BillP wrote:usmcaaron wrote:Not related to Tage Thompson sass, but I like this quote from Pierre Lebrun in his new article on The Athletic:
From the Blues’ perspective, there’s a handful of GMs in this league that are unafraid to make bold move after bold move: I’d put Armstrong in that group along with Doug Wilson (Sharks), David Poile (Predators), Bob Murray (Ducks) and Steve Yzerman (Lightning). It doesn’t mean their trades always work, but their level of comfort in rolling the dice on roster-shaking moves has set them apart over the past several years.
For all the Army haters out there (less around here, more in The Asylum), this is exactly what I think you want from your team's GM. This quote puts him up there w/ some of the best in the league, because he's not afraid to go big to improve his team. Of course he's not w/out faults, but coupled with a solid scouting staff, there's not much else you can ask for, & just further signifies that he is the right man to lead the Blues, IMO.
Army hate is confused with performance. If I screw up at my job, I get an earful from my boss. He doesn't stop and think, well, I'll give Bill till the end of the week to do something, or I'll give him 6 months. That's life, you're always judged on your last performance. The road to where we are today was shaky. Where DA put the Blues took outside help to right a wrong. But he pulled it off and I applaud him. I've given DA plenty of credit and was 100% in his corner back in the day. But shit changes and the Blues had garbage backing up. But Doug is pulling it off and the Blues are in fantastic shape right now. That's great stuff. What cracks me up is apparently Doug got interviewed from Cusamano today (haven't heard it yet) but Doug even said on the radio, at 2 O'clock everyone hated me on the Forums and then by 7:00 people loved me. It's funny, but the Blues brass do read these threads and keep up on the fans reactions.
Absolutely this. I don't judge Army on the last trade, the last season, whatever. I judge him on the entire body of work, and that body of work across 13 seasons and two franchises says "great regular seasons, shitty postseasons." That body of work says, "declining performance as time goes on" and it's something that have gotten other GMs and coaches fired in much less time.
He's in his 8th season here so it's likely he'll get a rebound off last season (unless guys crap the bed being content or some other part of the team blows up), but the question remains:
what exactly has Armstrong learned that's going to make him better at building a Cup-winning team? Because for all the trades he's allegedly won, it's resulted in one (1) conference finals appearance that also saw the drain of a pretty substantial amount of talent - some of which has gone on to see greater success elsewhere - and last season's debacle where we went marching in with an already thin group of forwards that were further depleted by (inevitable) injuries (even if not expected to the magnitude we saw). If anything, last year's team overachieved courtesy of the play of the 1st and 4th lines (because the 2nd was mediocre, and the 3rd was total and complete crap) and Hutton's play in net; it could have just as easily been an 80-85 point team as it could have been a 105-point or better team.
And Army is exactly right about his "hated at 2pm, loved at 7pm" comment. He knows damn good and well that as long as he moves chairs around and gets people excited, his job is safe among the masses - actual performance be damned. He's counting on that. As long as everyone is thrilled with making the playoffs and not thoroughly pissed off at him for postseason failures, he'll be safe and secure in his job for as long as he wants. The question is how long fans are going to be thrilled with that; so far, it's "as long as he's making deals that we're winning."