Yeah, having somebody with some speed ahead of the big hitters is a better idea.
I'm sure the Blues will want to keep him and have him finish his career here. But dollars could be tight under the salary cap, unless Tarasenko still wants out and the team opts to move him.
Doug Armstrong is known as a big-game hunter at the trade deadline, so I suppose that is it. Also, maybe folks don't notice that Robert Thomas has been playing well, Schenn got hot, Perron got hot, Buchnevich has excelled, Tarasenko bounced back . . . so on and so forth. This team is awash in Top 9 forwards when healthy. This team needs more from the fourth line and somebody to work the shutdown role with Parayko.
Bob Probert was the best fighter I've seen because he was insane. He could really fight and getting hit in the face only made him more ferocious.
As for great fights, it was always something to see Derian Hatcher go with Brendan Shanahan. That is just one of many. There are many more on You Tube. Those guys did not like each other and they came out throwing. Back then, big defensemen and power forwards would have at it, even if they were stars.
They had a decent stretch in the first half of the third period. But they were hanging on for dear life in the closing minutes of regulation. They could not clear the puck from their own zone and they got caught on some long shifts against a team playing very, very well. This lull is becoming alarming because there was no excuse for running out of gas after a rare break in the schedule.
Every team deals with pitching injuries every year. This season will be especially bad across baseball because teams were not in contact with their pitchers. I'm guessing the Cardinals won't be the only team signing more pitchers this spring than they anticipated. Pitching staffs could be more fluid than ever before.
This is a significantly different team from the personnel standpoint. But it faces the same challenge: Come together down the stretch, find its stride before the playoffs and then get stronger from game to game once the postseason starts. The Blues have only lost 17 times in regulation time three-quarters into the season. So I am not ready to write them off as incapable to rising to that playoff challenge.
Saad could be valuable on a hybrid scoring/checking line role, ala Steen before the Cup season. During the Cup run, the Blues had a scoring line, a scoring line that could check, a third line that could score and a fourth line that could really check. On that team, the third line was the odd line out when the Blues were trying to hold a lead. The fourth line moved up. Maybe the best configuration for this team would be two lines that could score AND check, a third line that can score for real and then a fourth line that just mixes in and does some hitting. The top three lines would get the minutes and The Chief would have two lines capable of matching up on scorers.
People can come in at the agreed-upon time and get their comments and questions addressed.
Yeah, the new CBA didn't do anything to stop teams from slashing payroll to "realign expenses with revenues" as managers say when they give people the short haircut.
You just teed that one up for some of the other chatters.
He is a great example of how tough the SEC is. This guy was NBA coach of the year. He outperformed many prior coaches at Alabama. But the argument against him is the same as the argument against form Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy: Boosters want the Next New Thing if they can't get a big name coach currently winning elsewhere. Mizzou can't attract the latter, so it will chase the former.
That could become a high mark for Mizzou, especially with Oklahoma and Texas arriving down the road and unfavorable realignment quite possible. If he can do an exceptional job in the transfer portal, maybe he can keep Missouri above .500 overall on a consistent basis. But, again, Missouri is a second-tier SEC school when it comes to resources. Odds are it will always be playing catchup.
I have been honking the Flaherty horn pretty hard. But you are right. Another injury-plagued season would cost him a staggering amount. On the bright side for the Cardinals, that could make him easier to keep.
He was trying to match Pittsburgh's three-line depth without getting his lesser forwards exposed. The Blues haven't had a great fourth line all year with guys coming and going, but it was really vulnerable against a team like that.
The Cardinals have overachieved in this market by putting out a good product year after year after year with their business plan. Unlike other franchises, they have spent consistently to achieve that attendance and revenue. Right now they look to be 10th or 11th in projected payroll. Some of the teams above them this year (Houston, San Diego, Atlanta) have spent way, way below them in other years. If totaled the spending of the last 10 years or 15 years, I imagine the Cardinals would be well inside the Top 10.
It just comes down to hiring the right coach and keeping the right coach. Not only has Missouri undergone some recent turnover with athletic directors, it has always dealt with competing voices with boosters, curators and university presidents. God bless Dave Matter for staying on top of all of that. Mizzou was star-struck by Quin Snyder and missed their shot at Bill Self. Mike Anderson was a solid choice after Snyder's implosion, but he didn't "excite the fan base" as they say. Frank Haith was a odd choice all around, but the man was ahead of the curve on the transfer portal. Haith's 76 victories in three years look pretty good in retrospect. Kim Anderson, the "True Son" hire, was supposed to end all that transfer silliness. Oops! Cuonzo Martin and the Porter Family Package got things moving in the right direction quickly . . . and then the Porters broke down and Martin ran out of answers.
Unlikely and no. I don't see the Cardinals trading any of their top prospects for a pitcher because they don't have a surplus there. Fans have yelped for years about the organization's inability to develop power-hitting prospects. Now that they have three of them they really like, I bet they stay the course on them. I could see them signing another free agent instead. And the Cardinals are committed to giving DeJong one more try while knowing they could make a Plan B (Sosa) or Plan C (Edman, with Gorman at second) work OK if needed.
