OT: Should Doug Armstrong get fired?

[Drubilly]

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.

Wrong. At least for me. Currently resting my hands while installing a water heater. When I get a chance and give a shit I'll state my case.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

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 23-man roster is the front-facing view of the organization's health, but it's really the retrospective view. It's the sum of the prior decisions that landed at the current point in time. That, for this team ... is not good.

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.

There are 9 guys with a NTC. See my repeated comments about how that limits flexibility; that's true regardless of what the cap is and how much it's growing every year. And again - the guys who don't have a NTC, there's few that we'd want to move that have real value.

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.

Great, we're primed for the future. Were you looking at this team in mid-2019 in the thralls of the Cup parade, or early 2020 saying gosh, we've got a GM who's going to do an excellent job tearing down this roster from its current near-Cup state to one that's sort of rebuilding and loading up on prospects and picks for the distant future? Cause, everyone else in Blues Nation was expecting this team to be a Cup-contender for a few more years and going into a rebuild reload refocus in a couple years wasn't in anyone's plans.

As far as criteria for deciding when Armstrong goes, that's up to the owners to decide.

True, but that's dodging the question on "when do you hit the point that you finally say he needs to go" regardless of his contract status?

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.

Maybe worry less about how much I'm posting and just answer the question on what it's going to take for you to finally throw in the towel on Armstrong as a GM for this team. Or, just admit you'll never get there - whatever makes you feel better.

 

[stl76]

There are 9 guys with a NTC. See my repeated comments about how that limits flexibility; that's true regardless of what the cap is and how much it's growing every year. And again - the guys who don't have a NTC, there's few that we'd want to move that have real value.

Armstrong has found ways to move players with NTC's before, I'm certain it can happen again.

True, but that's dodging the question on "when do you hit the point that you finally say he needs to go" regardless of his contract status?

Believe I have already stated my position pretty clearly and don't find it necessary to devote more time and energy to come up a concrete answer to your hypothetical question. Frankly, I don't think it's a very good question. There are too many unknowns for me to come up with a good unambiguous answer (other than obvious red lines related to conduct). If you think that is "dodging" then so be it.

 

[Xerloris]

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.

maybe you should look around the league and see what kind of shit show other GM's are doing to their teams. No I would rather not fire Armstrong and then have to choose between the left overs.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

After having the ads reload my response 3 times, I’m not going to bother trying again.

 

[GoldenSeal]

Army seems to think it’s 2019 again. Ain’t going to work, Buddy.

Blood is officially in the water.

 

[Blueston]

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.

The guy you are describing is Doug Armstrong. Hopefully he is up for the job.

 

[Blueston]

After having the ads reload my response 3 times, I’m not going to bother trying again.

sounds like you need a better ad blocker, my friend.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

maybe you should look around the league and see what kind of shit show other GM's are doing to their teams. No I would rather not fire Armstrong and then have to choose between the left overs.

"Other GMs suck, so that excuses our GM sucking" is hardly a ringing endorsement. Maybe that's acceptable to some. I expect better. A lot better.

I know - BUT TED, YOU JUST BITCH AND MOAN ABOUT ARMSTRONG, WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO FINALLY CONCEDE YOU'RE WRONG? Here's what I sketched out quickly:

1. Fully admit the current situation and what the near-term (next 2-3 years) plan is. I'd have to go back and get the exact wording on what Armstrong said about Blues fans and being intelligent, but people are starting to wake up and realize that this isn't a retool, and this sure as hell isn't going to be a refocus. This is going to be a rebuild and we're debating how much of one it will be. There's probably going to be some short-term pain to get to where we want to be again even if people want to hype the salary cap going up by however many millions of dollars this offseason and all the endless possibilities that go with it. I think fans would be fine if Armstrong just said "look, we're going to have to rebuild, be patient for a little bit while we get this pulled together" but selling the idea that there's not going to be a rebuild and then having a team that underperforms on the ice and doesn't make the playoffs, ... that's going to piss off fans and cause them to stay away in droves.

