Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by cprice12 »

cardsfan04 wrote:
cprice12 wrote:I had a short conversation with a guy on Twitter.
He said Miller could go down as the worst acquisition in Blues history. :lol:

Discuss.
I guess he's only been a Blues fan since 2005. Brewer/Pronger trade still makes me sick.
There are a number of moves that have proven to be horrible. I could list a half dozen right now that the Miller trade couldn't touch, even if we lose in the first round.

But the fact that dude is suggesting getting Miller could be the worst one, is insane...mainly because Miller COULD end up being the BEST ACQUISITION EVER if things fall our way and we happen to win the cup. :cup:

It's the "sky is falling" mentality...the drastic bi-polar meter crap that I hate about social media and sports. This team was the toast of the town a week and a half ago...and they go through a rough patch of 4 games (which they hadn't done all season...not even close), and now this team is apparently terrible and won't do anything in the playoffs.

I'm not too concerned with the team's play. Sure, it would be nice to be playing better...but wake me when the playoffs start. Honestly, I am far more concerned with the injuries right now. If we end up getting Oshie & Backes back for the playoffs and the are good to go, then I'll feel better. And of course it would be nice to still be alive in the playoffs when Tank is ready to go.

Nobody knows how this team is going to fair in the playoffs. Hopefully it's just a matter of the urgency simply not being there and when it's playoffs time, the energy will be there...even though the team showed a lot last night...except for Miller of course.

Someone else pointed out that Boston went 2-8 down the stretch last year...and then won the cup. It doesn't matter how you finish the season, it matters how you play in the playoffs.
It just sucks we just had two of our top guys injured in the past couple games this close to the playoffs.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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cprice12 wrote:
cardsfan04 wrote:
cprice12 wrote:I had a short conversation with a guy on Twitter.
He said Miller could go down as the worst acquisition in Blues history. :lol:

Discuss.
I guess he's only been a Blues fan since 2005. Brewer/Pronger trade still makes me sick.
There are a number of moves that have proven to be horrible. I could list a half dozen right now that the Miller trade couldn't touch, even if we lose in the first round.

But the fact that dude is suggesting getting Miller could be the worst one, is insane...mainly because Miller COULD end up being the BEST ACQUISITION EVER if things fall our way and we happen to win the cup. :cup:

It's the "sky is falling" mentality...the drastic bi-polar meter crap that I hate about social media and sports. This team was the toast of the town a week and a half ago...and they go through a rough patch of 4 games (which they hadn't done all season...not even close), and now this team is apparently terrible and won't do anything in the playoffs.

I'm not too concerned with the team's play. Sure, it would be nice to be playing better...but wake me when the playoffs start. Honestly, I am far more concerned with the injuries right now. If we end up getting Oshie & Backes back for the playoffs and the are good to go, then I'll feel better. And of course it would be nice to still be alive in the playoffs when Tank is ready to go.

Nobody knows how this team is going to fair in the playoffs. Hopefully it's just a matter of the urgency simply not being there and when it's playoffs time, the energy will be there...even though the team showed a lot last night...except for Miller of course.

Someone else pointed out that Boston went 2-8 down the stretch last year...and then won the cup. It doesn't matter how you finish the season, it matters how you play in the playoffs.
It just sucks we just had two of our top guys injured in the past couple games this close to the playoffs.
Was listening to NHL Network radio today on lunch and Pierre McGuire was on and he was much more optimistic about the Blues than I think any of us are being and kind of calmed me down a bit. He basically kind of echoed your sentiments Curt: the Blues are going to be a very very difficult team to play against in the first round. Our locker room isn't breaking in a bunch of rookies and is vastly composed of veteran players who have been in slumps, etc before and know how to play the game.

