In coach speak "I didn't hate the deadline"

[flyingnote38]

Since my early December post r/e a core shaking trade being needed. Those with the opposite view at the time my find it strange that I didn't hate the deadline deals. There are a few reasons for this.
prior to the deadline...
1) in part it appeared that to make any deal, the Blues needed to make a major deal, because we had no cap space. Shattenkirk's injury and the NHL's odd accounting system eliminated the need to shed salary to make an addition. This allowed us to add without subtracting (at least until the offseason that is)

2) additions from within. Jaskin and more recently Lindbohm have been allowed to play and have been very productive. Stastny was not clicking with any of our top 6 forwards so we looked to need to get a wing to pair with him. Jaskin filled the need from within and we now have 3 potentially productive lines on any given night. Lindbohm has played (small sample size) well enough to wonder why Cole and Butler have been ahead of him on the depth chart.

3) Dumping Lapierre for Goc was a good move that improved the 4th line. Achieving at least a part of revamping the 4th line I wanted.

at the deadline.....
4) They got the guy I suggested was worth looking into (the "rumor" of Rattie and Berglund to the Yotes for Vermette, Michalek and Kinos with the Yotes retaining 50% of Vermette's and Michalek's salaries). The Hawks sudden capspace and need at forward prompted their willingness to overpay for Vermette taking him off the table. I would much rather of dealt Rattie rather than Lemutov, but otherwise we got the Dman we needed/wanted and didn't completely empty out the farm (for a change).

The other two deals we dealt garbage and got garbage. Putting Jokinen on the 4th might be an upgrade over Ott or Reaves, but I don't see Hitch doing that. The other guy hopefully never sees the ice in the playoffs.

With some health our top 10 forwards and top 8 dmen look (potentially) pretty solid. Butler could realistic go from the top pairing to the press box when Shatt and Michalek get healthy. I still see way too many guys cherry-picking behind our D getting clean breaks from the blueline in and too many 'passes' by our dmen to wide open opponents in front of our net -- two things that if we do them against the Hawks will not bode well for getting to round 2. I saw one suggestion that part of the odd man rush problem resulted from playing left handed shots on the right point requiring them to play closer to the boards and leaving us vurnerable up the middle of the ice, but I'm not sure I buy this.

Goaltending remains a potential concern. My vision for this tandem was Allen to ascend to the number 1 role by playoff time. This clearly hasn't happened and at this point, an injury to Elliot would be a disaster. Not sure if Allen is part of the answer going forward.

[cprice12]

Just out of curiosity, why did you expect Allen to outplay Elliott and take over the #1 job by the playoffs?
I heard a number of people say that before the season started, and I didn't get that thinking at all for a number of reasons.

1) Allen had only played in a small handful of games in his NHL career coming into this season and hadn't really proven anything yet.
2) Elliott had done nothing but put up great numbers for us during his time here. His GAA and Save % as a Blue are #1 overall in the NHL during that time.
3) We want to win the cup this year, and making Allen your #1 going into the playoffs, who has zero playoff experience? No way Hitch was going to do that unless Allen was lights out all year and Elliott struggled...and even then, you'd have that "no playoff experience" and "limited NHL experience" cloud hanging over our rookie goaltender who is supposed to take us all the way to the cup? That's just not very realistic.

Those are all points I have mentioned more than a few times here. I'm not sure why so many people felt Allen was ready to take the NHL by storm this year. I hope he becomes our #1 and becomes an elite goalie in the NHL...eventually, but I don't see that happening for a while...which is pretty much how it usually goes with good goaltenders or any player really. They need to get the experience, put in their time and get adjusted to the NHL before they start to define what kind of player they are going to be. It could take a couple years or more. Allen's struggles this year don't surprise me one bit. He's young...and it's his first year in the league. He is certainly going to have some struggles. So while I am down on him this year, I am not down on him as far as his future goes. No way should the Blues give up on him. That would be a serious early knee jerk reaction to the start of his career.

I didn't hate the deadline moves either...mostly for the reasons you mentioned.
They aren't sexy moves and they aren't meant to get everyone excited....so people naturally crap all over them. They were meant to gain depth...which they slightly did. So that's fine by me. And Cole wanted out, so good riddance. Our big moves were in the offseason with bringing in Stastny and Lehtera...and Goc ended up being a nice trade to make the 4th line better, even though a lot of folks were pretty pissed about that trade at the time.

[flyingnote38]

Just out of curiosity, why did you expect Allen to outplay Elliott and take over the #1 job by the playoffs?
I heard a number of people say that before the season started, and I didn't get that thinking at all for a number of reasons.

