Vote: How do you feel about how the Blues handled Petro?

[Mike Liut]

I wouldn't disagree with that, but I'd also say that over the next 5 years this team is going to trend toward the 7-10 group in the West and be solidly out of the top-4 within 3 years.

I think we are a 100 point these next 5 years.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I think we are a 100 point these next 5 years.

All 5, or average across the 5?

 

[Stelmacki]

I wouldn't disagree with that, but I'd also say that over the next 5 years this team is going to trend toward the 7-10 group in the West and be solidly out of the top-4 within 3 years.

I see Vegas doing the same. Maybe even sooner.

 

[67Blues]

All 5, or average across the 5?

 

[Mike Liut]

All 5, or average across the 5?

All 5

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I see Vegas doing the same. Maybe even sooner.

Perhaps, but to be honest I'm not worried about what Vegas does. I'm worried about how this team navigates ROR and Schenn crossing 30 and any possible (likely) decline in production + any new contract or ROR, Perron's contract expiring and what happens there, Schwartz approaching 30 and what happens there, Tarasenko headed for 30 and what happens there, and our defense that's going to largely be 30+ in a year or two - and all of that potentially creating more holes to fill than we have depth from within.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

All 5

So, every season in the next 5 seasons the Blues will get to 100 points. [Or, assuming a shortened '20-21, they'd prorate out to 100.] Really.

This franchise has done that exactly once [giving credit for prorating '12-13 to a full season], and then '16-17 was 99 points [which is close, but it isn't 100]. That was all with a group that was younger than what we had and was clearly on the rise to in its maturity. This group is at maturity and closer to starting to plateau off and start trending down.

I'd take the under on that. I don't know if we'll do it even 3x, I certainly wouldn't project it'll be more than that even being really optimistic about what we have and what we might add to it.

 

[Blueston]

Perhaps, but to be honest I'm not worried about what Vegas does. I'm worried about how this team navigates ROR and Schenn crossing 30 and any possible (likely) decline in production + any new contract or ROR, Perron's contract expiring and what happens there, Schwartz approaching 30 and what happens there, Tarasenko headed for 30 and what happens there, and our defense that's going to largely be 30+ in a year or two - and all of that potentially creating more holes to fill than we have depth from within.

Valid concern. Going to need guys like Thomas and Kyrou and Dunn (or whomever he is dealt for) to really step up. If our young guys don’t evolve into key parts of core we are gonna look like Chicago in a few years.

 

[TruBlu]

Perhaps, but to be honest I'm not worried about what Vegas does. I'm worried about how this team navigates ROR and Schenn crossing 30 and any possible (likely) decline in production + any new contract or ROR, Perron's contract expiring and what happens there, Schwartz approaching 30 and what happens there, Tarasenko headed for 30 and what happens there, and our defense that's going to largely be 30+ in a year or two - and all of that potentially creating more holes to fill than we have depth from within.

Not to rehash the Petro drama, but why the concern about all of those guys having declining production at 30 and not the same concern for Petro's possible decline? I'd guess that every one of those guys is going to be closer in production to what they are making when it is up in their mid 30's than Petro will at 39. Not trying to start an argument, but for me personally, that was my biggest issue with the contract (structure) he was wanting. I know that you're paying the price later for the production now on a guy like that, but I think at some point you get to a point where you just have to say stop. The affect on the team structure later is more of a detriment than the benefit you get now.

 

[Renard]

It seems to me that Pietrangelo wanted out. If a free agent wants to leave, the team can't do much to keep him here.

We will just have to try to win without him.

 

[GoldenSeal]

Your feelings are valid, but that doesn't mean your conclusions or behaviors based on them are. You're allowed to evaluate your feelings and then change your priorities when you realize they're causing you to make bizarre decisions.

The Blues decided to hamstring themselves by not guaranteeing Pie. Yes, Army wants to make a competitive team but obviously he has no idea what to do once he’s got a winner. Let quality leave, sign quantity. That’s not the sign of a winner and I’m sorry this team won in spite of Army; called up a rookie goaltender, a coach with very little experience and a team that became united over Gloria. Army’s moves were made out of desperation. If you thank anyone for our Cup, you start with the Captain, who you just let walk and signed players to long term deals who will decline much faster than Pie.

