About that aging defense corps . . .

[SRV1990]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

The man has dressed the Barbie, but none of us have any idea if these moves will lead to a date with Stanley Cup. Don't you think you should at least see a couple of games on the ice before you hand out ribbons?

You, Me, ANYBODY can dress a Barbie. That is just putting a purse on an arm, and heels on feet.

I find it curious you are now taking a wait and see approach to Army’s recent moves, but in the past you’ve been very quick to pass judgement and criticize. So either you’re a complete hypocrite or… never mind, you’re a hypocrite.

I threw this out here for a dual purpose, to acknowledge the good work Army has done transforming a stagnant defense AND to demonstrate the current state of the forum, proportionately overloaded with cynics, naysayers, trolls, and outright Army haters. Precious few of you have said "Yeah, he's done some good work here", or even "didn't expect this level of transformation this quickly". I really don't see that as cheerleading, it's just being honest.

None of us know how Mailloux will turn out but it's pretty clear the Blues needed a young top half of draft quality RHD more than they needed an emerging young winger. When you think the team COULD still have Leddy, Parayko, Krug/Perunovich, and Faulk as the top-4, well . . .

This is an exciting time to be a Blues fan. The team is in transition working in a number of solid-looking young players, they have a top-notch coach, and they are coming off a record setting extended win streak and 2OT game 7 playoff elimination by the President's Trophy team, a team they outscored 17-5 in the three home games in the series. A team that looked like a dysfunctional mediocre mess a year ago.

Agree 100% with you. I just hate disingenuous hypocrites like smelly who constantly change the narrative to fit their delusional agenda. All while trying to disguise it as “talking hockey” and “honestly critiquing Armstrong”. Smelly doesn’t have a [fork]ing clue what honesty is, and knows less about hockey.

[seattleblue]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

I understand the tick tock of it but for me since he was UFA of course they can't protect him as one of their protectees. Schwartz had earned the right to be unrestricted or unbound by protected list, so he was going to choose his destination either way. He wanted to go to Seattle coming off a down year where he wanted to be nearer to family, so that felt like something independent to me. Like the Blues could have protected him and he still could have signed with them. Seattle took 1 player off of each team and they got to speak with unrestricted free agents when the rules permitted. The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

The mistake was that Armstrong evaluates defense in a way where he's sure Krug was the smarter player to keep than Dunn, he put his pride above what was best for the Blues, period. Krug was an embarrassing little slow waterskiier with almost zero goal production as an offensive D. One hit in the Final had made Army rock hard. That was just so surreally bad by Armstrong (also why he gets zero margin of oops if Mailloux is not the right player)

[seattleblue]

I also don't at all agree with the premise of the whole thread.

The two best players on the D are older, they re Parayko and Fowler.

The third best defenseman on this roster is still Justin Faulk, and that's not good.

Then there is a talent gap. With some work, Broberg can be a second pairing defenseman but as is, he is not the kind of second pairing LD you are going anywhere with. Mailloux has 8 games, is totally unproven in the NHL and has major flaws defensively. Tucker is one of a long line of Bortuzzos who is limited and plays a role. Kessel looks like a Chris Butler marginal D.

The three best defensemen on this roster are old. You can squint at Broberg Mailoux and Tucker all you want, but those are the young D and it's not impressive compared to contenders.

[TheJackBurton]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

It was all legal - once he hit free agency he could've signed with anyone. They just happened to know he wanted to be there so he could be closer to his dying mother.

Yes, they knew he was signing there, so instead of just signing him they delayed the signing so they could poach us of two players.

Was it within the rules? Sure, but that doesn't make it right.

[DawgDad]

I also don't at all agree with the premise of the whole thread.

The two best players on the D are older, they re Parayko and Fowler.

The third best defenseman on this roster is still Justin Faulk, and that's not good.

Then there is a talent gap. With some work, Broberg can be a second pairing defenseman but as is, he is not the kind of second pairing LD you are going anywhere with. Mailloux has 8 games, is totally unproven in the NHL and has major flaws defensively. Tucker is one of a long line of Bortuzzos who is limited and plays a role. Kessel looks like a Chris Butler marginal D.

The three best defensemen on this roster are old. You can squint at Broberg Mailoux and Tucker all you want, but those are the young D and it's not impressive compared to contenders.

I simply disagree with you on Faulk and Broberg, and so do the stats. Broberg can still get better but he's solid as-is. It would be nice to see Faulk rebound and have a better season but as soon as Mailloux settles in and plays well enough with some consistency Faulk will lose his top-4 spot. That's the "1/2 to 3/4" in my post, cannot yet count on Mailloux as top-4.

[TheJackBurton]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

[seattleblue]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

You're first correcting me on the rule then explaining why I'm actually correct about them not breaking any rules ... ?

