The AHL just announced that they are moving ahead with plans to start their season on Feb. 5. So that's something
Yes. Faulk all along has been the leading candidate for the Blues to lose in the expansion draft, but if he has the kind of season the Blues hoped when they gave him that big contract, that will have to be reconsidered. If you figure that Krug and Parayko are givens to be protected, then if it's not Faulk, Dunn has to be exposed. (There is the method of protecting more than three defensemen, but that would leave exposed some good forwards.) There's also the bet that Faulk's contract could scare off Seattle, so he's at less risk of being taken if exposed compared to a youngster with a smaller contract like Dunn. Either way, there's going to be a good defenseman available.
Well, I never thought Steve Ott would make a good coach, so my judgment may not be best on this. O'Reilly would be a great coach. Not sure if that's something he would want to do.
Thomas will get every chance possible going forward. The Blues will put him in a good position to succeed. He showed last season he can do that. His time may have come.
I've seen that. For guys with long, well-paid careers like Perron, I'd be disposed to just hanging out when I retired.
We really haven't broached the subject with Berube in a while, though I assume we will shortly. Right now, the assumption is Jim Montgomery takes over for Savard and things for the most part stay the same. Though with the addition of Krug and Hoffman, coaching the power play just got a whole lot simpler. If Montgomery is in charge -- and he and Berube have said it will be a joint effort within the staff -- he just got a lot smarter.
Blackout rules seem to be the most confounding thing out there. Someone somewhere see the benefit of them.
Probably going for long bike rides in the Rockies and being a swell father. I could see him working individually with players rather than being on a coaching staff and having a daily grind. But I could be wrong about that.
Nothing changes a game quite like a shorthanded goal. The Blues' PK strategy has usually been get the puck out, get a fresh unit on and start again. Sundqvist and Barbashev are really the only players who when they get the puck out try to do something with it and create havoc at the other end. As long as that's their philosophy, they won't be scoring much on the PK.
When they agreed to that, the NHL probably didn't think Vegas would have the success as quickly as they did and figured they'd still be building. Or maybe the league didn't want some poor slob to get taken twice, like Terry Yake did. He was chosen in expansion drafts by both Anaheim and Atlanta, though those were six years apart.
Fabbri fell into that spot because he got hurt. Kyrou's lack of progress has been some of Kyrou -- the team needs to see more of a 200-foot game from him -- and some because the Blues have kept putting things in his way. If he seems perpetually blocked, like a catcher in the Cardinals organization, the team would do wise to move him. But I think they'll find a place for him eventually.
Fortunately, the salary cap rules are the only ones that directly affect me, so my confoundeness is limited to that. This year, where for the first time I've had to worry about in-season and off-season LTIR, has just made it worse. And I always have an incredible amount of respect for people like Ryan Miller of the Blues, their cap guy, or capfriendly.com, which is a godsend.
Won't be a whole lot of young Blues getting a chance to play and break out this season. It would take an injury or two for Mikkola or Walman or Perunovich to get significant game time, and Kyrou will have to work to get his. After that, may not be a whole lot that we see in a short season. If Sanford has a big year, does that count? Until a few days ago, he was on track to get a lot of ice time. Now, not quite so much.
Thanks for asking and I wish I had some great suggestions, but most of the movies I watched over the past nine months have been older classics. I got "The Broken Heart of America" for Christmas, so that's next on the reading list, though I don't think that's going to be a pick-me-up kind of book.
They have not, but then they just got the schedule. Not sure if they'd want to wait until there were some fans in the building or if they would want to break them out early for some pop. Last year, they only wore the retro jerseys three times. They may feel no need to set a date publicly until they start selling tickets.
It's unfamiliar to me, but then I didn't grow up here.
I doubt O'Reilly is unpleased at the moment. If anything, he's thinking of what he can do to make sure Tarasenko is feeling fully part of the team and appreciated.Unless Tarasenko has a disaster of a season, which would include reinjuring his shoulder, I can't see him being exposed in the expansion draft. And if he has a disaster of a season, the Kraken aren't taking him anyway. And, by that same standard, a disastrous season wouldn't do much for his trade value. But it's going to be wrong to expect a "normal" Tarasenko season from Tarasenko. He's going to need some time.
