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AC14

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23 déc. 2022
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Blues de St-Louis
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Forum: Armchair-GM5 janv. à 23 h 6
Forum: Armchair-GM30 déc. 2023 à 17 h 8
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Mergus80</b></div><div>1. MacFarland was at the Blue the Star game on Wednesday, Dec. 27th (according to your best pal Frank)
2. Stars aren’t in a position to sell, so he’s probably looking at the Blue.
3. Colorado is known to be in the market for a 2nd line center as Ryan Johansen isn’t working.
4. St. Louis probably isn’t trading Robert Thomas who’s in year five be of an eight year extension, or Brayden Schenn who was named captain over the summer.
5. Colorado has previous ties to Kevin Hayes, the only other center in St. Louis’s top nine.

Let me know if you need a picture book instead.

Again - I’m not advocating that this would be a good trade for the avalanche. Simply laying out what was reported by a credible writer.</div></div>

You're so angry, its funny. I would have guessed he's your best pal for the way you're offended by my opinion of his work. It's cool to fanboy..
1. GM's scout other teams often, he could just like hockey, or he could be checking in on two teams in his division. The Avs and Stars have made recent trades.
2. GM's make moves to improve their team, not every move is a selling.
3. 2nd line center isn't the only position they're looking to improve. Neither team has a 2c available.
4. Avs couldn't afford one or justify the other.
5. Previous, sure. Never argued that.

I wonder if the blues would be willing to use a retention slot for 3 years when the documented cost is a 6th.

A picture book would offer more in-depth writing than Frank. I appreciate the offer
Forum: Armchair-GM24 déc. 2023 à 17 h 8
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>AC14</b></div><div>Are you aware of who and what Nick Leddy is? Let’s then ask, what about Marco Scandella? How about Tyler Tucker? Maybe Niko Mikkola?

Then let’s add the defensive stalwarts of Brayden Schenn? Kevin Hayes maybe?

Quantifying defense individually is nonsense. All of the top players on most quantified defensive setups are generally on the same team or at least very close to their individual partners.

I’m not advocating the Leafs should take Parayko. I’m advocating that he’s a heck of a lot better than most people who lean on charts versus seeing individual impact give him credit for.

Will his contract be rough towards the last year or two of his deal? Sure. But in the meantime if we aren’t moving the rest of the group that is ensuring he has to be caved in there’s no reason to worry about it at this point in time. We are a 1 line team, with one good defenseman and two pretty solid goalies with a bunch of spare parts that don’t fit.

I’m not saying he’s Cale Makar, but not one of the best 60 defensemen in the league? You can probably make a list of 30-40 that I’d at least entertain.</div></div>


But no no no, we're supposed to take a circular subjective formula of another subjective formula based entirely on a subjective stat, with the player sight unseen! That's the true gospel! Only then can you understand that Timothy Liljegren is damn near an all-star while Parayko is one of the worst players in the league! It's unassailable! :tearsofjoy
Forum: Armchair-GM24 déc. 2023 à 17 h 22
Forum: Armchair-GM4 déc. 2023 à 17 h 56
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>AC14</b></div><div>I took a few things away from this. I think the Kings do still have the culture of winning. Heck Doughty, Kopitar and Quick were some of the faces of those runs they went on. I think this is what pushes them over the edge currently to having them have been extremely successful the past two seasons. I think it's a model that's extremely similar to the Blues model. The outcome is the process of the whole type of situation.

I do agree with you though, I don't really consider them a true top end team. They aren't a Tampa, and barring Byfield ascending to being a true 1C with high end output and Clarke doing the same I don't think they'll get there. But what they do have is an extremely good base that should keep them successful and give them a chance for the next 5, probably 10 years.

I also don't really think the Pacific has been all that great anytime in the recent past. Alot of teams with alot of true issues.

