Blues 2022 Off-Season Thread

[glen a richter]

Kyrou will have a more important role in more offensive situations replacing Perron on the PP for example, so assuming he doesn't mail it in then he plus Neighbours should hopefully supply enough extra offense to cover for losing DP. On the other hand, I still think Barbashev peaked, offensively. I'd be shocked if he duplicated his numbers from last season and still think they should have traded him while his value was sky high.

I do think Kyrou and Thomas are both candidates to eclipse 90 points. Thomas I wouldn't be surprised if he put up 100.

I think the bigger question with this team this year is very simple. Will the defense be consistent enough to make games, for the most part, easy on Binnington? This season hinges on the defense and the goaltending.

[theohall]

Just some things to mention after listening to the Blues preview on NHL Radio.

Blues had 9 20 goal scorers last season
Blues had 11 40 point scorers last season.

The average number players per team for those two - were 4 and 6 last season, respectively.

This off-season, the Blues lost one of those players, Perron. 8 of the 9 and 10 of the 11 are back. Is Perron going to be missed? Yes. But looking at the larger picture of how much scoring is still on this roster, he's not going to be missed as much as some think, especially if Kyrou gets his slot on the #1 PP and increases his production.

Shooting percentage, which was 12.4% is likely going to drop, considering in the past 10 years, only one other team shot over 12% - the 19-20 Lightning with 12.2%. That's a hard number to repeat, but if they can stay around 10%, the offense will be okay, but they need to get more shots on goal after being 17th in the league in shots. Even if the Blues drop to the 10.5% range, they should still be top 10 in Goals For without increasing shots on goal.

IMO, having Leddy for a full season is going to improve the defense since it will force Scandella to a 3rd pairing role, which might be okay, especially since that 3rd pairing LD role winds up sharing time with whomever is the 7th D. (This assumes Scandella isn't somehow magically moved)

[goon attack]

I think Kyrou could regress and Thomas could be injured.

if you're looking at anybody to put up 90 points, I'd look at Tarasenko.

[theohall]

Kyrou signed extension. 8 yrs 8.125 AAV. Basically the going rate for pt/gm players this off-season. NTC doesn't kick in until 3rd year of extension, so he's tradable up until the end of the 24-25 season.

Deal is identical to the Thomas contract.