Monday links: Celebrating the Blues win edition

That was AMAZING!! I loved the “ungreased, backdoor, Hammertime love making session” part.

In an unrelated note, I HATE Luongo. After listening to parts of the game last night it amazed me how much I can’t stand that dude.

They traded the most NHL-ready forward prospect they had in order to get Halak, which was fine — and necessary — but the result is that there’s pretty much no one left in Peoria who can come up here and be expected to make any kind of impact offensively right away.

“Right away” being the key. McRae is developing nicely, but he’s still some months away from being ready to make an immediate impact at the NHl level; he’s only just now starting to emerge as a significant “go-to” player at the AHL level.

Shattock may become a top six forward (if he improves his heavy-footed skating), but he’s still adjusting to the pro game. Ditto Nigro, although he projects more as a third-line type. Sonne and Peluso have a couple of years development under their belts, but they don’t project as top six forwards, either.
 
Your Porters, your Hensicks, your Cracknells, your Scatchards — they can come up and fill roles for short periods, but they’re not top 6 NHL players. Hensick is the only one of that group who is still young enough, and fast/skilled enough, to have any chance of making an impact, and the clock is ticking on him, too.

The three forward prospects that will be playing in the World Juniors — Schwartz, Tarasenko and Wannstrom — have the best chance of developing into top six NHLers, but all are still another year away from even AHL readiness.

Both goalies in Peoria are playing well, so much so that they’re probably the best trade cards in the Blues’ hand right now. I’d hate to see either traded, but one of Allen or Bishop — or Ian Cole — may be the price to acquire a scorer who needs a change of scenery, and who’s got his best years ahead of him yet.

B.

Truer words were never spoken.

I have every confidence that Halak will be just fine. This is pressure of a diffferent kind than he’s ever experienced before, as you noted, and he doesn’t seem to be letting the recent string of sub-par performances get into his head.

Hope she’s catchin’ carp in doggie heaven right now, spec.

Awesome Carp Dawg