GDT Game 4: 5/2/17 | 8:30 PM CDT | @ Predators | NBCSN/Y98

[Oaklandblue]

I wouldn't say that we need new ownership. That could always end up being worse. (We do not need a return of the Bill Laurie Reign of Terror.) We could use a less shitty lease, though.

I wouldn't mind a modified Laurie situation where they spent to the Cap, kept making one smart move after the next and we won a Cup. I think that's what this was supposed to be with Stillman but Army is more useless in this situation than Steve Ott is on the ice.

[cardsfan04]

I'm not in lockstep on the Army hate, but I do get where people are coming from there. He's made some questionable moves, and even the calculated risks have backfired more than not.

I don't really get where people are coming from with Stillman hate though. He inherited a team in financial ruin that was spending to the floor every year. From day 1, he spent to the cap (despite the team's financial issues) and the team has had reasonable success as well (including our first trip to the WCF in 15 years). I'm thrilled that he's the owner.

[theohall]

We could use a less shitty lease, though.

And folks wonder why the Rams moved laying the entire blame on Kroenke. He's not faultless, but the greedy bastards who run the major sports facilities in St Louis, not involving the Cardinals, are greedy bastards who don't seem to understand the concept of letting the sport itself, revenue from visitors, revenue from taxes, the ridiculous parking costs, and the ridiculous concession costs make your money, instead of making the team involved pay for the right to play in your city. Yes, this applies to the Blues with their crappy lease. Why St Louisans aren't more critical of those guys is beyond me, since it's been essentially the same greedy bastards for 30+ years. And on top of it, every sports team, not named the Cardinals, has to put up some kind of fight to have the facility they play in improved. So not only are they greedy bastards, they don't really give a crap about the condition of the facility they lease.

[glen a richter]

Signing retreads and trading for Oilers 1st round busts isn't creative, it's lazy. Giving absurd contract extensions to guys who have a great spurt of hockey following about a half year of trash isn't creative, it's knee-jerk.

The problem with this team, and I'm sure many can agree, is that it's not built like a 21st century winner. You ice this exact team 20 years ago, we own the Cup. We're a dynasty. Today you need speed, offensive creativity and flexibility from the coach for the lines to gel and do their thing. You also need to be able to roll 4 lines that are all capable of scoring, whether or not they actually do. I feel like we have 3.5 lines. Our 4th can score but they don't with enough frequency and don't log enough minutes for it to matter anyway.

It comes back to Stillman making bad personnel decisions. And I'd love for Marty to be the GM. He's played for a winner, he's been by and large the reason those winners won, and he knows the anatomy of a winning team. He could get us over the hump. Seriously, free up Army to go to Buffalo, whatever. Give him your blessing, and promote Marty.

[glen a richter]

We could use a less shitty lease, though.

Why St Louisans aren't more critical of those guys is beyond me.

Because St. Louisans are too nice. It's the same reason when players retire they want to stay in St. Louis. No one in the media or the city ever treated them like adults with responsibilities as professional entertainers (or the management thereof) who have to meet expectations of the paying fans. Call into your radio shows and bash them when they don't perform. Make them uncomfortable, let them know you're paying to see them win a Cup and they're not anywhere near meeting the expectations you set when you pay your hard earned money to watch them hardly earn theirs. St. Louis sports fans need to develop a bit of a New York sports fan attitude. Frankly I find it amazing the Cardinals have been able to experience any kind of success in such a laid back, "our guys can do no wrong" city.

[theohall]

That's because the Cardinals as an organization don't put up with not winning - except for a brief bout in the 90s before Augie Busch III sold them. When it comes to baseball, St Louis fans are notoriously hard on managers. So-and-so should have been pulled. So-and-so should have been allowed to pinch hit. Why didn't he do a double switch? Why is so-and-so still in the minors (which some folks mistakenly blame on the manager)? They really over-paid for so-and so. This list could go on forever. He should have had him throw x pitch, instead of y pitch. Name anything baseball related after a Cardinals loss and someone calling into a radio show has complained about it vociferously.

