Around the NHL 2023-2024

[Vladys Gumption]

Man reading that brought back all of the emotions surrounding that trade. Still think that was one of the worst trades of Armstrong’s tenure. I hated it the minute it happened, and still hate it today.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Man reading that brought back all of the emotions surrounding that trade. Still think that was one of the worst trades of Armstrong’s tenure. I hated it the minute it happened, and still hate it today.

Same. I remember exactly where I was when I saw that trade on my phone. Thought it was a horrible trade then and it looks even worse now.

The details are fuzzy but I seem to recall Oshie didn’t get along well with Hitch and it seemed like they simply wanted to move on from him. Oshie’s playoffs stats were also quite poor. But man did he take it to another level with the Caps and became the player I think most of us thought he’d become with the Blues.

Happy for him though as he’s stayed one of my favorite players. 1000 games is a strong accomplishment. Backes didn’t even make it to 1000. Lots of Blues draftees have hit the 1000 mark recently - Perron, Petro, Eller and now Oshie. Just one problem - all 4 had their ceremonies with another team!

 

[Thallis]

Same. I remember exactly where I was when I saw that trade on my phone. Thought it was a horrible trade then and it looks even worse now.

The details are fuzzy but I seem to recall Oshie didn’t get along well with Hitch and it seemed like they simply wanted to move on from him. Oshie’s playoffs stats were also quite poor. But man did he take it to another level with the Caps and became the player I think most of us thought he’d become with the Blues.

Happy for him though as he’s stayed one of my favorite players. 1000 games is a strong accomplishment. Backes didn’t even make it to 1000. Lots of Blues draftees have hit the 1000 mark recently - Perron, Petro, Eller and now Oshie. Just one problem - all 4 had their ceremonies with another team!

Eller hitting 1k games is actually crazy to me.

 

[Blueston]

Same. I remember exactly where I was when I saw that trade on my phone. Thought it was a horrible trade then and it looks even worse now.

The details are fuzzy but I seem to recall Oshie didn’t get along well with Hitch and it seemed like they simply wanted to move on from him. Oshie’s playoffs stats were also quite poor. But man did he take it to another level with the Caps and became the player I think most of us thought he’d become with the Blues.

Happy for him though as he’s stayed one of my favorite players. 1000 games is a strong accomplishment. Backes didn’t even make it to 1000. Lots of Blues draftees have hit the 1000 mark recently - Perron, Petro, Eller and now Oshie. Just one problem - all 4 had their ceremonies with another team!

That trade was a loss in a vacuum, but it allowed Schwartz and tank to have more prominent roles and helped set table for our Cup win. I realize it’s impossible to know what would have happened if trade wasn’t made, but I no longer get upset about anything in years prior to Cup.

 

[bleedblue1223]

I just wish he got more value out of it, because it really was terrible value from the start. Those types of moves happen though, like when we got Buchnevich for 2nd+Blais.

 

[STL fan in MN]

That trade was a loss in a vacuum, but it allowed Schwartz and tank to have more prominent roles and helped set table for our Cup win. I realize it’s impossible to know what would have happened if trade wasn’t made, but I no longer get upset about anything in years prior to Cup.

Yeah, it’s hard to argue with anything in the few years prior to the Cup win and maybe we don’t win the Cup if we don’t make that trade due to some butterfly effect thing but…yeah, in terms of asset value, it was a horrible, horrible trade.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Eller hitting 1k games is actually crazy to me.

TBH, I thought Eller would become a bit more than he did. His defensive game developed but not his offensive game. It is somewhat surprising he keeps getting contracts putting up 30 pts/season. But he’s a good defensive player and pretty good on the dot so I guess has enough value to keep getting contracts.

 

[oPlaiD]

Didn't really touch on it in that article, but Oshie did strike me as one of those guys who maybe needed the trade as a kind of wake-up call to get him to really be the best version of himself. Maybe that's ultimately the wrong takeaway just because he seemed to clash with Hitchcock, but at least it's nice both teams can look back and not be too broken up about the result since ultimately we both won the Cup.

 

[Thallis]

That trade was a loss in a vacuum, but it allowed Schwartz and tank to have more prominent roles and helped set table for our Cup win. I realize it’s impossible to know what would have happened if trade wasn’t made, but I no longer get upset about anything in years prior to Cup.

The Ryan Miller trade still makes me mad, but otherwise I've let things go.

 

[Brian39]

That trade was a loss in a vacuum, but it allowed Schwartz and tank to have more prominent roles and helped set table for our Cup win. I realize it’s impossible to know what would have happened if trade wasn’t made, but I no longer get upset about anything in years prior to Cup.