2. Demonstrate there's a long-term plan. This isn't just "we're building for the future." It's putting together a roster that makes sense, seeing where pieces fit, and having the organizational depth that you can look at and say "OK, I can see this guy going in that spot." No more reactionary, "I gotta waste a player" moves like we saw with Perron and Oshie. No more "well, we've played like crap but 3 wins ... you know what, I'm sold - everyone stays" moves like in 2021. If we're going all-in, fine ... I get there's a time to do that - but be better about recognizing when that should happen, not we could make the playoffs and have 2 home games or we could make the playoffs and maybe get lucky and go on a miracle run wishful swings.

3. Start holding players accountable. No more of this "my patience with this core is at its thinnest, the equity the core group has built up is gone" bullshit that's not followed with actions to anyone in the core and instead gets shuffled off on yet another coach who has to "pay for the sins of the organization, my sins."

4. Find a leader for the locker room. Not this bullshit well, ___ has been here a while, he's one of my favorites, I'm giving him the 'C' and no one's telling me I'm wrong stuff. A real leader in that Brian Sutter, Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, Bobby Clarke, Jonathan Toews mold, where there's no question who's the leader in the locker room and they clearly get people to rally around them. Maybe someone in the system is it. I don't know. But I don't think we have that guy right now in the locker room, otherwise someone would be helping with #2 and it wouldn't be constant shoulder-shrugging, [Jay Leno voice] I don't know why we keep doing this, I don't like this, it's really weird, we should do better, I wish I had answers to this [/JLV] excuses from the so-called leaders.

5. Do a better job of recognizing when guys aren't going to cut it, and get them out ASAP. He did that with Bokk, the 1st round pick in 2019. He should have done that with Schmaltz, and Kostin, and Sanford, and several others; instead, he held on to them until the bitter end and then finally shipped them out for little to nothing. He has to be willing to identify mistakes and act on them earlier, before everyone else figures it out too - even if that means signaling, "f***, I was wrong about that."

6. Show spending discipline. This isn't "hold the line on salaries for some guys" followed by "lavishly spend on others, especially guys coming into the organization." Just because salary cap allows the franchise to spend $90 million a year on NHL salaries doesn't mean it has to spend $90 million a year on NHL salaries - or that it needs to commit to spending $90 million for the upcoming season before the first puck drops in training camp. Start figuring out how to leave cap space for moves, utilize that as an opportunity or a weapon when needed; quit maxing out the cap like it's "use that cap space by October 1 or lose it" and then be stuck unable to make moves that are necessary for the betterment of the team.

7. Build a roster that emphasizes high-end talent. That means finding a legit 1D and keeping him, not trying to do the "bunch of 2-4 guys by committee" thing. That means finding a legit top line that produces offense at a high rate and isn't terrible defensively. Maybe we have 2/3rds of the latter in Thomas and Buchnevich. Maybe we really only have a 1/3rd of it in Thomas for the longer-term. Maybe we don't have any of it. But this "sum of the parts is better than the whole, no real superstars" thing isn't cutting it, and it's how you end up with a 5-10 team that you're hoping perpetually overperforms ... which, that's a bad way to go planning for success.

Note that none of this has to do with winning. Winning is what should fall out of all of the above. If he's not doing the things above, though, ... well, winning gets a hell of a lot more difficult to do, and a short-term rebuild becomes a multi-year saga of agony - and that will kill the fanbase in "Bill Laurie, 2005" style.

 

[DataMan357]

Fire Doug Armstrong! Bring back Berube and make him Coach and GM...!! Fire that worthless MF. I am done with the Blue's until they fire that worthless Bastard.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Do we need a 3rd/4th fire Army Thread?

