Doug Armstrong Question

[centipede2233]

I am a frequent HF board visitor and long time lurker. I am not a blues fan, i am more of a hockey fan.

I rarely post but when I do I have formed a strong opinion and will share to see what others think.

First off, how does Doug Armstrong still have a job? Like seriously. Listen I don't know all the nuances a passionate blues fan knows of every trade or transaction and reasons behind it, but let's revisit.

In no particular order:

- oshie traded for Brouwer and scraps. How did that one work out for you? Oshie is winning cups and Brouwer played one season with you guys, leaves to get over paid and you lose oshie for nothing, yippee

- Stastney signs 4 yr 28 million dollar deal. How did that one pan out? Not too great did it.

- Signs Allen to a 4 yr 4 mil plus cap contract, and you guys can't get rid of him fast enough after his brutal season. Another dandy.

- hires mike yeo as coach. The same mike yeo that decides to play Allen in game 82 for your seasons life instead of Hutton who was 3-0 vs the avs this season, enjoy those many more wonderful coaching decisions to come

- trades 2 firsts for schenn who should have helped your club to a playoff, instead giving philly a late non playoff first, well done, let's call Doug Armstrong a visionary.

So I thought to myself, well there's the tarasenko trade, atleast he made one brilliant move. Whoops not so fast, that tarasenko trade happened at the 2010 June draft, good ol army as you call him didn't take the reigns of GM until July 1.

So am I missing so,thing, for people that think he's a good gm, 8 yrs later, how's it been going? 4 playoff rounds in 8 years, yippie.

Mark my words, as long as Armstrong is a gm of your team, continued hard times will happen.

Anyone else share my view?

-

 

[wannabebluesplayer]

I am a frequent HF board visitor and long time lurker. I am not a blues fan, i am more of a hockey fan.

I rarely post but when I do I have formed a strong opinion and will share to see what others think.

First off, how does Doug Armstrong still have a job? Like seriously. Listen I don't know all the nuances a passionate blues fan knows of every trade or transaction and reasons behind it, but let's revisit.

In no particular order:

- oshie traded for Brouwer and scraps. How did that one work out for you? Oshie is winning cups and Brouwer played one season with you guys, leaves to get over paid and you lose oshie for nothing, yippee

Most people here hated the return of the trade as well. However, Brouwer did help this team get as close as it has to the SCF. Oshie is winning cups as a much matured player. One he may not have become if he stayed with St. Louis.

- Stastny (Fixed it for you, there is no e) signs 4 yr 28 million dollar deal. How did that one pan out? Not too great did it.

I don't think it was a horrible signing. The Blues were in desperate need of centers and they signed Stastny, the best available that year and Lehtera. Did it end up in a Cup, no, but again, Stastny was an integral part in getting the Blues to the WCF. He was what the Blues needed at the time and as is common in free agency, the Blues had to overpay.

- Signs Allen to a 4 yr 4 mil plus cap contract, and you guys can't get rid of him fast enough after his brutal season. Another dandy.

This, I'm not going to argue. Many of us thought Armstrong gave Allen a contract extension too early. I still think, however, that if the Blues really wanted to move him, they could find a taker.

- hires mike yeo as coach. The same mike yeo that decides to play Allen in game 82 for your seasons life instead of Hutton who was 3-0 vs the avs this season, enjoy those many more wonderful coaching decisions to come

Yeo is also the guy who seems to get credit for the team's magical turn around after Hitch was fired. So, I guess it goes both ways. If the Blues make the right personnel changes but Yeo can't get them over the hump, I don't see Yeo being back his 3rd year. However, I think he deserves this upcoming season to prove he can turn the team around.

- trades 2 firsts for schenn who should have helped your club to a playoff, instead giving philly a late non playoff first, well done, let's call Doug Armstrong a visionary.

Actually, this was definitely one of his better moves. You're conveniently missing the part of trading 1 of those first rounders to get rid of Jori Lehtera. The Lehtera contract is what you should have listed. Schenn was perfect for the Blues.

So I thought to myself, well there's the tarasenko trade, atleast he made one brilliant move. Whoops not so fast, that tarasenko trade happened at the 2010 June draft, good ol army as you call him didn't take the reigns of GM until July 1.

He may not have taken over until July 1st, but he definitely was part of that group to trade for Tarasenko. Everyone knew Pleau was leaving. It was already Armstrong's team, but the official announcement hadn't come yet.

So am I missing so,thing, for people that think he's a good gm, 8 yrs later, how's it been going? 4 playoff rounds in 8 years, yippie.

Mark my words, as long as Armstrong is a gm of your team, continued hard times will happen.

Anyone else share my view?

-

That's a lot of negatives that you're listing without looking past the skin deep effect it had. As I pointed out in the bold, you're definitely missing context. Bouwmeester was a good trade that you left out. Yes, he had a down year for the Blues last year but he and Pietrangelo were arguably the best defensive tandem in hockey for a while. Hell, they kept them together for the Olympics. Armstrong's had his fair share of stupid moves and his fair share of great moves. Every GM goes through stages. We'll see how it continues to play out, but only 1 GM gets to lift the Cup each year and, recently, it's only been a select handful that have done it. I'm willing to give Armstrong these four years to see how he fills in the team around Schenn, Schwartz, Tarasenko, Pietrangelo, Parayko, and Edmundson.

