Taylor Swift's Punk Phase

On Wednesday night, after idly flipping to Fox’s “The Masked Singer” thanks to a complete void of worthwhile television, I was caught off guard when one of the singers was revealed to be John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon, most famous as lead singer of the extraordinarily influential punk rock band The Sex Pistols. On Thursday, I found myself listening to their iconic debut album Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols on repeat throughout the day. And on Friday, I listened to its spiritual successor, Taylor Swift’s re-recording of her 2012 album Red. Now hear me out.

Nevermind the Bollocks is easily one of my five favorite albums ever released. The first time I listened to it, I regarded it as a scholarly project, along the lines of listening to Robert Johnson’s 1930s blues recordings to try to pick up on why Eric Clapton and Keith Richards were so into them—I didn’t think I would actually enjoy it. But it blew me away, and part of why it blew me away was because of what the album wasn’t. The Sex Pistols, a band that almost everybody knows of but are far less famous for their actual music, are perceived as an extremely raw band, but their lone studio album itself is produced in a way more reminiscent of a Guns N’ Roses album than a live recording—the guitars and loud and layered, the drums are heavy, and the bass is downright competent (given that Sid Vicious, who does not appear on the album, was a famously terrible musician and is arguably the most well-known member of the band, this was a tad surprising). But the vocals were what truly drew me in. Johnny Rotten is nobody’s definition of a great or even a good or even a competent singer (that Ken Jeong guessed that a masked Rotten was The Who vocalist Roger Daltrey should, frankly, invite a lawsuit from Daltrey), but he sang with such an energy and ferocity that it helped me discover what I truly enjoy in vocal performance. For some people, the guy who did this was Bob Dylan—for me, it was John Lydon.

Is Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols the greatest punk album? Is it a punk album at all? How do you define punk rock? The three most definitive bands labeled “punk” from its earliest days (not counting the great late-1960s Detroit rock bands like the MC5 and the Stooges, to whom the label was retrospectively assigned) are the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and the Clash, and the factors which link the three bands are fairly loose. If you took the politics of the Clash, the style of the Sex Pistols, and the song length of the Ramones, you’d have a fairly good idea of what the genre is seen to be from the outside, but their disparate styles create a complicated definition of the genre.

In the 1970s, the Sex Pistols were viewed as a dangerous and revolutionary group, but sonically, it is hard to imagine a band more within the established form of rock and roll. Structurally, they were mostly a louder version of 1950s rock and roll—there is a reason their cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, aside from Johnny Rotten’s carnival-barker vocal delivery, is so faithful to the original. And for as much attention as the Sex Pistols got for their anti-monarchist views, their primary form of rebellion was against progressive rock. While the Sex Pistols were loud in their hatred of the Beatles, it is fair to assume their primary grievances were with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and not, say, their cover of “Roll Over Beethoven”.

The Clash are a particularly unusual case because, aside from their debut album, their musical style was rarely even in the same neighborhood as the Sex Pistols. Fundamentally, Joe Strummer was a much deeper thinker than John Lydon, a fact which simultaneously made his politics (and by extension his lyrics) far more sophisticated and his music far less passionate. I don’t think any of this makes Lydon a dumb guy, but rather a man motivated by different things than Strummer. Joe Strummer was a committed socialist with a deep musical appreciation who wanted to articulate his leftism with a rich variety of worldly music influences. Johnny Rotten, particularly in his non-Lydon days, was a broke kid from London who wanted to yell about the things that made him mad. The part of me that tries to sound fancy in blogs reveres Strummer; the part of me with a crippling Twitter addiction reveres Rotten. I love them both so much.

The expressly political songs on Nevermind the Bollocks are a mixed bag in terms of lyrical effectiveness, largely because the man who wrote the lyrics doesn’t seem to really know whether or not he even believes in them, even if he goes all the way in when it comes to performing them. “Anarchy in the UK” calls for its title sentiment, but Lydon has dismissed literal anarchy as a political concept. “God Save the Queen” has almost nothing to do with Queen Elizabeth II but a more general disaffection with the upper-class of 1970s England (the same can be said of “Holidays in the Sun”). “Bodies” is an aggressively anti-abortion song, but Lydon has expressed relatively pro-choice political views, which suggests, unsurprisingly, that he was mostly just a troll.

But for my money, the most “punk rock” in the casual sense of the term song on Nevermind the Bollocks is “Submission”. The song is not the least bit political, but the backstory of the song reflects the Sex Pistols’ irreverence—their manager, Malcolm McLaren, wanted the band to write a song called “Submission”, thinking a song about bondage. The band hated the idea and hated even more being told what to do, so the band wrote a childish song called “Submission” about being on a mission on a submarine, opening with the hilariously dopey line, “I’m on a submarine mission for you, baby!” It’s a mid-tempo song whose primary musical hook is the layered, yelled vocals of the chorus. And it inexplicably is one of my favorite songs on the album. Great art can come out of spite.