Army’s a guy I REALLY want to like. He’s brought some serious pieces that helped bring the Cup home but that team was dead in December and That -team- got up, fought and won, not Army. For every elite he’s signed, he’s signed mediocre players by the dozen. I’m starting to understand why Dallas fired him, hell, if the team tanked last season, I doubt he’d still be GM at this point. And that’s the point. The team saved his job. And I’m sitting here watching him slowly dismantle the team that did.

And that’s ok with so many of you. Any other fan base would want his head, GM or not. I don’t get it.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

There are some caveats, but I found it interesting that Dom’s model loves the value on Krug’s contract a lot better than Pietro’s. (-0.6M vs +14.1M). His model is pretty high on Krug period. The other interesting point is that he is forecasting them both to have very similar impact in number of wins. (This is from his article on free agent signings that keeps getting updated.)

I know, I know, it’s just a statistical model and doesn’t account for things like role on the team, pairings or usage.

But it made me wonder what metrics and models the Blues are using to gauge Pietro’s (and every other player’s) value and projected decline.

 

[Frenzy31]

I wouldn't disagree with that, but I'd also say that over the next 5 years this team is going to trend toward the 7-10 group in the West and be solidly out of the top-4 within 3 years.

I think that is very fair comment. But I don't think that would have changed with Pie being part of the team either (minus Krug or Faulk or both). Our window is open now and for the next 2-3 years. I don't see us doing much beyond that.

I do wonder if DA is looking to put an emphasis on Depth. If you look at it this way, it is essentially Krug and Fault for Pie and Eddy. But who really knows.

 

[Ranksu]

It seems to me that Pietrangelo wanted out. If a free agent wants to leave, the team can't do much to keep him here.

We will just have to try to win without him.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Not to rehash the Petro drama, but why the concern about all of those guys having declining production at 30 and not the same concern for Petro's possible decline? I'd guess that every one of those guys is going to be closer in production to what they are making when it is up in their mid 30's than Petro will at 39. Not trying to start an argument, but for me personally, that was my biggest issue with the contract (structure) he was wanting. I know that you're paying the price later for the production now on a guy like that, but I think at some point you get to a point where you just have to say stop. The affect on the team structure later is more of a detriment than the benefit you get now.

I've never said (and never will say) there wasn't concern with a decline in Pietrangelo's performance, or that he's going to be worth $8.8M at age 38. I and others have said that like it or not, the market says Pietrangelo is getting somewhere past $8 million per year whether it makes sense or not; it's up to the Blues to decide whether they think they can replace that with someone else and any gap between Pietrangelo and his replacement will be minimal or manageable.

Even a Pietrangelo at 50% of what he currently is will still be a better player than Mikkola, Reinke, Tucker, Walman, and any other defenseman we have in system whose last name isn't Perunovich when they're in their prime. Unless there's some uber-secret plan to land a defenseman in the next year or two who's going to be a late-1st to late-2nd pick who's going to have explosive development and be the next Erik Karlsson or even P.K. Subban, you have to have a plan for replacing him that makes us better - and I don't know that a 2-year younger player who's smaller and plays a more physical game is it, even at a ~$2 million savings.

That's what we've been going around about for a while, and probably will for several years until it's really clear which decision was the right one absent a catastrophic injury that renders comparisons useless. If the argument is "we shouldn't keep Pietrangelo, he's old and going to decline" then it implicitly argues that as other guys start to come up, they also have a limit as to how far they should be extended and there's a less-than-market price that they should be paid accordingly for only expected performance. I think in those cases, people should be prepared to argue yeah, he's productive now, but he won't be at some point in the future - cut bait, even if we don't have anything in the system to replace it; we'll find it somewhere in the FA market or trade stuff away to get it.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

In response to something earlier: there's a poll up. Go cast your vote, if you dare - or don't, if you don't.

St. Louis Blues: How many times 100+ points the next 5 seasons?

