OT: Should Doug Armstrong get fired?

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Since the COVID Season, the Blues are 19th in the NHL in Point Percentage. That's a reflection of a poorly constructed team.

Since 2010, the drafting has been questionable. The Blues have drafted 14 players in the 1st or 2nd round, who are considered "Busts".
Army has traded away 7 players selected by the Blues in the first round.

And I believe the Blues are the only NHL team that has not had a player taken in the last 3 drafts, play a single game in the NHL.

The trade everyone points to to defend Army is the ROR Trade, but look at that trade a little closer.
You essentially traded Stastny, Lehtera, Tage Thompson, Sobotka, Berglund, Two additional 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick for Schenn and ROR.

8 Assets' to get those two players. I only include Staz as the 1st round pick that was received was used in the Schenn Deal if I remember correctly, could be wrong.

He had to over pay to get out of Cocaine Lehtera's god awful contract.

Dude got schooled on the Oshie trade, essentially gave the dude away.

Has spent a total of 3 2nd round picks, multiple players/prospects, and lower draft picks to acquire Leddy, Leopold, and Scandella.

The Ryan Miller Trade was an absolute shit show of what not to do.

In the last 8 years, under Army, the Blues have drafted 3 players that have played in the NHL, for the Blues, more then 100 games.

The Blues have drafted 94 players since Army was named GM, 32 have played in the NHL, out of those 32, 19 have been either traded or Army let walk out the door.

Its not one or two bad trades or signings, its been a roller coaster with Army.
At the end of the day, he managed to put some heart and soul guys together that over achieved just enough with a goalie standing on his head for 2 months, won the cup.
He then proceeds to tear that heart and soul line up apart.

The Blues have had 5 Captain's under Army, he has either traded or not re-signed every single one of them.
Crazy to think, however he has never resigned a captain for the Blues, he Traded Brewer and ROR, and chose to not resign Petro and Backes.

@Majorityof1 I will follow your advice and not respond to long nonsensical rants. Thanks.

 

[TurgPavs]

One Playoff Series win in 4 seasons, and we continue to defend the guy for a cup nearly 5 years ago.

4 Captains shown the door.
4 Head Coaches shown the door
15+ Assistant Coaches shown the door

At some point the finger needs to start pointing in a different direction.

 

[joe galiba]

Since the COVID Season, the Blues are 19th in the NHL in Point Percentage. That's a reflection of a poorly constructed team.

Since 2010, the drafting has been questionable. The Blues have drafted 14 players in the 1st or 2nd round, who are considered "Busts".
Army has traded away 7 players selected by the Blues in the first round.

And I believe the Blues are the only NHL team that has not had a player taken in the last 3 drafts, play a single game in the NHL.

The trade everyone points to to defend Army is the ROR Trade, but look at that trade a little closer.
You essentially traded Stastny, Lehtera, Tage Thompson, Sobotka, Berglund, Two additional 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick for Schenn and ROR.

8 Assets' to get those two players. I only include Staz as the 1st round pick that was received was used in the Schenn Deal if I remember correctly, could be wrong.

He had to over pay to get out of Cocaine Lehtera's god awful contract.

Dude got schooled on the Oshie trade, essentially gave the dude away.

Has spent a total of 3 2nd round picks, multiple players/prospects, and lower draft picks to acquire Leddy, Leopold, and Scandella.

The Ryan Miller Trade was an absolute shit show of what not to do.

In the last 8 years, under Army, the Blues have drafted 3 players that have played in the NHL, for the Blues, more then 100 games.

The Blues have drafted 94 players since Army was named GM, 32 have played in the NHL, out of those 32, 19 have been either traded or Army let walk out the door.

Its not one or two bad trades or signings, its been a roller coaster with Army.
At the end of the day, he managed to put some heart and soul guys together that over achieved just enough with a goalie standing on his head for 2 months, won the cup.
He then proceeds to tear that heart and soul line up apart.

The Blues have had 5 Captain's under Army, he has either traded or not re-signed every single one of them.
Crazy to think, however he has never resigned a captain for the Blues, he Traded Brewer and ROR, and chose to not resign Petro and Backes.

And in spite of JUST SUCKING SO BAD he was the only GM that put a Blues cup team together and in SPITE of sucking so bad the idiots from Canada have him in charge of the national team, cause, you know, he just sucks

 

[Xerloris]

Well the Backes core struggled with two things in the playoffs. Those being goaltending and probably to a greater extent scoring. Army didn’t do much in either area. If he would have fixed either we coul have achieved greater success. Instead he tried for bandaids with our goaltending (which is one of his weakest areas as a GM IMO) and he never really tried to fix our scoring issues.

I do believe he went out and traded for what everyone claimed was "the" goalie that would get us over the hump. Yet here you are saying he did nothing to try and fix the issues wrong with poor baby Backes? Get real.