But the good news for them is they have an environment for guys like Byfield and Brandt to be brought into good positions and be the alpha dogs there in the next 2-3 years while winning and doing so. I don't mind Armstrong shooting for this. But I also am not sure it's feasible to avoid the longterm turnaround. One way or another we're going to have to age out the Krug contract, ESPECIALLY if Doug isn't going to play hardball on the NTC.

I'm in a boat that has a pretty large appreciation for Armstrong as the GM and President of Hockey Ops. I think he's very concealed, but also very open and honest about his direction. Has he had some mistakes? For sure. I don't think anyone is going to know what exactly went down with the whole Pietrangelo situation. But that was a major root into the downfall of the roster. Not necessarily just because of the loss of Pietrangelo, but also because of the moves that seemed to be made out of urgency to try and fill the gap.</div></div>

Well the Byfield/Brandt thing, that's more or less what the Blues did with Thomas and Kyrou right? The team was good when those guys were coming up after being mediocre-ish when they were drafted. The Blues just couldn't maintain the momentum. Maybe you can blame some of it on the flat cap but you talk about Pietrangelo leaving- like to me that was just the worst offender of a problem the Blues had for awhile, which is that they seemed to stop understanding what made defensemen valuable, and generally acted very reactively.

- You extend Faulk into his mid thirties when he had never played a game while you're trying to re-sign your captain
- Bouwmeester goes down permanently and your only LHD is Vince Dunn so you panic and extend Scandella in his mid thirties based on 10 games while still trying to re-sign your captain
- Pietrangelo leaves so you panic and extend Krug (never mind that Devon Toews was traded three days later)
- Extend Parayko coming off a back injury until he's 37 because you can't fathom another Pietrangelo situation
- Scandella can't hack top four minutes (who would have thought?) so you panic trade for Leddy (giving away a future top pairing defenseman in the process)

Some of these guys are big. Some of them are small. Some of them are offensive. Some of them not so much. Some of them are puck movers, some not. They're all over the place except for one thing- they're old, and they're as expensive as they'll ever be. And in the meantime they hemorrhage younger guys who would go on to play top pairing minutes on other teams, and look pretty good doing it.

I don't mean to relitigate all this but when it comes to Armstrong- I think he's a decent GM, can't deny the ring, but I do think all GMs have a shelf life, and that timeline of mismanagement on the blue line is pretty damming. And frankly, I like Travis Sanheim but that's another guy signed into oblivion Armstrong supposedly tried to trade for. Not exactly indicative of someone learning their lesson to me. He can be a good GM but also, idk, for me maybe it's time.
Forum: Armchair-GM4 déc. 2023 à 15 h 56
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>AC14</b></div><div>So i did a little bit of brief digging because i was moreso interested in how the Kings exactly went about things because the draft picks the higher ones really have not been a huge factor thus far.

2017-2018 45-29-8 (98 points)
Notable Salaries:
Doughty 11m Thru 25-26 Still Active
Kopitar 10m thru 23-24 Still Active
Quick 5.8m thru 22-23 Traded last deadline
Brown 5.875 thru 21-22 Ran through Expiry
Kovalchuk 6.25 thru 20-21 (Contract Terminated 2019)
Martinez 4m thru 20-21 (Traded 2020 (2 2nd round picks))
Carter 5.275 thru 21-22 (Traded 2021 50% retained on expiring deal for 3rd + 4th)

After this season is when their collapse started equivalent to last season for us. They had made a few small additions in the offseason but nothing big.

2018-2019 31-42-9 (71 points)
extended Walker 2.65 thru 23-24
Maata 3.33 thru 21-22
Kempe 2m x 2
Iafollo 2.425 one year

The following 2 seasons they did largely nothing

2019-2020 29-35-6 (64 points)
No significant adds very similar

2020-2021 (49 points) COVID Year 6th in div
No significant adds very similar

Then this is where they started to be aggressive as there was very limited time on Brown, Maata expiring. Quick couple years left.
2021-2022 (99 points)
Added Danault
Added Arvidsson
added Edler
extended Roy
added Athanasiou
Trevor Moore Bridge
Stetcher minimal contract

Then the next year they added Fiala and that's pretty current to where they stand. Now there was certainly youth that came in to play in this but it wasn't very significant.