Taylor Swift has built much of her career on the back of spite. While her reputation as “only writing songs about boys she broke up with” is an unfair and largely sexist trope (though now that Olivia Rodrigo exists, maybe we can much more fairly transfer that to her), she has turned grudges into art regularly. Whether it is “Picture to Burn” (rage), “Mean” (passive-aggressive), or “Look What You Made Me Do” (empowered/famously not about a man but there really aren’t as many examples as you think), Taylor Swift rarely ventures into political themes in her music, but she is very aware of her own feelings.

Biographically, Taylor Swift is much closer to Joe Strummer than John Lydon. Strummer, despite his image, was the son of a diplomat and a nurse and his upbringing, which included ample world travel and private schooling, could not be described as anything lower than middle class. Swift, the daughter of finance employees, received intense parental support, including a teenage relocation from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to further her burgeoning attempt at a musical career. Musically, she isn’t especially close to either, though I guess I’d say she’s closer to Strummer since he has some songs without yelling in them. Spiritually, Taylor Swift is turning into John Lydon. And I love it.

Following the Sex Pistols’ 1978 implosion, the man then known as Johnny Rotten had plenty of options musically—while his band never made a significant dent on popular music in the United States during their existence, they were legitimate hitmakers in the United Kingdom. Would spending a decade making Sex Pistols-esque ragged hard rock as a solo artist or with a new band have been the “punk rock” move? It certainly would have been the move that led to music that most sounded like what had been defined as punk rock, but in a “punk rock equals subversion” way, going against expectations was the move, and the experimental, avant-garde Public Image Ltd was the way he went. I don’t listen to PiL nearly as much as I listen to the Sex Pistols, but the man now known as John Lydon made his own choice, and how can you not respect that?

In April, Taylor Swift released her pseudo-new album Fearless (Taylor’s Version). Like the original Fearless which catapulted Swift from country to pop superstardom, the album was met with critical acclaim. The album, mostly a re-recording of her original album along with some bonus tracks, did not exactly break new ground, though her matured voice did receive some praise supplemental from the original. But the main thing worthy of praise, as well as the thing about today’s release of Red (Taylor’s Version) even more worthy of praise than her ten-minute version of “All Too Well”, is itself extratextual. It is the most punk-rock-as-subversive move of her career.

Because the music business is nothing if not a shallow and vampiric industry, Big Machine Records released Taylor Swift’s first six albums under a contract signed with a then-minor desperate for a big break, but refused to negotiate with Swift when she offered more than fair value for the rights to the master copies to the recordings. Industry creep Scooter Braun instead bought up the rights for $300 million. Taylor Swift could have sued, but instead took on a more self-empowering route—she announced she was going to re-record the albums herself. Since she is still the songwriter or co-songwriter on every song on all six albums, she can license the new recordings and keep Braun from pocketing any of the money.

Ultimately, this is a fight between two insanely rich people, but similar fights exist all the time in sports. And just as I gravitate towards players, the doers, over owners, the financiers, I am inclined to support Taylor Swift’s quest to rankle the system. What Big Machine Records and Scooter Braun did was completely legal, but that does not make it ethical. A legal fight almost certainly would not have worked out for Taylor Swift but relying on the will of the people did.

The music of Red (Taylor’s Version) is still pop-country, music that was written by a singer-songwriter but otherwise has most of the DNA of a musical industrial complex. But despite the shine of it, the re-recordings were built up through an aggressively do-it-yourself aesthetic. Punks in 1970s London decided that they could make their own clothes and bang around on instruments, making noise despite a lack of formal training or talent, and Taylor Swift, refined and pristine as her music is, parlayed that aesthetic on the grandest scale.

The Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft—Ranking the picks from worst to best

 

Tonight, a major league sports team was born via the expansion draft in the National Hockey League’s thirty-second franchise, the Seattle Kraken. Having spent countless hours dissecting this draft, today was like Christmas for me.

Overall, I think the Kraken did a good job. There is a widely held belief that the Kraken can’t hold a candle to the 2017 Vegas Golden Knights’ draft, but the Golden Knights were also not widely believed to have had a particularly good draft in the moment. A huge amount of their roster-building came not via the draft itself but via trades made adjacent to it. And NHL teams learned their lessons. Teams aren’t stupid enough to give away one-third of a conference champion’s top line so that the team will draft another third of it. I am quite certain that if this were the 2017 draft, the Colorado Avalanche would not have traded Ryan Graves for a package that, while not as good as Graves himself, is substantially more valuable than the value of simply losing Graves to Seattle.

Seattle opted to stay closer to the salary floor, which I think is a good idea because while the Kraken could have created a more talented roster, there is a reason the high-end talent was exposed in the first place. As such, the Kraken do not have a single terrible contract on their books, and while they may have an overpay or two, these are players who will be extraordinarily significant for their team. Overall, I’d give Ron Francis and company an A-minus.

Here is how I rank the picks.