Your points on Allen are true. It was more "If he's going to be the guy, then he should be ready to be the guy"
he's 24 and has had 4 years in the AHL.
was the AHL goalie of the year last year with a stellar .928 save percentage
when both he and Bishop were in Chicago together, although developmentally a few years behind Bishop, he was the one felt to have a higher ceiling. Bishop obviously is a top tier NHL goalie at this point

instead, he's been.....well I think the Blues signing Brodeur off the street to replace Elliot when he got hurt pretty much tells you the level of confidence they had in Allen at that point in the season. After getting "shut down" for a week to regroup his mental game, he was better...for awhile. The last couple games he's been..... not good. And the shootout against the Canucks? ugh

[Oaklandblue]

I don't think it's unreasonable to say 'This guy is having solid, great success in the minors, let's bring him up and see what he can do.' So many people on here have called Jake Allen the Goalie of the Future and at one point I was one of them. I think there's a lot to the development thing where a goalie might be ready now, two years from now, five years from now, which is all sweet and lovely when your NHL team doesn't need a goalie now. Jake is either ready now or he's not. If he's not, then who is? Having him on a one-way contract and having someone we know isn't ready backstopping us can be a very dangerous thing. I think we as a fanbase have to quit having this false economy about 'someday this player may be ready' and be realistic. They either -can- be ready or they will only be x amount of good. If you look at the last dozen or so, or maybe more of our prospects, very few actually stay in the NHL. I think that's pretty telling. Alot of our solid prospects come from trades from other clubs prospect pools, not our own. That also, is very telling in my eyes.

I'm not saying to trade or dump or whatever to anybody, including Jake, but I really feel that this franchise really needs to sit down and say 'Can THIS guy really make it and if not, we should deal him for people who can OR keep him downstairs until he is ready enough to either be serviceable to us or be traded for players who are or will be'. There seems to be a strange sense of 'false economy' when it comes to players in that mold where they are hot in the minors for Peoria/Chicago, get brought up, go on a small rampage and light up the world for a short period of time and then live off of that glory for a few years to only, in the end, serve a very minor role on the team.

Being a Blue is a privilidge, it's an honor and it's a responsibility, it's not just a paycheck and the money part should be last in terms of how the franchise looks at a player and how a prospect looks at the team. I seriously feel that we overvalue the majority of players that we have when we are winning, ignoring the glaring holes and spotty issues and 'lucky bounces' and such and when they lose, we go too far overboard pointing out the things we selectively ignore because we won. We get over that hurdle we will have a clear, honest perception of what we have and then we can build to go the rest of the way, if we aren't there already.

As for my thoughts on Jake? Too hard to tell. We can't ask the guy to be Glenn Hall and at the same time we can't excuse missing easy shots on goal. We also can't ask him to be the stable one when the rest of the team is being unstable, screening him and such either.

My thoughts on the deadline are simple: We did what we could with what we have without losing any serious pieces and picking up some players who want to play and will bring some fresh air into the team dynamic. That alone is a victory.

[cprice12]

In short, I think Allen is fine for a backup right now. I trust that he will improve. But Elliott needs to get the lion's share of playing time from here on out. The door has opened for the division lead and we need to put the hammer down and take it. I think Allen should only maybe get a few starts the rest of the way. We have three back to backs left in the season, and I can see Allen starting one of each of those...but other than that, ride Elliott. And then if we don't need the points, play Allen in the season finale against Dallas so Elliott can have at least four or five days off before the playoffs start. That would be 4 starts for Allen and 15 for Elliott. That would give Elliott 48 starts this season...which is a nice number in that he shouldn't be overworked going into the playoffs.

I know Hitch said they are taking the goalie situation one game at a time and they'll play the guy who is playing well. So we'll see how it pans out.

And Elliott is starting every game in the playoffs unless he gets hurt, so hopefully we don't have to worry about Allen's brain farts in the playoffs.

[ecbm]

Curt's right. Allen is fine as a backup. There are many decent teams with straight-up garbage backups and then there are the really unfortunate situations like Florida who will live or die with Dan Ellis now ( ) and Vancouver where the best option is probably a kid they can't bring up from the AHL because he couldn't clear waivers if Miller comes back.

Lindbohm has played (small sample size) well enough to wonder why Cole and Butler have been ahead of him on the depth chart.

I think advanced stats answer that question-playing in a bigger sample, Cole was a +16 while Lindbohm is -3 but Cole started 56.5% of his shifts in the D zone compared to Lindbohm's 51% while Cole's Fenwick, Corsi & PDO are also slightly better. Comes down to who you trust to start a shift in your zone against a top line. Don't think the Blues' coaches have reached that level of comfort with Lindbohm yet, though you're right that he's played well lately-maybe the staff is getting there and that helped make Cole expendable.

[ecbm]

Oh, have to say, don't know why anyone would think Jokinen would be an upgrade over anyone on any NHL roster in March, 2015. Dude has looked done. Maybe he isn't, great if he adds something but the assumption has to be no impact at all.

[cardsfan04]

Oh, have to say, don't know why anyone would think Jokinen would be an upgrade over anyone on any NHL roster in March, 2015. Dude has looked done. Maybe he isn't, great if he adds something but the assumption has to be no impact at all.

I think he's probably an upgrade over Lindstrom which is the primary factor in evaluating the trade. I know we gave up a 6th round pick too, but that's almost a throw in.

Nobody is going to look at this and get excited about having Jokinen. But as a 13th forward (or maybe even 14th behind Porter), it's not bad. I couldn't name hardly any 13th or 14th forwards on other teams, but my guess is he ranks favorably. It's also worth mentioning that our 13-14th forward was a top 12 guy for Nashville and they aren't exactly slouches themselves.