I’d rather just buy him out

You're just trying to remind us that he had no desire to go to Philly huh?

All jokes aside Krug was stated not wanting to leave since he didn't want to uplift his family from the area.

I know but SURELY there is somewhere he can go

Fair enough

Being from Michigan maybe he'd take Detroit.

I doubt Det takes him

They have enough anchors and Yzerman doesn’t usually go for small dmen

Yeah, I think your post about buying him out would likely be the option for St. Louis.

Would have to imagine if the Blues were to line up another trade for Krug that made sense there would be a conversation of if you don't take this we're going to send you to Springfield. I guess I get it trying to be respectful to the player the first go around. But regardless, if Army wouldn't exercise the option to waive the player to strongarm a trade, there's virtually 0 reason for him to be so strongly against NMCs and still hand out NTCs. There's alot of dialogue that that's the main reason Petro left.

Why do people always re-sign Alexandrov in these projections? Hasn't he shown he is not an NHL caliber player?

I think it's for the sake of simplicity. I'd imagine if he were re-signed it would be to a 2way, 1 year deal hoping that he takes an offseason regimen a bit more seriously this offseason. Was reported that he was a little out of shape coming in to this season.

Regardless, the name probably would be different in the scratched part, but it's really hard to tell who it would be. Army generally brings in 2 or 3 guys on PTOs it seems like that are experienced vets that are either on their last leg or tweeners that it could pretty easily be instead for around the same cap hit.

This is exactly it, that type of thing isn’t really the point of the post so instead of signing some random guy to be a scratch I just kept alexandrov

The other thing to be mindful of here is what is really the upside of going scorched earth on Krug. They need to be moving out the bad contracts and Krug certainly has one, but if you're adding around half of his cap hit as dead money (either in a retention trade or in a buyout) PLUS signing Hanifin to a big extension, you're tying up more money in your defense on veteran players than you are right now. Has that worked out well at all for the Blues over the last couple years? Signing a big UFA player into his thirties is a win-now move. You're banking on getting a few good years in which you can hopefully win a cup and then deal with the bad years later. That doesn't track with where the Blues are. They are not winning now.

I've said it a million times but it would be malpractice for the Blues to add any more veterans with significant term/money contracts until they get rid of their commitments they currently have. If you're retaining or buying out Krug, you're getting rid of some of the commitment but not all of it. If you're doing it just to open up cap space/roster spots for an additional pricey veteran? I just don't see the point.

If we are really desperate to move him (which I'm highly doubtful of as we're not competitive anyway as we're in a retool), I'd rather retain on him for 3 more seasons (during the retool) then buying him out for 6 (!) more seasons and potentially hamstringing our next window of opportunity.

Buying out Krug will cost us:
23/24: 333,333
24/25: 2,333,333
25/26: 2,333,333
26/27: 2,833,333
27/28: 2,333,333
28/29: 2,333,333
29/30: 2,333,333

If we buy him out at 50% it's 3,250,000 just for 3 more years (again, years we're probably not competitive in).

So, still prefer to buy him out?

TBH, I'd try to move him for another bad contact (any interest in Anders Lee for example?) with a shorter duration/higher cap. If that's not possible, keep him untill it's easier to move him.

I would agree with almost everything here. I think we also often overstate the degree of detriment in which Krug is to the roster. Regardless of how frustrating it is watching him he is a very high end puck mover.

The other thing is, i'm not sure the organization is of the same mindset that we're that far off for some odd reason. I think if we could clear out Krug's cap hit, they would heavily pursue a guy like hanifin. If not I still see us as having a bit of a deficiency with production from the backend that the organization will probably try and remedy this offseason with a low cost signing or trade. I think that's kind of the directive they took with the Krug for Sanheim deal that had arose last offseason.

I agree, all things being equal they 100% would jettison Krug and bring in Hanifin if they could do so without holding back any of Krug's money. It would fit right in with Armstrong's strategy of staying competitive and like you said, shades of the Sanheim trade.

I do have some questions about whether the Blues will spend to the cap next year, which may impact their ability to do that sort of thing even if they do find a way to move Krug. Also whether or not they would retain for three years- I'm open minded about retention in general but of course it's not my money.

Krug is a fine NHL player. He's not worth his contract, and he's got a set of skills that this roster doesn't really need, which makes him a very easy scapegoat. I'm supportive of moving on from him. But simply getting rid of him doesn't really address the underlying issue with the defense. I think pretty much everyone is playing one spot higher up the lineup than they ideally should be, from Parayko all the way down to Kessel. Bringing in Hanifin and nuking Krug doesn't really change that.

Friedman mentioned at the time, That Krug would only waive to go home to Detroit. And reports out of Detroit was that Yzerman said no. Blues either buy him out or are stuck with him. Because I doubt he waives.