I agree with this take, but want to add that I also have a hard time really hating the trade in hindsight from an emotional perspective. Brouwer wasn't as good as Oshie and wasn't a long-term piece. But he did score the biggest goal of the Hitch era and arguably the biggest goal of the Army era (at the time, obviously the Cup win had some bigger goals).

One goal doesn't override the difference in quality between him and Oshie, but from an emotional standpoint I will forever have a massively positive memory of Brouwer scoring the game 7 winner against the Hawks. I can't think about Brouwer without thinking about that goal, knocking out that team, and going on a run to the Conference Final.

We can't know if/how things would have been different without making that trade, but I do know that the guy we got scored one of the most important goals I've witnessed as a Blues fan. I just can't be mad about the trade after that even if the value lost in the trade is obvious and the only other strategic benefits were opening up roles/time for younger core members.

 

[Majorityof1]

The details are fuzzy but I seem to recall Oshie didn’t get along well with Hitch and it seemed like they simply wanted to move on from him.

I don't know if he didn't get along with Hitch but he made a comment in the end of season exit interview before he was traded, clearly frustrated by Hitch's system. He said something along the lines that it inhibited creativity and offense. I think he also said something along the lines of, it's tough when the only response to struggles is more buy-in.

Armstrong wanted to do something to shake up the core of Oshie, Steen, Backes that had a lot of early exits. That comment seemed to paint the target on Osh. He was clearly going to go, it was just a matter of what we got back.

 

[oPlaiD]

The Ryan Miller trade still makes me mad, but otherwise I've let things go.

This is the worst one, to me. Not only did we give up a 1st, we actively made the team worse by using him in net. That's being a little unfair to him, I guess, since with Buffalo that season he was probably a bit better than Halak or Elliott, but in the Blues uniform he was worse than either of them by every metric. Even if he had played at the level expected of him, it still wasn't a good trade. Halak and Elliott were both above average goalies and we move 2 picks, Halak, and more for a rental at the most volatile position when it wasn't even a real team weakness, despite whatever narrative existed around them.

But oh well. Spilled milk, we did win the Cup eventually anyway, whatever.

 

[Majorityof1]

That trade was a loss in a vacuum, but it allowed Schwartz and tank to have more prominent roles and helped set table for our Cup win. I realize it’s impossible to know what would have happened if trade wasn’t made, but I no longer get upset about anything in years prior to Cup.

Hard disagree. Tarasenko scored 73 points and Schwartz had 63 in Oshie's last year.. They had already broken out. The problem with our team most of Oshie's time here was they were a 2nd line playing 1st line.

The room was always there for someone to step up and grab a top 6 role. Moving him out didn't create openings. Those 2 had already taken the openings already there

 

[PocketNines]

It was a brutal trade with an excellent grace note on the Game 7 winner to assuage our feelings

 

[bleedblue1223]

That Fabbri-Stastny-Brouwer line really did have some nice chemistry. Really wish we could've seen a healthy Fabbri for an entire career.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

That Fabbri-Stastny-Brouwer line really did have some nice chemistry. Really wish we could've seen a healthy Fabbri for an entire career.

He was my favorite prospect in all the time I've liked looking at prospects.

He had such flashes of brilliance that I would hold on to so much hope he could break out. I agree on dreaming of what could have been with him. I think he could have become what Jesper Bratt is to New Jersey, but whose ever to say.

 

[TheOrganist]

Hitchcock should've been fired after the Minnesota debacle of 2015. That was a huge blunder by Armstrong. His personal affinity for Hitchcock led the franchise down an unnecessarily shaky path after 2016 and pre-Cup as a great player because a scapegoat which led to an absolutely Pejorative Slured trade. 2016 was a loaded team that really should've won the Cup so Hitchcock getting to the Conference Finals was not acceptable to me at the time. There's a reason that team finally beat Chicago...they were stacked. You add Oshie to the roster and it's even more loaded regardless of the hypothetical roster usage w/ or w/out Oshie. The Armstrong decision to keep Hitch around was a catalyst of the team spiraling after the San Jose loss....I mean read the comments from the Washington brass at the time....they couldn't believe it was real because the trade was so lopsided...."Armstrong needed Copley" should be a meme.

 

[STL fan in MN]

This is the worst one, to me. Not only did we give up a 1st, we actively made the team worse by using him in net. That's being a little unfair to him, I guess, since with Buffalo that season he was probably a bit better than Halak or Elliott, but in the Blues uniform he was worse than either of them by every metric. Even if he had played at the level expected of him, it still wasn't a good trade. Halak and Elliott were both above average goalies and we move 2 picks, Halak, and more for a rental at the most volatile position when it wasn't even a real team weakness, despite whatever narrative existed around them.

