Doug Armstrong, who's turning over GM duties to Alexander Steen after this season, leaving behind a younger cast ready to be next generation of Blues players
Call it the changing of the guard, if you will, again.
Having gone through a similar experience in 2023 when the St. Louis Blues traded away their core assets from winning the Stanley Cup in 2019, they shed a pair of veteran players on Friday into assets they may use for the future or as trade assets.
One of them is a leftover from the Stanley Cup days when the Blues first traded their captain, forward Brayden Schenn, to the New York Islanders, then not long after, flipped defenseman Justin Faulk to the Detroit Red Wings on trade deadline day.
In trading the 34-year-old Schenn, the Blues acquired a 2026 first-round pick (which belongs to the Colorado Avalanche), a 2026 third-round pick (the New Jersey Devils pick), winger Jonathan Drouin and goalie prospect Marcus Gidlof, and right before the deadline time of 2 p.m. (CT), they moved the 33-year-old Faulk for a 2026 first-round pick, a 2026 third-round pick (belonging to the San Jose Sharks), veteran minor league defenseman Justin Holl and 2022 second-round pick Dmitri Buchelnikov.
It turns out to be quite the haul for the Blues, who know the situation they're in at 23-29-9 heading into a Friday night game against the San Jose Sharks, 30th in the NHL standings and virtually no chance of reaching the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"I'd like to start off by thanking Justin Faulk and Brayden Schenn for their services with the St. Louis Blues," Armstrong said. "Obviously 'Schenner' and myself go way back, prior to our Stanley Cup and then our Stanley Cup and him being a captain. A great St. Louis Blue and good friend. And Justin Faulk is someone we had gotten in and had some success with. I wished them nothing but the best in the new areas. It seems to be a turning of the page to move forward with some younger players and acquired some draft picks and move forward."
The Blues, who didn't make rumored deals for Jordan Binnington, Robert Thomas (which I still found odd) and Jordan Kyrou, among other players who could have been made available due to a floundering season, are ready to turn over a new leaf after not being able to double down off the hope of building off last year's finish.
"We're excited where we're at," Armstrong said. "Obviously we now have [Philip] Broberg and [Dyllan] Holloway with [Joel] Hofer and [Jake] Neighbours. We have some younger players that we're going to start to continue to build around. We've added a lot of draft picks over the last three seasons, first round picks. So we're in a good spot. We've moved our veteran players obviously to create space to create opportunity. We were functioning on a retool. I wouldn't say this is a rebuild in a sense that we don't have quality players that are going to compete, but we no longer have that veteran presence that maybe we had five hours ago.
"We have some good, young players that are taking big roles. [Logan] Mailloux coming in, I've seen his growth. I've seen growth from Broberg from last year to this year moving forward. Holloway has had an up-and-down season due to injury. Jake Neighbours has taken a big role, Hofer's taken a bigger role. We have [Otto] Stenberg and [Theo] Lindstein, first-round picks from a couple years ago that are in the American Hockey League having good years t hat will get some opportunities. Are are putting younger players into our group. We have veteran players around here still. Obviously Jordan Binnington is a rock solid goaltender that has been here a long time with Kyrou and [Pavel] Buchnevich and Thomas, still relatively young in NHL standards, they're now more of the veteran players on our team. This is a great opportunity for people who expand their leadership roles, expand their playing roles. It's a good time."
As for the capital acquired on Friday, it certainly gives the Blues options, and really, if they want to expedite where they're at now, they have the ability to either flip these picks for NHL-ready capital at the upcoming draft or perhaps even package picks to move up, if they're able to.
"We've added Detroit's first-round pick in 2026, Colorado's first-round pick in 2026, New Jersey's third-round pick in 2026, San Jose's third-round pick in 2026, a player that we had 20th on our list a few years ago in Buchelnikov, a second-round pick from the Red Wings and a goaltender that we liked from a couple years ago too," Armstrong said. "We've added depth to our group. Those picks can he used as selections, they can be used for trades and then we've added experienced players in Drouin and Holl to help with that transition moving forward. When you look at the three first-round picks we had a few years ago, since then we've taken [Adam] Jiricek and [Justin] Carbonneau and three more this year, we're hoping to build a solid stable that can grow together."
I don't spend a lot of time on trades that didn't happen. Players negotiate their trade right based on their status on the team and in the league and some players have full no-trade clauses, some players have partial no-trade clauses. The Blues are at the lower end at the full no-trade clauses and right about the middle of the no-trade partials combined. We're an average average team to sign those players to provide those types guarantees. I respect when players ... if they decide to invoke the right that they've earned, that's great and that means they want to be here and that's exciting. We've asked players to waive, like Brayden Schenn. With the direction that we were going and the way we explained it to him, he was excited for a new opportunity to go to an upstart Islander team with the most exciting young player with Schaefer and Celebrini, these are the next generation of stars and he has an opportunity to play with him.
Any time there's a trade leak, I find it very disappointing. For the people that know me, we run a pretty tight ship as far as communication coming in and out. We did some due diligence as soon as that happened. We checked the phone records of all of our staff, texts and emails and everybody passed the test not surprisingly. So I was disappointed it got out. I know it didn't come from us.
I probably won't share much. One of the things is when you're in the situation that we're in the league as a team, you have to explore everything. That's part and parcel of the position that the St. Louis Blues organization was in. It's an unfortunate time because there's more non-truth out there than there is truth. I think ... I would say a lot of that stuff was fictional, but I guess it makes for good clickbait for the people.
When we brought in Broberg and Holloway, we thought we were going to navigate through it quicker. This year we couldn't do that and I wouldn't say change direction. We haven't moved young players to make this work and try to expedite it. We've stayed consistent and now we've taken another step today by bringing in first-round picks, third round picks, young drafted players that are going to fit into the age bracket. Obviously going into the season, I was hoping this was going to be a very smooth sail for my last year as a manager. We'd be competing in a playoff spot and jockeying and adding players. It didn't work that way so we reacted to the reality of where we are as an organization.
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