The Keith Thachuk Rule

And this just in: Eddie Belfour wants a new rule requiring his old teams to resign him whenever he is out of jail and back in north america.

also: the Andy Murray rule: a coach should actually successfully turn a franchise around before being known for turning franchises around

the eric brewer rule: the games you play in feburary should count 10x as much as all the other games you play

The Matt Walker Rule:Anyone who scores a goal after going golaless in at least 150 games is eligible to become an instant unrestricted free agaent, and/or force an immediate trade

The Peter Sejna rule: who?

The Joe Murphy Rule: Jo-jo sits when Jo-Jo needs to.

The Riksman rule: anytime a team is overflowing with goalies wakes up and realizes half of them suck, they can reacquire any former goalie who left during the logjam

CT wrote:

“The Riksman rule: anytime a team is overflowing with goalies wakes up and realizes half of them suck, they can reacquire any former goalie who left during the logjam”

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That’s all fine and dandy, except that the one who left during the logjam was the one who sucked the worst.

Jesus, I think I could do better in a seven-minute AHL career than Riksman did.

On a serious note, Bruce Garrioch is the John Hadley of Canada, both in terms of his credibility and his phsyical, uh, “stature.”

Boo-hoo, so some teams didn’t like “Thackuk” re-signing with the Blues after they traded him.

Ya think maybe that’s why it’s called UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENCY, ya douchebags?

Anybody else could have signed him; besides, the Blues gave a pick BACK to Atlanta for the exclusive negotiating rights, so “Thachuk” actually brought back less to the Blues in the trade than most people seem to realize.

In any case, cry me a river, you spoiled multi-millionaire babies…

B.

this just in brandon bouchenski(hard to spell name for me from memory), is placed on waivers. he’s young, he’s good, he might be struggling but the blues need to jump all over this kid and NOW!

i think they’ll be close to being the team for waivers. which would totally rock. think of it this way, the blues could then be very picky or not so picky when they trade a jackman or salvador. he’s kind of like boyes only in this second year he’s really been sucking. but don’t let it fool you, in just thrity-one games last he scored 11gs and had 11A for 22pts. he’s got a lot of talent and is young. his stats this year pretty much suck but most of the games he played in this year were for boston who has made a number of good players look crappy in the scoring department this year. hell maybe we can trade jackman for phil kessel. a lot of boston fans have been ragging on him but i’d take him in a second as well.

oh yeah in case you’re not in the know in his rookie season last year phil kessel battled testicular cancer and battled through it. i’m just dreaming a bit. we need a few forwards but not really any. as much as ryan johnson’s game has picked up lately i still have to say it’d be silly to resign him when you can pay a younger kid to do the same and who’d have more than two goals by now. just think as i had called for yan to take his or hinote’s place all season(as well as glumac or porter), he’s already scored a goal. i don’t have any thoughts that yan is a big time scorer or anything but i think he’d be a slight improvement. now glumac and porter on the other hand will be much larger upgrades also capable of moving up to a higher line when needed better than say a jamal mayers in that situation.

linglet’s the real deal kids. as well as nikolia. i watched another game in peoria and i was completely impressed. hannu might have found his confidence late in that game. also of note miki dupont is money as well. as well as martin the little brother but taller than older brother paul kariya. he’d be a nice thrid liner to have imo. he’s the type of player who makes good players better, but is not in himself a difference maker.

umm we havent played the waiver wire game recently, not sure we need to start with this kid. why? cos andy wont play him, so why get him? he is unsigned next season, when the hawks had him he hoverd just below the top 10 lists most of the time (#11 often a spot currently held by the blues by Simon Hjalmarsson)

his one plus (assuming murray would ever play him to start) is that he points ont he power play whihc is something the blues need. in little use 20% of his nhl points are on the pp, his minor league numbers are power play bloated in heavy use.

again, no point if murray isnt going to paly, if murray would magically play him, are you sitting lee or backes?!?

Kessel battled through testicular cancer?

That kid sure has ball.

Per Bochenski’s profile here…

http://tsf.waymoresports.thestar.com/thestar/hockey/player.cgi?2312

…he’s a winger, which is the first stike against him, as the Blues need a center.