What he said that particularly struck me was that although the Blues lost last night to Minnesota, the Blues "played well enough to win" which they hadn't necessarily done against the Blackhawks, Stars, et al. We just ran into a goalie was absolutely on fire. Pierre also emphasized that the last games of the season are far less about the winning or losing than it is about how you are playing during those last games. And like Pierre said: scoreboard aside, and possibly Miller aside, the Blues looked very good for long stretches of time last night. That gave me some encouragement. As has been noted elsewhere on the board: when the playoffs start, then we'll know. Right now it's too early.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by xbleed83bluex »

It was a bad trade, a gamble, but bad trades happen. We could have kept Halak, and be in exactly the same position we are now, only we'd keep our draft picks. Whether or not we want to say Halak would have been the better goaltender in the games Miller lost is moot, however, he certainly would have been equal to Miller if not better, at a cheaper price tag and allowing us to keep our valuable picks. So yes, all in all, bad trade.

The game that Elliot recently lost, wasn't even his fault. And before that, if he didn't let in that one goal in the last minute of the game, he would be tied with Halak for first in shutouts. It's sad that we probably aren't going to resign Elliot and give him that chance. He was so close.

If we let Elliot go, and re-sign Miller, and bring up Allen, it's another gamble, as Halak and Elliot tandem have been exceptional for us while Miller and Allen are both unproven. Miller can recreate the whole Lalime-era all over again while Elliot will be number one goalie breaking records somewhere else.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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xbleed83bluex wrote:It was a bad trade, a gamble, but bad trades happen. We could have kept Halak, and be in exactly the same position we are now, only we'd keep our draft picks. Whether or not we want to say Halak would have been the better goaltender in the games Miller lost is moot, however, he certainly would have been equal to Miller if not better, at a cheaper price tag and allowing us to keep our valuable picks. So yes, all in all, bad trade.

The game that Elliot recently lost, wasn't even his fault. And before that, if he didn't let in that one goal in the last minute of the game, he would be tied with Halak for first in shutouts. It's sad that we probably aren't going to resign Elliot and give him that chance. He was so close.

If we let Elliot go, and re-sign Miller, and bring up Allen, it's another gamble, as Halak and Elliot tandem have been exceptional for us while Miller and Allen are both unproven. Miller can recreate the whole Lalime-era all over again while Elliot will be number one goalie breaking records somewhere else.
I had zero confidence in Halak...mainly becuase he couldn't stay healthy long enough to even get to the playoffs. He played in 1 playoff game during his career here, and he got hurt in that game.
When he was healthy, he was overall very good...but he is useless if he is hurt come playoff time...which was always the case.

I'm still cool with the Miller trade.
They'll try to resign him, especially if he plays well in the playoffs. If they don't resign him, I'd love to have Elliot back as our #1. He has earned that chance.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by WaukeeBlues »

xbleed83bluex wrote:It was a bad trade, a gamble, but bad trades happen. We could have kept Halak, and be in exactly the same position we are now, only we'd keep our draft picks. Whether or not we want to say Halak would have been the better goaltender in the games Miller lost is moot, however, he certainly would have been equal to Miller if not better, at a cheaper price tag and allowing us to keep our valuable picks. So yes, all in all, bad trade.

The game that Elliot recently lost, wasn't even his fault. And before that, if he didn't let in that one goal in the last minute of the game, he would be tied with Halak for first in shutouts. It's sad that we probably aren't going to resign Elliot and give him that chance. He was so close.

If we let Elliot go, and re-sign Miller, and bring up Allen, it's another gamble, as Halak and Elliot tandem have been exceptional for us while Miller and Allen are both unproven. Miller can recreate the whole Lalime-era all over again while Elliot will be number one goalie breaking records somewhere else.
I disagree with everything you said except the middle paragraph. The difference between Ryan Miller and virtually anyone else we've had wearing the bluenote between the pipes for us is that he's got a resume of success. With the possible exception of Osgood virtually NOBODY we put between the pipes has a record of winning hockey games in big time circumstances. Miller does. The most notable, I would argue, were the 2010 Olympics (phenomenal for USA and wasn't the reason they lost the gold medal game) and his overall solid performances in the playoffs when the Sabres got there. He's more seasoned than Halak, more stable, and (in my view) more talented. He's had a rough bit of it lately but the whole team has. Especially for what we gave up to acquire the guy, I am CERTAINLY not on the "dump him" bandwagon already after a few bad games :roll: which, IMO, is ridiculous to even argue. But that's me.

