St. Louis Blues end of season Q & A with Doug Armstrong

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- Doug Armstrong wants St. Louis Blues fans that he's staying true to his word.

Even if the general manager isn't a popular figure among those hockey fans these days, the same fans who have been spoiled with playoff appearances on a regular basis, the same ones that were hoping that last season was a one-off.

When Armstrong began floating the word 'retool' around, it's not exactly something the fan base here took him for his word.

But then when the Blues failed to make the playoffs in 2022-23 with just 81 points, a dose of reality settled in.

The Blues didn't make the playoffs once again in 2023-24, but they did make a vast improvement (43-33-6, good for 92 points) and they did keep everyone involved and interested until they were eliminated from postseason contention in Game No. 80 while giving a number of the young prospects a taste of life in the NHL, allowing them to thrive in it. 

Armstrong fired a Stanley Cup-winning coach [Craig Berube], replaced him with Drew Bannister in mid-December and the team improved record-wise.

Armstrong outlined a variety of things at the season-ending presser, including his expectations for this past season, how he thought it went, the process of the retool, the head coaching position, players' performances and a variety of topics:

Introduction:

This season was one of change, one of looking towards the future. We saw some positive things in that direction. We learned a lot about ourselves personally and professionally, positive and negative on things we can improve on. All in all, it's unfortunate that we're not continuing to play and we have to find a way to push forward this summer to get back to work in September.

Saying third would be nice last September, how does season compare to how you thought it would go:

I think when I look back on those comments, it was more where we fit in other teams' growth process. I think I might have said Dallas and Colorado might be half a letter grade or a full letter grade ahead of us. I've got to be honest with you, at that time, I thought Winnipeg was going to trade Scheifele and Hellebuyck and they went a different direction and that obviously changed the outlook on what they were looking to accomplish this season and moving forward. But when I look at our team, I was probably a little too honest on where I thought we were going to be. I was trying to give everyone a look into how I viewed things. It was brought up on a few different occasions that I didn't believe in this team or I didn't trust this team and that wasn't what I was trying to say or get at. But I thought the guys played well. I thought we're right dead smack in the middle of the league. If we were in the other conference, we're still playing, but we're not. We're in the West. I had a meeting with our pro scouts today projecting what it's going to take next year. I think the reason there's a less point total in the Eastern Conference is because you look at the teams that have been rebuilding or retooling, they're six, seven, eight years into it and they all had about the same amount of points that we did, maybe four or five less, maybe some 10 less, but the Western Conference has teams earlier in the rebuild process which means there's more points needed to get there because they're distributing more points through the Western Conference because they play more often. With our team, I thought we saw some really good things. I was extremely proud of the way the guys played against the top teams, and we have to grow and learn why we can play at a certain level against a certain group of player and organization and team, what we have to do to prepare and to execute better against a team that maybe we don't have that fear factor in. I'm hoping that those are learning things that we're going to pick up.

On the head coaching situation:

I talked to Drew in the last week or so and told him that he's going to be a candidate for the head coaching job. I feel that for the process it's necessary to interview a few people, but what I told him is when we made the coaching change, I was creating a list and the list was deep and extensive and as I watched him perform and I watched our team perform, I started to cross names off that list, and now Drew is one of a very small number of people I want to talk to about moving forward. I thought he did a very good job. I thought he was able to put a balance of pushing and prodding to get the best team on the ice every night with also throwing a little bit of hope out there and a blind eye to putting young players in situations they haven't been in and living with the results. I think that's how you grow. We had some young players do some really good things and we had some young players make young mistakes that cost us. That's part of growth, and that's what I thought Drew did a great job of doing. To answer that question, Drew is a finalist for the head coaching position and that list isn't extensive.