 

[blues80]

I hope he doesn't give O'Reilly a no movement clause on his next contact

 

[TruBlu]

I hope he doesn't give O'Reilly a no movement clause on his next contact

I doubt he gives him one for the entirety of a lengthy contract. I heard DA make the comment in one of the interviews he did that he isn't going to give the player more power than the owner of the team has. DA seems to always want options to deal with declining contracts. I personally prefer that route myself, although there are several others on here that don't. Either way has risk. On one hand, you risk a player walking (Petro), although it's not clear that was the sole reason he did. On the other hand you have the ability to move/buy out contracts for players that are hampering acquiring positions of need once they've declined. I've always personally felt that making it to the playoffs was always the most important thing. Just getting in gives you a shot. There's no guarantee that locking up a few guys for a window of a few years will guarantee you a cup. This team has been pretty consistently competitive for DA's time here.

 

[Ranksu]

I hope he doesn't give O'Reilly a no movement clause on his next contact

I think ROR is out what he saw what happened with Blues previous captains, Backes and Pietro.

ROR doesn't deserve NMC. He is my favourite Blues player, not that much of merits to complete that in Blues. You can't even compare ROR vs. Pietro. Pietro was drafted here, franchise face, winner captain. You draft that kind of player once of half century.

 

[Brian39]

Nope sorry not me. I'm going to treat Faulk and Krug like Eric Brewer. They both costed us our best defenceman. Sorry not sorry.

This is a brutal take.

Every player in the league should take a good contract offered to them. There should be zero expectation that a player from outside the organization should look at a contract offer and say "boy, this might cost that team player X so I should counter with a lower offer."

Be pissed at Army, but don't be one of those ass hats that boos the new player because of it. The organization made the decisions of how to allocate cap dollars. That is on them, not the players who they gave those dollars to.

 

[Brian39]

He is a DEFENSEman. Operable term, defense. He is absolutely trash all but the 2 minutes a game he is on the PP. The other 15+ minutes he absolutely has to be carried. I wish I had a job where I could be utter garbage for 80%+ of the time and still get paid millions.

"BOOOO!!!!! BOOOOOO! Krug you suck. Go back to Boston". Getting my practice in. It has nothing to do with Pietrangelo. I don't want him on this team regardless.

I have been among the most critical of Krug's defensive ability, but this isn't even close to the reality of what he brings to the table.

He isn't elite offensively at 5 on 5 and he is below average defensively at 5 on 5. But he isn't complete garbage at that time either. He was 42nd among NHL D men in even strength scoring last year and is 28th over the last 3 years combined. That is not top-end level production, but it is still pretty damn good. I don't think using him instead of Petro improves our ability to push offense at 5 on 5 because Petro was borderline elite at that skill. Krug can be (and in fact is) very good at driving 5 on 5 offense and not be better than Petro.

His overall defense is well below average, but when combined with his good-to-very-good (but not elite) offense at 5 on 5, he is a decent even strength D man. Despite all his defensive deficiencies he still has good possession numbers, good GF%, good expected GF% and produces enough points to largely offset the defensive lapses.

He is much closer to "good" than "garbage" at 5 on 5. I don't think his strengths fit the needs of our roster very well and because of that I don't like the contract all that much (unless we can quickly adjust the rest of our roster to turn his strengths into something we need while filling out current weaknesses*). But this "he sucks completely at 5 on 5" narrative isn't accurate. He is a large downgrade from Petro, his greatest strengths don't address an area of significant roster need and his greatest weaknesses come in areas where we needed to upgrade instead of downgrade. But none of that means he is garbage.

Edit to expand on the sentence I starred. I think Boston's usage of Krug is largely ideal. Shelter him at 5 on 5 although I don't think he needs to be sheltered as aggressively as they did. I think you can build a damn good team around Krug in that role at $6.5M per year. The problem is that in order to do that, you can't also be paying $6.5M to Faulk. If you are committing this type of money to a one dimensional D man (who is genuinely elite at that one dimension), then you need to consciously build the rest of your D with that in mind. You can build a very good blue line around Krug at $6.5M per year, but not when you are also tying up $6.5M in Faulk.

