OT: Should Doug Armstrong get fired?

[Majorityof1]

I’m not sure if we have accrued every piece we need to be successful, things happen. But between our roster and pipeline there’s 2 possible holes with a few possible solutions.

2C - obviously a pretty big hole evidenced this year already. The hope is Dvorsky can fill that hole and honestly he’s looked really good in the early stages of his career. He could falter, but that’s also a hole we can address when the time is right if needed - I.e. ROR trade etc.

#1D this is the riskiest area that we may not have the solution too. I could pump up Jiricek and Lindstein all I want to, but realistically the chances of them becoming a 1D certainly isn’t definite. But then we need to also ask, is Broberg an option there - maybe, still not too guaranteed. But aside from DuPont I’m not sure there is a gauranteed 1D in a draft. Schaefer looks really good and could possibly track there and if he does and goes after pick 5, sure there’s a miss there. But if venture to guess anyone else in this class and future classes probably have the same odds this early in a development stage as a Lindstein/Jiricek/Broberg. We have a lot of options on defense in our pipeline and I’d be willing to bet we select another one and/or acquire one sometime in the next 2 years that tracks there. Lindstein/Jiricek/Ralph/Fischer all look to be pretty good prospects. I’m not sure if one of them or Broberg will rise to the occasion or not. I’d agree with the sentiment of we need some of them to overachieve draft position, or just one of them - minus Broberg.

What I meant by forgoing the development stage is essentially the development of guys already at the NHL level. There’s alot more to development of a professional athlete than talent. It’s a really good thing to have vets around who have experience of winning and experience of what it’s like day to day to help guys out.

A plan of winning is also a much better environment for younger players. There’s nothing more derailing (than injury) to becoming more consistent than your consistent being not good enough. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to the McDavids and Crosbys of the world, but they’re also extremely special talents. It’s hard to imagine throwing together 8 young guys with little direction has a chance of success in any industry. Look at Buffalo, and Montreal. Those are long hard rebuilds that aren’t guaranteed to work out. There’s no foundation there. I’d much rather make sure we have a foundation built when we have a position filled that’s as hard to fill as 1C as opposed to rotting Thomas/Kyrou for a more prolonged period of time.

People always point out the teams that tank, and don't work out. But it's hard to win the cup. 1 team a year does. Over 2/3rds of the league won't in any given decade. So the fact that Buffalo and Montreal have not done it right does not mean it won't work. You say a team needs direction, isn't that the role of the coach? To teach the kids the right way, even if there us not enough talent to win.

Thousands of students study really hard and apply, but do not get full academic scholarships to Harvard. Does the mean the path to a full academic scholarship to Harvard is to goof-off and not apply? No, it means getting a full academic ride to Harvard, and winning a Stanley Cup is tough.

What we do know is that it takes elite talent to win the cup. If you don't want to tank for it, fine. But you need a plan to get it. Getting good but not elite talent and immersing it in a culture of mediocrity isn't the answer either. For every Buffalo you name, I can name a Minnessotta as well.

 

[BleedBlue14]

People always point out the teams that tank, and don't work out. But it's hard to win the cup. 1 team a year does. Over 2/3rds of the league won't in any given decade. So the fact that Buffalo and Montreal have not done it right does not mean it won't work. You say a team needs direction, isn't that the role of the coach? To teach the kids the right way, even if there us not enough talent to win.

Thousands of students study really hard and apply, but do not get full academic scholarships to Harvard. Does the mean the path to a full academic scholarship to Harvard is to goof-off and not apply? No, it means getting a full academic ride to Harvard, and winning a Stanley Cup is tough.

What we do know is that it takes elite talent to win the cup. If you don't want to tank for it, fine. But you need a plan to get it. Getting good but not elite talent and immersing it in a culture of mediocrity isn't the answer either. For every Buffalo you name, I can name a Minnessotta as well.

There’s a different relationship to what a coach can teach, and what players learn from colleagues. It’s just a completely different voice, and you need a good mix of both.

I don’t fully understand the Harvard comment. I don’t disagree winning the cup is hard. I never said it wasn’t.

Minnesota currently is one of the few situations you can point to currently and say they have elite talent without tanking.

 

[Majorityof1]

There’s a different relationship to what a coach can teach, and what players learn from colleagues. It’s just a completely different voice, and you need a good mix of both.

I don’t fully understand the Harvard comment. I don’t disagree winning the cup is hard. I never said it wasn’t.

Minnesota currently is one of the few situations you can point to currently and say they have elite talent without tanking.

The Harvard comment means that when something is difficult, something few people do, you can't point to the failures as an example of how not to do it. Another way to say it is that correlation is not causation. Montreal and Buffalo both may gave tanked to get elite talent. And they both may be struggling to get out of the cellar. That is a correllation, but their tanking didn't necessarily cause their being stuck in the cellar. Their inept management did.

