wannabebluesplayer wrote:
This summer will be very interesting. If I'm Armstrong, you offer LV one of your first rounders to take Lehtera off the Blues hands. That contract is manageable for them. Keep him two years, then dump him. Blues need to find a way to pick up another top scoring player, hopefully center. I think there will be ones available, but DA needs to be willing to make a shrewd move. Maybe lose 2 NHL players to get a top tier one.

I agree with giving Vegas an incentive to take Lehtera......but I think a 1st rounder, even a late one, is too much. Who knows what the going rate is, though - going to have to wait and see one of those deals go down before we know what the cost would be.

I would rather see the Blues look at packaging those two first rounders and moving up in the 1st round, or using them as part of a trade for a current NHL player.

wannabebluesplayer wrote:
This summer will be very interesting. If I'm Armstrong, you offer LV one of your first rounders to take Lehtera off the Blues hands. That contract is manageable for them. Keep him two years, then dump him. Blues need to find a way to pick up another top scoring player, hopefully center. I think there will be ones available, but DA needs to be willing to make a shrewd move. Maybe lose 2 NHL players to get a top tier one.

That's an insanely high price to unload a player. It won't take anywhere near that if they need to dump him. He was bad this year, but he can be a useful, responsible player.

T.C. wrote:does yeo keep petro as captain?

I don't know why he would, PETRO NEVER PUNCHES ANYONE!!!!!!!

Looking at how our roster falls for the expansion draft, now that we have Sobotka:

Protected:

Forwards (7):
Tarasenko
Schwartz
Steen
Stastny
Sobotka
Berglund
Perron

Defensemen (3):
Pietrangelo
Bouwmeester
Edmundson

Goaltender (1):
Allen

Exempt:

Forwards:
Fabbri
Barbashev
Sanford

Defensemen:
Parayko (RFA)
Schmaltz

Who could be taken...:

Forwards:
Lehtera
Reaves
Brodziak
Paajarvi (RFA)
Yakupov (RFA)
Jaskin

Defensemen:
Gunnarsson
Bortuzzo
Lindbohm (RFA) (I think)

Goaltender:
Hutton

Upshall is our only UFA. Now that we have Sobotka, I think its pretty clear who gets protected. I'd love to acquire a RW like Silfverberg though, protect him and expose Perron. As it stands now, I'd guess Jaskin, Paajarvi, or Gunnarsson gets taken.

i'd keep brodziak, jaskin, or reaves over perron given his playoff performance.

Add Edmundson to the list of pleasant surprises this season, and especially the postseason. To me, even more than the unexpected offensive production, he never looked overwhelmed or outmatched in the playoffs. The two second year defensemen are major pluses for the future.

Dave's a mess wrote:Add Edmundson to the list of pleasant surprises this season, and especially the postseason. To me, even more than the unexpected offensive production, he never looked overwhelmed or outmatched in the playoffs. The two second year defensemen are major pluses for the future.

Fully agree. He had a bit of a deer in headlights look to him in last year's playoffs, and he stepped it up big time this year. That's a big plus for the Blues.

I think it will be interesting to see if in the season-end presser Army/Yeo say "we got beat by a team that really plays the way the NHL is heading now, lots of offense from defenseman, and we need to adjust our style to play that way" to continue the trend of Blues trying to react/change style to whatever team beat them in the playoffs.

over/under on how many times "reckless" is used.

Beatoni12 wrote:

wannabebluesplayer wrote:
This summer will be very interesting. If I'm Armstrong, you offer LV one of your first rounders to take Lehtera off the Blues hands. That contract is manageable for them. Keep him two years, then dump him. Blues need to find a way to pick up another top scoring player, hopefully center. I think there will be ones available, but DA needs to be willing to make a shrewd move. Maybe lose 2 NHL players to get a top tier one.

That's an insanely high price to unload a player. It won't take anywhere near that if they need to dump him. He was bad this year, but he can be a useful, responsible player.

