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.
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I don't think you're alone in that thought. But trying to win is in the players' and coaches' DNA. With their recent winnning ways, the Blues already can no longer finish behind Anaheim, Chicago, Columbus, and San Jose in the standings. So at best (worst?) they can only enter the draft lottery at the No. 5 positionBut keep in mind, they still have Boston, the NY Rangers, Minnesota and Dallas (twice) left on their schedule. And they're playing Chicago on Thursday without two of their top three scorers (Thomas and Buchnevich). So they're going to take some more losses in these final eight games. -
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Did you get to talk to Gary Unger at the Blues HOF game ceremonies? I heard him in an interview lamenting what he had to do in his days. He said " We had to fight! In practice I had to fight Noel Accari! " can you imagine Jordan Kyrou being forced to fight Berube in practice? Hockey is still barbaric but not as bad as when Unger played.
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I just got to say a quick hello, that's it. But back during the height of the pandemic when the Post-Dispatch did these "where are they now?" stories I talked to Unger for over an hour in a phone interview. To put it mildly, he's a world-class talker.Anyway, yeah, the game was so much different back then. (Although we did have that infamous Bortuzzo vs. Sanford dust-up in practice during the Stanley Cup season.)Here's the Unger story:
Unger's hunger: St. Louis remains special place for former Blues glamour boy
STLtoday.comDuring a hockey life that has taken him many places, his spiritual path was changed the night teammate Bob Gassoff died in a motorcyle accident. -
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Hi JT. I have 2 questions for you. 1) How did we have three goalies on the roster after Binner's suspension was up? I thought teams were limited to two. 2) What is going on with Scott Perunavich in Springfield? I looked at his numbers recently and they are much worse than last year while he was in the AHL.
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OXcharlie, as to question No. 2.Perunovich had 22 points (3 goals, 19 assists) in 17 games for Springfield in 2021-22.He has 11 points (1 goal, 10 assists) in 16 games for Springfield this season.So yeah, from afar, his production is down. I haven't talked to anyone recently about his play for the T-Birds. But keep in mind he has missed a ton of hockey over the last 3 seasons:--Missed the entire COVID-shortened 2020-21 season with shoulder injury.- Played in only 36 games combined (with Blues and Springfield) in 2021-22.- Played in only 16 games this year for Springfield,He needs games and minutes to catch up.
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Hearing more national chatter about Colt55 being an attractive piece for some teams this summer. Doesn't his contract make him almost immovable at worst or exceedingly unappealing at best? Also, they say you can judge a man by his kids. If that's so, then you are quite the guy. Had the pleasure of sitting by your son at the Caps game on St. Patty's Day. Awesome gentleman.
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Yipdog, how are you? Did you get my hello? You were one of the guys wearing the green Blues jersey, right?Yeah, very proud of all my sons.With Parayko, I think it's the term much more than the cost.$6.5 million a year is reasonable, especially with the cap expected to start going up by $4M, $5M, $6M a year after this coming season. It's the fact that he's got 7 years left on the deal after this season that's the issue. You've got to really like a player to take on seven years of a contract.
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When Vrana face injury required a full, polymer face shield, it made me think why the NHL does not require a full-face shield, instead of the inadequate half-shield.
What is the downside to wearing the full-face shield style that Vrana recently wore?
Also, Happy Retirement.......it's been a pleasure over the years. -
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Hey Jim, I almost forgot it was chat day. I want to thank you for all the chats, here & in person at practice. Hopefully I’ll get to see you once more at Centene,
While I love Vrana who’s smile is just infectious… I’m intrigued by Kapanen. He can play PP & PK and seems to have a good scoring instinct. I just don’t understand how he didn’t click in Pittsburgh. Do you have any insight into the situation there? I feel like he could be a similar player to Buchnevich -
The only thing I picked up on Kapanen in PIttsburgh is that he didn't always use his speed to best advantage. That sometimes, he'd pull up instead of continuing to drive toward the net. According to Berube, who has encouraged him to shoot more often, Kapanen has played pretty good defense as a Blue.
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I read an article this morning about how the Bruins cannot activate Taylor Hall of LTIR because they don't have the cap space. He says he's ready to play, but they can't activate him. The article said they might just be able to keep him on LTIR until the playoffs and that the Bruins front office might have planned for this scenario when making moves at the deadline. Of course, there was the notorious situation with the Lightning and Nikita Kucherov a few years ago when he missed the whole season but was activated for the first game of the playoffs when there is no salary cap.
I can say as a totally impartial observer (with the Blues nowhere close to the playoffs and no real rooting interest in the East), that this is complete BS. At least with the Kucherov situation, he wasn't saying he was ready to play so there was a plausible story that they just got lucky with the timing. This is different. There's still two plus weeks left in the season. Hall says he's ready to play. The NHL should tell them to make room for him by whatever means necessary, and if you can't then we'll do it for you. What do you think? Are you knowledgeable about what the CBA says about this? At best, their front office was incompetent at managing their cap and at worst they are trying to outright manipulate the cap. -
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That's a really good article on Unger. I pound it into my 19 year old son " if you're drinking you're never driving--stay over night at your friends " Unger warned Gassoff right before he took out the dirt bike. But the alcohol win out he didn't listen. Sad. I'm against alcohol do not drink at all I prefer shrooms!!
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Jim, thanks for doing these chats. I’ve been to about seven NHL rinks over the past five years. I hate to say this, but our barn is the worst I’ve been to. Can we use the Rams money to build a new arena? The money should be used for STL sports. How many other NHL arenas are older than ours?
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Surprised that you're so down on Enterpirse. They've put a lot of money into the rink over the past few years (like 2 or 3 years back). I've obviously been to all the rinks and I think Enterprise compares pretty favorably.I don't know about the ages of other rinks, but San Jose, Calgary, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh Phildadelphia, Washington aren't exactly palaces. Not that they're dumps. But to me, a lot of the rinks are pretty similiar.I'm curious, though, what are the seven rinks you've visited?
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Jim, sounds like you have great retirement plans. I have really enjoyed your PD contributions, especially as a Rams season ticket holder for 19 seasons. Best of luck!
Also - we all feel Blues would been better off keeping Perron, but I am happy when he has a big game - why not?
Question - had Varna just worn out his welcome in Detroit due to personal issues?
And put me on the list for that book with Maritz! -
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