OT: Should Doug Armstrong get fired?

[Bye Bye Blueston]

No.

 

[PJJJP]

I mean who can they get to replace him right now. Chiarelli is in the #2 spot and I don't want him taking over as interim. Keep army right now and look for a new GM in the summer

 

[Ted Hoffman]

But who will they find to replace him? is a terrible excuse for keeping someone you're thinking of getting rid of. There's someone out there and we're just waiting to hear who it is so we can bitch about how bad they're going to be or sing in glory about their impending greatness before they ever make the first move.

To the question: I think you all know where I stand on this.

 

[PJJJP]

I think both Berube and Army should have been gone after this season

 

[TheDizee]

yes for his failure to keep heart and soul people, key cogs and then giving goofs like kyrou idiotic contracts

 

[BrokenFace]

It depends on who they have replacing him.

That's what I always ask when people want him fired. There's a lot of crappy executives around the league.

This roster was likely doomed as a long term contender when we lost Pietrangelo, and I still don't know if another GM would been able to resign him. Not giving out NMCs because it supposedly gives players more power than owners is an idiotic perspective, but I don't know if that was the only thing preventing us from resigning him. I don't want to turn this into another Pietrangelo discussion, but losing him when we were giving out win-now, screw the future contracts to other players like Parayko, Schenn, and Binner (although Binner has lived up to it so far. I'm always skeptical of long term contracts for goalies, but sometimes teams just need to keep their guy) made no sense.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we're a team that won a cup well into it's competitive window. All teams eventually have to go through a down cycle. I think we would still be contending if we had a #1 dman instead of Krug, but I don't know if any other GM could have held onto Pietrangelo.

Either way, compared to other teams exiting a decade of contending most years, our prospect pool isn't barren. He quickly shifted to focusing on the future last year, which was the quickest any GM would have started trading for firsts. Army didn't lie to himself last year and pretend we were only a trade or two away from being competitive. He didn't sell the future trying to salvage a crappy NHL roster.

The guy kept us competitive, including winning the cup, for a decade without having the benefit of multiple future HoFers drafted from a rebuild. We've seen in the past that he's willing to focus on the future as soon as he recognizes his team isn't good enough (2018 TDL), and he's been drafting well with late round picks, so I'd prefer to see what he can do in a rebuild vs hiring another GM who would just need to rebuild anyway and might suck at drafting and developing.

 

[PocketNines]

Despite his reputation, Armstrong is actually incompetent, so we are just in the part where the years play out and the team keeps these results, and then he eventually goes. It sucks to have to wait. But his reputation is strong enough that we will have to suffer waiting longer.

I am not at all angry about Berube firing. It is mercy for this man, who knows what winning hockey looks like and has only an Armstrong feeding him personnel.

 

[PocketNines]

My favorite recent Armstrong move was adding Kapanen and Vrana who each scored at 40-goal paces after being acquired and the only result was the Blues dropping three notches at the top end of a highly touted high end draft.

As he explained it to Severalli, Blues fans would not settle for any less, they couldn't have it explained to them the nuances of the draft, through which Blues fans recently watched a Cup built. "REVOLT!" was the picture this man painted, unchallenged. He's in a no-challenge market though with a no-challenge reputation.

Tom Stillman doesn't have the competition in him to force change. Once you delivered the undeliverable, there is no pressure.

 

[Em etah Eh]

What former GMs are potentially out there? I agree it's time to move on but the blues fan in me is always wondering what worse options are available.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

We don't necessarily need a former GM. We need someone who can take a hard look at this organization, make difficult choices where needed, but has a plan to get us back to being competitive at a high level with spending discipline while keeping the prospect pipeline stocked and developing properly so that the team stays at that high level for years.

If a former GM can do that, OK. If a former GM can help mentor someone who's got the plan to get us there, that's OK too. Like when we go find a new head coach, let's get the right guy for the job and not the one who's getting the job simply because they've had the job elsewhere and did whatever they did there.