Do you want to make this decision quick and do you have a pulse on which direction you want to go:

I think we have a good pulse. I'm fortunate to have an inner circle of people in our organization that I trust and have a lot of experience. We've been talking about this for a number of months on where we want to go to and as that was going, Drew was expanding his own resume. It's not something I think is going to happen over the next four or five days. I'm not going to give specific names, but some of the names that I want to talk to aren't available. Their teams are playing and some of the names I want to talk to I'm going to give a little time to. We certainly will have a head coach well before the draft. I'm thinking well before June 1st, but I'm not putting a timeline on it in that because it's not an extensive group. I think when maybe you look at some of the coaches, the people in this situation, they're just starting the process ad they might have 15 names and might want to talk to eight or nine. I've whittled that down to as I said, a very, very small number.

Would you consider consulting with the league to find out about about Joel Quenneville's status?

I'm not going to get into any individual names on what we're going to do on anyone quite honestly.

What's the criteria you're looking for in a coach?

I think it's someone that understands where we are in our maturation process that wants to push and build and create a foundation that can stand the test of time, wants to have the respect of the veteran players but the ability for the younger players to express themselves and grab a bigger role. That's a difficult task. I think when you can go to a certain coach and you know what their mindset is, I have the team that can win the Stanley Cup and here's the guy that I think can get us over the next three or four percent ... I believe in our team but we're not at that level quite yet. That removes a coach that would fill that criteria. This coach we want to come in has an understanding of pushing and prodding and expectations of a fan base that should have expectations but also knowing that we are in the process of doing something sustainable and allowing and learning and growth to happen.

On team to be competitive but also focus on future, still feel that's best plan for organization and sustainable for next couple years:

Yeah, only because you can do what we're doing or you can get committed to one of the other two ways. Getting committed to winning the championship is trading those players that we've acquired, getting into that market and trying to push with a group that we believe is in our core and our prime and is going to push for it. I'm not sure our fan base, and I'm not sure I can handle it, take 15 more losses off of this season and do that for five more years, I'm not really sure we want to have a point total in the 50s and 60s for four or five more consecutive years to build something that might be good in 2035. We're trying to do something that's difficult, which is stay competitive and find good players and make good trades and win a championship. But my personal belief is that going the other way and being a 50-60 point team until 2029 to gain those assets, you look at Pittsburgh and they're at the tail end of what they did with getting Malkin and getting Crosby and getting Fleury and getting a Whitney, that's four years. That's four years of top picks. Toews and Kane, there's pain that goes into those things. I'm not in the position to think that that's the direction the St. Louis Blues should go in. Obviously I make recommendations or a game plan and I filter that upstairs, and I do show them the three different categories. One is to move our first-round picks, to move our top prospects, to get into a market and get a player, and the other one is to move anyone with any value or high value and replace them with American League players, because if you took our top four players, I'll let you pick whoever they are, if you took our top four players and traded them, and you got young assets and futures and you replaced them with American Hockey League players or less, we can get to 50 points. I can get us there. Trust me. It's getting us out after is the hard part. But I just don't think that's where we need to go. That's a long, long answer to a simple question. We're going to stay with the path we're on.

How much change can you expect to the roster for next year with so many locked in, and if there's not a lot of change, how can you improve to be a playoff team?

Well, it's going to come from internal growth. ... I was probably too open a year ago on a time length of retooling or what it's going to take. In 2022-23, I thought we were a good team that underperformed, but I thought 23-24 was going to be the first year of the next wave because if we had performed to the maximum of our ability, they would have gone on a playoff run last year and then they'd be free agents and they'd be gone. So this was Year 1 of something that's not going to be finished after Year 1. We can look to be prudent in the free agent market. We need internal growth. We need some of our players, veteran players to play better, some of our younger players to grow a little bit, the coach has to get better, the manager has to get a little bit better. We're not going to reinvent the wheel. There is a plan in place and I'm willing to stick through that plan. One of the things we talked about in September is, 'How do you judge a good season?' I understand our fan base and I do understand they want to see 'W's. They don't want to see the old college try. But when I evaluate it, I see a lot of positives. I saw a young player like Jake Neighbours go from a call-up player to a fourth-line player to almost a 30-goal scorer. I saw Joel Hofer go to his first year in the NHL and looks like a pretty good goalie. We saw Scott Perunovich play and now we know what we have, and closer to what we have. I found positive things outside wins and losses that I think we can build off of.