Vilardi 54 games 24 points 2020-21, missed most of 21-22, good season last season then traded in PLD trade.
Kalyiev had a pretty minimal contribution in 21-22, .5ppg last season in limited action, this season looks like he's taking another stride.
Byfield hasn't really jumped until this season. Last season wasn't bad.

What can we learn from this?

LAK realized it pretty quickly and started selling - Armstrong did the same this past season with ROR/Barby/Tarasenko

They then went into a holding pattern to let some of the other contracts run out (Brown, Kovalchuk (got lucky here), Carter, Martinez (debatable if it needed to run out wasn't awful), Quick, Kopitar, Doughty). The last two aren't really part of a problem really, just moreso they are running towards the end of their careers so included them.

What do the Blues have in that front that need to run out?
Saad - 3 more at 4.5m
Hayes - 3 more at 3.6m
Schenn - 5 more at 6.5m
Krug - 4 more at 6.5m
Faulk- 4 more at 6.5m
Leddy- 3 more at 4m
Parayko - 7 more at 6.5m
Scandella - Expiring this season not integral.

You can categorize Parayko, and probably Schenn in that moreso Kopitar and Doughty scenario. But they aren't those two. So there's one hurdle to climb. But what is good (Or bad however you view it) is that we essentially already have our Fiala in Kyrou, I would take Thomas' contribution over PLDs as well.

So while we can probably comp to the pieces that LA had we have alot larger of a hill to climb. Meaning I don't really see too well how we are going to start that uptick in year 4 of the retool without additional work (Moving Faulk/Krug). But what is good is the youth injection that we will probably miss out on isn't what turned things around for LA. However, it's highly likely it's going to be what pushes them upwards even more. So do we <em>Need<em> to bottom out? No not necessarily. LA rebounded with mainly young guys who weren't high end talents jumping up and their roles expanding. What worries me is how we're going to navigate adding in supplemental guys - Arvidsson/Iafollo/Danault/ to help push us over the edge if we dont</em></em></div></div>

Nice work! I'm sure that took a long time lol.

Yeah like I said I'm not totally sold on the Kings as like true cup contenders a big reason for that is a lot of their guys are really good but not great. To their credit, they do have a LOT of those really good guys, more than most teams. Kempe/Fiala/Danault/Roy/Gavrikov, even Dubois (maybe at a reduced price)- these are important guys that you have at the top of your lineup. But, I'm not sure they are the ones that are really making it happen in the playoffs. Kopitar/Doughty- still very very good but I'm not sure if they're still at that gamebreaking level. And then the young guys might just be a little too green.

I guess I'm also not looking at the Kings as a roster that's been "successfully" rebuilt. Like they're good this year and they've been decent the last couple of years. But since they won the cup in 2014 this is how it's gone:

14-15 missed playoffs
15-16 lost in first round
16-17 missed playoffs
17-18 lost in first round
18-19 missed playoffs
19-20 missed playoffs
20-21 missed playoffs
21-22 lost in first round
22-23 lost in first round

Maybe you cut them some slack for running into the Oilers twice and obviously there's still a wide range of possibilities for their future but I guess I'm not looking at this rebuild, with a lot of depth, a lot of big names but not a lot of game breaking talent anymore, and being like "woah the Kings!". They've done some good work here and there but they wasted a lot of prime years of Kopitar and Doughty without much direction after the 2nd cup win, then they rebuilt (which was necessary) and by necessity, had to burn more prime years, and now they're good but like I said I don't know that they have what it takes to get past some of the bigger guns in the conference.

So if Armstrong wants to emulate the Kings, I kind of would hope he would aim higher and be more aggressive (in one way or another).