Jason Millen: Blues vs Senators 3/1/16 GDT Blues vs Senators 3/1 game day preview

From the prior blog comments:

The Blues using LTIR to add people assumes Army had the authority to spend even more above the cap then they already are. They are already spending above the cap as they have to pay Elliott and Ott while on LTIR and have to pay their replacements.

Adding more and using the LTIR would have increased this spend over the cap even more. I'm not convinced the ownership group did or would have authorized Army to spend even more over the cap.

Remember not to assume Tom Stillman is the majority owner and also even if he is, don't assume his pockets are deep enough to absorb millions of cash flow losses each year.

If you don't believe me, I think there is a lot of potential evidence to suggest Stillman isn't the majority owner. Sure he owns more than Checketts and has more say but much like Dave, I don't think he has the controlling interest.

http://www.forbes.com/sit...120-million/#41ec5a335039

Notice the careful wording - "An investor group led by beer distributor Tom Stillman is buying the St. Louis Blues for $120 million." - This means guided, not financially led necessarily.

http://www.towerbrook.com.../sports-capital-holdings/
Note that this suggest to me that Towerbrook still owns the Blues as it is still listed in their portfolio. I have other reasons to believe this that I cannot get into as well.

I do not know if this happened but if Towerbrook and the owners said no to adding more payroll, the cap constraint spin is much more palatable for the team than choosing not to do so.

Frankly, them spending to the cap given the St. Louis market is already going beyond what I would expect. I wouldn't fault them at all for not approving spending more this season.

Ty Rattie keeps getting played by the organization

By my estimation, Blues need at most 15 points to clinch a playoff spot in the remaining 17.

If the Wild play at the pace of the Caps (best ratio in the league at 77% points received), the wild would have a little over 95 points. 15 points give the Blues 96. Amount of games the Avs and Wild have against each other could impact this as well which I did not research. I may do a real detailed calc this weekend.

The top 3 seeds in the Central may be clinching playoff spots in 2 weeks.

From the prior blog comments:

The Blues using LTIR to add people assumes Army had the authority to spend even more above the cap then they already are. They are already spending above the cap as they have to pay Elliott and Ott while on LTIR and have to pay their replacements.

Adding more and using the LTIR would have increased this spend over the cap even more. I'm not convinced the ownership group did or would have authorized Army to spend even more over the cap.

Remember not to assume Tom Stillman is the majority owner and also even if he is, don't assume his pockets are deep enough to absorb millions of cash flow losses each year.

If you don't believe me, I think there is a lot of potential evidence to suggest Stillman isn't the majority owner. Sure he owns more than Checketts and has more say but much like Dave, I don't think he has the controlling interest.

http://www.forbes.com/sit...120-million/#41ec5a335039

Notice the careful wording - "An investor group led by beer distributor Tom Stillman is buying the St. Louis Blues for $120 million." - This means guided, not financially led necessarily.

http://www.towerbrook.com.../sports-capital-holdings/
Note that this suggest to me that Towerbrook still owns the Blues as it is still listed in their portfolio. I have other reasons to believe this that I cannot get into as well.

I do not know if this happened but if Towerbrook and the owners said no to adding more payroll, the cap constraint spin is much more palatable for the team than choosing not to do so.

Frankly, them spending to the cap given the St. Louis market is already going beyond what I would expect. I wouldn't fault them at all for not approving spending more this season.
- Jason Millen

Excellent post and I think you're correct. Were I an owner (I wouldn't have invested in this team / market to begin with) but aside from that, I would not continue to authorize the spending of money.

I would look at it as I'm already paying up to the salary cap for these chuckleheads to win. So somebody better start winnin'.

Either the talent's not doing the job or the one's assembling the talent isn't doing theirs.

But something is amiss.......

From the prior blog comments:

The Blues using LTIR to add people assumes Army had the authority to spend even more above the cap then they already are. They are already spending above the cap as they have to pay Elliott and Ott while on LTIR and have to pay their replacements.

Adding more and using the LTIR would have increased this spend over the cap even more. I'm not convinced the ownership group did or would have authorized Army to spend even more over the cap.

Remember not to assume Tom Stillman is the majority owner and also even if he is, don't assume his pockets are deep enough to absorb millions of cash flow losses each year.

If you don't believe me, I think there is a lot of potential evidence to suggest Stillman isn't the majority owner. Sure he owns more than Checketts and has more say but much like Dave, I don't think he has the controlling interest.

http://www.forbes.com/sit...120-million/#41ec5a335039

Notice the careful wording - "An investor group led by beer distributor Tom Stillman is buying the St. Louis Blues for $120 million." - This means guided, not financially led necessarily.

http://www.towerbrook.com.../sports-capital-holdings/
Note that this suggest to me that Towerbrook still owns the Blues as it is still listed in their portfolio. I have other reasons to believe this that I cannot get into as well.