Do you think the roster will be much the same?

I don't want to say something that's going to come back that I'm going to answer to in September. I just think that we're on a path and we're willing to stick to that path and if we can improve our team under the guidelines that we think gives our long term outlook and our long term goals the best chance to have success, we'll do it.

On Jordan Kyrou's season:

Another 30-goal season. I thought he went through stretches this year where the puck didn't go in for him at the start of the year. I think if you look at all the fancy stats, he had a lot of chances and they weren't going in and they started going in and everybody gets off his back a little bit. I think consistency maybe is something, but he's a game-changing player and a game-breaking player that has become a lightning rod for whatever reason, but I sat up here, I'm going to say in 2017, and Jay Bouwmeester was a lightning rod and everybody hated him, and then he left our franchise and everyone thought how are we going to live without Jay Bouwmeester. These are ebbs and flows. A year ago, Colton Parayko and Jordan Binnington were finished and now they're not finished. I can't get sucked into this daily he's a good player, he's a bad player thing that's there. I have to have a longer term approach. If you want to have a relationship with someone, you better be willing to go through tough times if you want to go through good times with them. If you're only committed to someone through the good times, it's going to be a difficult relationship for you to be happy in.

On Brayden Schenn and his first year as captain:

I thought he did a really good job. I think the one thing when I looked back on him and I talked to him is that, 'Breathe, enjoy the process and don't put too much of this on yourself.' He cares so much about the team and so much about every individual that it's hard to do all that and still be the best that you can be on the ice and I thought he did a great job at it. I think next year he's going to be able to pick his battles a little bit more, pick his battles with the manager, pick his battles with the coach, pick his battles with his teammates a little better, and that just comes from maturation. A proud player and a Stanley Cup champion that's asked to be the captain of a team that's going through a transition, it's difficult, and then you throw in a coaching change mid-season, it's not like I made this easy on him. It wasn't like, 'Let's name 'Schenner' captain and see how hard I can make it on him.' But I'm not surprised that it ended up where there was a lot of turmoil that he had to deal with. I thought he did a really good job and I think quite honestly with the support of Robert Thomas and [Colton] Parayko and [Justin] Faulk, that eased that for him and I think they've all grown and they're all going to get better at it, and next year's going to be way easier for them than this year was. That's growth.

On Bannister holding players accountable:

I thought he did a nice job at that. Last time I was sitting in here we were talking about the coach and it was a coaching change. Then I reflect on what was said after that. Change came because there was a feeling that the message wasn't getting through and it was frustrating to hear that because of how much respect I have for Craig. But I think also that change made everybody a little more laser-focused in every area, made the manager get more focused, it made the players get more focused. I thought those were natural byproducts of competitiveness and opportunity, and I thought Drew provided both of those things, and I thought he did a good job at that. I did think that accountability was taken up, but I think that was regardless. It wasn't really Drew that took it up, it was the players that understood that they let a guy that everybody in this city loved, and they loved playing for and I loved working with, we let him down. But that's evolution of sport. That's not new to any one organization. I thought the players did a great job of seizing that. I think we might have been 11 games over .500 with Drew, and that's good coaching, but that's also laser-focused of players wanting to be different than they were before.

On the defense, how do you evaluate them this year and will it look different:

It looked a little different because Scotty [Perunovich] was healthy and we got him a lot of games and we saw what that looks like. We're going to look to see if we can push and prod and improve. But there was an improvement back there. I think some of the improvement came from how our No. 1 defenseman was perceived at the end of last year and the way he's perceived now, assume it's different. The questions are different, at least. I think [Tyler] Tucker showed us that he can help out a little bit. I think [Nick] Leddy and Parayko looked like they can be a good pair. I think I was really excited for [Matthew] Kessel's growth and improvement, a player that we weren't talking about at the start of last year and came in and looks like a legitimate NHL player. So there's going to be internal growth and if we can improve it other ways, we'll look at doing it. Again, I don't want to say anything that I can't back up on change.