I think you're probably right, maybe it only is a 2nd rounder or maybe 3rd. I would just be desperate to get rid of him. Blues have better, younger, faster players available. Lehtera is a serviceable player, but at 4.7 mil a year, that's quite expensive for "serviceable". I also don't believe Armstrong would ever consider a buyout.

Outside of trading a pick or player as incentive to take Lehtera, I think the only other option is salary retained trade. If you do that, say around 35% retained, there might be a few teams interested in him.

wannabebluesplayer wrote:

Beatoni12 wrote:
That's an insanely high price to unload a player. It won't take anywhere near that if they need to dump him. He was bad this year, but he can be a useful, responsible player.

I think you're probably right, maybe it only is a 2nd rounder or maybe 3rd. I would just be desperate to get rid of him. Blues have better, younger, faster players available. Lehtera is a serviceable player, but at 4.7 mil a year, that's quite expensive for "serviceable". I also don't believe Armstrong would ever consider a buyout.

For sure. I'm all for unloading him, even if we have to give something to do it. There's absolutely no way this team should have Lehtera, Berglund and Sobotka on this team next year.

Just saw some LeBrun tweets about Vegas/expansion that I didn't know about.

There will be a window (NHL still trying to figure out when it will be) that Vegas will have before the draft to negotiate with and sign team's unprotected RFAs and UFAs. Vegas would be able to sign a player that meets that criteria to play for them at that would count as there selection from that team. It doesn't require an offer sheet and the team doesn't get any compensation that they usually would if one of there RFAs gets signed from them.

I suppose this is more of a safety net type thing to make sure the RFA (as I see it being used more for RFAs than UFAs) would be willing to sign in the price range Vegas desires.

UMSLBlues12 wrote:I think it will be interesting to see if in the season-end presser Army/Yeo say "we got beat by a team that really plays the way the NHL is heading now, lots of offense from defenseman, and we need to adjust our style to play that way" to continue the trend of Blues trying to react/change style to whatever team beat them in the playoffs.

I agree with this in part. We got beat playing a very simple game and not much of a team identity. Give Yeo this offseason to come up with a system and training camp to implement that system. With his communication skills and the respect he has from the players I expect them to be much better next year, especially with a healthy Fabbri and a more seasoned captain.

I'm sure this was tongue-in-cheek as far as trying to copy the Preds defense. That's not completely realistic. But I'm sure Yeo is smart enough to come up with something that better suits our roster. And like I said, he's also a great communicator so the "buy-in" might not be so difficult as it was with Hitch.

T.C. wrote:over/under on how many times "feckless" is used.

FIFY. Let the betting begin.

blueslifer wrote:

UMSLBlues12 wrote:I think it will be interesting to see if in the season-end presser Army/Yeo say "we got beat by a team that really plays the way the NHL is heading now, lots of offense from defenseman, and we need to adjust our style to play that way" to continue the trend of Blues trying to react/change style to whatever team beat them in the playoffs.

I agree with this in part. We got beat playing a very simple game and not much of a team identity. Give Yeo this offseason to come up with a system and training camp to implement that system. With his communication skills and the respect he has from the players I expect them to be much better next year, especially with a healthy Fabbri and a more seasoned captain.

I'm sure this was tongue-in-cheek as far as trying to copy the Preds defense. That's not completely realistic. But I'm sure Yeo is smart enough to come up with something that better suits our roster. And like I said, he's also a great communicator so the "buy-in" might not be so difficult as it was with Hitch.

Yeah, we need an identity. The part about copying the Preds was tongue in cheek--after the Kings beat us two years in a row, Hitch/Army said (paraphrasing) "we need to be bigger and more punishing." Then when the Hawks and Wild beat us, we needed to be "faster and reckless."

re: questions on identity - hence my question, will yeo keep petro as C. i'm a believer that the teams takes on the identity of their captain, and other than one game in the MN series, petro was his usual even-keel self. which is how we pretty much played.