I do not know if this happened but if Towerbrook and the owners said no to adding more payroll, the cap constraint spin is much more palatable for the team than choosing not to do so.

Frankly, them spending to the cap given the St. Louis market is already going beyond what I would expect. I wouldn't fault them at all for not approving spending more this season.
- Jason Millen

With the group of investors that he assembled they have the cash flow to cover the losses in the short term, and they have changed some of business side to reduce their losses, but they will need the extra cash from a playoff run fairly soon to continue spending to the cap

Excellent post and I think you're correct. Were I an owner (I wouldn't have invested in this team / market to begin with) but aside from that, I would not continue to authorize the spending of money.

I would look at it as I'm already paying up to the salary cap for these chuckleheads to win. So somebody better start winnin'.

Either the talent's not doing the job or the one's assembling the talent isn't doing theirs.

But something is amiss.......
- bcallaway

They have the chance to tie for 1st in the best division tonight with a win. In a year where there have been all kinds of injuries.

Quit acting like this is the Edmonton Oilers. This is a very good team that just needs to get over the hump in the playoffs.

They are winning. Even when they probably shouldn't be where they are given this years circumstances. Yet most Blues fans can't seem to enjoy their success and only fear what will happen in the playoffs........ Even though they haven't started.

With the group of investors that he assembled they have the cash flow to cover the losses in the short term, and they have changed some of business side to reduce their losses, but they will need the extra cash from a playoff run fairly soon to continue spending to the cap
- .....

Yes, the minority investors have a lot of money they could use to cash flow the team but where do they sit in the hierarchy of being repaid relative to the actual owners investments and how much of this will they be willing to do and for how long.

I have always suspected the minority owners are effectively the teams working capital/line of credit source but I have not pushed anyone to find out the real answer to this question.

Some of the business side they are unable to change due to things the prior regime did (sale of concessions money grab), some they have changed, some they are still trying to change.

I agree with you in that I think they will have to right size things fairly soon whether that means increasing revenue or reducing payroll.

Ty Rattie keeps getting played by the organization

He was only sent down because Reaves is back and everyone else who could be sent down has to pass through waivers. We are currently at 23 (14 FW, 7 D, and 2 G) due to Steen and Lehtera not being on LTIR. He'll be back up when the rosters are unlimited or if somebody gets hurt.

He was only sent down because Reaves is back and everyone else who could be sent down has to pass through waivers. We are currently at 23 (14 FW, 7 D, and 2 G) due to Steen and Lehtera not being on LTIR. He'll be back up when the rosters are unlimited or if somebody gets hurt.
- cuethenoise

Why not risk losing Paajarvi?

Why not risk losing Paajarvi?
- sycsam

He'll come in handy in the playoffs with how fragile this team has been. I have a feeling he would have been claimed with how overpriced depth rentals were at the deadline.

They have the chance to tie for 1st in the best division tonight with a win. In a year where there have been all kinds of injuries.

Quit acting like this is the Edmonton Oilers. This is a very good team that just needs to get over the hump in the playoffs.

They are winning. Even when they probably shouldn't be where they are given this years circumstances. Yet most Blues fans can't seem to enjoy their success and only fear what will happen in the playoffs........ Even though they haven't started.
- carcus

This is an outstanding regular season team that has yet to become a playoff success thereby keeping the organization from being a profitable entity.

Unless that course changes, this ownership group will take the path of all the others and decide they're tired of pouring money down a hole and bail out, starting the cycle all over again.

I don't fear what will happen, I know what will happen.

This is an outstanding regular season team that has yet to become a playoff success thereby keeping the organization from being a profitable entity.

Unless that course changes, this ownership group will take the path of all the others and decide they're tired of pouring money down a hole and bail out, starting the cycle all over again.

I don't fear what will happen, I know what will happen.
- bcallaway

This is why the organization and its investors need a long playoff run to maximize revenue

Three playoff games a year wont cut it

From the prior blog comments:

The Blues using LTIR to add people assumes Army had the authority to spend even more above the cap then they already are. They are already spending above the cap as they have to pay Elliott and Ott while on LTIR and have to pay their replacements.

Adding more and using the LTIR would have increased this spend over the cap even more. I'm not convinced the ownership group did or would have authorized Army to spend even more over the cap.

Remember not to assume Tom Stillman is the majority owner and also even if he is, don't assume his pockets are deep enough to absorb millions of cash flow losses each year.