30. Adam Larsson, Edmonton Oilers—Larsson is a perfectly fine defenseman who gets a bad rap because he was on the wrong end of one of the most lopsided trades in recent NHL memory—the one-for-one deal which sent future league MVP Taylor Hall to New Jersey. But this pick is nonsensical primarily for a simple reason—he’s a pending free agent. And while a week of exclusive negotiating rights with a pending free agent isn’t nothing, I believe these picks should be made only if nobody who is any good is available to draft. But Edmonton did have some intriguing players exposed—Devin Shore, a dirt-cheap two-way forward capable of playing at all three forward positions, would have been my choice. There were the likes of Tyler Benson and William Lagesson, unfulfilled prospects but effectively lottery tickets. Even if Seattle converts this pick into signing Adam Larsson, as by all accounts they are likely to do, Larsson isn’t likely to be some incredible bargain for the Kraken. I hate this pick.

29. Chris Driedger, Florida Panthers—I really like Chris Driedger, a likely pivotal part of Seattle’s goaltending rotation and a man who frequently outplayed Florida’s highly paid starter, Sergei Bobrovsky, over the last two seasons. But Driedger is a free agent—granted, one more likely to have a competitive market than Larsson. I’m disappointed Florida didn’t take a chance on Frank Vatrano, who has developed into a solid NHL scorer and at a reasonable $2.5 million price tag, or any of a host of young players—among Florida goalies alone, I’d have preferred pending RFA Sam Montembeault for the team control perspective.

28. Gavin Bayreuther, Columbus Blue Jackets—Truthfully, I prefer this pick to the hotly rumored Max Domi, who I think is quite a bit overpaid. But a 27 year-old pending UFA with just 28 games played in his career does not exactly demand exclusive negotiating rights. This would be a more roastable pick if Columbus’s expansion lists weren’t so dire (I ended up going with Dean Kukan for mine, a player I admittedly don’t think much of), but even hoping to turn Kole Sherwood into something would have been a preferable option to Bayreuther.

27. Brandon Tanev, Pittsburgh Penguins—At least Tanev isn’t a UFA, but given his contract situation, Seattle might prefer that. Not that $3.5 million for each of the next four years is exactly an albatross, but Tanev is a forward who has never reached 15 goals nor 30 points in a season. His production is not where a player with his salary should be, and while Seattle is limited by the rules of the draft in terms of number of non-contracted players (RFAs and pending UFAs) they may select, I would have gladly taken one of those spots up for Zach Aston-Reese, a younger and considerably cheaper option who could have been an intriguing third line-ish forward.

26. Jamie Oleksiak, Dallas Stars—Here is the pending UFA I hate the least. The gigantic defenseman is a solid player, but most importantly, once Dallas convinced Ben Bishop to waive his no-move clause and thus taking Anton Khudobin off the board for the Kraken, the Stars had one of the worst collections of unprotected players in the league. I would have taken Tanner Kero, but life is too short to be too outraged about not taking a near-29 year-old forward with 13 NHL points since the last expansion draft.

25. Kurtis MacDermid, Los Angeles Kings—He’s a fine enough player—a cheap defenseman who can play on either side of the blue line. But the Kings had one of my favorite forwards available in Andreas Athanasiou, a former 30-goal scorer who is still putting up decent production and made just $1.2 million last season and remains in restricted free agency. But I’m probably higher on Athanasiou than most of his non-relatives. MacDermid isn’t bad at all.

24. John Quenneville, Chicago Blackhawks—Because he’s cousins with (I thought until very recently that he was the son of) former Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, John got a lot more attention than his meager production suggested. And he’s a pending UFA. But while I don’t think Quenneville is a great pick, the Blackhawks did not provide much help to the Kraken. I’m only ranking Quenneville this far from the basement because they wisely avoided selecting the overpaid Calvin De Haan or Nikita Zadorov. I would’ve probably taken a goalie—my preference would have been Malcolm Subban, for his second expansion team dalliance—but the Kraken at least avoided the potential landmines.

23. Tyler Pitlick, Arizona Coyotes—Pitlick has only reached double-digit goals once and twenty points twice. Is the nearly thirty year-old winger worth $1.75 million? I don’t think so, but I’m willing to listen. For months, it seemed like Adin Hill (who was eventually traded to San Jose) would be the pick here, but I still think Seattle should’ve gone with Christian Fischer, who is younger, cheaper, and has already had higher highs in the NHL despite being just twenty-four.

22. Morgan Geekie, Carolina Hurricanes—Credit to the Kraken for not doing the silly “draft Dougie Hamilton for the negotiating rights” gambit that many suggested—Carolina has far too many good options to throw a pick away on that. And Geekie is young and a well-regarded prospect. But Jake Bean would’ve been my pick in a heartbeat. A 13^th overall pick just five years ago, Bean has been limited in his opportunities to play given Carolina’s robust defense core, and the 23 year-old could’ve grown into something special as a bottom-pairing lefty defenseman alongside Seattle’s veteran presence in the position.

