Blues rumors?

[Cahokanut]

I heard a rumour that Army can't pull off a deal for a young 2c
And that's why we are again(year 5) talking about old guys we hope can fill 3rd line center.

We are not a small contender with Schenn at 2c. If we are not going to build a cup contender. We need a lottery pick next year.

Already tanking a season before free agency? Thats gotta be a record for a playoff caliber team

No such thing as tanking.
It's just a word that people use to make another's argument look weak.
And again. We are not even a small contender without filling that second line center hole.

[IsDurbanodoingtime]

Not a rumor, but the Devils are not qualifying cody glass and his 2.5 mil aav. A center who is a 50 percent faceoff guy. A bottom 6 guy but worth consideration.

[moose-and-squirrel]

if you want a lottery pick, you're tanking.. because there's too much talent on this team to lose enuff games for a lottery pick

that being said, I believe STL will be fine with Schenn being the 2C for another year.would be awful nice to find a Bozak type player for 3C tho

Faksa is close to being that type player. could he fill the 3C for a year?

[TheJackBurton]

Granlund is NOT a Monty player.
His defense is brutal…..he doesn’t play it.

This. We need a center who is defensively elite, even at the cost of offense. Thomas is not strong defensively as a 1C so we have historically had trouble matching him with Kyrou who is also not strong defensively. Plus, some of our young players like Bolduc, Snuggs,and Dvorsky are more offense first and their defense has not yet matured. We need a strong defensive, veteran center.

I wish we would have found a way to hang on to Barbashev as at $5M per year he is under a team friendly contract. He now plays wing mainly with Eichel though, but he is defensively very solid.

I don't believe that is accurate.

[moose-and-squirrel]

Granlund is NOT a Monty player.
His defense is brutal…..he doesn’t play it.

This. We need a center who is defensively elite, even at the cost of offense. Thomas is not strong defensively as a 1C so we have historically had trouble matching him with Kyrou who is also not strong defensively. Plus, some of our young players like Bolduc, Snuggs,and Dvorsky are more offense first and their defense has not yet matured. We need a strong defensive, veteran center.

I wish we would have found a way to hang on to Barbashev as at $5M per year he is under a team friendly contract. He now plays wing mainly with Eichel though, but he is defensively very solid.

I don't believe that is accurate.

you're correct.. it's not

[kimzey59]

From DA interview after the season he mentioned a 200 ft player who could add scoring. Do we see Granlund as a 200 ft player? I hope the Blues don't go in that direction. I also doubt that he signs for less than 3 years.

Granlund gets regular PK time(1:57 per game in SJ, tied for 2nd most among Sharks forwards; 51 seconds per game in Dallas(the #4 PK unit in the League last year), #6 among Stars forwards despite only playing 31 games for them), so he clearly isn't an outright liability on defense(despite the narrative).

He's certainly not what you'd call a "shutdown" center, but he's not the 1-dimensional player some people are making him out to be.

This. We need a center who is defensively elite, even at the cost of offense. Thomas is not strong defensively as a 1C so we have historically had trouble matching him with Kyrou who is also not strong defensively. Plus, some of our young players like Bolduc, Snuggs,and Dvorsky are more offense first and their defense has not yet matured. We need a strong defensive, veteran center.

I wish we would have found a way to hang on to Barbashev as at $5M per year he is under a team friendly contract. He now plays wing mainly with Eichel though, but he is defensively very solid.

I don't agree with this take at all.
If you want a defensive center, you roll Sunny and Faksa back out there for another year. All those guys can do at this point is play defense.

We don't need a defensively elite center; we need an offensive center so we can actually roll a 3-line attack.
What we need is somebody that can actually make an effective line with Neighbours and Bolduc. Whether that's by gelling with those two outright or by knocking Schenn down a line. We need that 3rd line to be a legit threat, otherwise we're at the same place we are right now. One injury to our top 4 forwards(Thomas, Kyrou, Holloway, Buch) and our offense is toast.

I'm not super fixated on Granlund, but he checks a LOT of the boxes for what we need.

[wiscrev]

I heard a rumour that Army can't pull off a deal for a young 2c
And that's why we are again(year 5) talking about old guys we hope can fill 3rd line center.

We are not a small contender with Schenn at 2c. If we are not going to build a cup contender. We need a lottery pick next year.

Already tanking a season before free agency? Thats gotta be a record for a playoff caliber team

Consider the source----our old friend the Troll.

[kimzey59]

Not a rumor, but the Devils are not qualifying cody glass and his 2.5 mil aav. A center who is a 50 percent faceoff guy. A bottom 6 guy but worth consideration.

Not really.
We'd be better off keeping Faksa.

[STL fan in MN]

Granlund will score points but he’s also not great defensively so in the end, how much would he actually help the team? He’s also poor on face offs, undersized, better on the wing and my guess is he’ll cost around $5M/year.

My preferred route is probably via trade (someone already signed to a respecta me AAV) but the one UFA center I’d be interested in would be Christian Dvorak. Not a sexy name and he’d be more a 3C than a 2C but he’s quite good defensively and likely wouldn’t cost much. Would or at least should be a good upgrade on Sunny as 3C. And if they’re going to pair this guy with Bolduc, a defensively responsible C could really help that line.

[stljrs]

Have to think he’d check into Pius Suter. Classic 3rd line center that could rotate to 2 if needed. Great complement to our young wingers. Still reasonably young. Would be big upgrade over Sunny. Faksa is a 4th line guy only. Nothing wrong with that at the right price. Adds size and FOs.

