Speculation: UFA Jimmy Vesey

[Dbrownss]

Looks like Vesey signed with NYR. At least that keeps him out of the Central Division.

Another Doug Armstrong FAIL! It doesn't sound like the Blues pushed hard for a low risk-extremely high reward. A position we could use and depth we need. There' really no reason why the Blues shouldn't have made a serious, strong attempt at signing him. In fact it looks like our neighbors up north, CHI Black Hawks were one of the teams on his shortlist of his final decision.

It's not a failure that the Blues didn't sign a free agent, there's always lots out there and they have 30 options. The failure is that the Blues/DA didn't push harder to secure what appears to be an elite player who'd be able to help the team immediately and also is a low cost to the cap. In fact, it looks like it could be a trend since the Blues didn't push hard for last years big prize, Artemi Panarin. Panarin AKA Kane2.0 is good friends with Tarasenko, who went to the Blues staff and told him how legit of a player he is. The fact the Blues weren't on Panarin's shortlist even with a chance to play with his good friend, Tarasenko shows that the Blues didn't aggressively push to sign these guys => that's a failure.

My god.....


If Panarin wanted to play with Tarasenko, then he would have accepted the Blues offer. He chose the Hawks because...well they are the Hawks. This isn't EA sports....all you can do is make an offer, and in these cases your limited as to what you can offer since they are ELC players.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

Looks like Vesey signed with NYR. At least that keeps him out of the Central Division.

Another Doug Armstrong FAIL! It doesn't sound like the Blues pushed hard for a low risk-extremely high reward. A position we could use and depth we need. There' really no reason why the Blues shouldn't have made a serious, strong attempt at signing him. In fact it looks like our neighbors up north, CHI Black Hawks were one of the teams on his shortlist of his final decision.

It's not a failure that the Blues didn't sign a free agent, there's always lots out there and they have 30 options. The failure is that the Blues/DA didn't push harder to secure what appears to be an elite player who'd be able to help the team immediately and also is a low cost to the cap. In fact, it looks like it could be a trend since the Blues didn't push hard for last years big prize, Artemi Panarin. Panarin AKA Kane2.0 is good friends with Tarasenko, who went to the Blues staff and told him how legit of a player he is. The fact the Blues weren't on Panarin's shortlist even with a chance to play with his good friend, Tarasenko shows that the Blues didn't aggressively push to sign these guys => that's a failure.

So you know for a fact that the Blues didn't push hard because?...

 

[sbkbghockey]

So you know for a fact that the Blues didn't push hard because?...

Although many teams do keep their FA dealings close to the vest, there's various reports the Blues didn't push hard for Panarin. And there's been lists of team's aggressively pursuing Vesy for months now- Blues haven't been on those lists. Also info on teams aggressively working on these kind of players usually does leak out through these FA processes.

http://www.espn.com/blog/nhl/post/_...nko-pal-artemi-panarin-is-the-enemy-right-now

Panarin's agent, Tom Lynn, said the Blues reached out about Panarin but weren't one of the more aggressive pursuers of the talented winger

 

[KirkOut]

I bet that bum Armstrong didn't even try to sign Tyler Johnson either. And he could have traded Oshie+ for Seguin as well.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

Although many teams do keep their FA dealings close to the vest, there's various reports the Blues didn't push hard for Panarin. And there's been lists of team's aggressively pursuing Vesy for months now- Blues haven't been on those lists. Also info on teams aggressively working on these kind of players usually does leak out through these FA processes.

http://www.espn.com/blog/nhl/post/_...nko-pal-artemi-panarin-is-the-enemy-right-now

So you're relying on hearsay more than actual fact that the Blues didn't reach out to Vesey? Well in that case, maybe labeling this as a failure might be premature because Vesey's agent hasn't discussed the teams that went hard or not. Or maybe even labeling him a failure for this instance is unfounded because, based on the same reports that leaked the aggressive teams, they've also told how Vesey's list of teams was very short, and the Blues were not on that list.

It would be awesome to have the Panarin's of the world on our team, but what good does aggressive pursuit do when those players don't have much interest in St. Louis? You have a quote that states how the Blues didn't pursue Panarin that hard. What you don't have is a quote that states Panarin really wanted to join the Blues, but he decided against it because Armstrong didn't try that hard.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

So now that he signed with the Rangers, I'd expect the Shatty to NYR rumors to pop back up again.

 

[EastonBlues22]

“He told us the day he got here about Panarin,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “He told us at least once a month about him. They’re best buds, they played together, they played in the world juniors together, they played on lines together, he talked about him and everybody looked and said he’s a pretty small guy. We all look a little dumb right now."

