In one fell swoop today, St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong clarified the team’s goaltending picture for next season, cleared much-needed salary cap space for the team’s offseason objectives, and made the pathway to re-signing team captain Alex Pietrangelo clearer. And yet, in St. Louis, many fans’ response to the news was bittersweet, because […]

The St. Louis Blues put up a fairly anemic performance in the first round against the Vancouver Canucks, and have already returned home from the playoff bubble in Edmonton. But the pressure never subsides totally for an NHL team, particularly for their front office. General manager Doug Armstrong has some critical decisions to make quickly, […]

The St. Louis Blues are defending Stanley Cup champions, but they are on the brink of elimination in the first round of the 2019-20 postseason. The team is built on defense, but that is precisely the unit that has failed them up until this point. They have allowed 3.2 goals per game, a stiff uptick […]

The Arizona Coyotes have put up a tenacious fight against a heavily-favored Colorado Avalanche team in the first round of the NHL Playoffs. But some of the players who looked indispensable in their qualifying round series against the Nashville Predators have disappeared in the first three matchups against Colorado. Specifically, the Coyotes need more from […]

A great hockey mind once said: “goaltending is 60 percent of hockey. Unless it’s bad goaltending: then it’s 100 percent.” That idiom is rarely more obvious than in the playoffs, where a good goaltender can be the difference between victory and agony, glory and defeat. In the Arizona Coyotes’ first first-round playoff game since 2012, […]

Under normal circumstances, a four-game stretch of play would be far too brief to harshly evaluate any player or line. Unfortunately, within the NHL’s bubble, time is extraordinarily valuable, and ice time is hard to come by. For the defending Stanley Cup champions, that ice time has been limited to just four games, including three […]

2013 was, simply put, not a good draft year for St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong’s resume. They began the evening with no first round pick, having traded it to the Calgary Flames in the trade that brought in Jay Bouwmeester. They ended the evening with just four new players in the organization, none […]

Even during a global pandemic, there are a few things which supersede the importance of the NHL Playoffs for professional hockey players, and being at the birth of your first child is certainly one. Ivan Barbashev and his wife, Ksenia, are expecting their first child in the coming days, so the St. Louis Blues’ utility […]

It would be easy to focus on the negatives of the St. Louis Blues’ performance in their exhibition game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday. The power play struggled, the defense was porous at times, and, well, the offense was held scoreless in a 4-0 defeat. But the negatives are obvious. What positives can Blues […]

Like every team in the NHL, the St. Louis Blues will bring 31 players to the bubble in the coming days. The Blues depart for Edmonton, the hub city for the 12 Western Conference teams, on Sunday. And while most of the roster was as expected, a few of the peripheral players to make the […]

In the National Hockey League, having too many good, young defensemen is rarely a problem. But in a salary-cap strapped league, is it possible to have too much of a good thing? St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong will have to answer that in the coming months as he evaluates the futures of Vince […]

The St. Louis Blues have had a series of storied sweater numbers in franchise history. From the 34 players that wore number 12 to the number 7, which is honored by the team for four legendary players that wore it (Red Berenson, Joe Mullen, Garry Unger, and Keith Tkachuk are among the 13 players to […]

With the St. Louis Blues winning their first ever Stanley Cup Championship to cap off the 2018-19 season, there’s no better time to look back on the franchise’s history. And what better place to start than with the men who guard the net? The Blues have had a number of all-time great goalies between the […]

Hockey has always been a game dominated by Canadian players, though in recent years it has become an increasingly international sport. But American players have always had a major role in the game, particularly in the National Hockey League. We’ll be taking a look at the 10 greatest American players of all time, along with […]

The St. Louis Blues had their apparent goalie of the future emerge out of nowhere during the 2018-19 season when Jordan Binnington evolved from backup American Hockey League (AHL) goalie to Stanley Cup Champion netminder over the course of six months. But before Binnington’s sudden progression, the apparent goalie of the future was Ville Husso, […]

The St. Louis Blues are defending Stanley Cup Champions and will enter the 2019-20 postseason in first place in the Western Conference. They are also built for the future, with just four players in the NHL approaching restricted free agent (RFA) or unrestricted free agent (UFA) status in the offseason. Unfortunately, one of those two […]

The St. Louis Blues’ 2019 Stanley Cup victory seems in hindsight like the culmination of ten years of sustained success. But a closer look at the decade shows that the Blues built a contender from 2011 to 2016, then underwent a miniature rebuild in 2017 and 2018 before embarking on the 2019 campaign that ultimately […]

The 2014 Draft began a string of very successful drafts for general manager Doug Armstrong and his St. Louis Blues. Though 2013 had been one of his worst efforts, the 2014 Draft provided the Blues with many NHL-caliber players and some prospects who are still highly valued in their system. (To review the 2013 Draft […]

The St. Louis Blues entered the 2019 NHL Draft as the defending Stanley Cup Champions. But that wouldn’t deter general manager Doug Armstrong from preparing to build a foundation for the future. Coming off the back of a 2018 Draft where he selected a future Hobey Baker Award winner (Scott Perunovich) and a future World […]

The St. Louis Blues have had a lot of success in recent years, culminating in their 2019 Stanley Cup Championship. But they have also had a decade of drafting success orchestrated by their general manager, Doug Armstrong. The midmarket team has been able to build a sustained contender through successful scouting, drafting, and development over […]