Beatoni12 wrote:

wannabebluesplayer wrote:

Beatoni12 wrote:
That's an insanely high price to unload a player. It won't take anywhere near that if they need to dump him. He was bad this year, but he can be a useful, responsible player.

I think you're probably right, maybe it only is a 2nd rounder or maybe 3rd. I would just be desperate to get rid of him. Blues have better, younger, faster players available. Lehtera is a serviceable player, but at 4.7 mil a year, that's quite expensive for "serviceable". I also don't believe Armstrong would ever consider a buyout.

For sure. I'm all for unloading him, even if we have to give something to do it. There's absolutely no way this team should have Lehtera, Berglund and Sobotka on this team next year.

I thought Vlad II played well in his return I think he should stick around, Berglund, well let's see if he was hurt before we send the last remnant of the boy band packing. There were times this year when he was the only one who played well. Lehtera, bye bye, I don't think anyone can justify his contract to play ratio.

There is seemingly a lot of dead weight or duplicate weight on this roster heading into next season.

Some fat needs to be trimmed. I don't want to see relatively the same lineup that ended this season, starting next.

yeo on steen:

“He was a warrior for us,” Blues coach Mike Yeo said. “He’s been a great leader and a great warrior for us and obviously a lot of credit to him for not just playing tonight. Being inside and knowing what he’s going through, just to put his skate on and to get on the ice, it’s pretty impressive. It’s a real good leadership message and a message to what we’re trying to do as far as a culture here. He’s obviously laying it on the line and sacrificing whatever he can for his teammates and again that’s what leadership is.”

sounds like he thinks steen is a good leader. i know not all leaders wear the C, but again, i just wonder.

T.C. wrote:yeo on steen:

“He was a warrior for us,” Blues coach Mike Yeo said. “He’s been a great leader and a great warrior for us and obviously a lot of credit to him for not just playing tonight. Being inside and knowing what he’s going through, just to put his skate on and to get on the ice, it’s pretty impressive. It’s a real good leadership message and a message to what we’re trying to do as far as a culture here. He’s obviously laying it on the line and sacrificing whatever he can for his teammates and again that’s what leadership is.”

sounds like he thinks steen is a good leader. i know not all leaders wear the C, but again, i just wonder.

I was listening to an interview with Chase and he said that on the plane home, Steen asked someone (it may have been Chase, it may have been someone else, I honestly don't remember) if he hurt the team by playing in game 6. I can't honestly say the results would have different if someone else was in there, but I sure as hell appreciate the fact that he is aware of the situation and was bothered by the fact that he may have hurt the team by playing.

@jprutherford wrote:Yakupov acknowledges he had surgery, ending his season.

huh. i thought it was his play that ended his season.

stlblues1226 wrote:

T.C. wrote:yeo on steen:

“He was a warrior for us,” Blues coach Mike Yeo said. “He’s been a great leader and a great warrior for us and obviously a lot of credit to him for not just playing tonight. Being inside and knowing what he’s going through, just to put his skate on and to get on the ice, it’s pretty impressive. It’s a real good leadership message and a message to what we’re trying to do as far as a culture here. He’s obviously laying it on the line and sacrificing whatever he can for his teammates and again that’s what leadership is.”

sounds like he thinks steen is a good leader. i know not all leaders wear the C, but again, i just wonder.

I was listening to an interview with Chase and he said that on the plane home, Steen asked someone (it may have been Chase, it may have been someone else, I honestly don't remember) if he hurt the team by playing in game 6. I can't honestly say the results would have different if someone else was in there, but I sure as hell appreciate the fact that he is aware of the situation and was bothered by the fact that he may have hurt the team by playing.

The only person who was a liability out there was Perron...bad penalties...no speed...shooting when he should have passed the puck. Yeo should have played #56.

Yeo: "There was never a time when I felt guys weren't giving enough to each other or to the cause."

Man, is that something different to hear. Yeo clearly deals with player psychology different than Hitch, who would right now be talking about "not enough guys buying in" or "too many passengers" etc

Bordeur will hire new goalie coach, and he's going back to AGM role