 

[Majorityof1]

I have been among the most critical of Krug's defensive ability, but this isn't even close to the reality of what he brings to the table.

He isn't elite offensively at 5 on 5 and he is below average defensively at 5 on 5. But he isn't complete garbage at that time either. He was 42nd among NHL D men in even strength scoring last year and is 28th over the last 3 years combined. That is not top-end level production, but it is still pretty damn good. I don't think using him instead of Petro improves our ability to push offense at 5 on 5 because Petro was borderline elite at that skill. Krug can be (and in fact is) very good at driving 5 on 5 offense and not be better than Petro.

His overall defense is well below average, but when combined with his good-to-very-good (but not elite) offense at 5 on 5, he is a decent even strength D man. Despite all his defensive deficiencies he still has good possession numbers, good GF%, good expected GF% and produces enough points to largely offset the defensive lapses.

He is much closer to "good" than "garbage" at 5 on 5. I don't think his strengths fit the needs of our roster very well and because of that I don't like the contract all that much (unless we can quickly adjust the rest of our roster to turn his strengths into something we need while filling out current weaknesses*). But this "he sucks completely at 5 on 5" narrative isn't accurate. He is a large downgrade from Petro, his greatest strengths don't address an area of significant roster need and his greatest weaknesses come in areas where we needed to upgrade instead of downgrade. But none of that means he is garbage.

Edit to expand on the sentence I starred. I think Boston's usage of Krug is largely ideal. Shelter him at 5 on 5 although I don't think he needs to be sheltered as aggressively as they did. I think you can build a damn good team around Krug in that role at $6.5M per year. The problem is that in order to do that, you can't also be paying $6.5M to Faulk. If you are committing this type of money to a one dimensional D man (who is genuinely elite at that one dimension), then you need to consciously build the rest of your D with that in mind. You can build a very good blue line around Krug at $6.5M per year, but not when you are also tying up $6.5M in Faulk.

He is sheltered getting 65+% offensive Zone starts and being strapped to a very good defender in Carlo 5v5. That is what it took to bring his stats up to respectable. That means without heavy sheltering, he would be garbage. Who are we strapping to him to help make up for his defensive deficiencies? Parayko? Ok, then who is getting the defensive zone starts? Right. We do not have a Carlo and a McAvoy to carry Krug's GARBAGE defensive zone play. We have Parayko and..that's it. Parayko can either cover for Krug or carry the defensive weight in the toughest situations. He can't do both.

Edit: Even you are saying we need to build the rest of the defense to cover for his defensive deficiencies. How is that not garbage defensive play when it takes 5 other guys to cover for how bad 1 guy is? Of course you can build a good D with one guy who is garbage at D but really good at offense (elite would put up more than 60 points given the PP time on that PP and the O-zone starts). But we don't have that D group to do it. We have too many other guys who also need to be sheltered to make it remotely possible to build that type of D in any easy or quick manner. As constructed his garbage defense is going to hurt us a lot more than his good offense will help us. That isn't even getting in to how our forwards are not constructed to take advantage of his quick strike skills.

 

[blues80]

I think ROR is out what he saw what happened with Blues previous captains, Backes and Pietro.

ROR doesn't deserve NMC. He is my favourite Blues player, not that much of merits to complete that in Blues. You can't even compare ROR vs. Pietro. Pietro was drafted here, franchise face, winner captain. You draft that kind of player once of half century.

Agree completely I'm not a ror fan but giving him one and not petro I'd have serious problems

 

[Brian39]

He is sheltered getting 65+% offensive Zone starts and being strapped to a very good defender in Carlo 5v5. That is what it took to bring his stats up to respectable. That means without heavy sheltering, he would be garbage. Who are we strapping to him to help make up for his defensive deficiencies? Parayko? Ok, then who is getting the defensive zone starts? Right. We do not have a Carlo and a McAvoy to carry Krug's GARBAGE defensive zone play. We have Parayko and..that's it. Parayko can either cover for Krug or carry the defensive weight in the toughest situations. He can't do both.