But oh well. Spilled milk, we did win the Cup eventually anyway, whatever.

Whether it was the players, coaches or management, there seemed to be an air of mistrust around Halak. He seemed like a moody beach that didn’t really fit in so I get why they would want to upgrade the position given they were a true Cup contender otherwise. BUT, I never thought Miller was the answer. He played a vastly different style. Halak and Elliott played conservatively. They both stayed relatively deep in the net. Miller on the other hand played super aggressive. Would come way out beyond the paint to cut down angles. The D has to play very differently in that scenario or they’ll be super vulnerable to back door plays.

That’s what did the Blues in IMO. The D/coaching didn’t adjust to Miller’s vastly different style. IMO, they should’ve been able to recognize that a handful of games after the trade deadline wasn’t enough time to completely redo the defensive strategy to accommodate a goalie with a vastly different style. Miller was a good goalie but a poor fit IMO.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Man reading that brought back all of the emotions surrounding that trade. Still think that was one of the worst trades of Armstrong’s tenure. I hated it the minute it happened, and still hate it today.

I remember thinking the team must have thought Copley was going to be a real player, or the value looked really bad. And this makes it sound like maybe that was the case.

You can’t win them all, but it certainly looks like a situation where the Blues were determined to move him, and the return was incidental.

Whether it was the players, coaches or management, there seemed to be an air of mistrust around Halak. He seemed like a moody beach that didn’t really fit in so I get why they would want to upgrade the position given they were a true Cup contender otherwise. BUT, I never thought Miller was the answer. He played a vastly different style. Halak and Elliott played conservatively. They both stayed relatively deep in the net. Miller on the other hand played super aggressive. Would come way out beyond the paint to cut down angles. The D has to play very differently in that scenario or they’ll be super vulnerable to back door plays.

That’s what did the Blues in IMO. The D/coaching didn’t adjust to Miller’s vastly different style. IMO, they should’ve been able to recognize that a handful of games after the trade deadline wasn’t enough time to completely redo the defensive strategy to accommodate a goalie with a vastly different style. Miller was a good goalie but a poor fit IMO.

Thevl best thing about the Miller trade was having the sense to not re-sign him.

 

[BlueDream]

Not a good look for Armstrong in that article. Caps signed Williams and Armstrong circled back to them to see if they were still interested in what seemed like almost a desperate call to make a move. And then Copley is the guy he insisted be in the trade.

Every GM will make a bad move but it’s still really hard to believe Brouwer and Copley was the best offer we could get for Oshie.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

I know some people hold a lot of affinity for Oshie, b/c he was the fresh faced young guy who was at the center of a lot of our, "Come grow with us," marketing campaigns, but he was objectively terrible for us in the playoffs. He was our top line RW and he put up 9 points in 30 games over 5 trips. He didn't even average two points per playoff year. That's pretty pathetic. Brouwer did more for us in one post-season then Oshie did in his entire tenure here (8 goals and 13 points in 20 games). Brouwer scored objectively the most important goal (To that point) in our post-lockout playoff history, finally slaying the f***ing Blackhawks. I was in a Buffalo Wild Wings in Schaumberg Ill. when that goal was scored and I still treasure the memory of the air getting sucked out of all the bumble Hawks fans who found out they had a team in 2009. I'd trade Oshie 100x for that memory no questions asked.

I do find it interesting that we did draft extremely well with our first, "Young Core," post lockout, especially in the first round. Almost all of our 1st round draft picks have made excellent careers for themselves, even if it didn't happen here. We could argue all day long about potential and how a lot of them didn't hit on what we were hoping for, but starting with Oshie in the first post lockout draft, we have:

2005 - Oshie (1k games and counting)
2006 - EJ (974 and counting) and Berglund (717 games and quit b/c Buffalo)
2007 - Eller (1k and counting), Ian Cole (800 and counting), and Perron (1.1k and counting)
2008 - AP (1k and counting)
2009 - Runblad (Who we realized was a bust and got....)
2010 - Schwartz (700 and counting) and Tarasenko (700 and counting)

That's 10 first round picks over 6 years and we flipped the obvious bust immediatly for Tarasenko. Outside of Runblad everyone has played at least 700 games and 8 of the 10 have won Stanley Cups.