And I think part of the reason your aforementioned "Elliott-Halak" tandem worked so well was because they were sharing a workload that neither one of them could sustain by themselves. That doesn't instill a lot of confidence in either one of them as THE starter for your hockey team.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by glen a richter »

Oaklandblue wrote:I think the front office had to make a move right now in terms of goaltending whether they liked it or not to try and establish a future in that position.

At the end of the post season, both Halak and Elliott would be out of contract and all we would have is Jake Allen. We could bring up Bings, but he's aways away from being close to ready. We all agree that Jake would fall into a backup role, but without a starter, he'd be the starter.

Given that Army has a tendency to be on the frugal side, trading for Ryan Miller is a stroke of genuis: Take a guy with a solid, hard work ethic and a calm demeanor who has toiled his entire career on a poor team at the bottom rungs of the league and give him a taste of what it's like to be near the top of the rung and create relationships with the players and team around him, a team that's never won the Cup and is obviously a few steps from making it all the way. Would he resign? If we brought out six million a year, I think the answer is yes.

As it stood, there was honestly no way we could trade for a solid scorer without giving up vital pieces of our puzzle and if we did, we'd still have to deal with the goaltending situation, which is actually much dire than our scoring situation. We have scorers who are signed up for the next few years, so there's a window there. Goaltending, there simply wasn't. We have to take a chance either way and we chose to pick Miller over Halak. Cost us a few picks and picked up Ott, who needs to stop agitating. He sets up some great passes for shot chances and the other players don't follow through.

I don't see our scoring situation changing that much more or less in the off-season. In fact, our scoring is pretty decent, it's our PP that's been sucking hard as of late imho.
I disagree. I think Jake is ready, willing and able to be the #1 on this team. He pulled the team up last season when they were playing like crap and he can do it again. His numbers in Chicago have been wonderful, and statistically better than Halak or Miller's. Granted it's the farm, but I believe he would be our best chance going forward. Will they bring him up for the playoffs? Obviously not. But next season I would not at all be against him getting the reins.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by xbleed83bluex »

glen a richter wrote:
Oaklandblue wrote:I think the front office had to make a move right now in terms of goaltending whether they liked it or not to try and establish a future in that position.

At the end of the post season, both Halak and Elliott would be out of contract and all we would have is Jake Allen. We could bring up Bings, but he's aways away from being close to ready. We all agree that Jake would fall into a backup role, but without a starter, he'd be the starter.

Given that Army has a tendency to be on the frugal side, trading for Ryan Miller is a stroke of genuis: Take a guy with a solid, hard work ethic and a calm demeanor who has toiled his entire career on a poor team at the bottom rungs of the league and give him a taste of what it's like to be near the top of the rung and create relationships with the players and team around him, a team that's never won the Cup and is obviously a few steps from making it all the way. Would he resign? If we brought out six million a year, I think the answer is yes.

As it stood, there was honestly no way we could trade for a solid scorer without giving up vital pieces of our puzzle and if we did, we'd still have to deal with the goaltending situation, which is actually much dire than our scoring situation. We have scorers who are signed up for the next few years, so there's a window there. Goaltending, there simply wasn't. We have to take a chance either way and we chose to pick Miller over Halak. Cost us a few picks and picked up Ott, who needs to stop agitating. He sets up some great passes for shot chances and the other players don't follow through.