Edit: Even you are saying we need to build the rest of the defense to cover for his defensive deficiencies. How is that not garbage defensive play when it takes 5 other guys to cover for how bad 1 guy is? Of course you can build a good D with one guy who is garbage at D but really good at offense (elite would put up more than 60 points given the PP time on that PP and the O-zone starts). But we don't have that D group to do it. We have too many other guys who also need to be sheltered to make it remotely possible to build that type of D in any easy or quick manner. As constructed his garbage defense is going to hurt us a lot more than his good offense will help us. That isn't even getting in to how our forwards are not constructed to take advantage of his quick strike skills.

This is just not even remotely true. His stats were better before he was played with Carlo regularly.

In 2013/14 he was a +18 and he played 200+ minutes with each of Millar, McQuaid and Boychuck. He had a GF% of 59% and an expected GF% of 55%. His offensive zone start percentage was 65%.

In 2014/15 he was a +13 and he played 200+ minutes with each of Millar, McQuiad and Seidenberg. He had a GF% of 58 and an expected GF% of 53%. His offensive zone start percentage was 60%.

In 2015/16 he was a +9 and he only played 200+ minutes with each of Millar and McQuiad. He had a GF% of 56% and an expected GF of 49%. His offensive zone start percentage was 53%.

In 2016/17 he was -10 and was partnered almost exclusively with McQuiad. He had a GF% of 47% and an expected GF% of 57%. Interestingly enough, this was the first season he ever played with Carlo. They played 130 minutes together and had terrible outcomes even though they had good underlying metrics. They allowed 7 goals while scoring only 1, despite starting in the offensive zone 70% of the time and having an expected GF% of 57%. In his time paired with McQuiad, Krug saw a GF% of 47% with an expected GF% of 55% and starting in the offensive zone 55% of the time. In year 1, Krug's numbers took a noticeable hit when paired with Carlo.

In 2017/18 he was an even 0 and played 200+ minutes with Carlo and McQuaid (he played with Carlo for triple the minutes though). He had a GF% of 53% and an expected GF% of 55%. He started 65% of shits in the offensive zone.

In 2018/19 he was -2 and Carlo was the only guy he played 200+ minutes with (although he had 100+ minutes with 3 other guys and another 85 minutes with McAvoy). He had a GF% of of 58% and an expected GF % of 54%. He started 66% of shifts in the offensive zone. His GF% was higher during the 222 minutes he played with Connor Clifton and Kevan Miller than it was when he was paired with Carlo (although it was 59% or better with all 3). It was slightly worse in the 85 minutes he played with McAvoy (57%). He was awful when paired with Moore.

Last year he was -4 and again played the majority of his minutes with Carlo. However, in the 175 minutes he played with McAvoy he had a slightly better GF% (60% to 57%) and a substantially better expected GF% (62% to 49%) than he did when paired with Carlo.

His underlying numbers are worse with Carlo than they were before Carlo broke into the organization. His underlying numbers for the last couple years have been worse with Carlo than they have been when he is paired with other D men on the Bruins. There is absolutely nothing true about the claim that Carlo has dragging him around the ice or that his underlying metrics were poor before they got a guy like Carlo to prop him up. If anything, there is evidence to the contrary.

Krug absolutely needs to be sheltered with zone usage because his defense is not good. But his defense isn't even remotely as bad as you make it out to be. Throughout his career he has consistently helped score more or break even while he is on the ice at even strength, regardless of who he is paired with.

I have been very vocal that I don't think $6.5M is a good use of our cap space for him because our blueline isn't built properly to support what he brings to the table. I agree with you that he isn't good defensively, but he isn't close to the black hole at 5 on 5 you believe he is. There is a huge range of data points between "garbage who is a complete liability" and "average defensively." Krug falls between those two points and is closer to the latter than the former.

Frankly, the bulk of his underlying numbers suggest that him and Dunn are extraordinarily similar defensively at even strength. They need to be sheltered in terms of usage, but can be effective defensively in that role so long as their partner is a replacement level defensive minded D man. I think Krug would do very well at 5 on 5 with a guy like Bortuzzo.

 

[blues80]

So u think it's smart to let a top dman in the whole league go that u drafted