Strikes two and three are the fact that he needs work on his defense. If you don’t play good defense, you don’t play for Andy Murray.

Sorry, Chris… Bochenski’s got skills, no doubt about that, but I’m pretty sure the Blues will pass on him for the reasons mentioned.

B.

Bochenski is no Simon Gamache.

Yeah, every hot prospect has to find their own special path out of the NHL, and not all of them lead through St. Louis (hopefully).

Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, stupid rule-change ideas.

The rental player restriction… I just can’t see it happening. But if it does (stranger things have happened) does it really change anything (unless you’re a player and concerned about your rights as such)?

Bigger nets: I just don’t like “fundamental” changes that add asterisks to the hitorical stats. So they make the nets bigger, and find out that goals go up 50%. Do they make them smaller again? Slightly smaller?

Are nets smaller for kids leagues, or have they been playing with NHL-sized nets their whole lives? So now when players/coaches say about rookies: “the NHL is different: faster, stronger players, more intensity”, they’ll have to add “but the goals are bigger”.

Mr. Particle wrote:

"Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, stupid rule-change ideas.

The rental player restriction… I just can’t see it happening. But if it does (stranger things have happened) does it really change anything (unless you’re a player and concerned about your rights as such)?"

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This pretty much sums up my feelings about this whole player restriction thing:

http://www.thefourthperiod.com/news/stl080219.html

Meanwhile, one of the topics at the NHL’s GM meetings in Naples, FL, revolves around rental players and whether they should be allowed to re-sign with the team that traded them at the deadline.

Last season, the Blues traded Doug Weight and Keith Tkachuk and then signed them as free agents in the off-season. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports some NHL figureheads want to ban players from signing with their former team for at least one year.

“My question would be, ’You’re going to let the player go to 29 other teams and not the 30th?’” Blues President John Davidson told the Post-Dispatch. “The player has the right to go wherever he wants to go. If he wants to go back (to his former team), that’s fine. If he wants to go to another team, that’s fine. Change the (collective-bargaining agreement). It’s an asinine discussion.”

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B.

If anybody ever wants a comment erased, feel free to ask. Just sayin.

And I’m all for waiver wire pickups. I was just making fun of the fact that the Blues were so bad they took a chance on Gamache but that they’re better now and have higher standards and probably would pass on Bochensky.

i dont have a problem with the player per se either, i just dont think andy plays him. some of andy’s choices are fustrating enough so why we would add an offensive player and try to give him a two month trial on THIS team seems dangerous.

and again, who would you sit?

look andy is starting to concern me. ok more than just starting. he has the team’s effort up again lately, but their effort certainly slagged off for about 2 weeks. he plays with favorites, plays with the captancy, runs players out of town, underuses rookies, turns offensive youth into grinding lines, etc etc etc

now granted, lots of coaches (all?) underplay rookies and seldom do teams have the potential to slip a long shot young player on a top line and leave him there. but still…

if they blues do start picking up waiver wire players, it would signal a sell off imho

Is Andy too heavy with the discipline, and planning, and details? Does a team get to a point and just stop responding? Yes players respect him, but is that enough to get a few full seasons of top-level performance out of them (or even 1 full season)?

(Aren’t we supposed to be having these discussions after the Blues are eliminated from contention?)

Brad Lee wrote: “Maybe I’m just wearing my "The NHL Hates The Blues And I Feel Persecuted" hat.”
Hey Brad, was that a promo I missed earlier this season? My boyfriend, who still complains several times per season about the Scott Stevens debacle, would love one!

By the way, I think Bettman is only trying to make the nets bigger because he hates the Blues and Manny Legace. Poor tiny goalie in a giant net.

