If anyone thought the status of St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong was up in the air after recent coaching turnover and the up-and-down season the Blues endured last year, don’t count on it. In an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, team owner Tom Stillman said he never second-guessed the general manager and even though Armstrong has only one year remaining on his deal, the owner believes that Armstrong is the man for the job.
“No,” Stillman said about whether he was considering replacing Armstrong during the season. “You need to keep a longer view on things like that. You don’t evaluate the performance of a top-level manager based on the latest current losing streak or a rough patch. I felt confident that Doug was making the right decisions and looking at the long-term, and that’s our focus, being competitive not just this year but next year and the following year. In fact, I think Doug is unusual in that he was so focused on the long-term.”
The Blues struggled early in the season, going 24-21-5 which led to the firing of Ken Hitchcock on Feb. 1. Armstrong then promoted Mike Yeo and the team immediately won six of their first seven games. Looking to the future, the team then traded defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk to the Washington Capitals and kept winning, eventually qualifying for the playoffs with a 46-29-7 record, good for third in the Central Division. They then knocked off the Minnesota Wild in the first round of the playoffs, only to fall to the Nashville Predators in six games in the second round.
“I don’t know that it surprised me because when you’re in that situation you know it could go any number of ways, but I will say that it impressed me,” Stillman said. “It impressed me the way the coaching staff performed … the way the players dug in. They were in a tough position and then we made it a little tougher on them by trading a top player and yet everybody dug in. They played for each other, played for the team and carved out a playoff position and played two rounds in the playoffs.”
Stillman continued by saying that promoting Yeo was a key move and the improved play of the team’s youth, including defensive pair Colton Parayko and Joel Edmundson as well as forwards Ivan Barbashev and Zach Sanford were a testament to Yeo’s coaching.