Since the COVID Season, the Blues are 19th in the NHL in Point Percentage. That's a reflection of a poorly constructed team.

Or shitty coaching.

And I believe the Blues are the only NHL team that has not had a player taken in the last 3 drafts, play a single game in the NHL.

Oh yes, Snuggy and Dvorsky are totally on Army failing at drafts. Also Neighbors was drafted in 2021 so you're also wrong.

The trade everyone points to to defend Army is the ROR Trade, but look at that trade a little closer.
You essentially traded Stastny, Lehtera, Tage Thompson, Sobotka, Berglund, Two additional 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick for Schenn and ROR.

Oh good good, glad to see you don't agree with the moves he made to bring us our first cup. Are you sure you're not a Chicago fan?

Dude got schooled on the Oshie trade, essentially gave the dude away.

Oshie has to go. The last thing I saw of Oshie was him making a stupid comment about how he can't wait for golf season or something equally stupid. The dude was an idiot and he had to go. Brower also helped us get through the 1st round the next season. So yes, totally schooled.

however he has never resigned a captain for the Blues, he Traded Brewer and ROR, and chose to not resign Petro and Backes.

I like how your narrative us he chose not to resign Backes and Petro and not them choosing not to stay here and accept his offers. Poor baby millionaire athletes got hardballed by Army.

 

[Celtic Note]

I do believe he went out and traded for what everyone claimed was "the" goalie that would get us over the hump. Yet here you are saying he did nothing to try and fix the issues wrong with poor baby Backes? Get real.


Or shitty coaching.


Oh yes, Snuggy and Dvorsky are totally on Army failing at drafts. Also Neighbors was drafted in 2021 so you're also wrong.

Oh good good, glad to see you don't agree with the moves he made to bring us our first cup. Are you sure you're not a Chicago fan?


Oshie has to go. The last thing I saw of Oshie was him making a stupid comment about how he can't wait for golf season or something equally stupid. The dude was an idiot and he had to go. Brower also helped us get through the 1st round the next season. So yes, totally schooled.

I like how your narrative us he chose not to resign Backes and Petro and not them choosing not to stay here and accept his offers. Poor baby millionaire athletes got hardballed by Army.

What is this "the goalie" mean?

 

[Ted Hoffman]

And in spite of JUST SUCKING SO BAD he was the only GM that put a Blues cup team together and in SPITE of sucking so bad the idiots from Canada have him in charge of the national team, cause, you know, he just sucks

Brian Burke won a Cup in Anaheim and shortly after was GM of Team USA.

I don't think you'll find anyone saying in all sincerity "let's go hire Brian Burke as GM, look at his success and who put him in charge!" Probably because, since then, he's sucked like the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

 

[Xerloris]

What is this "the goalie" mean?

everyone claimed Miller was THE guy we needed to get over the hump. Not everyone here mind you but all the "insiders" and reporters.

 

[Davimir Tarablad]

And I believe the Blues are the only NHL team that has not had a player taken in the last 3 drafts, play a single game in the NHL.

Teams with no players in the 2021-2023 drafts to play an NHL game:
Carolina, Edmonton, Minnesota, Nashville, NYR, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tampa, Vancouver, Vegas, and Winnipeg.

Teams with no players besides top 10 picks from 2021-2023 drafts to play NHL games:
Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and San Jose.

Teams with players taken outside the top 10 from 2021-2023 currently on their roster(according to capfriendly):
Arizona, Buffalo, Columbus, Dallas, Seattle, and Toronto.(None of these teams have more than one)

Also, this took me about ten minutes to compile, maybe do a little bit of fact checking before posting a statement like this.

 

[mk80]

Teams with no players in the 2021-2023 drafts to play an NHL game:
Carolina, Edmonton, Minnesota, Nashville, NYR, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tampa, Vancouver, Vegas, and Winnipeg.

Teams with no players besides top 10 picks from 2021-2023 drafts to play NHL games:
Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and San Jose.

Teams with players taken outside the top 10 from 2021-2023 currently on their roster(according to capfriendly):
Arizona, Buffalo, Columbus, Dallas, Seattle, and Toronto.(None of these teams have more than one)

Also, this took me about ten minutes to compile, maybe do a little bit of fact checking before posting a statement like this.

This surprised me, I thought for sure Neighbors was a 2021 pick, but he was 2020.

 

[Celtic Note]

everyone claimed Miller was THE guy we needed to get over the hump. Not everyone here mind you but all the "insiders" and reporters.

Everyone here did not. There was a sizable contingent of us that was not happy with the trade because we didn’t believe he was the right nor even a good target. I personally don’t care what people outside of here say about trades as their are plenty here that provide better insights and critiques than the media when it comes to personnel assessments.