I agree with JD that the restrictions on rental players are “asinine.” As long as the teams play by the rules and don’t negotiate before they’re allowed to, players are UNRESTRICTED.

regret. two in the morning rants. gt you are right about murray. i’ll end political discussions as well—i was in the war and it frustrates me that people don’t realize that war that has cost my friends their lives is all about a few people making money—i got carried away with metaphor to explain my frustration with many of so-called experts out there. it wasn’t really mean to be a shot at you gt but some fans mostly on other sites and andy murray and the blues and a lot of scouts that publish information. but obviously, after erasing and rewriting out of pure anger i got lost and tanged in my words and thoughts and it came out a petty tirade by a misunderstood hockey junky.

i agree about the players the blues have in their system. i can not understand how you play in todays nhl with virtualy two checking lines, an atrociously slow tkachuk and then rag on your top lines for not always scoring. and then you hear andy murray say that you need three scoring lines. and freaking is pissing me off.

what i took umbrage with from your post was the tone. bochenski needs some minor league hockey time at this point so he can skate more but if he played with some of our players on third line then maybe we could have three scroing lines. sometimes it’s about having assests. john davidson is indicating he might not trade anyone this year and i think that’s wreckless. you paint yourself in a corner by overpaying two defensemen and then you can’t sign one of your better ones despite the for the most part bad year jackman has had. when we should be concerned about signing backes and boyes the focus has gone to salvador and jackman while we readily have the depth to plug those holes in the organization.

 my buddy and me have been talking about for some time lately that we believe the players are like or responding well to andy murray. that’s why we feel they really wanted a captain so he could say look andy this is fucked. he’s kind of reminded me of the old keenan.

anyway, my appologies. and brad if you would
delete that post i would be thankful.

I’ll make the comments look all pretty. Thanks, fellas.

thank you brad. sorry sometimes i can be a real dick head and spazz out. again my appologies.

And my response can go at the same time as Chris’ OP is cleaned up.

I understand that you weren’t necessarily lashing out at just me, Chris, but I was standing up for not only myself, but CT and Brad as well, although I’m sure they’re perfectly capable of formulating their own responses.

Tone is a difficult thing to express in writing, and I’m truly sorry if I misinterpreted your intent, or if you misinterpreted mine.

I certainly don’t have an issue with Bochenski as a player; I’m just convinced that Murray wouldn’t play him, and thus, picking him up is a waste of time.

Same goes for the guys in the minors. No one would like to see Linglet, Lemtyugov, Porter, Kariya, etc. up here more than me… but of that group, Porter is the only one that Murray would let on the ice because he’s the most committed to defense.

Murray has no patience with young, offense-first players, and the first time Lemtyugov tried a dangle, or a fancy move in front of his own net, or wasn’t the first forward back on defense, Murray would not only nail his ass to the bench, he’d Super Glue him there as well.

Murray seems to like to play head games with his players, and in that, he reminds me a lot of Keenan.

You’re absolutely right in your observations about how the priority should be on getting Backes and Boyes signed, instead of having to dick around with Jackman and Salvador, because the Blues absolutely have the depth in the organization (Pola’k, Wagner, Hellstrom, Junland) to fill in for the loss of either or both of those defensemen.

And hey, I’m a veteran too, although not of combat or Iraq (I served in the 80’s), and every time I hear of one of my brothers or sisters in arms losing their life in this damned war, a little bit of me dies too. So we definitely share that.

Ready Cav, sir.

B.

I deleted the “rant” and the “response” for anyone who wanders through here and says, “What the fuck are these fuckers fucking talking aboot?”

thanks man. i keep meaning to check you site out, so i’ll do that. we seem to share many of the same observations though i think maybe i am unable to comprehend andy murray’s speil.

and so everyone understands—i have never had any issues with brad nor gal. and i’ve only had the very slightest issue with gt but that’s again not why i ranted, and during my erasing and rewriting and telling myself there’s no need to post anger a lot of what i had thought was left out. again to my fellow brother in arms, i most sincerely appologize. there’s probably few people i would love to discuss hockey with as much as i’d like to have a true discussion as with gtprospects.

i’m sure he’s as puzzled as i am on the continued scouting flyer on linglet’s skating abilities. he’s really improved that area and he has good size which he uses and a snipe and sees the ice very well.

but again you’re absolutely correct in your observations on murray. no perron tonight. no wyowitka. and walker played one his best games of the season(which isn’t saying much), i still believe someone that is capable of moving the puck makes the blues a much tougher team to defend and then exploits their speed rather than causing the small guys to go into the corners against usually much larger defensemen.