The point of this post is to show that a lot of times, the best move a GM can make, is no move at all. Just look at Dallas, they make very small moves and don't lose a ton of assets. They also trust their prospects and let them take over for expiring veteran deals.
Unfortunately for Blues fans, Doug Armstrong has made one bad move after another. The only true great move he made in my mind was the Buch trade. Even if I took Buch off this team below it would still be a powerhouse. Look how great our defense could've been but instead of Petro, Dunn, and Walman in our top 4 we have Faulk, Krug, and Leddy...
Blues sign Petro to an 8x8 like he wanted with a full NMC. The Blues never trade for Faulk.
The Faulk trade signaled that Petros time here was over so I never understood why we didn't just trade him at the deadline we could've gotten a massive return.
With Petro still here, the Blues don't need to add any more veteran presence to the blue line and therefore don't need to sign Krug.
Instead they let Hobey Baker winner, Scott Perunovich, take over as the teams 3rd pair dman right out of college. Would Perunovich still get hurt, maybe, but you never know how things could have been different.
One of the worst trades I've seen in the Army era. The Leddy trade directly cost us Perron. Perron would've stayed here on a cheap deal but apparently we didn't even give him an offer.
Instead of sticking by Fabbri and giving him another chance in the top 6, we decided to trade him for Jacob de la Rose, who would leave the Blues shortly.
If Army wanted to trade Fabbri, why sell so low on him and get nothing of quality in return.
Army should learn not to trade with Detroit, it never works out for the Blues.
Instead of signing Saad, the Blues trust Barbs in a top 9 role and he does great. He's an amazing player to have for a playoff team as we saw in last years stanely cup run.
The Blues never lose Dunn to Seattle because they don't have to protect Krug. Dunn signs cheaper in St. Louis as he wouldn't have reached his full, Seattle, potential here.
I know many hate the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" posts but honestly there's a lot to be said about Armstrong just making some bad decisions that have really hampered the Blues when the right move to make was staring him in the face.
I know many hate the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" posts but honestly there's a lot to be said about Armstrong just making some bad decisions that have really hampered the Blues when the right move to make was staring him in the face.
Agreed, it's sad that really all he had to do was nothing and this team would've been great. Instead he panicked and forced moves that just didn't make sense.
Agreed, it's sad that really all he had to do was nothing and this team would've been great. Instead he panicked and forced moves that just didn't make sense.
BluesReport18. Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. Nicely written....full of logic...which isn't always presented in these "What could've been"
This is the pain of trying to remain competitive long-term.
1. Walman, Dunn, Fabbri - Jake Walman could barely crack the lineup for us. At the time of the trade we had desperately needed a LD that could play with Parayko post Jbo (Which we still do). Walman could not do that at that time. Dunn was not trusted by the coaching staff hardly at all. He was stuck on the 3rd pair because he was unreliable in the defensive zone (which is comical because now 4 of our defenseman fit that mold). There wasn't really much they could do in that front to avoid Seattle taking him in the Expansion draft. Fabbri was traded as a favor to the player. He needed an opportunity to play and we needed to continue winning.
The biggest blunder armstrong had was Pietrangelo and always will be Pietrangelo. You could even say it started when they traded for Faulk. Just the sequence of moves doesn't make alot of sense to go from Pietrangelo to Faulk and Krug and expect good results.