The fact that the Blues organization places a premium on size shouldn't be news to anyone here. They routinely place a premium on size during the drafting process. That approach has its benefits, but it also has its weaknesses...and having a bit of a blind spot for smaller, skilled players is one of those weaknesses.

Vesey isn't small, but I don't think the Blues were ever a realistic destination for him. He seemed like a lost cause from the outset, so never making any significant inroads is something that I expected.

IMO, Panarin falls more on the "missed opportunity" side of the fence. I think there was a real chance there, but the Blues simply didn't recognize the opportunity for what it was. It shouldn't need to be said, but they are not an infallible organization.

 

[Dbrownss]

I think the point some are trying to make is that the Blues did reach out to Panarin. If he was so dead set to play with Tarasenko, all it would have taken was an offer. It's just as plausible that Panarin didn't seem very interested in the Blues so the Blues didn't push much further. This would be on par with the nerdy annoyingly persistent guy that keeps asking a girl out...hoping he will eventually wear her down. The actual truth probably lies somewhere in the gray area.

 

[Majorityof1]

We never really stood much of a chance with Vesey. The teams he was considering were all in the NE, or Chicago which has won lots of cups recently. I am the 1st to blame Armstrong for his mistakes (and often the 3rd, 5th, and 8th as well). But the only way you could fault him here is if he didn't even inquire with Vesey's camp. Most likely he called, got told by his agent that he wasn't on the short list, and let it drop. There were teams actively pursuing Vesey who he didn't even meet with. So if he won't meet with you, what could Army do?

 

[EastonBlues22]

I think the point some are trying to make is that the Blues did reach out to Panarin. If he was so dead set to play with Tarasenko, all it would have taken was an offer. It's just as plausible that Panarin didn't seem very interested in the Blues so the Blues didn't push much further. This would be on par with the nerdy annoyingly persistent guy that keeps asking a girl out...hoping he will eventually wear her down. The actual truth probably lies somewhere in the gray area.

Hitchcock's quote pretty clearly indicates that he feels like the organization misjudged him, and that they collectively regret that misjudgment.

I think there's plenty of room for critique there, regardless of what Panarin's ultimate intentions were.

 

[Dbrownss]

Hitchcock's quote pretty clearly indicates that he feels like the organization misjudged him, and that they collectively regret that misjudgment.

I think there's plenty of room for critique there, regardless of what Panarin's ultimate intentions were.

Fair enough and for the most part I agree. I more take issue with those imply that Panarin was just waiting around for the Blues to ask(because of Tarasenko) but begrudgingly accepted the Hawks offer.

Hindsight unquestionably shows that missing out on Panarin was a brutal mistake. Who knows...maybe we can have him in a year

 

[STL BLUES]

Vesey straight up for Shatty. In a heart beat!

 

[542365]

Just glad he didn't go to the Hawks. That would've really helped sustain their run because they need more cheap, talented players and they're running out, fortunately. Jonathon Toews's contract is the end of the Hawks great run Absolutely perfect. Couldn't happen to a better organization.

 

[PerryTurnbullfan]

We are virtually nonexistent in the college free agent market. Really, I'm not surprised. How can you expect to land a big fish or even a fish, if you don't fish at all? Some teams have more money to devote to scouting. Black Hawks have twice the staff the Blues do. Our minor league system has been less than stellar. I'm not sure we have much to offer this segment of the market. Compared to most, we really don't utilize it either. Other than Jake Allen, Jaskin, and Edmundson, what Blues player did any development over a full season in our farm system? Allen is the poster boy.....as he saw TONS of rubber.....

 

[GrayZack]

We are virtually nonexistent in the college free agent market. Really, I'm not surprised. How can you expect to land a big fish or even a fish, if you don't fish at all? Some teams have more money to devote to scouting. Black Hawks have twice the staff the Blues do. Our minor league system has been less than stellar. I'm not sure we have much to offer this segment of the market. Compared to most, we really don't utilize it either. Other than Jake Allen, Jaskin, and Edmundson, what Blues player did any development over a full season in our farm system? Allen is the poster boy.....as he saw TONS of rubber.....

Bishop did well, but never got a chance in STL. he played 159 games with Peoria, and Backes played 43 games over two years before moving up to the NHL. Other then that its mostly 4th liners like Reaves.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/display_players.php?tmi=7405

 

[Vladys Gumption]

Looks like Vesey signed with NYR. At least that keeps him out of the Central Division.

Another Doug Armstrong FAIL! It doesn't sound like the Blues pushed hard for a low risk-extremely high reward. A position we could use and depth we need. There' really no reason why the Blues shouldn't have made a serious, strong attempt at signing him. In fact it looks like our neighbors up north, CHI Black Hawks were one of the teams on his shortlist of his final decision.