If you don't believe me, I think there is a lot of potential evidence to suggest Stillman isn't the majority owner. Sure he owns more than Checketts and has more say but much like Dave, I don't think he has the controlling interest.

http://www.forbes.com/sit...120-million/#41ec5a335039

Notice the careful wording - "An investor group led by beer distributor Tom Stillman is buying the St. Louis Blues for $120 million." - This means guided, not financially led necessarily.

http://www.towerbrook.com.../sports-capital-holdings/
Note that this suggest to me that Towerbrook still owns the Blues as it is still listed in their portfolio. I have other reasons to believe this that I cannot get into as well.

I do not know if this happened but if Towerbrook and the owners said no to adding more payroll, the cap constraint spin is much more palatable for the team than choosing not to do so.

Frankly, them spending to the cap given the St. Louis market is already going beyond what I would expect. I wouldn't fault them at all for not approving spending more this season.
- Jason Millen

i understand how the ltir works. i am not sure why antilles thought i was misguided.

the fourth liners are over paid by virtue of assumption you cannot replace what they bring with a cheaper younger player. if they log ten minutes plus a night fine, fine. but rarely does that ever happen without an in game injury.

unless the rule changed when johnson first played for the blues we were looking at the cap from an andy strickland article and were explained why his cap hit was so large and how the next season by virtue of his missing bonuses his effective cap hit was lowered by the amount of bonuses he did not achieve. so did that change with the most recent lockout?

injuries are not the reason the cap situation is messed up. poor management is the reason. by virtue of his job title that denotes piss poor planning. his planning was based on assumptions, the kind of which one must plan for.

it does not matter if i like ott, reaves or broadziak, and i like elements of each. that is only one aspect.

the ntc's given out are another killer. if you pay the upfront cost rather than giving the ntc then say earlier in the season you culd dump a salary to a team that might want some veteran leadership or even at the deadline.


hopefully this becomes all moot in the spring.

This is why the organization and its investors need a long playoff run to maximize revenue

Three playoff games a year wont cut it
- sycsam

Word.

(Which according to Urban Dictionary means, "I concur, my fellow African American friends.")

Yeah, I'm street........

This is an outstanding regular season team that has yet to become a playoff success thereby keeping the organization from being a profitable entity.

Unless that course changes, this ownership group will take the path of all the others and decide they're tired of pouring money down a hole and bail out, starting the cycle all over again.

I don't fear what will happen, I know what will happen.
- bcallaway

eat a snickers bar.

Word.

(Which according to Urban Dictionary means, "I concur, my fellow African American friends.")

Yeah, I'm street........
- bcallaway

i think we can parse out where exactly this particular brand of self-loathing and grown hatred for the area you live in is springing forth from....

no worries urban culture will collapse on itself unless a better paradigm shift occurs.

Tanguay took a slight dig at Roy with this I think,
"iwas surprised a little bit and then not at the same time but very excited. This is a team that’s very well coached. I’m looking forward to go there and prove that I can help the team.”

i think we can parse out where exactly this particular brand of self-loathing and grown hatred for the area you live in is springing forth from....

no worries urban culture will collapse on itself unless a better paradigm shift occurs.
- BluemanGuruu

I concur my fellow African American friend.

i understand how the ltir works. i am not sure why antilles thought i was misguided.

the fourth liners are over paid by virtue of assumption you cannot replace what they bring with a cheaper younger player. if they log ten minutes plus a night fine, fine. but rarely does that ever happen without an in game injury.

unless the rule changed when johnson first played for the blues we were looking at the cap from an andy strickland article and were explained why his cap hit was so large and how the next season by virtue of his missing bonuses his effective cap hit was lowered by the amount of bonuses he did not achieve. so did that change with the most recent lockout?

injuries are not the reason the cap situation is messed up. poor management is the reason. by virtue of his job title that denotes piss poor planning. his planning was based on assumptions, the kind of which one must plan for.

it does not matter if i like ott, reaves or broadziak, and i like elements of each. that is only one aspect.

the ntc's given out are another killer. if you pay the upfront cost rather than giving the ntc then say earlier in the season you culd dump a salary to a team that might want some veteran leadership or even at the deadline.


hopefully this becomes all moot in the spring.
- BluemanGuruu

You said "the ltir should have lowered cap constraints." That's why I thought you misunderstood LTIR. Because it doesn't work like that. Injuries increase your cap problems, IR more so than LTIR, but both make it worse, unless a player is out until the end of the year.