We have players who have won and can be mentors. What can Fowler who has never won teach that Schenn and Parayko can't?

 

[Ranksu]

Trades like the Fowler trade will be the reason this franchise stays in a rebuild longer than needed.

He should be collecting as much draft capital and cap space as possible to make moves at the draft and to cuck other teams up against the cap on younger players. Instead we keep handing out our picks for aging vets past their primes which prevents us from doing so.

If you want to make a trade Army, get rid of the god awful contracts you signed.

All I have to say how and what Army is doing it eventually forces who is in charge --> Steen make handcuffed and hard decisions.

Full rebuild and fire sale.

There is causal connection for every move you make.

Its damn hard to watch your favourite team crumble for cup contender to bubble team and at the end laughing stock.

 

[BrokenFace]

All I have to say how and what Army is doing it eventually forces who is in charge --> Steen make handcuffed and hard decisions.

Full rebuild and fire sale.

There is causal connection for every move you make.

Its damn hard to watch your favourite team crumble for cup contender to bubble team and at the end laughing stock.

Every single team that was a cup contender in the salary cap era eventually had to be crappy for a while. What GM would you hire who would avoid this? Also, most GMs take over bad and/or aging teams with a hollowed out prospect pool. It's looking like Steen will be taking over a much healthier organization than the vast majority of GMs.

 

[Ranksu]

Every single team that was a cup contender in the salary cap era eventually had to be crappy for a while. What GM would you hire who would avoid this? Also, most GMs take over bad and/or aging teams with a hollowed out prospect pool. It's looking like Steen will be taking over a much healthier organization than the vast majority of GMs.

I cant name anything good move Army after Cup run. Everything went south after Pietro was walking for nothing. It was most idiotic thing you can do as a GM. Key player whom around team was build.


Could be we will never see franchise player like Pietro was.

 

[Celtic Note]

I’m not sure if we have accrued every piece we need to be successful, things happen. But between our roster and pipeline there’s 2 possible holes with a few possible solutions.

2C - obviously a pretty big hole evidenced this year already. The hope is Dvorsky can fill that hole and honestly he’s looked really good in the early stages of his career. He could falter, but that’s also a hole we can address when the time is right if needed - I.e. ROR trade etc.

#1D this is the riskiest area that we may not have the solution too. I could pump up Jiricek and Lindstein all I want to, but realistically the chances of them becoming a 1D certainly isn’t definite. But then we need to also ask, is Broberg an option there - maybe, still not too guaranteed. But aside from DuPont I’m not sure there is a gauranteed 1D in a draft. Schaefer looks really good and could possibly track there and if he does and goes after pick 5, sure there’s a miss there. But if venture to guess anyone else in this class and future classes probably have the same odds this early in a development stage as a Lindstein/Jiricek/Broberg. We have a lot of options on defense in our pipeline and I’d be willing to bet we select another one and/or acquire one sometime in the next 2 years that tracks there. Lindstein/Jiricek/Ralph/Fischer all look to be pretty good prospects. I’m not sure if one of them or Broberg will rise to the occasion or not. I’d agree with the sentiment of we need some of them to overachieve draft position, or just one of them - minus Broberg.

What I meant by forgoing the development stage is essentially the development of guys already at the NHL level. There’s alot more to development of a professional athlete than talent. It’s a really good thing to have vets around who have experience of winning and experience of what it’s like day to day to help guys out.

A plan of winning is also a much better environment for younger players. There’s nothing more derailing (than injury) to becoming more consistent than your consistent being not good enough. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to the McDavids and Crosbys of the world, but they’re also extremely special talents. It’s hard to imagine throwing together 8 young guys with little direction has a chance of success in any industry. Look at Buffalo, and Montreal. Those are long hard rebuilds that aren’t guaranteed to work out. There’s no foundation there. I’d much rather make sure we have a foundation built when we have a position filled that’s as hard to fill as 1C as opposed to rotting Thomas/Kyrou for a more prolonged period of time.

Buffalo and Montreal have been run like disasters. In what ways are the Blues likely to become them? I see an incredible amount of dissimilarities compared to the similarities. I personally feel like these are some of the worst possible examples that we could become.

And I am really not following the foundation discussion. Did the Hawks, Penguins, Aves and Lightening have foundations before they bottomed out?

I feel like this losing culture fear is way overblown.

 

[HighNote]

I cant name anything good move Army after Cup run. Everything went south after Pietro was walking for nothing. It was most idiotic thing you can do as a GM. Key player whom around team was build.


Could be we will never see franchise player like Pietro was.

Dang, not one thing?