Will you remain a cap team next year?

It's not a goal not to be and it's not a goal to be. If there's a player and if there's a situation that I can take to Mr. Stillman and he signs off on a player that adds an X-amount of millions of dollars that takes us to the cap, I'll do it, but I'll get no benefit of spending money poorly so I can next year (say), 'Look, we're at the cap.' Trying-stupid isn't trying. That's just being stupid. The owners have never said, 'No, you can't spend.' My job is to provide a road map where it's spending wisely.

Any of the prospects have years this year where they could expedite the process of getting here:

Bolduc and Dean and Kessel are here now. They finished here, so I want to exclude those guys. I can talk about them after if you want, but last year's draft was really the first draft of whatever, working in the next generation. The one player that looks like he's going to push for a really good look in training camp is [Dalibor] Dvorsky. Partly because he's in North America and the other guys are in Sweden. But Dvorsky, what I saw what he did at the World Junior, what we see him doing against his peer group in the Ontario Hockey League and how we've seen players that do what he did in the Ontario League progressed in the NHL, there's a path there, but that path won't be rushed. We can say that we have young players in the NHL and that's for Bolduc and that's for Dean and that's for Kessel quite honestly, they ended the season here. The only way they guarantee they start it here next year is to have a great summer and a great training camp because we have to push them to be better than they were when we ended the year, and it's up to them to do the work. I have the utmost faith they're going to do it, but this isn't a charity case that we're running here in the sense that ... to show growth, we have to put players in the NHL that aren't ready for it. The NHL fails as many players as players fail the NHL and I don't want to fail these guys.

Snuggerud decision affect next year's plans?

He would have been in the mix to the level that Bolduc and Dean are that there's a expectation that they're going to give ... there's not a hope they make the team, there's an expectation they're going to give every opportunity to. He would have been in that group ahead of the [Otto] Stenberg, [Theo] Lindstein where they're a year or two away. Snuggy's going to be in Minny this time next year one way or the other and the Final Four is in a Blues uniform.

Is hiring an NHL coach with previous experience a prerequisite?

No.

Did Dvorsky benefit from leaving Europe to going to play junior?

I thought it was a great benefit. You never know how it's going to work. The one thing that concerns you is Dvorsky has had five different coaches in the last five years and five different cities in five different leagues. This kid's had no stability and it's because he's better. He gets better every year. He went to a situation he thought was going to be really good and Sweden was really bad. So you're hoping it's better when he gets to the OHL, and he made it a great situation. The way that he was perceived in his draft years as a top player, top ten pick, that's where we took him, they usually have good years in the OHL, and he certainly didn't disappoint. I think there's going to be debate, if the draft was held again this year, where would he go? Probably, in our opinion, maybe a little bit higher, but certainly no lower.

Do you even consider buyouts?

I consider it every year. This isn't an ego thing where we don't buy somebody out. It has to make economic sense. Not just economic sense, there has to be a plan to have a better team because you're doing it, and it's and it's my fault because I do make statements and then I don't retrack them or I don't change it. It's like, well, we don't offer no move clauses. Well, that's a lie. I don't like to do it, and we don't offer a signing bonus. Well, that's a lie; we've done it. So we've done it in the past. When I say that's not our first preference to do these things. So it's not our first preference to buy players out. Maybe this is the ego part. It is a business, and it's hard. I don't know, it's just like my kids just say, like, 'Give me $1,000. I want to burn it.' I'm like, 'I'm not gonna give $1,000.' And when you buy a player, it's like burning money. So I have an obligation to make sure it's the right thing to do, but no, that nothing is off the table.

Is Dvorsky eligible for the AHL next year?

Yes.

Would that be a logical step for him if he's not here in St. Louis?

He thinks he's going to be here in St. Louis and I'm not going to dash that dream, but if it's not, we'll find a nice home for him.