Jarmo might be a shit GM but he sure was a good scout.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I know some people hold a lot of affinity for Oshie, b/c he was the fresh faced young guy who was at the center of a lot of our, "Come grow with us," marketing campaigns, but he was objectively terrible for us in the playoffs. He was our top line RW and he put up 9 points in 30 games over 5 trips. He didn't even average two points per playoff year. That's pretty pathetic. Brouwer did more for us in one post-season then Oshie did in his entire tenure here (8 goals and 13 points in 20 games). Brouwer scored objectively the most important goal (To that point) in our post-lockout playoff history, finally slaying the f***ing Blackhawks. I was in a Buffalo Wild Wings in Schaumberg Ill. when that goal was scored and I still treasure the memory of the air getting sucked out of all the bumble Hawks fans who found out they had a team in 2009. I'd trade Oshie 100x for that memory no questions asked.

I do find it interesting that we did draft extremely well with our first, "Young Core," post lockout, especially in the first round. Almost all of our 1st round draft picks have made excellent careers for themselves, even if it didn't happen here. We could argue all day long about potential and how a lot of them didn't hit on what we were hoping for, but starting with Oshie in the first post lockout draft, we have:

2005 - Oshie (1k games and counting)
2006 - EJ (974 and counting) and Berglund (717 games and quit b/c Buffalo)
2007 - Eller (1k and counting), Ian Cole (800 and counting), and Perron (1.1k and counting)
2008 - AP (1k and counting)
2009 - Runblad (Who we realized was a bust and got....)
2010 - Schwartz (700 and counting) and Tarasenko (700 and counting)

That's 10 first round picks over 6 years and we flipped the obvious bust immediatly for Tarasenko. Outside of Runblad everyone has played at least 700 games and 8 of the 10 have won Stanley Cups.

Jarmo might be a shit GM but he sure was a good scout.

If only they'd had the shoot-out in the playoffs. That Olympic shoot-out was a legendary moment, really a fun time for Blues fans.

 

[Celtic Note]

Yeah, it’s hard to argue with anything in the few years prior to the Cup win and maybe we don’t win the Cup if we don’t make that trade due to some butterfly effect thing but…yeah, in terms of asset value, it was a horrible, horrible trade.

Or maybe we win 2 Cups. It sort of can go both ways.

 

[Vladys Gumption]

I know some people hold a lot of affinity for Oshie, b/c he was the fresh faced young guy who was at the center of a lot of our, "Come grow with us," marketing campaigns, but he was objectively terrible for us in the playoffs. He was our top line RW and he put up 9 points in 30 games over 5 trips. He didn't even average two points per playoff year. That's pretty pathetic. Brouwer did more for us in one post-season then Oshie did in his entire tenure here (8 goals and 13 points in 20 games). Brouwer scored objectively the most important goal (To that point) in our post-lockout playoff history, finally slaying the f***ing Blackhawks. I was in a Buffalo Wild Wings in Schaumberg Ill. when that goal was scored and I still treasure the memory of the air getting sucked out of all the bumble Hawks fans who found out they had a team in 2009. I'd trade Oshie 100x for that memory no questions asked.

I do find it interesting that we did draft extremely well with our first, "Young Core," post lockout, especially in the first round. Almost all of our 1st round draft picks have made excellent careers for themselves, even if it didn't happen here. We could argue all day long about potential and how a lot of them didn't hit on what we were hoping for, but starting with Oshie in the first post lockout draft, we have:

2005 - Oshie (1k games and counting)
2006 - EJ (974 and counting) and Berglund (717 games and quit b/c Buffalo)
2007 - Eller (1k and counting), Ian Cole (800 and counting), and Perron (1.1k and counting)
2008 - AP (1k and counting)
2009 - Runblad (Who we realized was a bust and got....)
2010 - Schwartz (700 and counting) and Tarasenko (700 and counting)

That's 10 first round picks over 6 years and we flipped the obvious bust immediatly for Tarasenko. Outside of Runblad everyone has played at least 700 games and 8 of the 10 have won Stanley Cups.

Jarmo might be a shit GM but he sure was a good scout.

One quibble with your playoff production argument. He had very good playoff production in Washington so it’s not like one can argue he is a playoff choker.

I honestly think people forget just how truly terrible our depth was in the early 2010s. The SOB line had to feature as our shutdown line. I’ve got no doubt that contributed to the lack of offensive production we saw out of Oshie.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

One quibble with your playoff production argument. He had very good playoff production in Washington so it’s not like one can argue he is a playoff choker.

I honestly think people forget just how truly terrible our depth was in the early 2010s. The SOB line had to feature as our shutdown line. I’ve got no doubt that contributed to the lack of offensive production we saw out of Oshie.

I never said he was a playoff choker, I just said he didn't produce here. All his production in Washington was riding shotgun with Ovi and Backstrom, two of the best in their primes. It's not as easy as it sounds to play with those types of players though, so I get the argument.

I think Oshie is a really solid supporting player. But he's not a driver and we needed drivers. Brouwer wasn't that either, but Oshie was never going to be the guy he was in Washington here.