It's not a failure that the Blues didn't sign a free agent, there's always lots out there and they have 30 options. The failure is that the Blues/DA didn't push harder to secure what appears to be an elite player who'd be able to help the team immediately and also is a low cost to the cap. In fact, it looks like it could be a trend since the Blues didn't push hard for last years big prize, Artemi Panarin. Panarin AKA Kane2.0 is good friends with Tarasenko, who went to the Blues staff and told him how legit of a player he is. The fact the Blues weren't on Panarin's shortlist even with a chance to play with his good friend, Tarasenko shows that the Blues didn't aggressively push to sign these guys => that's a failure.

All of this is a giant load of hogwash. You can't force a guy to sign where he doesn't want. It's as simple as that and it was pretty clear from the beginning that he was never coming here. He was always going to Chicago or the East Coast. Furthermore, calling Vesey an elite player is a stretch at best and dishonest at worst. He's most likely destined to be a middle six forward. I won't believe he's capable of more until he proves it. The hype with these college UFA players is getting entirely out of hand.

What did or did not happen with Panarin has no impact on this situation. That's ignoring the fact that Chicago seems like the place he was always going to go. Especially when you consider the fact he took less than the max ELC to go to Chicago. I'm as critical of Armstrong as anyone, but this is ridiculous. There's no need to make things up in a weird effort to discredit Armstrong.

 

[TK 421]

All of this is a giant load of hogwash. You can't force a guy to sign where he doesn't want. It's as simple as that and it was pretty clear from the beginning that he was never coming here. He was always going to Chicago or the East Coast. Furthermore, calling Vesey an elite player is a stretch at best and dishonest at worst. He's most likely destined to be a middle six forward. I won't believe he's capable of more until he proves it. The hype with these college UFA players is getting entirely out of hand.

What did or did not happen with Panarin has no impact on this situation. That's ignoring the fact that Chicago seems like the place he was always going to go. Especially when you consider the fact he took less than the max ELC to go to Chicago. I'm as critical of Armstrong as anyone, but this is ridiculous. There's no need to make things up in a weird effort to discredit Armatrong

Armatrong sounds like Doug's name if he was a Transformer. I'm sure it was just a typo but thx for that, I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this! Yes...I'm easily amused. Now if he could transform Shattenkirk into something more useful that would be great.

 

[StLHokie]

All of this is a giant load of hogwash. You can't force a guy to sign where he doesn't want. It's as simple as that and it was pretty clear from the beginning that he was never coming here. He was always going to Chicago or the East Coast. Furthermore, calling Vesey an elite player is a stretch at best and dishonest at worst. He's most likely destined to be a middle six forward. I won't believe he's capable of more until he proves it. The hype with these college UFA players is getting entirely out of hand.

What did or did not happen with Panarin has no impact on this situation. That's ignoring the fact that Chicago seems like the place he was always going to go. Especially when you consider the fact he took less than the max ELC to go to Chicago. I'm as critical of Armstrong as anyone, but this is ridiculous. There's no need to make things up in a weird effort to discredit Armstrong.

Some people just fail to realize that real life isn't like Be a GM in NHL 16. You can't guarantee a guy signs with your team just because you offer them the most money. There are many other factors that go into it.

But with regard to Panarin, a part of the reason he signed for less than the maximum amount was because he preferred a contract with many more performance bonuses. I think Chicago has the equivalent of an additional 2.6m cap hit for the upcoming season just from the bonuses that Panarin earned last year.

 

[sbkbghockey]

....It would be awesome to have the Panarin's of the world on our team, but what good does aggressive pursuit do when those players don't have much interest in St. Louis? You have a quote that states how the Blues didn't pursue Panarin that hard. What you don't have is a quote that states Panarin really wanted to join the Blues, but he decided against it because Armstrong didn't try that hard.

Some people are way off on what I was saying... my point is- How do you know a player like Panarin or Vesey aren't interested unless you make a serious effort. It doesn't appear like the Blues made a serious attempt at Vesey (And yes, I don't think we would have got him). Without a serious attempt, you 1) won't be able to gage their interest in the team 2) won't be able to persuade them if they had little interest. Being in this section of HFBoards, I'm sure all of us in a dream senario would want to play for the Blues but if the Blues don't make a move and CHI, DET, or anyone else does- then I'm taking that offer no waiting around for STL.

My issue is that we didn't make that effort with Vesey. Same for Panarin- it's been documented on various credible sources that the Blues passed on Panarin- even with our Franchise Player regularly telling Hitch and Admin Staff to go after Panarin.

