Good for him??? Good for the Blues. At least Armstrong won a Cup for a franchise that hadn’t won anything since their inception in 1967. It gets you some grace from a loyal fanbase that doesn’t look for contrived reasons not to support their team.
Lou fell short with the Islanders. You can say the final chapter hasn’t been written yet but it looks like Lou isn’t going to get his one-off cup here. He’s just about boxed himself into a corner with some bad contracts, including $9M/yr to a player you don’t think much of. We don’t even have the cap space to put a player on IR. He’s also traded away first round picks in the effort to coax one championship out of a scrappy bunch that played with a lot of heart but wasn’t talented enough. Now that lack of organizational depth is hitting home. And yet you find a way to be snarky to just about everyone and everything other teams do and other fans think. Your perogative but it comes across badly, imo. If Armstrong is an average GM with a comfortable ownership, Lou’s time with the Islanders comes in behind that with an ownership that gave him carte blanche and no oversight.
Lou can say the exact same thing to Andrew Gross and News12 tomorrow and it would sound as hollow as he did last summer when he said, yet again, it’s his on him and he has to be better. And as stupid as Ledecky came across with his In Lou He Trusts speech. At least Armstrong earned the grace to make his statement. As Islanders GM, Lou’s grace from the fans ran out in 2022.
And like most things in entertainment, vote with your wallet. Malkin has diversified his assets by selling to a more corporate audience vs the avg joe fan base of NVMC.
Armstrong went all in and won based on a flash in the pan goaltender that would be out of the league right, but for the contract Armstrong gave him.
He kept his options open on 3 UFAs that would have value at the deadline, so he could re-whatever, but again, he ‘built’ a defense of 30yr olds on long term deals in part to ‘keep things together’ but also cover letting Pieterangelo walk - remember, never let a UFA get to UFA, trade ‘em, did he string along Armstrong and got played?
So, Armstrong won on a rare occurrence, tried to keep it going, lost his best defenseman, has a goalie no one will touch at that price and term, so he’s essentially ‘stuck’ - his lone benefit is that he had 3 assets he didn’t want to resign, then was able to trade them. However, maybe if he resigned Peiterangelo and never backed himself into a corner with an immovable goalie contract (and AHL goalie too boot), he might not be ‘re-whatever’ rather, he would be competing for the playoffs and, maybe, the cup.
He’s made the former minority owner now majority owner a LOT of money. The owner even publicly blessed the re-jig to cover for the guy that made him a lot of money.
