It's because so many seem to think that Army had strategically planned that Cup win and it's all bull. Berube helmed that team to the promise land. Army had conceded that 2019 was a lost year and stepped back.
It’s good that he hired Berube to coach in the AHL. But it certainly didn’t seem the vision was for him to be the head coach in 2019. Binnington seemed even less like part of the plan.
The JR generated Kyrou thing really did distract from celebrating Berube’s time with us…at least it did for me.
I must have imagined that army acquired nearly every member of Cup team, that he saw we were weak down middle so he drafted Thomas and dealt for Schenn and signed bozo and dealt for ROR. He built championship roster and team still struggled. He believed in players and didn’t tear it down when many wanted him to. He brought in Berube to replace coach who wasn’t up to it. Yes, Yeo was a mistake. Army’s mistake. Which every GM makes. Except army is able to move on from his mistakes and adjust while fans get caught up in every thing he did wrong years ago. But army saw that Yeo couldn’t hack it and moved on. Put in Berube. Gave him Larry Robinson as resource. And when Binny caught fire we had team in place to win Cup.so like any Cup winner, we had luck. But that luck fit around great bit of effective work by GM building roster. So yeah, I guess I imagined army’s role in building Cup team.
I didn’t say he didn’t do any of those things. Though I am not sure he drafted Thomas because we were weak down the middle. He deserves credit for the roster construction. But he also had a pretty significant amount of luck. Not sure why we cannot admit both without the passive aggressive jabs.
I admitted luck. But you need to be good enough to take advantage of that luck. We were. We have had bad luck since- JayBo and Covid and whatnot, and team has gotten bad. But he didn’t forget how to GM. He isn’t all of a sudden Mike Milbury. He let your favorites walk because it was flat cap and they were aging and he thought there was better way. So maybe he was wrong. It’s insane to expect GM to never be wrong. Everyone is wrong. If you look at total picture, it’s not reasonable to conclude he has been anything other than far better than average overall. In fact, one of the best in league. And his recent moves show he still has It. So it’s easy for the peanut gallery to complain, but this incessant whining is getting old. Petro ain’t coming back. Y’all need to get over it.
Lol that’s not even true. Armstrong was probably days away from blowing up the team before Binnington, who he had in the AHL, came in and saved the season. Remember the Schenn deal to Boston that was apparently really close? Pietrangelo and Tarasenko were both in trade rumors too. By all reports, Armstrong was upset and was going to make moves. He did not believe in the team at all.
Folks think it’s magic when a GM is actually doing their job. Army gets the credit of so many others below him and yet HE is the most valuable person in the equation?
That was actually a wonderful response. Calm, well thought out and presented. Thank you.
Hm it’s almost like Darren Dreger literally called the Berube firing a few days before it happened.
Not the same thing but good try. And if you’re going to sit here and argue that Blues players weren’t on the block in 2019, I don’t know what to tell you. You clearly weren’t paying attention and aren’t very knowledgeable because it was widely reported, by local guys too.
He would be negligent as GM not to assess value of players, especially when team is struggling. That he was patient and didn’t make panic move is why he is GM and not fanboy on messenger board always criticizing GM.
By this metric, are there any great GMs?
Agreed, but (to play devils advocate) when you move to the NHL winning is usually more important than development, especially for a team expecting to compete. So the requirements of his job changed and I believe so did his approach to development.
I also wonder how much of his approach changed from his time in Philly.
