Doug Armstrong as Maple Leafs GM makes perfect sense — but not for Blues

If you close your eyes, you can see Doug Armstrong sitting in the home management booth at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, wearing a red poppy on his plaid suit and taking a quick swig out of a water bottle as the Maple Leafs celebrate another Auston Matthews goal on the ice below.

You can almost hear him doing an interview with a throng of Canadian media circled around him, saying the word “we” when referring to the Maple Leafs.

Advertisement

You can probably even envision him getting Ontario’s Original Six team, dare we say, deep into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Oh, and by the way, the 58-year-old is from Ontario.

So, yes, Doug Armstrong, the general manager of the Blues, would make perfect sense as Toronto’s next GM. And it’s not surprising that his name has been mentioned in several reports about who will replace Kyle Dubas, including one Monday by my colleague Pierre LeBrun.

Rumblings on the Maple Leafs' GM search. My latest:

via @TheAthletic

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) May 22, 2023

There’s plenty of reason to make the connection. Brendan Shanahan, the former Blues forward and current Leafs team president, mentioned experience in his press conference announcing the team’s split from Dubas, and Armstrong has that. He’s the longest-tenured GM in the NHL, and he ranks No. 14 all-time in that seat with 768 career wins.

Shanahan will want a good track record, and Armstrong has that, too. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, when Armstrong took over in St. Louis, the Blues have the fifth-most wins (558) and points (1,222) in the league. And, of course, they won the Stanley Cup in 2019.

That’s not even getting into the international element of Armstrong’s resume, working with Team Canada’s management group for the 2010 and 2014 Olympic gold medal-winning teams, as well as first-place finishes at the IIHF World Championship and World Cup. The gold at the Olympics and world championships, plus his Cup with the Blues, put him in an elite group that’s referred to as the “Triple Gold Club.”

Shanahan could search for months and not find a more qualified candidate, and if he doesn’t make a phone call to Blues owner Tom Stillman and ask for permission to speak with Armstrong, then he’s not doing his due diligence.

Advertisement

The problem for Toronto is that while Armstrong would make perfect sense for the Leafs, it makes no sense for the Blues to let him walk away.

Armstrong’s current contract runs through 2025-26 and it’s believed that it doesn’t have an “out clause.” That means approval must come from the Blues’ owner, and I don’t think Stillman would consider it.

For the Blues, this is a temporary headline that will die on the vine at some point, and while it’s probably a bit of an annoyance, it’s also somewhat flattering, for both the organization and Armstrong, that he’s considered a solution to hockey’s longest-running soap opera.

Inside Armstrong’s puck-wired brain, he could be excited about the challenge in Toronto. He told LeBrun in 2019 that working in a Canadian market would be a “special” opportunity. He led the Blues to the first Stanley Cup in their 52-year history and will forever live with that legacy, so why not try to create another legacy by ending the Leafs’ championship drought, which now sits at 56 years?

So you’re saying there are questions about Toronto’s Core Four forwards and tough decisions about what to do with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander? I present to you Exhibits A, B, C and D in which Armstrong allowed captains David Backes, Alex Pietrangelo and Ryan O’Reilly to leave St. Louis, as well as fan favorite David Perron. Not all of these decisions worked out, but Armstrong is not afraid to make franchise-changing decisions even if it’s sending the team’s top jersey-sellers on their way.

With Kyle Dubas out as GM, the Maple Leafs have willingly plunged into chaos and uncertainty:

— Jonas Siegel (@jonassiegel) May 20, 2023

Would Armstrong even be the one making those decisions with the Maple Leafs?

In St. Louis, he took over as GM in 2010 and worked under team president John Davidson. But in 2012, the Blues bought out Davidson’s contract and then in 2013 appointed Armstrong as president of hockey operations. So for a decade now, Armstrong has been in charge of all hockey decisions in St. Louis. He has stability and the trust of his owner. He keeps Stillman abreast of everything and gets his endorsement on signings and trades, but for all practical purposes, no one stands in his way of doing things the way he wants them done.

Advertisement

Is Armstrong going to leave that setup to be second in charge in Toronto behind Shanahan? Well, Lou Lamoriello did it for three seasons from 2015 to ’18, but Lamoriello is now with the New York Islanders, and his replacement, Dubas, is now looking for a job. Either Shanahan would have to allow some give in having the final say — and why would he do that? — or Armstrong would be giving up a lot of power because he’s infatuated with the idea of working for the Maple Leafs.

Sure there would be a massive reward if all went well, but if it didn’t in four or five years, he’d be 62 or 63 years old and looking for a new place to land.

On the fallout in the Maple Leafs front office. And what comes next @TheAthletic

— James Mirtle (@mirtle) May 20, 2023

Granted, Armstrong’s position with the Blues right now isn’t perfect. The team missed the playoffs this season and has limited flexibility to alter the roster because of the long-term contracts on the books.

And yes, Armstrong is responsible for that, so feel free to criticize him. But on the flip side, he has a better pulse of the organization than any person on the planet, and he knows the strengths and weaknesses of every player on the roster and every prospect in the system. His masterful work at the trade deadline has bolstered the organization with three first-round picks, one of which belonged to the Leafs. He’s put months of work into how to use those picks, and soon it will be time to execute that plan.

Blues GM Doug Armstrong on Connor Bedard to Chicago, ‘rooting’ in the playoffs, 10th pick, more. #stlblues

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) May 10, 2023

So that brings us back to the point: Why would Stillman want anyone else to be at the wheel for the retool? I don’t believe he does, and that’s why I think he’s not going to give Shanahan permission to have that dialogue.

Maybe the only way it could happen is if Armstrong went to Stillman and said, “Hey, I’d like to talk to the Maple Leafs.” And is he really going to ask that of the owner who promoted him to president of hockey operations, made him one of the highest-paid executives in the league, allowed him to spend to the salary cap with a small-market team every year, stay long enough to win a Stanley Cup, work simultaneously for Team Canada, and so on? 

That would be the gutsiest decision Armstrong has made in his hockey career.

(Top photo of Doug Armstrong: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)