 

[stl76]

I've seen a lot of complaints about not signing Pietrangelo or other older players when an extremely vocal minority on this forum has been calling for Armstrong to be fired for the last several years. I think Armstrong's personnel record of trades/signings has been pretty good overall, but it's far from perfect - there have been misses, no doubt about it. However, there is a hell of a lot more that goes into running a franchise than the on ice product.

One thing I keep coming back to with Armstrong is the strength of the organization from a drafting/developing point of view. It really seems like the organization has hired a lot smart and capable people who do great work in those two areas - and Armstrong deserves more credit that he gets IMO. How many teams could lose their director of amateur scouting and assistant GM and seemingly not miss a beat in drafting/development quality? I think that speaks volumes about the off ice strength of the organization under Armstrong.

The cap is going up $4 mill this offseason. We will see movement. As much as some complain about the contracts Armstrong has handed out, I really don't see any that are immovable, and some may carry move value than we think with retention (Leddy, Saad, etc). I'm hopeful we can get two 3rds or better for Scandella and Kapanen this TDL, time will tell.

Big picture, I don't currently see an unhealthy organization that needs new leadership to overhaul things top to bottom. I think Armstrong has this TDL + draft + offseason to make an impact and you re-evaluate potentially replacing him next season if necessary. I can see a world where Army oversees the down swing of the re-whatever and then we bring in a new GM for the upswing with Army staying on as president of hockey ops (or lesser advisory role).

 

[stl76]

Just going to repost this here since apparently we need two threads for this discussion

I've seen a lot of complaints about not signing Pietrangelo or other older players when an extremely vocal minority on this forum has been calling for Armstrong to be fired for the last several years. I think Armstrong's personnel record of trades/signings has been pretty good overall, but it's far from perfect - there have been misses, no doubt about it. However, there is a hell of a lot more that goes into running a franchise than the on ice product.

One thing I keep coming back to with Armstrong is the strength of the organization from a drafting/developing point of view. It really seems like the organization has hired a lot smart and capable people who do great work in those two areas - and Armstrong deserves more credit that he gets IMO. How many teams could lose their director of amateur scouting and assistant GM and seemingly not miss a beat in drafting/development quality? I think that speaks volumes about the off ice strength of the organization under Armstrong.

The cap is going up $4 mill this offseason. We will see movement. As much as some complain about the contracts Armstrong has handed out, I really don't see any that are immovable, and some may carry move value than we think with retention (Leddy, Saad, etc). I'm hopeful we can get two 3rds or better for Scandella and Kapanen this TDL, time will tell.

Big picture, I don't currently see an unhealthy organization that needs new leadership to overhaul things top to bottom. I think Armstrong has this TDL + draft + offseason to make an impact and you re-evaluate potentially replacing him next season if necessary. I can see a world where Army oversees the down swing of the re-whatever and then we bring in a new GM for the upswing with Army staying on as president of hockey ops (or lesser advisory role).

 

[Ted Hoffman]

When the GM admits the organization is no better than it was when he took over 13 years ago, that's a damning self-indictment. When it's happening with a team that's trending down instead of one that's trending up, that's really a damning self-indictment. To think that this is not an unhealthy organization is to be oblivious to the reality of the current roster, and then to trust the guy who dismantled a Cup-winning roster into one that's slacked off for 15 months and is on pace for 79 points and another playoff miss to be the guy who fixes it all is ... I don't even have the right words for it.

But we'll maybe replace him next season. Like, after '24-25? What's going to be the criteria for deciding whether he goes at that point? If the team still sucks but there's hope on the horizon with 11 prospects ready to break through on the NHL roster with all their immense talent, why not just give him another year to see how he reshapes things? And if that doesn't go great but there's a few more ready to break through and all their talent and we're supposedly a season or two (or 5) away from being elite again, why not give him another season? And then why not one after that?

But the cap will go up this offseason. Yeah, it'll go up for every team. Everyone will have more room to keep their highly desired RFAs and spend on UFAs. What's going to be special about us getting $4 million in cap room that we're going to be able to make deals and spend money to build a better roster that other teams can't?