I've liked these trades:

Traded 7th round picks with TOR for the pick that became Zherenko
Edmundson, Bokk and a 7th for Faulk and a 5th
Blais + a 2nd for Buchnevich
Husso for the 3rd rounder that became Kaskimaki

---No longer a contender---

O'Reilly + Acciari for Gaudette, Abramov and the picks that became Stenberg, Pekarcik, and L. Fischer
2nd + 3rd for Holloway and Broberg

 

[StLewis11]

Only 3 guys on our Cup team were originally top 5 draft picks; Pietrangelo, JayBo, & Schenn. The latter two were acquired in trades

 

[BrokenFace]

I cant name anything good move Army after Cup run. Everything went south after Pietro was walking for nothing. It was most idiotic thing you can do as a GM. Key player whom around team was build.


Could be we will never see franchise player like Pietro was.

You can't name a single good move? Buchnevich for Blais and a 2nd wasn't good? Getting 1sts for RoR and Tarasenko in a deep draft year? The offer sheets this summer? If you truly can't name a single good move Army has made in 4 years, then I don't think there is a GM in the league that you'd like.

 

[BleedBlue14]

Buffalo and Montreal have been run like disasters. In what ways are the Blues likely to become them? I see an incredible amount of dissimilarities the similarities. I personally feel like these are some of the worst possible examples that we could become.

And I am really not following the foundation discussion. Did the Hawks, Penguins, Aves and Lightening have foundations before they bottomed out?

I feel like this losing culture fear is way overblown.

The Blackhawks rebuild took 10 years with one year of being above .500. It also took them selecting 9 times within the top 11 picks of the draft. 3 within the top 3 selections of the draft.

The Penguins rebuild was extremely expedited. I think this would be the model most would prefer to chase after. It took 5 years of top 5 picks with I'd say 2 high end hits - Malkin/Fluery, 1 decent hit - Staal, 1 bust - Whitney, and a generational player. That's 2 first overall picks, 2 2nd overall picks and a 5th overall. In the world of a lottery, that's pretty unlikely to happen, but certainly possible. Are you willing to full on dump the whole roster including Kyrou and Thomas? Are you also willing to bench or somehow not play or trade most of Parayko/Broberg/Faulk/Schenn/Neighbors/Holloway/Binnington/Hofer? In a perfect world the only way you get there and not move on from all of the youth is not signing the offersheets, trading Parayko, trading Binnington and then also trading Kyrou or Thomas and Buch. That leaves you a lineup of
Neighbors - Thomas - Bolduc
Saad-Schenn - Toropchenko
AHL tweeneers throughout the rest of the lineup. That's when you then start the process of putting another 5 years on top of that which makes Thomas 30 by the time you hopefully make the playoffs, if you can out suck every team and not get hosed by the lottery, and you get a generational player in between there. Why would Thomas want to stay through that, and why would fans want to watch through that? It's a large burden on ownership, who has been nothing short of fantastic here.

Avalanche. Odd results after looking at it a bit more in depth. They have legitimately hit hard on every top end pick they've gotten. Pretty rare. I guess Landeskog and Duchene weren't total hits, but they cut bait on Duchene and stuck it out for a pretty nice return. Hitting as hard as they did on Rantanen and Makar at 10 and 4 is pretty rare. And then getting a 1.1 like Mackinnon also pretty rare. I'd consider this a best case scenario for alot of teams retooling. They did however have a base in place when they drafted Mackinnon and especially when they drafted Makar. They also traded for a recent 1st overall in EJ from us, granted a pretty underwhelming 1st overall. I just don't think you can really expect to hit at 4 and 10 like they did.

Lightning - first 10 years of the team they were in the dumpster. Then won a cup, then had a 6 year stretch in the dumps after a 4 year competitive window. They did have an established base. But alot of it was their young guys coming up with Cooper a coach they had played for in the minors for a few seasons.

I don't know I can see your side of the argument, and really i don't think there's a perfect answer. But as easy as it is to point to the successes as "good management" most of it is complete luck. Are your odds of getting luckier within the first 5 picks higher? For sure, but alot of it also boils down to having 3 or so elite players and a really good goalie or a hot goalie. We have an elite piece in Thomas, a borderline elite piece in Kyrou and Hofer looks like as sure as a bet as any young goalie to be a high end starter. We also have ALOT more recent 1st round picks in the system than alot of the other teams that underwent these teardowns had.

I can see your point, I just don't agree that we are in a position to take the 50/50 chance to do a teardown, and I'd rather them not waste away a young 1C in Thomas, and I don't think we have enough "movable" players to fully bottom out this roster. I think if you moved Kyrou, Thomas and Parayko you could probably do it. But then we're undergoing a large roster reconstruction and I don't think we need to do that to open up a competitive window. A lot of the pieces that you need to hit the level alot of these rebuilding teams need are already in place here.