I don't see our scoring situation changing that much more or less in the off-season. In fact, our scoring is pretty decent, it's our PP that's been sucking hard as of late imho.
I disagree. I think Jake is ready, willing and able to be the #1 on this team. He pulled the team up last season when they were playing like crap and he can do it again. His numbers in Chicago have been wonderful, and statistically better than Halak or Miller's. Granted it's the farm, but I believe he would be our best chance going forward. Will they bring him up for the playoffs? Obviously not. But next season I would not at all be against him getting the reins.
So we'd be paying $6.25 million for a backup goalie and 300K for our starter? Lol
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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Even more, Ott isn't even better than Stewart IMO. Stewart at least could have an occasional hot streak, and could have chipped in a few goals. He was much more physical, too. So there's nothing to really take away from this trade. We trade Halak for a goalie playing worse than Halak, Stewart for an worse player than Stewart, and threw 2 draft pics away.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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I could see Miller leaving the Blues and have Halak come back this off season lol.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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xbleed83bluex wrote:Even more, Ott isn't even better than Stewart IMO. Stewart at least could have an occasional hot streak, and could have chipped in a few goals. He was much more physical, too. So there's nothing to really take away from this trade. We trade Halak for a goalie playing worse than Halak, Stewart for an worse player than Stewart, and threw 2 draft pics away.
I think you're overstating Ott, but I won't dispute that much. I've been disappointed in him for the most part. I'm not sure I agree with the statement that Miller is playing worse than Halak. Even if Miller's numbers with us are worse than Halak's (I assume that's what you're saying, seems possible), the team has played significantly worse with Miller in net than Halak. So, I don't think a straight numbers comparison tells the whole story. I think if Halak was in net during this stretch, his numbers would have been worse than Miller's have been. I do think he needs to be better than he has been, but I think he's also been better than Halak would have been over the same stretch.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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If Allen is the better goalie then so what who's getting paid what amount? Do you want to win Cups or justify playing someone because he makes more money?
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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Allen's played a grand total of 15 games at the NHL level. I wouldn't think it advisable to press too hard when penciling him in to a starting role for a team with contending aspirations. Obviously he's tearing up the AHL, but that is a very different league and guys don't always make the transition as planned, especially goalies. If Miller turns out to be the wrong direction, Elliott is probably the best bet as starter given his experience and bring Allen in as backup. If you wind up with a Brodeur-Terreri situation where the rookie outplays the vet and becomes the starter by playoff time, great! Otherwise at least you know what you're getting in Elliott, which mind you has been pretty darned good. Obviously, this all implies that Elliott is re-signed this off-season and doesn't seek a guaranteed starting job elsewhere as he's certainly earned the shot at it IMO.

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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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I'm not off the Miller bandwagon yet and will have a stronger opinion one way or another after the playoffs. But, one thing that crossed my mind is that Elliott would cost less than Miller. I don't have anybody in mind, but one option would be to sign Elliott and use the difference in their cost + Roy's money (he's on a 1 year deal I believe) to try to make a significant signing to upgrade the offense. I haven't looked at the FA pool and haven't even seen how how much that would allow us to spend, but if we don't go down the Miller road past this year, perhaps that's an option.

That said, I'm still a little skeptical that Elliott will come back. He's ready for a starting job somewhere. I'm not sure he will want to put himself in a situation in which the organization plans to replace him with a prospect at some point. If I'm Elliott, I'm trying to get a 4-5 year deal somewhere as a number 1.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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cardsfan04 wrote:I'm not off the Miller bandwagon yet and will have a stronger opinion one way or another after the playoffs. But, one thing that crossed my mind is that Elliott would cost less than Miller. I don't have anybody in mind, but one option would be to sign Elliott and use the difference in their cost + Roy's money (he's on a 1 year deal I believe) to try to make a significant signing to upgrade the offense. I haven't looked at the FA pool and haven't even seen how how much that would allow us to spend, but if we don't go down the Miller road past this year, perhaps that's an option.

That said, I'm still a little skeptical that Elliott will come back. He's ready for a starting job somewhere. I'm not sure he will want to put himself in a situation in which the organization plans to replace him with a prospect at some point. If I'm Elliott, I'm trying to get a 4-5 year deal somewhere as a number 1.
The first place he should look for that is St. Louis. He hasn't had the same level of success with Ottawa or Colorado as he has with the Blues. And Miller is no spring chicken- if Miller does re-sign here, I could see a slightly reduced workload for him, giving Elliott plenty of starts. If Miller only signs for a year or two before retirement, Elliott can take over the #1 job and Allen can back up.

We'll see how the playoffs go, but I am currently in favor of trying to re-sign Miller. How many goalies of his caliber will be on the market this offseason? A little part of my desire to see him re-sign is to prevent him from signing with one of our rivals, but I think Miller/Elliott can be rock-solid goaltending for a few years. But again, we'll see what happens in the postseason.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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I might get crucified for saying this, but this is how I feel from what I've seen:

On paper, there is not much difference between Miller and Halak. When it comes down to it, six of one, half dozen of the other. I think for fans the difference was that we got tired of waiting for Halak to get consistently healthy and that time ran out. I think at the end of it all, unless Miller turns into Playoff goalie from hell (And he's playing for a big, big contract, so I'd expect no less from him than .920 and above otherwise what's the point in having him for what, six million?)

