opponents run into him. It's a black eye for everyone involved. Everyone wants to play better, but... you are what you are...

Thus, from the Blues perspective, your proposal is more than fair and there is zero reason for us to not accept it. If Husso managed to be worse, then hey... we could recoup the money on a talent show or something, cause that would be an amazing feat.

Allen played starter workloads the last 3 seasons and each season he got worse. Obviously this is NOT working but they still played him 5 of 6 games this season so far. Johnson is on a pace for 14 games.
In 2015-16 the season before he was signed Allen played 11 consecutive games including twice 3 games in 4 nights. I can run down every goalie too.

Who is responsible for these crazy goalie starts? That's the problem !!!
 

airbus220

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Feb 19, 2012
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If I could get a 2nd rd pick I would take the chance.
Would get Allen for 2.175M cap hit for this and the next 2 seasons. Allen would be #41 in cap hit.
I would not give him starter workloads and I'm sure Allen would improve each year.

Allen got some rest and an EV shutout. It's only one game but obviously the problem is not Allen, it's bad coaching.

Thanks for the pick and retained 50% cap.
 

Cloned

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Allen got some rest and an EV shutout. It's only one game but obviously the problem is not Allen, it's bad coaching.

Thanks for the pick and retained 50% cap.

Why are you quoting yourself and responding to yourself in an argumentative manner? lol.
 
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greasysnapper

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I think Allen is terrible, but I also think the bigger issue is Yeo. If this team got Quenneville, I think Allen turns into a top 10 goalie in the league.
 

airbus220

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Why are you quoting yourself and responding to yourself in an argumentative manner? lol.

Because I changed my name. My name was changed in all my posts but not when I was quoted. When I was quoted it's still my old name.
 

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