Weekly Links - Dancing In The 50's

SLGT COVERAGE OF THE BLUES THIS WEEK:

• A discussion of lines for the 2016-17 season. Good Christ, if Ken Hitchcock ever put Paul Stastny with more than one talented forward at one fucking time for more than 30 Goddamn seconds of 5-on-5 time, I might shit myself. [SLGT FanPosts]
• However, another person says Stastny needs to be traded. Oh. Okay. Uh. Wait. What? WHY?! (And two other guys that should be traded but no one wants so they can't be traded.) [SLGT FanPosts]
• Dan says it's time for us to believe in Jake Allen . . . well, I don't know about YOU all, but I always DID believe in Jake Allen, so NYAAAAAHHHHHH. [SLGT]
• RFA forward Magnus Paajarvi will be back with the club after signing the same contract he signed last season--one year, one-way, $700K. [SLGT]
• Fuck whether or not Arby's has the meats, according to Ving Rhames. RFA forward Jaden Schwartz is thinking Arby's. (I doubt this makes it to the bench, don't you?) [SLGT]
• Meanwhile, Vladimir Sobotka doesn't give a Goddamn who has the meats. He'll be back with the Blues next season on the arbitration-awarded contract he was given in the summer of 2014 ($2.725MM, which is the number the Blues offered, if you recall). Remember . . . Sobotka scored more points (33) in an injury-shortened 2013-14 regular season (61 games) than Steve Ott (20) did his entire tenure--playoffs included--as a Blue (140 games). [SLGT]
• Episode #129 of Beyond Checkerdome covered everything that happened since Episode #128 up to the first day of free agency. CrossCheckRaise and I talk about the NHL Awards, briefly speak on the NHL Entry Draft (more on why only briefly in a bit), welcome in David Perron and Carter Hutton, say goodbye to Brian Elliott, David Backes and Troy Brouwer and take care of other loose ends. [SLGT]
• We didn't talk much about the draft because . . . we talked to our Prospects Department about the draft in a supplemental episode! B.W. came on to discuss with us the recent influx of St. Louis talent at the NHL Entry Draft, the Blues' eight draft picks, other prospect news and more. [SLGT]
• Mr. Department also put up a poll . . . what criteria do YOU use to determine the top prospect of a team? [SLGT]

LAST WEEK'S COMMENTS--WHAT WE MISSED:

• The only comment was the Paajarvi news, so I guess we didn't miss anything last week. [SLGT]

OTHER BLUES NEWS:

• Okay, so maybe we might have missed SOMETHING by a hare . . . the Blues signed fifth-round pick Conner Bleackley to an entry-level deal. [Pro Hockey Talk]
• This too . . . the Blues sent goaltender Anders Nilsson to the Sabres for a 2017 fifth-round pick. [USA Today]
• Doug Armstrong says otherwise, but I suppose defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk COULD still be dealt. Here are a few potential teams that could make a deal. [Today's Slapshot]
• Jeremy Rutherford brought on Blues scouting director Bill Armstrong in his weekly chat last week. [StL Today]
• The Blues won't regret letting Backes and Brouwer go elsewhere. [Today's Slapshot]
• Revisiting the Brouwer/Pheonix Copley for T.J. Oshie trade, one year later. [The Hockey Writers]
• A bit of a legacy pickup . . . the Blues signed forward Landon Ferraro--whose father, Ray, you might have seen on TV, which has come after finishing his career as a Blue in 2002--to a one-year two-way deal. [Pro Hockey Talk]
• A new role could be a good fit for Mike Yeo. (Problem is, he's only gonna BE in this role for a year.) [StL Today]

OTHER HOCKEY NEWS:

• Our old pal B.J. Crombeen (signing this one under his full first name, Brandon, and who is now an investment banker) wrote about life after hockey. [The Players' Tribune]
• These fucking assholes and their Goddamn jersey fouls. [Puck Daddy]
• The Maple Leafs traded goaltender Jonathan Bernier to the Ducks for a conditional pick, but it's basically a completion of the Frederik Andersen trade. [CBS Sports Eye on Hockey]
• To celebrate the trade, the Leafs are throwing a big-ass season-long party . . . oh wait, this big-ass season-long party is for the Leafs' centennial. Nevermind. [Maple Leafs]
• The Avalanche(s)--who I still say made a huge mistake in not drafting Seth Jones first overall in 2013--signed the guy they DID pick first overall in that draft, forward Nathan MacKinnon, to a huge-ass seven-year contract extension. [Sportsnet]
• The Devils were also in a giving mood, handing a five-year extension to winger Kyle Palmieri after his outstanding 2015-16 campaign. [USA Today]
• The Jets re-upped a couple folks . . . a huge extension was handed to center Mark Scheifele, like, eight years huge. [GlobalNews.ca]
• The Jets also re-upped with forward Mathieu Perreault for four years after he had a decent season last year (albeit for a mostly garbage Jets team). [Winnipeg Free Press]
• Sabres forward Evander Kane has not had a great run with the law lately. That bad run continued over the week, stemming from an incident in late June. [The Sporting News]
• No one wants Kris Russell as badly as we all expected, and that's good news. [SB Nation]
• Pavel Datsyuk officially signed with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL this past week. [TSN]

OTHER NEWS AND SHIT:

• Taiwan got blasted by a super typhoon (named Nepartak) this week. Nepartak also reached the southeast coast of China. [CNN]
• A Pokemon neophyte tried out Pokemon Go. [NPR / Monkey See]
• An . . . interesting sand sculpture in Cape Cod caused some issues. [Y! / AP]
• A gamer beat the 8-bit classic Castlevania in an hour . . . which isn't OVERLY spectacular, until you consider the motherfucker did it while blindfolded. [Nerdist]
• Eight awesome things to do in Iceland. Holy shit, the pictures. [Mental Floss]
• Portugal defeated France in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis and will take home the Euro 2016 title. 1-0 was the final, with the goal being scored in extra time. [SB Nation]
• This . . . uhhhh, doesn't look like what she had planned with her throw. [Deadspin / Screengrabber]

BEER OF THE WEEK:

• From Hawai'i . . . Kona Brewing Company makes a light, refreshing IPA that I had for the podcast. Castaway IPA is very tasty, even if it's lighter than the average IPA. 6% ABV, 65 IBU. [Untappd]

VIDEO:

I'll never think of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark" the same way again:

Dang. This was good.

THE CLOSER:

BluesMay has your links fix next Monday. Help her out:

• @BluesMay
• slgtlinks AT gmail DOT com
• Or post your links in the comments below, and we'll link to those comments next week.