Once again we are down to Brian Elliott when all else fails. And Brian just doesn't have it to be a starter.

To me, the difference can be summed up in the future. We had to let Ben Bishop go and look how he's doing now. Can we afford to do the same with Jake Allen?

Miller + Elliott can happen, but at the cost of Jake Allen. That's the thing, in mind mind and if I had to choose, it'd be Jake Allen, all day, every day.

With that in mind, I feel it's irresponsible to pull a guy from the AHL and throw them between the pipes as a starter, if we have an option to put in a starter and have Jake succeed to it. From what I understand, goaltenders are precious beings that need to handled in a certain and careful way. Mind you, Jake came in and handled the pipes better than Halak and Elliott but his numbers on paper don't jive to that. He definently deserves the opportunity, but not like how Tampa did to Bishop where they burned him out and he got injured because of it.

Again, that's just my opinion and I stay pretty hopeful at how we're rolling along, even though we're short seven players. Worst case scenario, we're making progress and at a level where we can trim and examine and make the moves to build up. So I don't think we're as bad off as others might think.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by glen a richter »

Elliott as a 1B is great. As a 1 he's not. We saw that all too well in the playoffs against LA and when Allen had to bail out the team last season when Ells went down to Peoria to re-learn how to be a franking professional damn goalie. We forget that. Just because he's getting paid bigger bucks than Allen doesn't mean he automatically deserves to be the clear cut #1 in the absence of Miller. Frankly I think they should trade him while his value is higher--at the deadline for the best pick(s) they can get. There are plenty of NHL experienced backups they can sign on the cheap to back up Allen--Nilstrop, Montoya, McElhinney. And before you crucify me for suggesting a laundry list of not-so-great goalies, don't forget that Elliott was on the trash heap before he salvaged his career in St. Louis. Allen/Montoya doesn't seem so bad to me.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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Based on his play of late Miller needs a drink! :lol:

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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

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glen a richter wrote:Elliott as a 1B is great. As a 1 he's not. We saw that all too well in the playoffs against LA and when Allen had to bail out the team last season when Ells went down to Peoria to re-learn how to be a franking professional damn goalie. We forget that. Just because he's getting paid bigger bucks than Allen doesn't mean he automatically deserves to be the clear cut #1 in the absence of Miller. Frankly I think they should trade him while his value is higher--at the deadline for the best pick(s) they can get. There are plenty of NHL experienced backups they can sign on the cheap to back up Allen--Nilstrop, Montoya, McElhinney. And before you crucify me for suggesting a laundry list of not-so-great goalies, don't forget that Elliott was on the trash heap before he salvaged his career in St. Louis. Allen/Montoya doesn't seem so bad to me.
Let's clear a couple things up about Elliott.
- Overall he was VERY good in the playoffs vs. LA last year. A 1.90 GAA and .919 Save %. He was more than good enough for us to beat LA...but just didn't score any goals.

- Last reg. season, Elliott had a bad start to the season, but because of the shortened schedule, his bad 6 or 7 game stretch was like a bad 14 game stretch if you average it out when compared to a normal length season. People forget THAT. Elliott was benched, then sent down...and he regrouped in Peoria, and then came back up here and was the best goalie in the NHL after that. He just had a bad start to the season, and with the schedule shortened, the team didn't have time to wait for him to turn it around here...so they sent him down and brought up Allen, who played good enough...but wasn't great. The team played better in front of him than they did in front of Elliott, and Allen was good enough to win some games.

- Before coming to St. Louis, Elliott had only been in the league a few seasons. One could argue that he simply found his game after he got here. If anyone has watched Elliott play here, they can tell you his stellar play isn't just from having a great defense in front of him. He has been damn good. It's not like he had been in the league for 7 or 8 years with average to sub-par numbers.