What about plans for Pavel Buchnevich? Approach him over the summer about an extension?

Yeah, we'll approach him. We'll approach him. I'm a big Pavel fan. Again, with free agency, it's a two way street. He just turned, I think, 29 yesterday. If I was Pavel, I would want to sit with the manager and talk to him. He's at the age now where he should ask me hard questions about the direction of this organization because he's at the age now ... I assume winning is going to be very important, and he wants to know how quickly we can win because he's going to get his money. He's good enough, he's going to get his money. I would like him to be here. I have to sell him on why, and then we have to sell each other on why we can be comfortably uncomfortable with the financial deal that we make. But I'm a big Pavel fan.

What did you think was missing from the 5 on 5 numbers this season?

The one area where I'd like to see us get more comfortable at is putting pucks on the net from high scoring areas. I think, as you guys that follow us closely, you'll see us get the puck in to a high scoring area and then pass out of it for a better play. This league isn't always about a better play. And the other area where I think we can improve, and we saw it, with Jake Neighbours and [Alexey] Toropchenko took it to a level, you've got to go to the hard areas to score like Jake Neighbours, what did he get? How many goals, 27 goals, from me to this microphone away, total distance. He goes to the areas to score that are hard. And so those numbers, I think if we put pucks at the net and go to that net with greater urgency and frequency, that's going to improve. I don't think possession time ... possession time is important, but if it's possession time without any results, it's just hanging onto the puck longer before you give it away.

Would those be the types of players you look for in free agency?

Well, we want to get out of our own players first, but yeah. I think you know what we talk about and people are going to say this is a good a good stat or a bad stat since '08, I don't think you know that we have one Hall of Famer in our group, but we've had a lot of wins. I know how the St. Louis Blues are built. I know how we have to be built to have success. Unless we want to go to the bottom for a number of years, that's sort of where you get your Hall of Famers from. You have a much greater likelihood to get a Hall of Famer for there. So we need strength in numbers and strength in numbers comes from Bobby Plager playing for the jersey, or the crest on the front and the name on the back. That's always been the identity of the blues since I've been here. That's how we've had our success and that's the path I hope that we take moving forward because, as I said, I'd love for Dvorsky to be a Hall of Famer. I'd love for Robert Thomas to be a Hall of Famer. I love for whoever to be. Just the reality is that it usually comes like from one, two or three in the draft. And I don't want to pick that guy. Now, I'm not afraid of winning the lottery if they wanted that part of it, but I don't want to earn it. How's that?

After signing Theo Lindstein, what's the path for him?

I would see most of those guys going back to Europe and continuing to grow there. There's is an agreement in the IIHF that they have to go over or they can go back, they will go back. We're we're not looking to rush guys. The American League's a hard league to play in. And not because it's a hard league in the sense that, there's a lot of downtime for an 18-, 19-year-old. And I just say we're talking about Dvorsky doing it. If he's not in the NHL, I think he can grow just from him and Stenberg, and that group can grow very well where they're at. Now, if they things change and they want to come over here and give it a shot, we're not going to say no. But again, we're we're playing the long game here.

How much differently do you have to evaluate the European prospects as opposed to those in North America?

I don't think any differently. The harder part is, we see all the shifts. We get their shifts every week. We watch every shift. It's harder to get to see them and it's harder to their mindset of how much they practice, how much they play is different than junior hockey. The hard part for the young top European players at 18 and 19 is they play a men's league and they don't get much ice time, and then they don't want to go down to a league to get more ice because they feel they've underperformed. It's a it's a delicate balance for those players. What we want to see is continued growth, and that's where our development staff comes in. It. The hard part, it's not the NFL where you draft them and you see them and you know they're there, and you can say that it's success or failure within a year. I projected a chart out to our ownership group, and it wasn't just our players. When the players that are drafted within 15 percent plus or minus play their 11th game, their 50th game or their 100 game, it takes a while and we're playing the long game.