21. Joey Daccord, Ottawa Senators—His numbers have been rough in the NHL, but the 24 year-old goalie is cheap and it’s not like Ottawa is overflowing with players that a team would want. I had them taking Anton Forsberg, who is older but probably a little better, but I totally understand, given that neither goalie would play much, wanting to go with the higher upside player.

20. Haydn Fleury, Anaheim Ducks—I was intrigued by Kevin Shattenkirk, notably older and more expensive but certainly more productive, but I can’t argue too vociferously against the former seventh overall pick. Fleury has been a bit underwhelming in the NHL, but he is still just twenty-five years old, and it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t have upside. And with just a $1.3 million salary in 2020-21, it’s not as though the team is digging itself into a hole.

19. Carsen Twarnyski, Philadelphia Flyers—The Flyers were one of the more intriguing teams in this draft because they exposed a trio of accomplished but highly paid players—James Van Riemsdyk, Jakub Voracek, and the guy I would’ve taken, Shayne Gostisbehere. But it is clear that Seattle is going low-risk, and as such, a 23 year-old who makes the league minimum but has one career NHL point is ideologically consistent. A pick like this belongs firmly in the middle of any ranking—we know exactly what they are doing. It just isn’t very fun.

18. Jordan Eberle, New York Islanders—Is Eberle overpaid? Maybe a little--$5.5 million isn’t exactly cheap. But while Eberle has dropped off in production a little bit from his Edmonton Oilers days, and it’s not like the 31 year-old is exactly likely to take a step forward, a guy who has never scored fewer than 16 goals in an NHL season should be a welcome addition to the top six for an expansion team. Even if he’s a little overpaid, this won’t be as big of a blow for a team that probably shouldn’t be pressing against the salary cap over the remaining three years of his contract. I would’ve taken Andy Greene, who is ancient but still productive and very inexpensive, but this is admittedly a far more fun pick.

17. Alexander True, San Jose Sharks—This is a team so bereft of young talent that they voluntarily protected Brent Burns. In the end, Seattle did the right thing, selecting the large twenty-four year-old forward who makes peanuts and will not demand big minutes while the Kraken are still trying to figure out how good True actually is. Plus, he played junior hockey in Seattle, which is a thing that apparently matters. Ryan Donato, who is better but more expensive, was really the only other option.

16. Kole Lind, Vancouver Canucks—He’s 22, cheap, Canucks people seem to be high on Lind’s AHL production, and while I might’ve taken a shot on Jake Virtanen to have a bounce-back season, Kole Lind is the low risk option, and God knows Ron Francis is avoiding risks whenever possible. It’s fine. (Why yes, my middle section is going to include some brief summations. These are the least interesting picks. You can scan along if you want, it’s fine)

15. Nathan Bastian, New Jersey Devils—A decent prospect at 23, Bastian is a relatively strong choice given the mediocrity of his organization. And not that I expected the Seattle Kraken to jump in on P.K. Subban or anything unless the Devils compensated them heavily to do so, but I am still tempted to give Seattle some bonus points for not doing something crazy. I liked Scott Wedgewood, but this was my backup pick.

14. Mark Giordano, Calgary Flames—Here we go. The Calgary Flames lose their captain and a former Norris Trophy winner, and the Kraken presumably have their first captain. At $6.75 million, Giordano is certainly not cheap, but I would argue that he is not overpaid given that the 37 year-old has remained a very good, if no longer elite, defenseman. The drawback is that the Kraken probably don’t need a Mark Giordano for his remaining season under contract, but the positive is that if the Kraken aren’t very good, Giordano could be a very intriguing trade candidate and could easily bring back more value than the typical expansion pick is worth. It was going to either be Giordano or Oliver Kylington, and Calgary went with the far splashier route.

13. Will Borgen, Buffalo Sabres—I don’t know if Will Borgen is any good. But he’s a very low-risk pick from the worst team in the NHL, and despite the likely event that Will Borgen never does anything of consequence for the Seattle Kraken, this is still the right, if extremely dull, pick.

12. Joonas Donskoi, Colorado Avalanche—Unfortunately for the Kraken, the Avalanche did a great job of preparing for this draft, shipping off Ryan Graves and convincing Erik Johnson to waive his no-move clause so that this team’s core could be preserved. But they are still a loaded team and thus the Avalanche were bound to lose a good player, and Donskoi qualifies. At $3.9 million for each of the next two seasons, he should be a top-six forward for the Kraken—in each of the last four seasons, Donskoi has scored at least 14 goals and no fewer than 31 points. I might’ve gone with a cheaper player, such as defenseman Jacob MacDonald, but I can’t argue too much against Donskoi, a player with far more value to the Kraken than to the Avalanche.

11. Dennis Cholowski, Detroit Red Wings—I truly can’t believe Seattle got a player this solid from Detroit. A first-round pick in 2016, Cholowski has garnered second-pairing minutes for the Red Wings, and while his plus/minus stats aren’t great, this is practically a job requirement for Detroit. Cholowski is probably more of a bottom pairing or even a healthy scratch for Seattle, but for a league minimum guy from one of the league’s worst teams, that’s a pretty solid return.

