Join Blues beat writer Jim Thomas for his live chat at 1 p.m. Wednesday
Get your questions ready and join in at 1 p.m. Wednesday for our weekly Blues chat.
3rd & 7 37yd
3rd & 7 37yd
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Would have been nice to get Tkachuck. Not sure if it would have been worth it to get rid of Kyrou however. Calgary got 2 guys in their walk years to UFA status. Apparently Tarashenko did not want to go to Calgary and Army tried to move him to a team he would approve? NY Rangers. See what I mean about No trade clauses.
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I said on my last chat - the week before last I believe - that I thought there was only a 30 percent that the Blues would get Tkachuk. Some of the readers acted surprised. I know the Blues cap issues and what Calgary seemed to be looking for in a trade would simply be too much. After the trade, Calgary GM Trelving said "it wasn't even close" in terms of other teams really in the mix for Tkachuk. Tkachuk said Flordai was at the top of the list of teams he would prefer to go to. So much for the narrative that he was dying to be in St. Louis. If he was dying to be in St. Louis, he would've told Treliving the only team he would sign a multiple year deal with was St. Louis.I think a lot of the St. Louis media oversold the chances that Tkachuk would end up to St. Louis, almost playing to the audience. I try to deal with reality. And so does all of the Post-Dispatch hockey writers for the most part. For example, I think Tom Timmermann said on the NetFront podcast a few weeks ago that he didn't think Tkachuk would end up in St. Louis due to the cap/financial issues.
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Depends on a couple of factors. If Thomas and Kyrou continue to progress and Neighbrous and Bolduc truly look like top prospects, then maybe Armstrong views the window to Cup contention still being open. Otherwise, I don't think you' see a total rebuild, but perhaps some retooling.
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I was looking at one of my old Hockey Digest magazines from 1986 I had saved as a kid and what struck me was how out of the 21 NHL teams, there were only 23 skaters in the entire league older than age 32. 8 teams had 0 players ( the Blues had 1, Rick Meagher at age 33). In a much faster league today, why are there so many players being signed to contracts well past that age? I feel a wiser approach would be to concentrate on signing players from their age 23-32 age(like the Blues have done with Thomas and Tarasenko) and let them walk like they did with Perron or Backes instead of becoming too sentimentally attached to them and having the contract weigh you down at the back end. I realize there are more teams and thus more players today but there had to be a reason teams didn't keep players that age back then. What is your opinion?
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Obviously, David Perron did not have equity with the Blues that he thought he had. Now that a little time has passed, it seems clear that he had NO equity. Do you think him being treated the way he was will dog Armstrong if the Blues have anything less than the season they had in 2021-22?
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Happy Wednesday Jim. Good to see you back on the chat.
Blues fans have to be loving the fact our old friend Nazem Kadri is still unemployed. It appears the music stopped and didn’t grab a chair. In fact there are several very good UFAs players still without contracts. Which teams today have the cap space to sign him? I think Buffalo is one of them and they should be a very good team this year. What say you, oh wise one? -
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Seattle only has just over $1M in space according to capfriendly so that's not really an option. I think the fact that Scandella has 2 years left is making him tough to move. Teams that could absorb the money this year want flexibility next year. The best time to move him may be in camp or at the beginning of the season as players get injured on other teams and if Mikkola and Perunovich continue to show improvement.
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Every time I look at Cap Friendly, I don't envy Armstrong next summer. We have 5 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 1 goalie signed past this year. Let's give Neighbours, Bolduc, and Hofer a spot next year and it's 7 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 2 goalies.
Remaining cap space is about $21.5M. Assuming Kyrou gets $7M (which admittedly I have no clue what he'll sign for), we will have $14.5M in cap space to fill out 6 forward spots and 1 depth defenseman.
As disappointing of an offseason as it has been, do you agree that things will get even uglier next summer? How do you resign Tarasenko, O'Reilly, and Barbashev, with 4 other spots to fill with only $14.5M in cap space? Welcome to cap hell. -
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Jim, you're right again! I just read on The Hockey News website the Isles are rumored to be trying to create cap space to sign our boy Kardi. If true it would be good to get him out of our conference. He is a good player, I give him that. As far as negotiating skills he seems to be one 'who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing'. I imagine he wanted too many years on his contract and failed to get a deal on the first days of free agency. Then the music stopped (to use again my analogy from my original post).
Jim, I hope you have a good visit with your middle son. Family and faith are everything. -
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