[MiamiLaw]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

You're first correcting me on the rule then explaining why I'm actually correct about them not breaking any rules ... ?

Not Jack but I know they didn't technically break the rule but they definitely did what the rule was supposed to prevent. The rule was horribly written as this was an obvious loophole.

But I also agree with you that not protecting Dunn over Krug was very dumb.

[TheJackBurton]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

You're first correcting me on the rule then explaining why I'm actually correct about them not breaking any rules ... ?

Where did I say they broke any rules? Not breaking a rule doesn't make it ethically correct.

[Army's Mom]

I also don't at all agree with the premise of the whole thread.

The two best players on the D are older, they re Parayko and Fowler.

The third best defenseman on this roster is still Justin Faulk, and that's not good.

Then there is a talent gap. With some work, Broberg can be a second pairing defenseman but as is, he is not the kind of second pairing LD you are going anywhere with. Mailloux has 8 games, is totally unproven in the NHL and has major flaws defensively. Tucker is one of a long line of Bortuzzos who is limited and plays a role. Kessel looks like a Chris Butler marginal D.

The three best defensemen on this roster are old. You can squint at Broberg Mailoux and Tucker all you want, but those are the young D and it's not impressive compared to contenders.

We're not in our contention window yet, so I'm less concerned with how we stack up to other contenders. We took a swing for a young NHL stud in Dobson and then had to pivot when MON landed him (making LM expendable). Bolduc was always expendable here - it's not like we were going to be able to pay all the wingers we are developing.

For next year's team, Bolduc was more replaceable (by Dvorsky) than Neighbours or even Kyrou. Maybe he develops into the best of the three, but right now he still has glaring warts too. I'm skeptical of all the hot takes suggesting Boldy has the highest ceiling, when Kyrou has already been a perennial 30 g/70 pt guy who isn't hurting us defensively.

Yeah, I'd rather have dealt Kyrou than Bolduc, and gotten back a more sure thing on D. But that doesn't change the fact that Bolduc may never become what Kyrou already is, and the right D man didn't want to come here. The knock-on Kyrou is his inability to deal with getting hit - but we've seen him weather adversity in terms of the public boos, having to change his game, etc. A bad playoff series doesn't undo all of that.

As nice as a Neighbours Suter Bolduc third line would have been, is a Neighbours Suter Dvorsky line that much worse?

[seattleblue]

I also don't at all agree with the premise of the whole thread.

The two best players on the D are older, they re Parayko and Fowler.

The third best defenseman on this roster is still Justin Faulk, and that's not good.

Then there is a talent gap. With some work, Broberg can be a second pairing defenseman but as is, he is not the kind of second pairing LD you are going anywhere with. Mailloux has 8 games, is totally unproven in the NHL and has major flaws defensively. Tucker is one of a long line of Bortuzzos who is limited and plays a role. Kessel looks like a Chris Butler marginal D.

The three best defensemen on this roster are old. You can squint at Broberg Mailoux and Tucker all you want, but those are the young D and it's not impressive compared to contenders.

I simply disagree with you on Faulk and Broberg, and so do the stats. Broberg can still get better but he's solid as-is. It would be nice to see Faulk rebound and have a better season but as soon as Mailloux settles in and plays well enough with some consistency Faulk will lose his top-4 spot. That's the "1/2 to 3/4" in my post, cannot yet count on Mailloux as top-4.

Yeah we're definitely going to disagree on Broberg's readiness for the playoff crucible as a core defender that you need to rely on for big minutes. Obviously we don't disagree that he could still get there since I said that and you already think he is, but as of now he is not. If Fowler or Parayko went down, it's beyond this player to step up and bear the load yet. I'm confident in all of that.

Let's suppose you were to carry this point in the argument, which I strongly disagree with. But just for the overall way it affects the larger argument. Even in that best case you are squinting Broberg into the top 3, which is a far, far, far cry from the opening showering of praise on Armstrong re: some sea change in D. There has been no sea change in the D.

[DawgDad]

It's really on Schwartz, he walked away from the Blues and he almost certainly would have regardless of the expansion draft. He had that right, and he said it was for family reasons, but in the end he was just a UFA who signed elsewhere. Hindsight, Army should have traded him, but on a personal level that would have been a bit cold-hearted considering his family situation.

[seattleblue]

From the vantage point of the end of the 2023-24 season how many of us envisioned THIS transition in the defense:

Broberg added
Fowler added
Mailloux added
Coach hired who likes Tucker

Suter signed, leveraged, and released
Krug to LTIR (terminal)
Leddy waived

An aging top-4 is 1/2 to 3/4 transformed into what figures to be a bigger, tougher, good skating, more point-productive unit with solid L/R balance.

Give the man some credit. This is awesome, frankly.