10. Yanni Gourde, Tampa Bay Lightning—Consider Tampa Bay protected four defensemen, and thus could only protect four forwards, there was no shortage of options, and Gourde is the best of the bunch. Gourde will instantly be the #1 center for the Kraken, and there are a number of existing NHL teams whose top center isn’t as good as Gourde, who scored 17 goals and 36 points in 56 games for the Stanley Cup champion Lightning last season. My only real gripe here is that Seattle “only” got Gourde—while he’s a better player than Tyler Johnson, the Kraken could’ve convinced Tampa Bay to throw them a pick or two and come out even better (or perhaps even threaten to take Pat Maroon and thus deprive Tampa Bay of desperately-needed salary relief).

9. Jared McCann, Toronto Maple Leafs—Because the Maple Leafs obsessed with protecting defensemen, they left some strong forwards available. It really came down to draft McCann, Alex Kerfoot, or go cheap, but the Kraken correctly picked this as a point to draft a player with an actual salary. At just under $3 million last season, McCann is a bargain of a center with a goal scoring touch. Along with Gourde, on paper, the Kraken have stronger centers than the Vegas Golden Knights had following their expansion draft, and if one becomes their William Karlsson, it wouldn’t be too shocking.

8. Calle Jarnkrok, Nashville Predators—A veteran who was a contributor to Nashville’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2017, Jarnkrok is a roughly half a point-per-game scorer who provides solid depth scoring. He is only under contract for one more season, but at just $2 million, Jarnkrok could be a great trade chip at the 2022 trade deadline.

7. Cale Fleury, Montreal Canadiens—In keeping with the rule of thumb “always draft guys named Fleury in the expansion draft”, the Kraken snatched Haydn’s younger brother, and while Cale didn’t produce a ton in his 41 NHL games, he’s cheap and only 22 and maybe will benefit from playing with his brother. But most importantly, Seattle resisted what would have been a potentially fatal mistake by not drafting Carey Price. The constant “he could be their Marc-Andre Fleury” takes didn’t scare the front office (note: Vegas didn’t select Fleury with a great amount of joy—Pittsburgh paid them to take him) and they deserve credit for their selective boringness.

6. Vince Dunn, St. Louis Blues—The Blues dangled Vladimir Tarasenko, but Seattle wisely opted for Vince Dunn, a still-young offensive defenseman who will surely get middle-pairing minutes behind Mark Giordano. Because the Blues tend to obsess with protecting their biggest names rather than their best values, there were plenty of lower-tier and intriguing options such as Niko Mikkola or Jake Walman, the higher-end Dunn was the smart, higher-upside pick.

5. Carson Soucy, Minnesota Wild—Minnesota moved Heaven, Earth, and Ryan Suter to protect Matt Dumba, who for a while looked like an automatic Kraken pick, but Seattle did still take a really good defenseman in Carson Soucy. Not Dumba-level, but Soucy has been a plus-minus monster (it’s a dumb stat but most of these guys very much are not) and had a career-best season in 2020-21. Minnesota didn’t have a realistic choice but to leave Soucy exposed, and it was very much to Seattle’s benefit.

4. Colin Blackwell, New York Rangers—The undersized center isn’t as exciting as some of the other names in this expansion draft, but he checks just about every box one can fathom for the Seattle Kraken. He’s cheap, with a league minimum salary for next season. He’s under contract, which is a consideration when it comes to expansion drafting—Seattle was required to take 20 such players, and UFAs don’t count to the total. And he’s coming off a breakthrough season with the Rangers, with 12 goals in 47 games. He is a high-upside player and comes with no downsides. An excellent pick.

3. Vitek Vanecek, Washington Capitals—Under the right circumstances, I could talk myself into Conor Sheary for the Kraken, but contextually, Vitek Vanecek makes a ton of sense. A late bloomer who debuted last season in the NHL at 25, Vanecek was rock-solid in goal for Washington, with a 2.69 GAA and .908 save percentage on his way to 21 wins in 36 starts. He could be an aberration, but he could also be a low-cost member of an intriguing goaltender tandem with Chris Driedger.

2. Mason Appleton, Winnipeg Jets—The Jets were not a great team, so I don’t really understand how they could possibly fit Mason Appleton into a protection list. At $900,000, the 25 year-old forward had a breakthrough 2020-21, with 12 goals and 25 points. And he’s named Appleton and he’s going to be playing in the state of Washington! George Lucas clearly invented this transaction.

1. Jérémy Lauzon, Boston Bruins—I love this pick. Love it, love it, love it. He’s a young defenseman on the rise, he’s cheap but still qualifies as having an NHL contract, and the advanced analytics are high on his defensive acumen. Lauzon is the exact kind of depth players that allows great NHL teams to compete for titles by being solid contributors at such a low price. And while the Kraken won’t be that, this is a good start.