 

[Celtic Note]

The Blackhawks rebuild took 10 years with one year of being above .500. It also took them selecting 9 times within the top 11 picks of the draft. 3 within the top 3 selections of the draft.

The Penguins rebuild was extremely expedited. I think this would be the model most would prefer to chase after. It took 5 years of top 5 picks with I'd say 2 high end hits - Malkin/Fluery, 1 decent hit - Staal, 1 bust - Whitney, and a generational player. That's 2 first overall picks, 2 2nd overall picks and a 5th overall. In the world of a lottery, that's pretty unlikely to happen, but certainly possible. Are you willing to full on dump the whole roster including Kyrou and Thomas? Are you also willing to bench or somehow not play or trade most of Parayko/Broberg/Faulk/Schenn/Neighbors/Holloway/Binnington/Hofer? In a perfect world the only way you get there and not move on from all of the youth is not signing the offersheets, trading Parayko, trading Binnington and then also trading Kyrou or Thomas and Buch. That leaves you a lineup of
Neighbors - Thomas - Bolduc
Saad-Schenn - Toropchenko
AHL tweeneers throughout the rest of the lineup. That's when you then start the process of putting another 5 years on top of that which makes Thomas 30 by the time you hopefully make the playoffs, if you can out suck every team and not get hosed by the lottery, and you get a generational player in between there. Why would Thomas want to stay through that, and why would fans want to watch through that? It's a large burden on ownership, who has been nothing short of fantastic here.

Avalanche. Odd results after looking at it a bit more in depth. They have legitimately hit hard on every top end pick they've gotten. Pretty rare. I guess Landeskog and Duchene weren't total hits, but they cut bait on Duchene and stuck it out for a pretty nice return. Hitting as hard as they did on Rantanen and Makar at 10 and 4 is pretty rare. And then getting a 1.1 like Mackinnon also pretty rare. I'd consider this a best case scenario for alot of teams retooling. They did however have a base in place when they drafted Mackinnon and especially when they drafted Makar. They also traded for a recent 1st overall in EJ from us, granted a pretty underwhelming 1st overall. I just don't think you can really expect to hit at 4 and 10 like they did.

Lightning - first 10 years of the team they were in the dumpster. Then won a cup, then had a 6 year stretch in the dumps after a 4 year competitive window. They did have an established base. But alot of it was their young guys coming up with Cooper a coach they had played for in the minors for a few seasons.

I don't know I can see your side of the argument, and really i don't think there's a perfect answer. But as easy as it is to point to the successes as "good management" most of it is complete luck. Are your odds of getting luckier within the first 5 picks higher? For sure, but alot of it also boils down to having 3 or so elite players and a really good goalie or a hot goalie. We have an elite piece in Thomas, a borderline elite piece in Kyrou and Hofer looks like as sure as a bet as any young goalie to be a high end starter. We also have ALOT more recent 1st round picks in the system than alot of the other teams that underwent these teardowns had.

I can see your point, I just don't agree that we are in a position to take the 50/50 chance to do a teardown, and I'd rather them not waste away a young 1C in Thomas, and I don't think we have enough "movable" players to fully bottom out this roster. I think if you moved Kyrou, Thomas and Parayko you could probably do it. But then we're undergoing a large roster reconstruction and I don't think we need to do that to open up a competitive window. A lot of the pieces that you need to hit the level alot of these rebuilding teams need are already in place here.

If we were going to do a tear down, it should have happened a while ago. It didn’t. I am not sure anyone is advocating such this year. We have taken the rush job approach. That’s what we are doing. We have already committed too much to do that this season and we are now too far into the primes of Thomas and Kyrou. So, it’s too late to do now. If this management and ownership group had the stomach for it, it would have happened by now. Right or wrong there is no going back now.

What we could have done is not emphasized winning so soon. We didn’t need to fill voids with Vrana and Kapenen in season. We didn’t need to trade for Hayes. We could have traded Buch well before his contract was up. We didn’t need to trade Hayes and lose a second in the process and then have to trade more to reacquire it. These things would have given us better draft locations and more ammo without cratering for a decade. We have filled the roster with depth outside of Broberg and Halloway. Those types are always available and can be had relatively cheaply.

I still fail to see how creating a “losing culture” hurt the teams outlined above especially when 3 of the 4 won multiple Cups. If that’s a loser culture then the definition is, let’s call it, “interesting” to say the least.

But we have almost no shot in replicating any of them given the strategy being employed, barring of course more luck then any of them had.

 

[Xerloris]

I still fail to see how creating a “losing culture” hurt the teams outlined above especially when 3 of the 4 won multiple Cups. If that’s a loser culture then the definition is, let’s call it, “interesting” to say the least.

look how long it took them to shake that losing culture.