 

[Oberyn]

I am a frequent HF board visitor and long time lurker. I am not a blues fan, i am more of a hockey fan.

I rarely post but when I do I have formed a strong opinion and will share to see what others think.

First off, how does Doug Armstrong still have a job? Like seriously. Listen I don't know all the nuances a passionate blues fan knows of every trade or transaction and reasons behind it, but let's revisit.

In no particular order:

- oshie traded for Brouwer and scraps. How did that one work out for you? Oshie is winning cups and Brouwer played one season with you guys, leaves to get over paid and you lose oshie for nothing, yippee

- Stastney signs 4 yr 28 million dollar deal. How did that one pan out? Not too great did it.

- Signs Allen to a 4 yr 4 mil plus cap contract, and you guys can't get rid of him fast enough after his brutal season. Another dandy.

- hires mike yeo as coach. The same mike yeo that decides to play Allen in game 82 for your seasons life instead of Hutton who was 3-0 vs the avs this season, enjoy those many more wonderful coaching decisions to come

- trades 2 firsts for schenn who should have helped your club to a playoff, instead giving philly a late non playoff first, well done, let's call Doug Armstrong a visionary.

So I thought to myself, well there's the tarasenko trade, atleast he made one brilliant move. Whoops not so fast, that tarasenko trade happened at the 2010 June draft, good ol army as you call him didn't take the reigns of GM until July 1.

So am I missing so,thing, for people that think he's a good gm, 8 yrs later, how's it been going? 4 playoff rounds in 8 years, yippie.

Mark my words, as long as Armstrong is a gm of your team, continued hard times will happen.

Anyone else share my view?

-

It's easy to portray someone as awful if you only list off his bad moves (funnily enough you missed a couple big ones as well). Even then, I don't think many here have an issue with the Stastny signing or the Schenn trade. Go back in time and I'd do both of those 10 out of 10 times.

I'm not going to say I'm a huge advocate of Armstrong, I do think he's an above average GM in this league compared to the rest of the pack, but I also can't say I'm comfortable in him to lead the Blues to a Cup.

I'm all for discussing Armstrong and his performance as GM during his tenure with the Blues, but you've approached the topic pretty unfairly. I can list off some of the good moves by Armstrong since they seem to slipping from your mind:

1. Acquired Bouwmeester for a late 1st and two irrelevant prospects.
2. The EJ/Shattenkirk trade. None of those players are on the Blues anymore but I think this was a great trade by Armstrong.
3. Reaves and 2nd for Sundqvist and 1st. Tremendous value for the Blues on this one, you could argue we got the better pick and player in this deal. That's not saying much as Sundqvist is a mediocre 4th liner, but aside from off-ice contributions, I'd say he's a better player than Reaves.
4. Traded Stastny for a 1st and Foley. I was okay with this deal as it was clear the Blues were not even close to a playoff contender and they recouped some assets to build for the future.
5. Signed Pietrangelo/Tarasenko/Schwartz/Parayko to very good contracts.

Every GM will have good and bad moves, no one bats a hundred percent and no one ever will. I typically look to see if the good outweighs the bad, and in the case of Armstrong I'm not entirely sure. He's made some savvy moves for sure, but there are some big blunders on his resume as well.

I think the way you've approached this topic though was pretty poor though. Like you said, he's been GM for 8 years and you listed off 5 of his moves. I get you're not a Blues fan and you aren't as invested in the team as us, but that's a pretty short sighted way to look at Armstrong's performance over nearly a decade.

 

[pawnjohn]

After last night, it looks like Army's master plan is going to come to fruition now. It's obvious when looking back that after the 2015 disaster, Armstrong knew that the "old core" wasn't going to be able to win, and our "new core" still needed some more seasoning before really going for it. He then called MacLellan, knowing that they desperately wanted to win a cup for Ovechkin. They stuck a deal that we would secretly help them win now, and they would return the favor once they finally broke through.

By creating the "Oshie is a cancer" narrative and we were desperately looking to move on, he was able to fool everyone into thinking her go fleeced by only getting Brouwer, Copley, & a 3rd for Oshie. He then set an incredibly bar on the Shatty trade, preventing anyone else from making an offer before "finally conceding" to the rental value of Sanford + 1st. Luckily for Army, Stas wasn't a need for Washington at all, so we were able to keep anyone from being suspicious by moving him elsewhere.

Now it's going to be time for Washington to repay the favor. We gave them a 1st line RW & top4 PMD for Brouwer, Copley, 3rd, Sanford, and a 1st. So I expect them to send us Backstrom + Grubuaer for Berglund, Binnington, Stevens, & Winnipeg's 1st, thus completing the plan.