If Vladimir Tarasenko can garner Jake DeBrusk or Trent Frederic and a first, the Blues should do that yesterday

Vladimir Tarasenko ranks fifth in St. Louis Blues history in goals, tenth in points, and ninth in Point Shares (a non-positionally specific statistic; among forwards, he ranks fourth, behind Brett Hull, Bernie Federko, and Pavol Demitra). In his prime, one of the richer eras in St. Louis Blues history, he was nearly a point-per-game player who perennially led the Blues in goals, including in 2018-19, when the Blues lifted their first Stanley Cup. He is a candidate for having his number retired by the franchise and is certainly among the franchise’s greatest contributors.

At 29, Vladimir Tarasenko is not quite old by hockey standards, but he is at the age when players, particularly players who rely heavily on speed, tend to decline. This is exacerbated by injuries—over the last two seasons, Tarasenko has played in just 42 games between the regular season and postseason. Since suffering a shoulder injury on October 24, 2019, Tarasenko has played in just 32 games, and while 6 goals and 16 points isn’t terrible, it is certainly a far cry from his pre-injury production.

It would be naïve not to at least consider the possibility that Tarasenko is damaged goods at this point. Perhaps this is not a Cam Neely situation, where devastating injuries force a superstar right winger out of the NHL at 30, but fearing a Dany Heatley situation—where his career continues on but he is merely a depth forward rather than the goal-scoring superstar of his younger years—is reasonable. He does still occasionally show flashes of greatness—Tarasenko did, after all, score two goals in what may end up being his final game in a St. Louis Blues sweater—so I’m not unreservedly giving up on the guy, but I’m also not willing to say that he is going to snap back into his old self at the drop of a hat.

We don’t know what the future holds for Vladimir Tarasenko in terms of production, but we do know that, at $7.5 million for the next two seasons, he is, along with Ryan O’Reilly (who had more points-per-game in 2020-21 than in any other season of his career), the highest paid player on the Blues. This isn’t baseball, where we can chalk up his high salary to the old “it’s not my money” principle—while I’m happy that money will go to Tarasenko rather than to decent-by-billionaire-standards-but-still-plenty-wealthy-so-let’s-not-valorize-the-guy-too-much owner Tom Stillman, the existence of a fairly rigid salary cap means that Vladimir Tarasenko’s $7.5 million also represents an opportunity cost. If the Blues didn’t have to pay his salary, that money would instead go to somebody else.

The hot rumor, which initially seemed like a pipe dream but would actually be perfectly manageable under the salary cap with Tarasenko off the books, is that the Blues are going to pursue Ryan O’Reilly’s old Colorado Avalanche teammate Gabriel Landeskog. Over their careers, Vladimir Tarasenko has been a superior player to Gabriel Landeskog—they have the same number of career goals, but Tarasenko has done so in 156 fewer games (the result of injuries and the fact that, despite being a year older than Landeskog, he debuted in the NHL a year later), and Tarasenko has edges in points per game and total career point shares. But in terms of recent track record, it’s no contest. The former (I guess still technically current?) Avalanche captain has outscored Tarasenko in each of the last three seasons, including Tarasenko’s healthy 2018-19, and totaled 20 goals and 52 points in 54 games last year. He was a crucial piece of arguably hockey’s best line, along with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen (I’d probably go with the Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak line, but it’s a worthy #2), and his projected salary going forward isn’t far off of what Tarasenko is currently making.

Of course, for this to happen, the Blues would need to part ways with Vladimir Tarasenko, who has a no-trade clause but who has reportedly asked for a trade (as an aside, I am perfectly okay with him doing so and consider there to be a major difference between “player asks for a trade” and “player demands a trade and acts like a malcontent until he gets his way”—this is why I find Anthony Davis of the Los Angeles Lakers fine and James Harden of the Brooklyn Nets obnoxious). The reports of his discontent in St. Louis had the initial effect of exciting me that the Blues would do something I have already lobbied for them to do—leave Tarasenko exposed in next week’s Expansion Draft. While Tarasenko does have a no-trade clause, this differs from a no-move clause, which would require the Blues to protect Tarasenko from being selected by the Seattle Kraken. While this is occasionally framed as “the Blues would lose Tarasenko for nothing”, that’s not really the case, as Seattle is going to have to draft a Blues player regardless. In reality, the Blues would be losing Tarasenko in lieu of losing Oskar Sundqvist or Ivan Barbashev or Vince Dunn or some league-minimum depth guy—maybe that still doesn’t sound like a good deal to you, but it isn’t nothing.

But if what Jeremy Rutherford suggested on 101 ESPN yesterday is true, that the Boston Bruins might be willing to part with one of two young depth forwards—Jake DeBrusk or Trent Frederic—and their first-round pick (#21) in next weekend’s NHL Entry Draft, then that changes everything. The Blues should make that trade immediately.