When it comes to the Blues - the fans are more grateful the team is still in the city given the history and times the team has been sold. Yes, the "casual" fans and the media are really soft on the Blues. Unfortunately, most Blues fans are "casual" fans. The fans who are actually fanatic - like most of us here - are more critical, but that's a big minority among Blues fans. It's not like if the Blues are doing poorly, St Louisans can follow a pro football, basketball, or soccer team - like in NY City.

I'm not sure Brodeur is ready to be general manager. He's been an assistant GM for 2 years and not even a full 2 years in either year at that. 15-16 - one full season as Asst GM. 2016-17 Asst GM/Goalie coach this season. Brodeur likely turned down Buffalo for more reasons than it's friggin' Buffalo, including his own lack of experience to be a GM. Pushing Brodeur into a GM role before he's had time to learn would be a mistake. If one looks at the successful former NHL player turned successful GM, they all took their time before moving into a GM role. Brodeur was still playing goaltender in January of 2015.

[cardsfan04]

I think there are 3 kinds of fans:

1. Homers that just cheer their team and don't think about criticism.
2. Complainers that whine about everything no matter what.
3. People that try to think about the game rationally in some form. Most people on forums tend to be in this group.

I've lived in St. Louis my entire life, so I don't have a good point of reference for how fans are elsewhere in terms of criticism, etc. So, it's interesting to me to see how people outside of St. Louis perceive the fan-team relationship here.

One thing that sticks out to me though is that I don't want the team making competitive decisions based on feedback from fans. All fans, regardless of viewpoint, have 1 thing in common, an emotional investment in the team. I want the team to make decisions that they think is right, not that they think will appease fans. From that stance, I think it's somewhat irrelevant (in terms of forcing success) how much criticism the fanbase gives a team. I do wish the media asked tougher questions sometimes though.

[glen a richter]

It's not just the management. The players go on the radio shows, they do interviews, they listen to the shows too. They need to hear negativity from time to time to light a fire under their asses. It doesn't help when they don't hear criticism because then they feel like whatever mediocre level they're at is fine.

Noah Syndergaard probably feels like a total shit the last few days because of the media coverage. Good, he'll learn to not be an asshole from it. The Blues players need to hear criticism from time to time. Especially now.

[Irish Blues]

We don't have great assets in this, but we do have sound mid-range depth assets that we could trade off or lose and not hurt ourselves if we're looking to upgrade or have a need that has to be filled.

I don't think we have as much as you'd think. You have about 8-9 pieces you could build around, but the rest? You'd be swapping one mediocre asset for another, and I don't see a lot of help in the system.

That being said, Stillman should absolutely fire Army and promote Brodeur to GM. Buffalo wanted to hire him as GM and Marty flat out rejected the offer, we might want to pay some heed to that.

Buffalo has no idea what it's looking for, so I wouldn't put much stock into that. That said, former players who are assistant GM's seem to be hot commodities in the league with little to no evidence that they can actually do the job beyond, "well, they were great as a player." Yeah, and so was Wayne Gretzky - but he couldn't coach a team.

I'm not sure Brodeur is ready to be general manager. He's been an assistant GM for 2 years and not even a full 2 years in either year at that. 15-16 - one full season as Asst GM. 2016-17 Asst GM/Goalie coach this season. Brodeur likely turned down Buffalo for more reasons than it's friggin' Buffalo, including his own lack of experience to be a GM. Pushing Brodeur into a GM role before he's had time to learn would be a mistake. If one looks at the successful former NHL player turned successful GM, they all took their time before moving into a GM role. Brodeur was still playing goaltender in January of 2015.

This. Steve Yzerman was an understudy to Ken Holland in Detroit for 4 years before going to Tampa; not a chance Brodeur has gained anything close to the same seasoning under a GM that's maybe half as good and much less experienced than Holland in half the time.

