Blues don’t do that as of rn

Fair it's any team really that could use some LHD.

Well that’s certainly not the blues

They have more than they know what to do with lol

The Blues easily pass. They don't want more small Dmen of weak defending or 3rd pairing guys. They want to replace a top 4 LD.

Why would the Note trade for a weak, small bust defenseman? We have plenty. No thank you.

Paying a 2nd + 4th to "dump" Joseph would just add to Dorion ultra terrible legacy.

Joseph would not even be a dump in normal times, decent bottom-6 player with elite PK metrics

It costed 2nd + 4th to get rid of Zaitsev contract and 3rd + 7th to get rid of 75% Murray's contract

Don't see why dumping 2.95 AAV would cost that much



Weak defending?



Brannstrom is already a quality NHL player. The most common mistake people do is scouting players with hockeydb.com. However, if you do eye test + advanced stats, it'll give you a much better picture of a player (but yeah, takes longer). Players who are both top percentile for expected goals rates at ES for and against are quality. And he proved that he could take bigger minutes and still look as good if not better.

No way I'm trading Brannstrom like that if I am Ottawa's GM

I am very different from the Sens GM though, I'm very focused on asset management



People were saying that Brannstrom was a bust 2 years ago because of the stupid "can't crack the Sens lineup" and I was telling them that they were going to be mistaken. But you're still coming up with that? It's recommended to not talk about things we ignore

Dude, I've watched Brannstrom too many times to count. He has been sheltered for nearly all of his NHL minutes. He got a few hundred minutes up with Chabot and Zub last season; he was 39% goal share with the former and 40% with the latter. All these xG analytics are great until you factor in mostly weak competition and, ya know, actual goals for and against.

But yes, he showed some signs of life last season. Great. He's still a small Dman who is not at all what the Blues are looking for. They are looking for a slot cop to pair with Parayko on the top line. Brannstrom is not suitable for that no matter how many nice 3rd pairing stats he posts.

Okay "dude"

Sheltered by playing with Josh Brown (barely NHL level) or Nick Holden (the declined version)?

https://moneypuck.com/lines.htm

Brannstrom has rocked with Chychrun, Sanderson and Hamonic (however small sample sizes) but also with Zub. Even had a 56.2 xGF% with the declined Holden

What was his QoC last season? He played higher in the lineup when Chabot was injured and looked even better than behind those guys

And it doesn't matter if the Blues need him or not, I was simply replying to your point "weak defending"

Yes, when one plays about 13 5v5 minutes per night predominantly on the 3rd pairing, that is the definition of sheltered. So yeah, Brannstrom faced low quality of competition apart from the 22 games Chabot missed.

And you keep leaning on on-ice xG stats but avoiding actual goal share. We can talk about how well he supposedly played with Chych and Hamonic and Sanderson, but as you noted these are incredibly small sample sizes.

W/ Chych 5v5 = +3.... for a whole 18 minutes.
W/ Sanderson +3... but that was only 32 minutes.
W/ Hamonic +4 in 57 minutes.

That's roughly seven games of work combined we're talking about. Out of 74 games played. Now he did play 165 5v5 minutes with Chabot, but was -5. Meanwhile, he was a -2 with Zub, -4 with Zaitsev, +1 with Holden (who was his 5v5 partner roughly 45% of the time), an even with the other four D he played small amounts with. He did not play a single even strength minutes paired with Brown.

So the guy has played 190 NHL games, with about 90% of his minutes third pairing and 56% O zone starts and he's a -18 overall, he's definitely been sheltered because his defending was weak. Is it stronger now compared to where it was? Of course, he undeniably, finally figured out at some point last season that he has to play 200 feet and adjusted his efforts accordingly.

Has he suddenly risen to the level of an average quality defender in the NHL? Nah. We're not there yet. If he's below average, that's weak.

And yes, it definitely does matter what the Blues want because that's the lens they'd look through when considering the proposed Brannstrom trade in this scenario. They want a top 4 quality Dman whose primary objective will be defending in dirty areas in front of goal, then Brannstrom is obviously not someone who measures up in the defending aspect of the game.

So every 3rd pairing is sheltered? He played with Nick Holden (who was declined and is now without a contract, might just retire) behind Chabot-Zub and Sanderson-Hamonic. He was not going to play above Chabot and Sanderson so of course he got 3rd pairing ice-time. But when he had the opportunity to play higher in the lineup, he did very well. His advanced stats with Zub, Sanderson, Zub and even Hamonic all look pretty good


I'm not avoiding anything. "goal share" as you said is like looking at +/-, everybody and their dog knows that it is a thing of the past because he relies on PDO and other varying factors like that. Expected is better at predicting future outcome

Yes small sample sizes but if you put them together and add with Zub on top of it, you have 235 minutes which is starting to be a better sample size (25% of his season). Above 60% xGF with all of these partners


Josh Brown was not part of the Ottawa Senators anymore last season lol

Again, +/- is 20 years outdated


Not only it is stronger but he vastly outplayed his role last season, and continued to do so when called upon a bigger role... He's not below average, he is comfortably better than a guy like Travis Hamonic for example who had a top-4 role last season, just not as tough. Puck retrieval and transition is an important part of the game today and Brannstrom excels in it.

Wow, a lot going on here, but I'll keep down to a few major bullet points.

- It makes less than no sense to bash +/- while simultaneously pushing xG differentials, which is just expected +/-. Except +/- is based on objective data and also based on, ya know, the stat that games are actually decided by... xG stuff is neither. I was bringing in the actual goal share numbers to demonstrate that his supposed xG advantage did not always manage to bear out on the scoreboard so much. Which generally means mistakes. Brannstrom makes mistakes. At defending. That's one reason he plays 165 5v5 minutes with Chabot and they have nice analytics... but give up 14 goals (which works out to a 5.09 GAA while they're on the ice together).

But yeah, nice analytics. With mistakes that don't show up in analytics.

- Yeah, man, when you play minimal 3rd pairing minutes against low competition, you are sheltered. It's typically not about the partner.

- Being better than Hamonic is not enough to boost one up to average defending. I'm glad for him that he did well in a bit of top 4 action. Maybe you're convinced he's reached the average level, I'm gonna need to see more. Across his full body of work, it's about the least controversial thing to say his defending needs work.

Oh... and I didn't drag Brown into this. The other dude said Brannstrom played with Brown last season.