Jake DeBrusk is an intriguing player. He has had a rough couple seasons, but in 2018-19, he was a 27-goal scorer for the Bruins, and at 24, he is a player who is in theory just entering his prime. At $3.675 million, DeBrusk makes less than half of what Tarasenko makes, and while that number may prove to be a little on the high side if he continues on his 2020-21 trajectory—just 14 points in 41 games—it also does not come with any required commitment beyond next year, as he is still in restricted free agency. Though if given the choice, I would rather have Trent Frederic. Just 23, the St. Louis native (since you’re going to ask me—DeSmet) hasn’t had anywhere close to DeBrusk’s NHL production and has been more of a fourth-line type, but he has provided solid defensive output and is scheduled to make just $1.05 million for each of the next two seasons—I am not at all concerned about paying him Kyle Clifford money to be a younger version of Kyle Clifford.

This trade wouldn’t really impact the Blues’ Expansion Draft strategy in any meaningful way, because whether the acquisition was DeBrusk or Frederic, he would almost certainly be immediately exposed to the Seattle Kraken. And if the Kraken took said player (most mock drafts I’ve seen have them taking Vince Dunn; I am holding out hope that Doug Armstrong is smarter than this and instead exposes Torey Krug, whose $6.5 million price tag for the next six years of his thirties would absolutely scare off Ron Francis from selecting him), then the Blues essentially got a first-round pick for Vladimir Tarasenko and didn’t have to lose somebody in the expansion draft. And this would be a massive victory for the Blues. A #21 overall pick isn’t an insignificant asset for a team to have—it may not allow you to draft a Connor McDavid, but it’s just one pick shy of where the Blues selected Robert Thomas. In recent years, it has garnered such solid NHL contributors as Filip Chytil, Colin White, and Our Old Friend Robby Fabbri. And it would give the Blues $7.5 million in cap space—in addition to the $14.35 million in cap space being shed with the contract expirations of Tyler Bozak, Mike Hoffman, and Jaden Schwartz, the Blues have an intriguing opportunity to reinvigorate their forward group on the fly.

If the Blues do opt to protect Vladimir Tarasenko, I am going to convince myself that this is Doug Armstrong exhibiting patience once again. In 2017, protecting enforcer Ryan Reaves over David Perron, a productive offensive player who had committed the mortal sin of “having a bad few weeks at the end of the last season”, seemed like malpractice, but it seemed a whole lot more defensible when it turned out that Armstrong had, somehow, convinced the Pittsburgh Penguins to trade him Oskar Sundqvist and the first-round pick that turned into Klim Kostin for Reaves and a second. Maybe the Bruins want to wait until the Seattle Kraken draft their team so that they wouldn’t be forced to protect Tarasenko. Either way, it does seem like a matter of if and not when the Blues and Tarasenko part ways. And if a young forward and a first-round pick comes back in return, the Blues will have won the trade in a landslide.

Who should the St. Louis Blues protect in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft?

 

For anyone who is new here, I need to explain something—I love expansion drafts. I don’t even really enjoy when professional sports leagues expand on the whole, but the moment when the expansion draft happens is beautiful to me. It’s a perfect marriage of game theory between the existing franchises and the new one. I have a history of caring too much about this.

There is no science to how teams will choose whom to protect. For the upcoming NHL Expansion Draft, it makes particular sense for the Detroit Red Wings, for instance, to dangle veterans—even if they are among the team’s best players, the Red Wings are going to be a last-place team with or without Danny DeKeyser. A team like the Tampa Bay Lightning, locked and loaded and trying to maximize damage to the rest of the league right now, might be a bit more protective of your Patricks Maroon or your Ondreii Palat than a rebuilding team.

The St. Louis Blues are closer to the Lightning than the Red Wings, but they are somewhere between the two extremes. The Blues are certainly an above-average NHL team right now, though not an inner-circle Stanley Cup contender (the same could have been said in 2019, to be extremely clear), but they also have an eye on the future. They don’t have a great farm system, but they also aren’t looking at trading all of their CHL and NCAA prospects for veterans, either. It’s a pretty nice spot.

But the Blues will, by definition, be losing a player to the Seattle Kraken. The Kraken, despite the Vegas Golden Knights’ success in 2017-18, probably aren’t going to become instant contenders, but that doesn’t mean they will be averse to acquiring high-end talent, particularly as they will still have a salary floor to reach. Unlike in expansion drafts in other sports, however, hockey teams ought to focus more on keeping their best players than trying to plan around who Seattle will pick, as Seattle will pick somebody.

The Blues still have a lot of season left—hopefully a lot of season—but that doesn’t mean teams shouldn’t plan ahead. Teams planned for years around this expansion draft, and the Blues have done a pretty good job. First, they have no players with no-move clauses, which means there are no players that they are required to protect. The Chicago Blackhawks will be forced to protect Brent Seabrook, despite the fact that he is now terrible at hockey, expensive, and, most hilariously, retired. The Blues will have no such albatrosses. Second, the Blues have several pending free agents among their core, which means several players they won’t need to protect. The Blues may not bring back Tyler Bozak, Mike Hoffman, or Jaden Schwartz, but even if they do, they certainly won’t protect any of them. The Kraken could technically select any of them, but each will become a free agent a few days later, so that would be stupid. And despite naming their team after an epic Online meme, I don’t think they’re that stupid.