If Miller doesn't do the job in the playoffs and they don't resign him, I'd like to see Elliott return as the #1 goalie. I'm not sold on Allen...and right now Elliott is simply the better goalie and he has earned a #1 job here...I mean, what else do you have to do? Allen had some good games up here last year, but the sample size is tiny...and no way in hell should he be given the #1 job on a team that should be gunning for the cup...that would be stupid. Either Miller or Elliott is/should be our #1 next year...unless they trade for someone...which is unlikely.
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Oaklandblue
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by Oaklandblue »

cprice12 wrote:
glen a richter wrote:Elliott as a 1B is great. As a 1 he's not. We saw that all too well in the playoffs against LA and when Allen had to bail out the team last season when Ells went down to Peoria to re-learn how to be a franking professional damn goalie. We forget that. Just because he's getting paid bigger bucks than Allen doesn't mean he automatically deserves to be the clear cut #1 in the absence of Miller. Frankly I think they should trade him while his value is higher--at the deadline for the best pick(s) they can get. There are plenty of NHL experienced backups they can sign on the cheap to back up Allen--Nilstrop, Montoya, McElhinney. And before you crucify me for suggesting a laundry list of not-so-great goalies, don't forget that Elliott was on the trash heap before he salvaged his career in St. Louis. Allen/Montoya doesn't seem so bad to me.
Let's clear a couple things up about Elliott.
- Overall he was VERY good in the playoffs vs. LA last year. A 1.90 GAA and .919 Save %. He was more than good enough for us to beat LA...but just didn't score any goals.

- Last reg. season, Elliott had a bad start to the season, but because of the shortened schedule, his bad 6 or 7 game stretch was like a bad 14 game stretch if you average it out when compared to a normal length season. People forget THAT. Elliott was benched, then sent down...and he regrouped in Peoria, and then came back up here and was the best goalie in the NHL after that. He just had a bad start to the season, and with the schedule shortened, the team didn't have time to wait for him to turn it around here...so they sent him down and brought up Allen, who played good enough...but wasn't great. The team played better in front of him than they did in front of Elliott, and Allen was good enough to win some games.

- Before coming to St. Louis, Elliott had only been in the league a few seasons. One could argue that he simply found his game after he got here. If anyone has watched Elliott play here, they can tell you his stellar play isn't just from having a great defense in front of him. He has been damn good. It's not like he had been in the league for 7 or 8 years with average to sub-par numbers.

If Miller doesn't do the job in the playoffs and they don't resign him, I'd like to see Elliott return as the #1 goalie. I'm not sold on Allen...and right now Elliott is simply the better goalie and he has earned a #1 job here...I mean, what else do you have to do? Allen had some good games up here last year, but the sample size is tiny...and no way in hell should he be given the #1 job on a team that should be gunning for the cup...that would be stupid. Either Miller or Elliott is/should be our #1 next year...unless they trade for someone...which is unlikely.
Brian Elliott has great numbers for playing not so many games as a starter. Against LA, yeah, both times he was anything but the problem. He's a 1B at best, definently not a starter. Does he deserve a chance? Sure. If we don't keep Miller and sign Brian, bring up Allen and let Allen beat Ells out of the job. Jake is on a One-Way contract anyway next year and I really feel the Blues plans are to let Brian go, sign Miller and run a Miller/Allen setup.
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Re: Thoughts on Ryan Miller?

Post by dmiles2186 »

Oaklandblue wrote:Jake is on a One-Way contract anyway next year and I really feel the Blues plans are to let Brian go, sign Miller and run a Miller/Allen setup.
This is what I feel is going to happen. Once the trade was made, Elliott's days here were numbered. However, he's a good plan B should you not be able to re-sign Miller. He'll be cheaper too.

I've been up and down on Elliott during his time here, but truth is, he's been one of the best backups in the league during his time here, if not the best. I'd call him a super-backup since he's been a part time starter too. From the sounds of it, Elliott works his balls off and all of the guys on the roster seem to appreciate it.

In the end, I see Allen being brought into the fold slowly next year. He'll be the team's backup, something Bishop was never able to do after he was beat out by Elliott in training camp a few years ago. That way you can groom him as a starter behind either Miller/Ells. It's not a bad plan.
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