 

[BrokenFace]

Since the COVID Season, the Blues are 19th in the NHL in Point Percentage. That's a reflection of a poorly constructed team.

Since 2010, the drafting has been questionable. The Blues have drafted 14 players in the 1st or 2nd round, who are considered "Busts".
Army has traded away 7 players selected by the Blues in the first round.

And I believe the Blues are the only NHL team that has not had a player taken in the last 3 drafts, play a single game in the NHL.

The trade everyone points to to defend Army is the ROR Trade, but look at that trade a little closer.
You essentially traded Stastny, Lehtera, Tage Thompson, Sobotka, Berglund, Two additional 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick for Schenn and ROR.

8 Assets' to get those two players. I only include Staz as the 1st round pick that was received was used in the Schenn Deal if I remember correctly, could be wrong.

He had to over pay to get out of Cocaine Lehtera's god awful contract.

Dude got schooled on the Oshie trade, essentially gave the dude away.

Has spent a total of 3 2nd round picks, multiple players/prospects, and lower draft picks to acquire Leddy, Leopold, and Scandella.

The Ryan Miller Trade was an absolute shit show of what not to do.

In the last 8 years, under Army, the Blues have drafted 3 players that have played in the NHL, for the Blues, more then 100 games.

The Blues have drafted 94 players since Army was named GM, 32 have played in the NHL, out of those 32, 19 have been either traded or Army let walk out the door.

Its not one or two bad trades or signings, its been a roller coaster with Army.
At the end of the day, he managed to put some heart and soul guys together that over achieved just enough with a goalie standing on his head for 2 months, won the cup.
He then proceeds to tear that heart and soul line up apart.

The Blues have had 5 Captain's under Army, he has either traded or not re-signed every single one of them.
Crazy to think, however he has never resigned a captain for the Blues, he Traded Brewer and ROR, and chose to not resign Petro and Backes.

I don't think drafting players that are eventually traded reflects poorly on an organization's drafting. If you draft a guy, he contributes to your team for a certain amount of time, and then you trade him or let him walk eventually, that doesn't mean it was a bad draft pick. Do only players who retire as Blues count as good draft picks? I also disagree that "The Blues have drafted 14 players in the 1st or 2nd round, who are considered "Busts" because I don't believe 2nd rounders are ever considered busts. Even players drafted at the top of the 2nd round aren't likely to be regular NHLers.

19th in point percentage since Covid ignores the years of competing that lead up to that. Most teams that contend that long have a down cycle with how the draft and FA contracts are setup in the NHL. Teams that contend longer (other than Boston somehow) can rely on multiple future HoFers drafted in the top 5/10 from a major rebuild. Army never got that advantage; Dvorsky is his first ever top 10 pick with the Blues.

It looks like someone already pointed out that the Blues are not the only NHL team that has not had a player taken in the last 3 drafts, play a single game in the NHL.

Also, when analysing Army's trades, you're looking at the entire trade tree of what we paid and comparing that only to what we acquired. When you say he "essentially traded Stastny, Lehtera, Tage Thompson, Sobotka, Berglund, Two additional 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick for Schenn and ROR" you're ignoring the years of hockey we got out of the players we traded away. If you wanted to use that logic, you'd at least have to include the assets we got in the RoR trade on the other side.

I don't think trading away guys we drafted in the 1st is a bad thing either. Would anyone wish we kept Bokk or Rundblad? Ian Cole has had a solid career, but he got us Bortuzzo who contributed for years, including on our cup run. Part of drafting and developing and running a team is evaluating your prospects. Trading a former 1st isn't a demerit.

I know Leddy, Leopold, and Scandella are easy targets, but do we miss any of the picks or prospects we gave up for them?

tl;dr I don't think any GM in the league would look good if you used this standard of analysis to judge them

 

[Xerloris]

Everyone here did not. There was a sizable contingent of us that was not happy with the trade because we didn’t believe he was the right nor even a good target. I personally don’t care what people outside of here say about trades as their are plenty here that provide better insights and critiques than the media when it comes to personnel assessment

You didn't even read my post.

 

[TheDizee]

fire him

 

[BlueSeal]

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose." - Captain Picard

 

[TheDizee]

The Schenn, Krug and Kyrou signings are awful enough to get him fired. It's long overdue and it's time for him to go.

Signing Kyrou to that contract was as dumb then as it is now. He never went against top teams lines before they signed him to that deal. It was obvious to anyone with eyes he's a floater with bad hockey IQ and a selfish personality.

Fire him already and trade Kyrou and Krug. It's the only way this franchise can move forward.

 

[Blueline2757]

Fire Armstrong!!! The Blues are the new Wild and stuck with unmovable long term contracts.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Fire Armstrong!!! The Blues are the new Wild and stuck with unmovable long term contracts.