I don't see how Blues have younger, cheaper players to replace someone like Brodziak with. He makes 100k more than Jaskin, 200k more than PRV, and only 300k more than league minimum. None of those dollar amounts would have allowed the Blues to add at trade deadline. What's more, neither of those players can kill penalties. Reaves is in a similar spot. Whether we think so or not, Blues want an enforcer. They don't have a younger, cheaper option. And Reaves makes 500k more than league minimum. Even if both Reaves and Brodziak were making league minimum, we still couldn't have done anything differently at the trade deadline. We didn't have cheaper options on the roster, and most free agents last summer would have cost us the same amount.

I have no idea which Strickland article you mean, but the way the bonus overage has worked has been the same since the full season lockout CBA. Sites tended to list players cap hits assuming they earned full bonuses, where as now they list base salary that has to fit under cap; but the way the NHL handled bonuses was actually the same. Fabbri's cap hit is his base salary. Any bonus he gets, if it fits counts this year, if it doesn't counts next year.

This is an outstanding regular season team that has yet to become a playoff success thereby keeping the organization from being a profitable entity.

Unless that course changes, this ownership group will take the path of all the others and decide they're tired of pouring money down a hole and bail out, starting the cycle all over again.

I don't fear what will happen, I know what will happen.
- bcallaway

You think you know what will happen because of past performance.

Coming up short in the past does not mean that they will come up short again this year.

It gets lame listening to Blues fans continue to over and over again talk about how this team will fail 6 weeks from now when they have overcome so much already this year and put themselves in a great position. They might fail. But that isn't known yet, regardless of you or anyone's half empty look at things. Is a new year, things can change. Players can finally step up in the playoffs. The other team might play poorly and let the Blues gain confidence that they desperately need. So many things can change from what went wrong in the past.

From the prior blog comments:

The Blues using LTIR to add people assumes Army had the authority to spend even more above the cap then they already are. They are already spending above the cap as they have to pay Elliott and Ott while on LTIR and have to pay their replacements.

Adding more and using the LTIR would have increased this spend over the cap even more. I'm not convinced the ownership group did or would have authorized Army to spend even more over the cap.

Remember not to assume Tom Stillman is the majority owner and also even if he is, don't assume his pockets are deep enough to absorb millions of cash flow losses each year.

If you don't believe me, I think there is a lot of potential evidence to suggest Stillman isn't the majority owner. Sure he owns more than Checketts and has more say but much like Dave, I don't think he has the controlling interest.

http://www.forbes.com/sit...120-million/#41ec5a335039

Notice the careful wording - "An investor group led by beer distributor Tom Stillman is buying the St. Louis Blues for $120 million." - This means guided, not financially led necessarily.

http://www.towerbrook.com.../sports-capital-holdings/
Note that this suggest to me that Towerbrook still owns the Blues as it is still listed in their portfolio. I have other reasons to believe this that I cannot get into as well.

I do not know if this happened but if Towerbrook and the owners said no to adding more payroll, the cap constraint spin is much more palatable for the team than choosing not to do so.

Frankly, them spending to the cap given the St. Louis market is already going beyond what I would expect. I wouldn't fault them at all for not approving spending more this season.
- Jason Millen

It doesn't really matter if they expect Steen/Ott/Elliott all to return before the end of the year. If that is the case, they couldn't add more money as they didn't have cap space to add.

It only becomes possible if guys aren't going to come back before the playoffs.

From the prior blog comments:

The Blues using LTIR to add people assumes Army had the authority to spend even more above the cap then they already are. They are already spending above the cap as they have to pay Elliott and Ott while on LTIR and have to pay their replacements.


- Jason Millen

Come on now. Teams carry insurance to cover salaries to injured players. Once a player hits a games missed threshold, it used to be that an insurance policy kicked in and paid their salary.

To suggest that the Blues are paying the salaries of players on LTIR doesn't ring true to me...

Come on now. Teams carry insurance to cover salaries to injured players. Once a player hits a games missed threshold, it used to be that an insurance policy kicked in and paid their salary.

To suggest that the Blues are paying the salaries of players on LTIR doesn't ring true to me...
- eggsegan

Unless something has changed in the last few years, most teams only have insurance on their 5 highest paid players, and only get paid by the insurance if they miss 30+ games.

Unless something has changed in the last few years, most teams only have insurance on their 5 highest paid players, and only get paid by the insurance if they miss 30+ games.
- Antilles

From http://www.theglobeandmai...h-season/article16403001/

"While team insurance would cover some, but far from all, of the losses (team insurance policies generally cover 80 per cent of lost salary if a player loses more than 30 games to a single injury), the fact that approximately one-half of the entire league loses playing time during each regular season should be cause for concern, the researchers claim."