[DawgDad]

From DA interview after the season he mentioned a 200 ft player who could add scoring. Do we see Granlund as a 200 ft player? I hope the Blues don't go in that direction. I also doubt that he signs for less than 3 years.

Granlund gets regular PK time(1:57 per game in SJ, tied for 2nd most among Sharks forwards; 51 seconds per game in Dallas(the #4 PK unit in the League last year), #6 among Stars forwards despite only playing 31 games for them), so he clearly isn't an outright liability on defense(despite the narrative).

He's certainly not what you'd call a "shutdown" center, but he's not the 1-dimensional player some people are making him out to be.

This. We need a center who is defensively elite, even at the cost of offense. Thomas is not strong defensively as a 1C so we have historically had trouble matching him with Kyrou who is also not strong defensively. Plus, some of our young players like Bolduc, Snuggs,and Dvorsky are more offense first and their defense has not yet matured. We need a strong defensive, veteran center.

I wish we would have found a way to hang on to Barbashev as at $5M per year he is under a team friendly contract. He now plays wing mainly with Eichel though, but he is defensively very solid.

I don't agree with this take at all.
If you want a defensive center, you roll Sunny and Faksa back out there for another year. All those guys can do at this point is play defense.

We don't need a defensively elite center; we need an offensive center so we can actually roll a 3-line attack.
What we need is somebody that can actually make an effective line with Neighbours and Bolduc. Whether that's by gelling with those two outright or by knocking Schenn down a line. We need that 3rd line to be a legit threat, otherwise we're at the same place we are right now. One injury to our top 4 forwards(Thomas, Kyrou, Holloway, Buch) and our offense is toast.

I'm not super fixated on Granlund, but he checks a LOT of the boxes for what we need.

^^ this ^^

[kimzey59]

Have to think he’d check into Pius Suter. Classic 3rd line center that could rotate to 2 if needed. Great complement to our young wingers. Still reasonably young. Would be big upgrade over Sunny. Faksa is a 4th line guy only. Nothing wrong with that at the right price. Adds size and FOs.

Not opposed to Suter but it depends on what his asking price is. I really do not want to go 4.5-5 mil for a guy like that. He had a career year in his UFA season and nothing in his history suggests that he can repeat it. IF the asking price is in line with other 3rd line centers, I'd be interested. But I'm not paying him as a 40 point forward.

[netboy65]

I heard a rumour that Army can't pull off a deal for a young 2c
And that's why we are again(year 5) talking about old guys we hope can fill 3rd line center.

We are not a small contender with Schenn at 2c. If we are not going to build a cup contender. We need a lottery pick next year.

Pray tell. Where did this “rumor” come from?

So it’s all or nothing? Cup or Lottery? We were 1.6 seconds away from round 2 with last year’s team and looking at how things turned out it would have been interesting to see how it would have played out with us in the mix. You don’t just bag that and hope for a lotto pick greenie.

That rumour has been going around. I think it will be on his statue....

Cup or lottery, makes a good slogan. But if we are not building for a cup. We need to be looking at the future. A lottery in next year's draft sets the future up to being contenders. Instead of riding the bubble for another old guys no move contract. We need to keep building with youth. Whether that's a young center traded for, or a elite out of next year's draft.

About those two seconds. Let talk 2 minutes. I wouldn't be bragging about losing against probably the worse playoff goalie, at the time.
We wasn't, aren't, won't be a second round team. We are a bubble team that can go as far as Binny can take us.

Ah the dreaded “going around”. No actual link as I suspected.
Even if he doesn’t score one this offseason, I suspect that it would be because once teams have one they’re loathe to let them go.
Binny took us all the way to a Cup so I don’t see round 2 as a particular challenge.
Ok, I’ve fed you enough, back under your bridge.

[seattleblue]

I heard a rumour that Army can't pull off a deal for a young 2c
And that's why we are again(year 5) talking about old guys we hope can fill 3rd line center.

We are not a small contender with Schenn at 2c. If we are not going to build a cup contender. We need a lottery pick next year.

Already tanking a season before free agency? Thats gotta be a record for a playoff caliber team

No such thing as tanking.
It's just a word that people use to make another's argument look weak.
And again. We are not even a small contender without filling that second line center hole.

Reaching a lottery pick is unfeasible to the point of it being moot right now, end of story.

So that is a literal waste of time to think or talk about.

[kimzey59]

I heard a rumour that Army can't pull off a deal for a young 2c
And that's why we are again(year 5) talking about old guys we hope can fill 3rd line center.

We are not a small contender with Schenn at 2c. If we are not going to build a cup contender. We need a lottery pick next year.

Already tanking a season before free agency? Thats gotta be a record for a playoff caliber team

No such thing as tanking.
It's just a word that people use to make another's argument look weak.
And again. We are not even a small contender without filling that second line center hole.

Reaching a lottery pick is unfeasible to the point of it being moot right now, end of story.

So that is a literal waste of time to think or talk about.

Technically; every non-PO team is in the Lottery.
But we're not going to be bad enough to have good odds in it.
Pittsburgh and SJ have the market cornered on "sucking" and there's a strong secondary group to fight through to get to a top 5 pick(Nashville, Philly, Buffalo, Utah, Chicago, Seattle) for any kind of realistic shot at the #1 overall.

[rezero]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/641917 ... y-centers/

This is a decent article with stats and salary projections. Duchene seems like he could have gotten considerably more if he tested the water.