If one just can't bring themselves to the idea of cutting Armstrong loose because of 2019 and he wins a lot of trades and yeah the last few years have sucked, but we had great regular seasons before that, fine. Say so. But at some point, 2019 and great regular seasons have to quit carrying so much weight and you have to look at what's going on now - and when you see the team getting progressively worse and the GM is saying it's really not that bad, anyone thinking otherwise is wrong, this team can compete with most others around the league you have to start asking yourself when you finally hit the point to say, "OK, enough - it's time to go."

And I think for some people, that point either doesn't exist or it will always shift so that they never reach it.

 

[Stealth JD]

If Stillman can give the GM job to Captain Happy, I’d be all for firing Army…but that would be the guy I’d want. Don’t care about lack of experience or the fact that he’s a travel agent…bring me Captain Happy! There are underlings like Miller and MacInnis that can help.

 

[Xerloris]

When the GM admits the organization is no better than it was when he took over 13 years ago, that's a damning self-indictment. When it's happening with a team that's trending down instead of one that's trending up, that's really a damning self-indictment. To think that this is not an unhealthy organization is to be oblivious to the reality of the current roster, and then to trust the guy who dismantled a Cup-winning roster into one that's slacked off for 15 months and is on pace for 79 points and another playoff miss to be the guy who fixes it all is ... I don't even have the right words for it.

But we'll maybe replace him next season. Like, after '24-25? What's going to be the criteria for deciding whether he goes at that point? If the team still sucks but there's hope on the horizon with 11 prospects ready to break through on the NHL roster with all their immense talent, why not just give him another year to see how he reshapes things? And if that doesn't go great but there's a few more ready to break through and all their talent and we're supposedly a season or two (or 5) away from being elite again, why not give him another season? And then why not one after that?

But the cap will go up this offseason. Yeah, it'll go up for every team. Everyone will have more room to keep their highly desired RFAs and spend on UFAs. What's going to be special about us getting $4 million in cap room that we're going to be able to make deals and spend money to build a better roster that other teams can't?

If one just can't bring themselves to the idea of cutting Armstrong loose because of 2019 and he wins a lot of trades and yeah the last few years have sucked, but we had great regular seasons before that, fine. Say so. But at some point, 2019 and great regular seasons have to quit carrying so much weight and you have to look at what's going on now - and when you see the team getting progressively worse and the GM is saying it's really not that bad, anyone thinking otherwise is wrong, this team can compete with most others around the league you have to start asking yourself when you finally hit the point to say, "OK, enough - it's time to go."

And I think for some people, that point either doesn't exist or it will always shift so that they never reach it.

We just won our first cup. Keeping a championship team together with a cap is hard enough, now try it with a flat cap because of a pandemic. I'll see how Doug fixes shit once the cap starts going up this summer.

 

[joe galiba]

just remember no matter how bad it is, it can always get worse

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

I'm angry!! Berube was the scapegoat for Doug Armstrong's mismangement, signing underperforming players to long term contracts. Did he get us a cup? Yeah, But every single move he's made since that day has been awful. When will he face the consequences of his actions and be let go? He should've been gone before Berube.

You didn’t like the Buchnevich trade?
Or the three 1st rounders last year, conjured from the ghosts of Vladdy and ROR?

I’d like to propose that if anyone calls for Armstrong to be fired, they need to provide 2-3 candidates of who they would replace him with. Otherwise how do we take those demands seriously.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

If Stillman can give the GM job to Captain Happy, I’d be all for firing Army…but that would be the guy I’d want. Don’t care about lack of experience or the fact that he’s a travel agent…bring me Captain Happy! There are underlings like Miller and MacInnis that can help.

I should probably know who you're talking about but who the f are you talking about?

 

[Stealth JD]

I should probably know who you're talking about but who the f are you talking about?

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

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F it, I'm in. I'd trade Kyrou for the ghost of Chris Pronger.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

We just won our first cup. Keeping a championship team together with a cap is hard enough, now try it with a flat cap because of a pandemic. I'll see how Doug fixes shit once the cap starts going up this summer.