 

[joe galiba]

After having the ads reload my response 3 times, I’m not going to bother trying again.

i have the same problem on my ipad, it gets frustrating

 

[Ranksu]

Im so fed up Army that I cant even watch The presser over 30 sec. Political nonsense where you dont open up situation.

This whole fire Chief was just bad excuse what Army has done himself.

What level of player and their playing style isnt anywhere near what Chief system is about.

We have full of team of 3rd liners or best of top4 dmens.

Schenn, Hayes, Parayko, Faulk, Krug (top6 dmen), Saad, Leddy, Scandella.

Simply of ugly roster. We have few talent, but if ~8 roster players are meh you cant win games.

To me they have played well enough what Chief have pieces to play with.

Its just tells Army thinks team is good enough to compete even more.

Team was set when we won Cup after that Army rip down piece by piece corner stones where this team was build on.


Front office should wake up what Doug have done to team. I think there is no room for excuses. Doug's fireing Chief was making Time for himself.

Hopefully Doug will release that its time to go. Admit he has failed and let team start fresh.

Doug build Cup team. I cheer for IT, but you also make Blues mediocre team too. Pretenders.


Sad Time to Be Blues fan. We had it, but now its just dog shit.

I feel bad for our good young players who has talent to be elite, but you need to play such a bad team. Shane to see them wasting their Prime years in re-build team.

 

[LogosBlue]

Do we need a 3rd/4th fire Army Thread?

I'd make 10 threads if I thought that would get him fired!!

Since Perron got the shaft, I've been calling for DA's firing. He's gotta go for this franchise to move forward in a meaningful way. The mishandling of this organization for the last three years is really hard to watch. It's not the coach, It's not the goaltending, It's the GM.

Anyone with eyes can see if they just stop and think for a few minutes of the bonehead decisions he's made since the cup win. I'm done with him.

 

[Xerloris]

2. Demonstrate there's a long-term plan. This isn't just "we're building for the future." It's putting together a roster that makes sense, seeing where pieces fit, and having the organizational depth that you can look at and say "OK, I can see this guy going in that spot." No more reactionary, "I gotta waste a player" moves like we saw with Perron and Oshie. No more "well, we've played like crap but 3 wins ... you know what, I'm sold - everyone stays" moves like in 2021. If we're going all-in, fine ... I get there's a time to do that - but be better about recognizing when that should happen, not we could make the playoffs and have 2 home games or we could make the playoffs and maybe get lucky and go on a miracle run wishful swings.

Most of us wanted the team to a fire sale in 2019 and there was even people calling for the trading of Pietrangelo and others. Armstrong held his ground and stayed patient. We'd have no cup without his mentality. The fact he didn't sell the house in 2019 is what makes me fine with sitting back and waiting to see what he can do.

4. Find a leader for the locker room. Not this bullshit well, ___ has been here a while, he's one of my favorites, I'm giving him the 'C' and no one's telling me I'm wrong stuff. A real leader in that Brian Sutter, Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, Bobby Clarke, Jonathan Toews mold, where there's no question who's the leader in the locker room and they clearly get people to rally around them. Maybe someone in the system is it. I don't know. But I don't think we have that guy right now in the locker room, otherwise someone would be helping with #2 and it wouldn't be constant shoulder-shrugging, [Jay Leno voice] I don't know why we keep doing this, I don't like this, it's really weird, we should do better, I wish I had answers to this [/JLV] excuses from the so-called leaders.

If those leaders were that easy to find then the people you mentioned wouldn't be legends for their leadership ability.

A 15% power play means about ... 7 more goals. That's worth about a win and change, 2 wins max. And it's still means a power play that's ranked 25th in the league, which ... looking at this roster, yeah, that feels right. By the same argument, our PK shouldn't have 8 SH goals. Putting that back a little, that offset a fraction of that win gained on the PP.