I wouldn't mind a modified Laurie situation where they spent to the Cap, kept making one smart move after the next and we won a Cup. I think that's what this was supposed to be with Stillman but Army is more useless in this situation than Steve Ott is on the ice.

I think we're largely spending to the cap. Much like when Laurie had the team, spending wisely is the key. I'd much rather we *not* spend to the cap from Day 1 and have room to make acquisitions during the season, instead of slamming the team against the cap before training camp starts and then having to make dollar-for-dollar moves on everything and handcuffing ourselves in the process ... but, that's just me.

Seriously, free up Army to go to Buffalo, whatever.

Or, back to Dallas so he can run that franchise back into the ground and fire Hitchcock for a 3rd time.

[Irish Blues]

It's not just the management. The players go on the radio shows, they do interviews, they listen to the shows too. They need to hear negativity from time to time to light a fire under their asses. It doesn't help when they don't hear criticism because then they feel like whatever mediocre level they're at is fine.

I get the sentiment here, but I've got a different view on this. If you're a pro athlete and you need criticism from the fans to get motivated, I probably don't want you on my team. I want you to have the self-awareness to know when you think you're playing like crap and that you need to pick it up, and the pride in your ability and your spot on the roster to try and improve. I don't want you loafing until someone else calls you out for it before you say, "gosh - maybe I should be playing better, I guess I'll finally put in some effort."

Plus, while there are fans who are pretty knowledgeable about the game, we all know armchair experts who show up to the game and start screaming SHOOT THE PUCK! once someone gets the puck in across the blueline, want our guys to hit everything and anything in sight (screw playing sound defense), ... you all can think of other examples. By and large, winning brings happiness and mistakes get overlooked; losing brings discontent and every potential miscue is hyper-analyzed. (And then, there's the lunatic fringe that nitpicks everything even when the team wins.) The last thing I want is the fan base deciding who's playing well and who's not, and playing decisions getting make accordingly.

[theohall]

I'm not sure Brodeur is ready to be general manager. He's been an assistant GM for 2 years and not even a full 2 years in either year at that. 15-16 - one full season as Asst GM. 2016-17 Asst GM/Goalie coach this season. Brodeur likely turned down Buffalo for more reasons than it's friggin' Buffalo, including his own lack of experience to be a GM. Pushing Brodeur into a GM role before he's had time to learn would be a mistake. If one looks at the successful former NHL player turned successful GM, they all took their time before moving into a GM role. Brodeur was still playing goaltender in January of 2015.

This. Steve Yzerman was an understudy to Ken Holland in Detroit for 4 years before going to Tampa; not a chance Brodeur has gained anything close to the same seasoning under a GM that's maybe half as good and much less experienced than Holland in half the time.

Ron Hextall is another example of learning a ton before becoming a GM.
Flyers Pro Scout for 3 years
Flyers Director of Player Development for 4 years
Kings VP and Asst GM 6 years while also serving as Manchester Monarchs GM. Stanley Cup win in that Kings stint.
And after all that - finally took over as Flyers GM in 2013 where he is doing outstanding.

And folks want to make Brodeur a GM already??? Recipe for disaster.

[Irish Blues]

Small consolation, but Subban gets fined $2,000 for what we already knew: he took a dive on the non-hit by Edmundson.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/pred ... llishment/

[theohall]

Small consolation, but Subban gets fined $2,000 for what we already knew: he took a dive on the non-hit by Edmundson.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/pred ... llishment/

These fines are a joke and don't actually stop embellishment.

Want to stop embellishment?
1) Make the fine meaningful. 2K isn't meaningful. Start @ 25K
2) Fines increase @ 25K per offense (2nd would be 50k, 3rd - 75K, etc) for repeat offenses and don't reset the counter each season, like under the current rules.

This latest Subban dive (his 5th at least), under these rules change would have cost Subban 125K. Think he might not have taken a dive then?

Instead, we will continue to get these joke fines which stop nothing.