I keep seeing this mentioned repeatedly. It's a lazy excuse. Every team has had to deal with a flat cap. Doug chose to do that by going cheap on defense and overpaying for guys into their late 30s, then handing them all NTCs. Like other GMs, he chose to spend to the cap as quickly as possible every season leaving no room to make moves in-season without it being dollar-for-dollar - and then, with half the team holding an NTC, he bitched about not having flexibility and that he wasn't giving out an NMC because that's too much control in the hands of the players.

It's kind of rhetorical to play the well what moves would he have made if the cap had gone up? card, but really - would even $2 million extra have kept Pietrangelo here so he didn't run out and sign Krug? How much is he really going to do with an extra however much this summer, when every other team also has that and don't have to make the same tough decisions they've had to in the last few years? There's not going to be well well well, ____ is stuck in a bad cap spot, let me swoop in and get something cheap deals like he pulled for Buchnevich, and Hayes, et. al. If anything, the cap not increasing kept him from further overpaying for Krug, or Parayko's extension, or the extensions to Thomas and Kyrou - because if there's anything to be gleaned from his track record the last several years, it's that he makes sure he leaves no dollar unspent by the time the season starts.

His f***ing job as a GM includes being able to look to the future and plan smartly so that the team stays competitive over the long haul, not constantly mortgage the future for the present and when it's kind of obvious you know what, this might not be the time to go for it decide to double-down on things and make more moves that makes it more difficult to make changes later on if needed. His f***ing job includes not pushing the franchise to the point where it's dancing on the head of a pin, requiring everything to go perfectly right and leaving only downside risk. He's increasingly not done that; he's increasingly pushed more chips to the table thinking he's got the best hand, and he's increasingly getting called and busted.

View attachment 782821

No. Just ... for god's sake, can we quit with zomg, it's a former Blue, he was a great player, he's gotta be great in management, let's rush out and give him a job? If Pronger is truly the best guy for the job, that's one thing - and I want to see some proof of that first - but JFC, this let's give the guy the job because it gives us warm fuzzies shit is how teams end up making bad decisions that affect them for years.

 

[BlueDream]

You didn’t like the Buchnevich trade?
Or the three 1st rounders last year, conjured from the ghosts of Vladdy and ROR?

I’d like to propose that if anyone calls for Armstrong to be fired, they need to provide 2-3 candidates of who they would replace him with. Otherwise how do we take those demands seriously.

Sure but the Armstrong defenders on here will find ways to poopoo any suggestions that are made. If it’s a former GM, they’ll just sift through their history to find their mistakes (while continuing to make excuses for Armstrong’s). If it’s a new guy, they’ll talk about how he has no experience and therefore isn’t an upgrade.

I can already see it happening. If you’re an Armstrong fan, there’s nobody that anyone could realistically suggest that is likely to make them change their mind. And that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of valid candidates out there. There always is.

 

[Stealth JD]

I keep seeing this mentioned repeatedly. It's a lazy excuse. Every team has had to deal with a flat cap. Doug chose to do that by going cheap on defense and overpaying for guys into their late 30s, then handing them all NTCs. Like other GMs, he chose to spend to the cap as quickly as possible every season leaving no room to make moves in-season without it being dollar-for-dollar - and then, with half the team holding an NTC, he bitched about not having flexibility and that he wasn't giving out an NMC because that's too much control in the hands of the players.

It's kind of rhetorical to play the well what moves would he have made if the cap had gone up? card, but really - would even $2 million extra have kept Pietrangelo here so he didn't run out and sign Krug? How much is he really going to do with an extra however much this summer, when every other team also has that and don't have to make the same tough decisions they've had to in the last few years? There's not going to be well well well, ____ is stuck in a bad cap spot, let me swoop in and get something cheap deals like he pulled for Buchnevich, and Hayes, et. al. If anything, the cap not increasing kept him from further overpaying for Krug, or Parayko's extension, or the extensions to Thomas and Kyrou - because if there's anything to be gleaned from his track record the last several years, it's that he makes sure he leaves no dollar unspent by the time the season starts.

His f***ing job as a GM includes being able to look to the future and plan smartly so that the team stays competitive over the long haul, not constantly mortgage the future for the present and when it's kind of obvious you know what, this might not be the time to go for it decide to double-down on things and make more moves that makes it more difficult to make changes later on if needed. His f***ing job includes not pushing the franchise to the point where it's dancing on the head of a pin, requiring everything to go perfectly right and leaving only downside risk. He's increasingly not done that; he's increasingly pushed more chips to the table thinking he's got the best hand, and he's increasingly getting called and busted.


