ANYONE ELSE GETTING GEEKED UP?

[dmiles2186]

Yeah, I agree with Curt. Seeing as the Blues haven't had a real, live, actual #1 goaltender in some 15-odd years, it's a lot to look forward to. Granted, we don't know if Halak will be that great, time will tell, but it didn't stop us from getting excited over EJ, Kariya, Oshie/Bumps, et. al. in the past and it shouldn't stop us now.

[WaukeeBlues]

Cautiously Optimistic

That's about the best two words I can give for Halak. I'm under-selling the acquisition in order for him to prove me wrong and I hope he does. There is just too much of a grand history of flash-in-the-pan brilliance followed by mediocrity between the pipes for the St. Louis Blues in recent memory for me to get TOO jacked.

[WindyCityBluesFan]

ANYONE ELSE GETTING GEEKED UP? Yes, yes I am. Having now had Hawks season tickets for the last 2 years and watching that team go from garbage to greatness over the last 5 years I have been in Chicago, I am ready for the Blues turn. Granted, I have been waiting for that since about 2002. Halak is a great pickup, although we need at least 2-3 more trades of that caliber before I give us a chance of making a legitimate run.

Now, if no additional good moves are made I just hope that the Blues completely bomb and end up at the bottom of the league so we can get some additional high draft picks. No more of this 14th pick stuff.

[kodos]

Don't get me wrong... I think the Halak move was a great one and it's the kind of thing you need to do to make a winner...

But that said, the odds of him being a flash-in-the-pan are greater than the odds of him continuing to play like he has.

How many times have we seen this scenario play out? Hot young goalie plays out of his mind for a season and/or takes his team on an incredible playoff run only to fizzle into mediocrity in the coming years. It's happened over and over and over and over and over...

[cprice12]

Don't get me wrong... I think the Halak move was a great one and it's the kind of thing you need to do to make a winner...

But that said, the odds of him being a flash-in-the-pan are greater than the odds of him continuing to play like he has.

How many times have we seen this scenario play out? Hot young goalie plays out of his mind for a season and/or takes his team on an incredible playoff run only to fizzle into mediocrity in the coming years. It's happened over and over and over and over and over...

Exactly. Which means we're due to have one of these work out for us.

But honestly...how many of the "flash in the pan" "one hit wonder" goalies made a run to the conference finals?

Carey, Blackburn, Lacher, Turek, Pang, Ellis, Rinne, Steve Mason, Toivonen? None of them did. I'm sure there are more, but did any of those goalies take their team to the conference finals?

Now, if you wanna talk young goalies we hoped would pan out for us that never even reached "one hit wonder" status ...like Cash, Bishop, CBT and Schwartz... well, Halak doesn't fall into that category at all. He's already accomplished more than those guys.

I'm not getting overly excited about Halak. I'm just anxious to see what he can do. And his short resume is more impressive than the other famous "one hit wonder" nhl goalies...at least the ones I can think of right now.

What are some others?

[Ruutu15]

I think I'm the only one on this board that doesn't think that goaltending is the Blues' problem. If 30 wins, a .913 save percentage, and a GAA of 2.5 isn't good enough for you, I think you're going to be disappointed no matter who is in net. To put in perspective, as overrated as Roberto Luongo is, Chris Mason's numbers are better than Luongo this season, with the exception of wins. What's the guy supposed to do, steal 25 games a season?

If you guys had an ounce of defense, you'd all be wearing Mason jerseys and shaving your heads. He's going to be a steal for someone tomorrow.

[section319]

I'm not saying that we have had more exciting off-seasons than this, I am just saying that it isn't as outrageous as I originally thought to say someone isn't excited about this year. Obviously, we have had problems with goaltending, but SO FAR.. I'm just saying this probably hasn't been the most exciting off-season in recent histor, that couuld all change tomorrow though. Despite all of the doubts, Halak is going to be great here, I know it. Mason wasn't a bad goalie by far since we have had him, but I think Halak can steal us more games than Mason could, and how many more games did we need to win to make the play-offs this past year? I think with Halak added we make the play-offs no problem, of course that is relying on a little more production out of our scoring than we had last year which may be hard. We won't really know until the season starts, depending on the amount of trades and/or free agency moves we make.

(I may be a little drunk after my round of golf today, but this all makes perfect sense to me, so.. (Frank) yeah... let go blues)

[ohio BLUES]

If you guys had an ounce of defense, you'd all be wearing Mason jerseys and shaving your heads. He's going to be a steal for someone tomorrow.

This is true. Or ture.

Brewer and Jackman really are the suck. Black hole style suck.

[cprice12]

I think I'm the only one on this board that doesn't think that goaltending is the Blues' problem. If 30 wins, a .913 save percentage, and a GAA of 2.5 isn't good enough for you, I think you're going to be disappointed no matter who is in net. To put in perspective, as overrated as Roberto Luongo is, Chris Mason's numbers are better than Luongo this season, with the exception of wins. What's the guy supposed to do, steal 25 games a season?

If you guys had an ounce of defense, you'd all be wearing Mason jerseys and shaving your heads. He's going to be a steal for someone tomorrow.

Mason was solid most of the time. But he's 34 years old and isn't in that elite group of goalies. I don't think he's the guy that can win a cup for us down the road...he's entering what could be the final years of his career and this is a young team that wants to be able to challenge for a cup down the road. I'd much rather have Halak at 25 than Mason at 34...no question. Halak will be in the prime of his career in a couple years...assuming he's not a one-hit-wonder.

And I would disagree with you about our defense. Our defense was decent last year, despite Jackman and Brewer's nightly F-ups.

But our issue was clearly offense last year...nothing else was even close. If we had an elite forward or two who could regularly put the puck in the net, we'd have been a top 5-6 team in the West.

But with that said, you can't pass on an opportunity to upgrade your goaltending to possibly an elite level for only a mid-level unproven prospect. Goaltending is the most important position on the ice, so the Blues did very well to get Halak.

Halak had better numbers than Mason did last year and Halak was on a comparable (technically worse) team...and then of course he was money in the playoffs.

Halak's save % of .924 compared to Mason's .913 is a huge difference. In today's NHL, that's the difference between being elite and just being good.

Now the Blues just have to hope Halak keeps it up.

[fargoblues]

Cola and Weaver were a huge part of that solid D. it pains me to see them both go if that happens.

[northwest dave]

Are we still geeked?

[Winning Unlimited]

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