None of these contracts were ever going to get moved mid season without heavy retention when over half the league is maxed out.

 

[BlueSeal]

None of these contracts were ever going to get moved mid season without heavy retention when over half the league is maxed out.

That’s kind of his point, tho. If Army does end up getting fired, that is the starting point of the end for him.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Friends, Blues Fans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. I have an apology to make.

For years, you've known me as the guy who's been a fierce critic of Doug Armstrong. I've been a longstanding proponent of the idea that Armstrong's work was terrible, his genius was overrated, his success was vastly more due to luck than talent, that he was a prime example of the Peter Principle and that there was no limit to his ability to fail upwards despite all the terrible decisions he made.

I have long argued - nay, begged, pleaded, wished upon a star, made burnt offering upon an improvised altar for divine intervention - that the day would come where the eyes of Blues ownership would finally be opened and they would recognize that everything great that Doug Armstrong did was really a mirage, a shell game, a grand fabrication where purely dumb luck from a series of highly improbable events came together to create a 5-month run of grand success that we've enjoyed ever since, and that it had nothing to do with anything he did or responsible for.

I'm sad to say that today, March 8, 2024, I have learned that I was wrong. Doug Armstrong really does know more than everyone else. He really is a genius. Everything good that has happened is because of him and what he's built, and we all should recognize that and give him the full accolades that he richly deserves.

He ... has an actuary table.

And it's not just an ordinary actuary table. This table has ... special powers, like saying when guys are going to play their 11th game, or 50th game, or whatever.

And I'm sure Doug was severely downplaying what this actuary table does, because as an actuary who's seen an actuary table, uses an actuary table, I know what an actuary table can do and what it can't do. And if this actuary table tells what he says it can, on top of what an actuary table does, ... well, now I realize what an absolute genius Doug Armstrong really is. He has not only tapped the power of an actuary table, he's enhanced it in ways that are truly unimaginable.

I'm certain, without a doubt, that this actuary table is what has allowed Doug to make the decisions that he has, that have worked the ways they have. It's what foreshadowed what Doug must do from his earliest days in the organization through the years where we struggled to advance in the playoffs. That was not bad luck, or poor strategic planning. The actuary table made clear: those things must happen. It made clear our path for success in 2016, our near-success in 2017, and our late-season failure in 2018. All was necessary to make the moves Doug made in 2018 and 2019 that brought us the Cup.

The rest of us couldn't understand some of the decisions that happened. The novice would see a bunch of moves in the offseason but the same lousy head coach and think "there is no way this is ever going to work." We would see early-season struggles and think failure; Doug's actuary table gave him the assurance not just to go into the season like that, but to not call up Binnington, wait some 7 weeks to bring in Berube, wait another 4 weeks to call up Binnington, then have Berube wait another 2 weeks to finally play Berube. No ordinary mortal would have known that confluence of events would have worked so perfectly to result in a Cup; only an actuary table could have told him that, and only someone who knew how to read an actuary table would have interpreted that and known exactly what to do and when to do it.

Everything else since? I know, it looks weird. It looks confusing. It looks like it's a mess, almost like a complete clusterf***. Not signing guys. Signing other guys. Not making trades. Making other trades. Do not fear, friends. It is the actuary table that has dictated what must happen, is leading us to future glory, and in Doug's trusted hands and with his ability to read the table like no other person can, it will most assuredly bring us back to great success once again.

So if it's not too much trouble, and if there are no objections, I'd like to switch my vote from "yes" to "no." Now knowing that Doug Armstrong has an actuary table, and knowing the great predictive power that an actuary table has, I realize that he truly is a great general manager, far greater than any of us really realize, and as long as he has that actuary table there is no way his plan - a plan which we cannot know, for we don't have that actuary table to be able to interpret its mystic runes - will ever fail.

 

[CaliforniaBlues310]

That’s kind of his point, tho. If Army does end up getting fired, that is the starting point of the end for him.

Let’s not act like the Schenn and Faulk deals weren’t done before Covid and the flat cap or anything. The Krug deal sucks, but I don’t think anybody expected it to be THIS bad.

This summer we have a good amount of cap space for once, and it’ll be his first REAL chance at fixing this awful roster. I think we should give him the next year before getting the pitchforks out

 

[Ranksu]

So what did Army do at TDL?

 

[Ted Hoffman]

So what did Army do at TDL?

Look, don't blame Army. I'm sure he wanted to do something, but his actuary table said what everyone was worth and no one was willing to pay that much - and if you can't trust your actuary table [which was probably not built by an actuary, and probably isn't being interpreted by an actuary], what can you trust.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

The was a fire, but no sale.

 

[jura]

So what did Army do at TDL?

extended your fav guy

 

[LGB]

I'm nervous going into this year's free agency with the recent history of his signings and possible denial of the actual state of the team.