Here are the eleven players—one goalie, three defensemen, and seven forwards—that I think the Blues should protect (not will, but should). They can protect four defensemen and four forwards if they so chose, but I’ll spoil the surprise—I won’t be advising that.

Goalie—Ville Husso: I should be clear—I think Jordan Binnington is a perfectly fine NHL goaltender and I believe he should be the team’s predominant starting goalie. But I also wouldn’t have given him the extension the Blues gave him during the season because, as I said, I think he’s merely perfectly fine. I think he’s extremely replaceable, and I think the Blues can find a sufficient replacement for less than $6 million over the next six seasons. While I have quite a bit of trepidation about Ville Husso, he will only make $750,000 next season and even if he never makes a step forward, it’s not as though he’s substantially holding back the Blues in the long term. Binnington might.

Defensemen—Vince Dunn, Torey Krug, Colton Parayko: As oft-critiqued as Vince Dunn has been for the Blues, he is the team’s second-leading scoring defenseman and he’s cheap—he made under $2 million this season and is still a restricted free agent. Given the expansion draft, and given that Torey Krug is in many ways just a rich man’s version of Vince Dunn, I wouldn’t hate the Blues trying to trade Vince Dunn, but short of that, they should absolutely not give him up in the expansion draft for nothing—he has some of the highest trade value on the team. While Colton Parayko has had a down 2021 season, he’s the team’s most reliable defensive defenseman and will still only be the team’s third-highest paid one for 2021-22 (I would imagine he’s a prime candidate for an extension before he reaches free agency in the summer of 2022). And the third spot really comes down to Torey Krug or Justin Faulk, who are on identical $6.5 million contracts for the next six seasons. While Faulk has bounced back nicely from his poor 2019-20 season and he is no longer a player I am absolutely dying to dangle to Seattle, Krug has been the more consistent performer over the last several seasons. As for Marco Scandella and Robert Bortuzzo, they aren’t especially flight risks. Niko Mikkola and Jake Walman are nice depth players, but if the Blues lose one to Seattle, the Kraken probably think quite a bit more highly of them than the Blues do.

Forwards—Sammy Blais, Jordan Kyrou, Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron, Zach Sanford, Brayden Schenn, Robert Thomas: Ryan O’Reilly and David Perron, the point-ish a game forwards, are givens—ironically, when Perron signed with the Blues, it seemed he would be a prime candidate to once again be exposed, as he was when Vegas selected him, but he has elevated his game to previously unthinkable levels. And Ryan O’Reilly is the team’s best overall player, and while he is tied for being the team’s most expensive player, a $7.5 million contract for one of the sport’s best 200-feet centers is a bargain. Jordan Kyrou hasn’t always been a lock, but the youngster has broken through in 2021 and is still on his entry-level contract. And while there is a case that Robert Thomas hasn’t quite become what Blues fans assumed he would become, he is still only 21 years old, has flashes of absolute brilliance, and is also on an ELC. These four are mortal locks.

Brayden Schenn once looked like Kraken-bait, but with 28 points in 42 games, his $6.5 million price tag is quite reasonable. Maybe a lesser team would dangle Schenn, but a team hoping to contend could use a player like him in its top six. Sammy Blais hasn’t quite become a star, but he’s still just twenty-four and is a solid middle-six type forward at just $1.5 million for next season. And while Zach Sanford’s defensive lapses have been a bit frustrating, he’s one of the team’s more lethal scoring threats and he’s still in restricted free agency.

This leaves a few solid forwards unprotected. Kyle Clifford isn’t a star but he’s reasonably cheap veteran depth. Oskar Sundqvist has been a solid bottom-six forward, but coming off an injury and at a not-exactly-cheap $2.75 million salary for the next two seasons, he isn’t quite indispensable. Ivan Barbashev nearly cracked my list of seven, but while he and Sanford are in similar situations contract and age-wise, I had to opt for the player who has been more of a scoring threat in recent days. But the real heartbreak was leaving Vladimir Tarasenko exposed.

It’s tough! And it’s not like Tarasenko has even been bad in 2021. But he hasn’t been a $7.5 million player. And this is a player who is nearly thirty—it is perfectly reasonable to wonder if Tarasenko will ever be the same again. But he’s been dealing with brutal injuries that tend to hamper and limit careers of players as they enter the latter stages of their careers. And I love Vladimir Tarasenko and if the Blues lost him to Seattle, I would absolutely pull for him to become the forward equivalent of Marc-Andre Fleury with the Vegas Golden Knights. But the tough truth is that Vladimir Tarasenko is no longer the no-doubter franchise player he was just two years ago. It’s a brutal sport and I now hate expansion drafts.