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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Were you covering Mizzou during the Great Victory Drought of the 1980s, early '90s? If so, you probably don't have many good memories. It's a good thing you got to cover the Rams during their good years and the Blues on a Cup run. Forty-eight years ... Man, that's a lot of sports. Best wishes. -
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Hey Jim. Congrats on retirement...well deserved. Too bad we couldn't have gotten Kroenke booted out of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame lol. I do have a Blues question too. Kapanen and Vrana have looked good so far in the BlueNote, but were cast off by their previous organizations for a reason. Do you think we can really count on them moving forward?
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I appreciate the mention of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. It took me a long time to get an interview with the guy at the Mo. Hall. I think he finallly got tired of me calling!Your question about Vrana and Kapanen is interesting. (And we should probably throw Blais in the mix as well.)Vrana is on a 54-goal pace. Kapanen is on about a 38-goal pace. I don't think we can expect that kind of pace going forward. Who knows if what they're doing this year will carry over. But both have been 20-goal scorers before in their careers. And both are highly motivated and wlll be in walk years, contract-wise Same with Blais for that matter, also in a contract year, also highly-motivated.
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Hi Jim, I am curious about how teams pick their captains. And I think you may have reported that Vladi felt slighted after the C was assigned to Ryan, so is there a chance Blues change the way they pick the captain? Congrats on the retirement. We'll miss hearing your questions after the game and your great reporting. -Troy C. Bozeman, MT
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I'm pretty sure it's some combination of Armstrong and Berube. I don't think it's a players vote. But yeah, Tarasenko wasn't happy that O'Reilly got the "C."Thanks for the kind words.Isn't Montana State in Bozeman? Once danced with a Montana State cheerleader at a bar there on a trip out West in 1978. Montana was beautiful. The cheerleader was cute - one of the highlights of my early 20's. There was a big brawl in the bar that night, she said it happened pretty often.
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Well, Mikkola played pretty well in St. Louis To the point where the Blues came to the realization that they couldn't afford to keep him. All things being equal, I think they would have kept Dunn as well. It's tough when you spend time and energy developing youn players and then lose them as they approach free agency.Walman, in my mind - as I mentioed earlier in the chat - was another matter. I don't think he got much of a chance here.
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Hi Jim,
I submit the crux of the Blues' defensive problems is not primarily with the D-men. It starts and ends with forwards that are unwilling to backcheck, float between the half boards, do not pick up skaters in the slot, and do not muscle up against power forwards camped in front of the net. Some of the advanced metrics corroborate the above.
Also, teams playing out the string late in the season often tend to go into pond hockey mode, which is a helluva lot more fun than playing Berube's mantra of a heavy game. Although entertaining, I pity the poor goalies over the next eight games. How do you see it? -
They are certainly part of the problem, and so I'm glad you brought this up. It's certainly not all on the defensemen that's for sure. Just last night against Vancouver, Kapanen lost coverage and got beat back down the ice for a goal. Toropchenko had a miscue in LA on the penalty kill where he let a guy get behind him. Stuff like that has happened all too often this season, and it's frequently a different guy every time.But as often is the case in hockey - and in life - it's not a black-and-white issue. There's a lot of gray area. And by that, I mean I think it's partly the lack of work by the forwards - again which I think a lot of people overlook - it's partly on the D-men, and it's partly on the goaltending.
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Just click on the website and saw your chat
Not sure if this is your last chat. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to thank you for your Rams coverage. The Greatest Show on Turf era I really think was the golden era of the NFL. There was the mixture of modern day high powered offense, mixed with old school football values like defense and running the football. I'm so thankful St. Louis had a team. It will be a reminder that this is a sports town, not a baseball town. I was a cashier at Dierbergs at the time and folks talked a lot more about football back then they did about baseball. Thank you for your professionalism. St Louis is going to miss your contributions to our paper and on the local airwaves. You were one of the best! I wish you and your family a great retirement! Don't be a stranger. -
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Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas. Thank you for your time and the chat. I've admired the way you have transformed from an excellent football writer into an excellent hockey writer. Admittedly, I am still learning about hockey. I know the sample size is small, but are Vrana and Kapanen performances enough to get genuinely excited about as far as pieces of future Blues teams? Also, could the Blues defensive problems come down to the fact that they have no true No.1 pairing of defensemen? That all there defensemen are actually second- and third-line guys? Thank you.
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Obviously, I think it's unrealistic to think that Varna and Kapanen can continue to score at this pace, but as I've mentioned, they've been 20-goal scorers in the past. So that seems to be a realistic expectation. But Armstrong said he'd like to add another top 9 forward in the offseason, and I think it would be prudent to still try to pull that off. The best Blues teams of the Armstrong era have been ones with depth scoring.And yes, I think if the Blues' had a true No. 1 defenseman - not even a true top pair - things would be better. My colleague and successor-in-waiting, Matt DeFranks, is a big believer in the need for a No. 1 D-man.
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Army should be borrowing a page from Al Davis. Gather the players who have bad reputations give them a chance at redemption. They're usually inexpensive like Vrana and Kapanan . Better yet just get XRaiders to learn hockey. Matt Millen and Howie Long as a defensive pairing would definitely clear the crease! Shrooms are kicking in bro!
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Congrats on the retirement. In the first couple of minutes of the game last night it looked like one of the Vancouver players tied up with Parayko on the boards to their gollies glove side and wanted to fight, even motioned to him to come back after they broke up. Did you see that? I get it isn't his game, but man, that place would go nuts if 55 pummeled someone. He has been clearing the crease pretty hard recently, but people don't seem to notice that.
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Oh, sorry Roy. You don't get the last word. Bluesfan41, not sure if this is what you're talking about. But I did see Parayko slam into a Canuck pretty good early in the game, knock him off his feet. And it looked for a moment like they might get into it.Then Parayko helped him up.OK, that's it for today.