No. Just ... for god's sake, can we quit with zomg, it's a former Blue, he was a great player, he's gotta be great in management, let's rush out and give him a job? If Pronger is truly the best guy for the job, that's one thing - and I want to see some proof of that first - but JFC, this let's give the guy the job because it gives us warm fuzzies shit is how teams end up making bad decisions that affect them for years.

Pronger’s been described as one of the smartest hockey guys around. He worked in the Panthers front office, and I believe he’d know how to build a blue-line. I don’t want him because he’s a former Blues’ great…I’d want him because he’s (supposedly) brilliant, would create interest and epic news conferences. Haha

 

[Ted Hoffman]

The fact that there are 12 'no' votes out of 18 total in this poll tells me there's a sizeable portion of the fan base that will never hit the point where they finally say Armstrong has to go.

 

[stl76]

When the GM admits the organization is no better than it was when he took over 13 years ago, that's a damning self-indictment. When it's happening with a team that's trending down instead of one that's trending up, that's really a damning self-indictment. To think that this is not an unhealthy organization is to be oblivious to the reality of the current roster, and then to trust the guy who dismantled a Cup-winning roster into one that's slacked off for 15 months and is on pace for 79 points and another playoff miss to be the guy who fixes it all is ... I don't even have the right words for it.

But we'll maybe replace him next season. Like, after '24-25? What's going to be the criteria for deciding whether he goes at that point? If the team still sucks but there's hope on the horizon with 11 prospects ready to break through on the NHL roster with all their immense talent, why not just give him another year to see how he reshapes things? And if that doesn't go great but there's a few more ready to break through and all their talent and we're supposedly a season or two away from being elite again, why not give him another season? And then why not one after that?

But the cap will go up this offseason. Yeah, it'll go up for every team. Everyone will have more room to keep their highly desired RFAs and spend on UFAs. What's going to be special about us getting $4 million in cap room that we're going to be able to make deals and spend money to build a better roster that other teams can't?

If one just can't bring themselves to the idea of cutting Armstrong loose because of 2019 and he wins a lot of trades and yeah the last few years have sucked, but we had great regular seasons before that, fine. Say so. But at some point, 2019 and great regular seasons have to quit carrying so much weight and you have to look at what's going on now - and when you see the team getting progressively worse and the GM is saying it's really not that bad, anyone thinking otherwise is wrong, this team can compete with most others around the league you have to start asking yourself when you finally hit the point to say, "OK, enough - it's time to go."

And I think for some people, that point either doesn't exist or it will always shift so that they never reach it.

It's like you read the words in my post but fixated on the wrong points and/or completely misunderstood the points I was trying to make.

There is more to an organization than a 23 man roster and a losing record, even over an extended period, is not the only gauge of organizational health.

The cap will go up and we will likely see more movement league wide than we have in the past several years particularly when it comes to trading guys with salary. It's not about building a better roster in the short term, it's about opening up flexibility for moves to be made both league wide and for the Blues in particular.

Looking at what's going on now, I see a team on the down swing with a GM who did an excellent job in the recent past turning vets into high draft picks and trying to move older roster players for younger better players (particularly Krug for Sanheim). I'd like to see both trends continue, this has nothing to do with 2019.

As far as criteria for deciding when Armstrong goes, that's up to the owners to decide. He signed a 5 year contract in September 2021, so believe that means he is currently on board to be the GM through the 2025 or 2026 offseason. If it were up to me, as noted in my previous post, I think it makes a lot of sense for Army to oversee the down swing of the re-whatever and then bring in a new GM for the upswing with Army staying on as president of hockey ops (or lesser advisory role) for the remainder of his contract.

Frankly, with all due respect, you've been posting a LOT about this the past few hours. I am not trying to be condescending or disrespectful to you, but maybe some time to take a breath and absorb what has happened would be healthy for you, me, and everyone else.