It takes time to turn an aircraft carrier around. The Cup team lost a lot of D - for a range of reasons (several outside of Army's control such as JBow). And if we knew we'd lost JBow, they don't expose Dunn to Seattle). The "older" D he went with was there to keep the boat afloat as much as possible.

You have a couple things reversed. JBo had his incident in 2020 and the Kraken expansion draft wasn’t until 2021 so we knew about him when we exposed Dunn. Schwartz should have counted as our contribution but Seattle gamed the system

how did they game the system

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

You're first correcting me on the rule then explaining why I'm actually correct about them not breaking any rules ... ?

Where did I say they broke any rules? Not breaking a rule doesn't make it ethically correct.

You literally bolded "the rules" part and the first thing you said was "Yes they did. "

I have a hugely busy day I don't have time to play word games

[DawgDad]

I also don't at all agree with the premise of the whole thread.

The two best players on the D are older, they re Parayko and Fowler.

The third best defenseman on this roster is still Justin Faulk, and that's not good.

Then there is a talent gap. With some work, Broberg can be a second pairing defenseman but as is, he is not the kind of second pairing LD you are going anywhere with. Mailloux has 8 games, is totally unproven in the NHL and has major flaws defensively. Tucker is one of a long line of Bortuzzos who is limited and plays a role. Kessel looks like a Chris Butler marginal D.

The three best defensemen on this roster are old. You can squint at Broberg Mailoux and Tucker all you want, but those are the young D and it's not impressive compared to contenders.

I simply disagree with you on Faulk and Broberg, and so do the stats. Broberg can still get better but he's solid as-is. It would be nice to see Faulk rebound and have a better season but as soon as Mailloux settles in and plays well enough with some consistency Faulk will lose his top-4 spot. That's the "1/2 to 3/4" in my post, cannot yet count on Mailloux as top-4.

Yeah we're definitely going to disagree on Broberg's readiness for the playoff crucible as a core defender that you need to rely on for big minutes. Obviously we don't disagree that he could still get there since I said that and you already think he is, but as of now he is not. If Fowler or Parayko went down, it's beyond this player to step up and bear the load yet. I'm confident in all of that.

Let's suppose you were to carry this point in the argument, which I strongly disagree with. But just for the overall way it affects the larger argument. Even in that best case you are squinting Broberg into the top 3, which is a far, far, far cry from the opening showering of praise on Armstrong re: some sea change in D. There has been no sea change in the D.

Well, yes, we disagree.

[TheJackBurton]

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

You're first correcting me on the rule then explaining why I'm actually correct about them not breaking any rules ... ?

Where did I say they broke any rules? Not breaking a rule doesn't make it ethically correct.

You literally bolded "the rules" part and the first thing you said was "Yes they did. "

I have a hugely busy day I don't have time to play word games

Yes you said the "rules didn't state that if you sign an UFA you can't get a player off that player's previous team"

That was patently false as I showed the rule. This isn't a word game, it's simple based fact.

All you had to say was, oops my mistake.

[seattleblue]

I don’t remember the specifics, but they negotiated with him in advance didn’t select him in expansion draft then just signed him once FA opened. Or something to that effect

The Blues absolutely got screwed. Basically, seattleblue, the Kraken had the right to exclusively speak to pending UFAs before they hit the market and before their draft BUT if they signed one before the draft, that was their pick from the old team. It is documented SEA spoke to Schwartz. They obviously agreed in principle on a deal because he signed with them within minutes of UFA opening. However, since they did not technically sign him before the draft, they ALSO got Dunn.

I honestly think the Blues should have filed a grievance and I was super (upset) that it was happening right in the open at the time. And how that obvious loophole was not taken into account with the rules is mindblowing.

They should have lost the right to select from the team if they chose to speak to the pending UFA.

The rules didn't say if you sign a UFA then you can't get a player off that player's previous team. It just worked out the way it did.

Yes they did. If you signed a teams UFA that was the selected player from that team.

Seattle was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any unprotected pending free agent (restricted or unrestricted, one per team). Teams that lost a player to Seattle during the signing window did not have a player selected from its roster during this draft as the signed player counted as Seattle's selection.[16]

They didn't sign Schwartz during that period because they also wanted Dunn. Once the draft was over and UFA started they sign Schwartz and got a twofer.

You're first correcting me on the rule then explaining why I'm actually correct about them not breaking any rules ... ?

Where did I say they broke any rules? Not breaking a rule doesn't make it ethically correct.

You literally bolded "the rules" part and the first thing you said was "Yes they did. "

I have a hugely busy day I don't have time to play word games

Yes you said the "rules didn't state that if you sign an UFA you can't get a player off that player's previous team"

That was patently false as I showed the rule. This isn't a word game, it's simple based fact.

All you had to say was, oops my mistake.

All you had to do was, if you were going to tell me I'm incorrect, be correct about that instead of not correct.