I don't know where this quote came from, this thread or another thread but I'll answer it here. The 15% mark is bare minimum of where our talent should have us. It's not about 15% not winning us many games but the fact 8% is a f***ing embarrassment and Berube never did f*** all to rectify it. He never did f*** all to fix any of our problems. We went an entire season last year with the same shit defense that every single fan on this board knew was a problem from like game 5 and we had to see it for 82 games. Berube is the literal manifestation of the dog drinking coffee while the house is on fire and he thinks everything is fine. The only way we were gonna get change is by getting a new coach.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Most of us wanted the team to a fire sale in 2019 and there was even people calling for the trading of Pietrangelo and others. Armstrong held his ground and stayed patient. We'd have no cup without his mentality. The fact he didn't sell the house in 2019 is what makes me fine with sitting back and waiting to see what he can do.

I've commented on the November 20, 2018 press conference and how things played out from there several times now. My thoughts still stand.

If those leaders were that easy to find then the people you mentioned wouldn't be legends for their leadership ability.

We don't even have a leader who shows confidence like the guy who screams at everyone at the local 4-way about how everyone is going to hell.

I don't know where this quote came from, this thread or another thread but I'll answer it here. The 15% mark is bare minimum of where our talent should have us. It's not about 15% not winning us many games but the fact 8% is a f***ing embarrassment and Berube never did f*** all to rectify it.

Should it, though? Maybe this team's talent really is such that it's only capable of a 9% clip. Maybe it's "the sum of the parts is less than the whole." Or maybe it's "the pieces are there, they've got to be rearranged completely though."

The fact that you're blaming Berube for that, though, ... Armstrong stated pretty clearly in the press conference that Steve Ott is in charge of the power play. Why aren't you criticizing Ott - the guy who's actually responsible - for the "f***ing embarrassment" that is the Blues power play?

He never did f*** all to fix any of our problems. We went an entire season last year with the same shit defense that every single fan on this board knew was a problem from like game 5 and we had to see it for 82 games. Berube is the literal manifestation of the dog drinking coffee while the house is on fire and he thinks everything is fine. The only way we were gonna get change is by getting a new coach.

I'd point out that Berube wasn't the guy who, 8 games into last season, recognized something was wrong to the point he felt a need to spend 40 minutes in the locker room after practice addressing the guys and telling them to get their shit together, he wasn't firing the head coach, and then did largely window dressing with the roster after shipping out the UFAs and thought that was going to fix everything. But, that's too obvious; easier to be lazy and blame Berube for the 206th time, I guess.

While you don't come out and say it, you're right about one thing: we're about to find out if this was all Berube's fault, or if it's the locker room's fault. And if it's the latter, ... well, to paraphrase something you said elsewhere, are the people who thought it was Berube's fault going to come back and admit they were wrong, it was really Armstrong's fault?

 

[ScratchCatFever]

Do we need a 3rd/4th fire Army Thread?

At least Simon took down the thread asking if DA should "pay for what he has done".... I cringed so hard reading that I almost chipped a tooth.

 

[stl76]

At least Simon took down the thread asking if DA should "pay for what he has done".... I cringed so hard reading that I almost chipped a tooth.

Live look at BluesKnight:

 

[ScratchCatFever]

Live look at BluesKnight:

I knew what the link was without even having to open it.. But I still did LOL. Bravo

 

[stl76]

I knew what the link was without even having to open it.. But I still did LOL. Bravo

It was def low hanging fruit, but too perfect not to post

No hate intended @BlueKnight, thanks for being a good sport.

 

[TheDizee]

fire armstrong and make steen new GM

 

[Ranksu]

fire armstrong and make steen new GM

What about this guy?

 

[BlueDream]

fire armstrong and make steen new GM

Would Steen be the GM just until Lindgren retires and is eligible for the job?

 

[Blueston]

fire armstrong and make steen new GM

I’d love for steen to be our next GM, but he isn’t close to ready yet.

 

[joe galiba]

I’d love for steen to be our next GM, but he isn’t close to ready yet.

I think he would be able to sniff out some good trades

yes, I went there