Perry also did well recaping my thought-

We are virtually nonexistent in the college free agent market. Really, I'm not surprised. How can you expect to land a big fish or even a fish, if you don't fish at all? Some teams have more money to devote to scouting. Black Hawks have twice the staff the Blues do. Our minor league system has been less than stellar. I'm not sure we have much to offer this segment of the market. Compared to most, we really don't utilize it either. Other than Jake Allen, Jaskin, and Edmundson, what Blues player did any development over a full season in our farm system? Allen is the poster boy.....as he saw TONS of rubber.....

There's a reason why teams like CHI, PIT, TB, etc... are consistent cup contenders, they've recognized the need to build from within and build through development. Isolating ones that slipped through the draft and come out of college and juniors as low cost/ELC free agents with a lot of high potential. As Perry put it, while other teams are in the water fishing, the Blues are watching on the Beach while still hoping a fish might show up.

 

[Majorityof1]

Some people are way off on what I was saying... my point is- How do you know a player like Panarin or Vesey aren't interested unless you make a serious effort. It doesn't appear like the Blues made a serious attempt at Vesey (And yes, I don't think we would have got him). Without a serious attempt, you 1) won't be able to gage their interest in the team 2) won't be able to persuade them if they had little interest. Being in this section of HFBoards, I'm sure all of us in a dream senario would want to play for the Blues but if the Blues don't make a move and CHI, DET, or anyone else does- then I'm taking that offer no waiting around for STL.

My issue is that we didn't make that effort with Vesey. Same for Panarin- it's been documented on various credible sources that the Blues passed on Panarin- even with our Franchise Player regularly telling Hitch and Admin Staff to go after Panarin.

Perry also did well recaping my thought-

There's a reason why teams like CHI, PIT, TB, etc... are consistent cup contenders, they've recognized the need to build from within and build through development. Isolating ones that slipped through the draft and come out of college and juniors as low cost/ELC free agents with a lot of high potential. As Perry put it, while other teams are in the water fishing, the Blues are watching on the Beach while still hoping a fish might show up.

And you are missing everyone else's point. How do you know what effort the Blues made to go after Vesey? The only team that was allowed to talk to him before the 15th was Buffalo (and Nashville before they traded his rights. We couldn't even call his agent and say, we'd like to talk after the 15th. Can't even say in the press "we really want to go after that Vesey kid". We can't show any interest at all before the 15th. Before the 15th rolled around, Vesey already had a short list of teams he wanted to talk to, and we weren't rumored to be on it.

How do you know the Blues didn't call anyway? What was Armstrong supposed to do differently if Vesey says, "I have my short-list, I'm not really interested in meeting?" Do you want him to have tampered and tried before the 15th? Do you want him to keep calling the kids agent after they said no? Should we kidnap his dog and ransom him in exchange for a signature on a contract? What would you have done better, and how do you know Armstrong didn't do that?

 

[Ranksu]

Player like Panarin would have been the difference maker to give us change to make last push and win the Stanley Cup.

Imagine St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup champ.

 

[KirkOut]

Player like Panarin would have been the difference maker to give us change to make last push and win the Stanley Cup.

Imagine St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup champ.

Or maybe Panarin signing here comes at the expense of Robby Fabbri's ice time, and we end up losing earlier (like the team that actually did sign Panarin)

 

[Ranksu]

Or maybe Panarin signing here comes at the expense of Robby Fabbri's ice time, and we end up losing earlier (like the team that actually did sign Panarin)

Panarin - Fabbri - Tarasenko
Schwartz - Stastny - Perron
Steen - Sobotka - Lehterä
Upshall - Brodziak - Jaskin

I doubt Hawks will let him go, he's valuable player.

 

[KirkOut]

Panarin - Fabbri - Tarasenko
Schwartz - Stastny - Perron
Steen - Sobotka - Lehterä
Upshall - Brodziak - Jaskin

I doubt Hawks will let him go, he's valuable player.

I don't understand. We had Backes and Brouwer in the lineup when the option to sign Panarin was there, plus Berglund. He's on the Blackhawks now, why are we creating a lineup for next season with Panarin in it?

 

[nicholas89alex]

Several thoughts here

First I don't think we ever had a chance to sign vesey and if someone has 0 interest in playing here what do expect army to do? It's similar to Edmonton refusing to trade for shattenkirk when he refused to sign there. They could have tried to convince him but it wouldn't have done anything.

Second college free agents are so over rated. When's the last guy who made a large impact as a college free agent. The big names I remember are Hayes (third liner) and Schultz (barely a NHL dmen)

Third who says panarin would be as good with the blues as he does with Chicago? Kane is one of the best players in the league and works extremely well with panarin. I don't think anyone on the blues would be able to play the same style and doubt hitch would let panarin free the way he was in Chicago.