On the 2019 thing, I 100% understand what Ted is arguing.
Here is what happened in 2019. Jordan Binnington got a chance and he hit the ground running. He was like we saw this year but even better. The Binnington 2019 experience was like nothing else in Blues history. After decades and decades, we had one player come in and assert his will over the situation and just take everyone somewhere else that's higher. That is a big part of why I watch sports, to see this, and to see it on the team I care about is special.
Binnington went into the net, and he played in front of his teammates for long enough in such a way where they felt like "holy shit, we are actually a great team, let's be that," that it snowballed into a fact of life - they were a f***ing good hockey team and they were gonna come home with the f***ing Cup here tonight boys, Sunny, Bo, Perry, Binner let's go.
Goalie is the most important position in the playoffs, and short of Roy or Hasek (who also didn't win every time) goaltending is finicky. All you can really do to line up for a Cup approach is build a stable, winning support roster, and get a netminder who has it inside of him to make the save he just has to make that he isn't supposed to, and then a few times you prevail, given the variance of luck and bounces. You can focus on the what if of wraparounds that year, and I guarantee you the Blues have been on the wrong end of that 'what if' for decades. Hockey is a 'what if' sport, more than others.
It's just a fact that Armstrong didn't know that on the 18-19 roster, the difference was that a bad goalie alone could kill his team. How ... is that possible for a professional GM?
I actually had a moment with Doug Armstrong that season. It was before the LA MLK Day game started. The Blues were winning that game when a terrible Kyrou penalty, his last shift of that entire season, reversed the energy and the Blues lost. We happened to have seats within 10 feet of the Blues tunnel. And we got to Staples early for the day game. And way in pregame I saw Doug leave the bench to head back into the locker room. Arena still pretty empty. "Hey Doug!" He looks up, we make eye contact. I know I have one moment to say something. "You have GOT to get rid of Jake." He heard me and continued on.
I was helping him. I could see that Jake Allen was laying waste to his hockey team, but he couldn't. I give him credit for being able to build a team around a HOF #1 defenseman, not zero credit. I don't think he understands the value of #1 defenseman, or that Allen was killing his club – a definitively proved argument. So I give him credit but on the whole I don't feel he is special, and to the extent he is deferred to as if he is special, it is counterproductive. I think he should be fired (understand why Stillman won't) but only because accountability plus there's nothing to do right now that needs to be Armstrong doing it. I'm not demanding specific GM X be installed. I do want another GM to understand how to build a team with defense though.