A Tale of 2 Franchises at Center

[a smell of green grass]

Dallas and St Louis

Dallas has is locked in at the Center position, all 4 Centers are exceptional and part of the long- and near-term future.

St Louis is missing the 2C answer for years, and nobody knows what will happen at the 3C and 4C next year, and the future is even more unknown.

Dallas had too many young talented Centers, so they got rid of their long-time solid and expensive Center, Faksa.

St Louis picks up Dallas's spillover, and Faksa is one of their key players in the playoffs.

And somehow there are still people that believe that Army is doing a good job. Amazing, really. These same people will now reply and tell me about Dvorsky..... They will COMPLETELY MISS the point that the GM's job is to make sure that you don't get into a desperate hole like this to begin with.

[netboy65]

Second verse…same as the first!
A freaking broken record you are

[seattleblue]

Everyone was various degrees of disappointed/mad about falling out of the playoffs and sucking for most of the last three years.

You are asking us to remain emotionally furious that it ever happened and endlessly rage at it, but you're kind of alone in this, and the more you ask us to do it the more we're declining because it's so much more interesting to think about the present moment, which is full of promise and possibility. It's not just an inherently losing battle, it's one that asks people to specifically join you in negativity. How were you thinking that would work exactly?

[a smell of green grass]

Don't kill the messenger. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Next up...
Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is what Doug Army excels at!!! The Blues will now SERIOUSLY OVERPAY to "fix" the Center problem. Another Leddy incoming.

Some franchises use the draft effectively to staff the roster. That is not the Blues way. They guarantee that the draft doesn't work for them by "staying competitve" to the last puck drop every season.

Dallas is on tonight if you want to watch what a team with Centers looks like.

Army is on over the next month if you want to watch desperation.

[Army's Mom]

Cool story, bro.

Of course, none of the high draft picks listed as centers for DAL were drafted by the Stars.

Seguin was an import.
Duchene was an import.
Stell was an import.

Their top 2 centers were picked 23rd overall (Johnson), and 49th overall (Hintz).

What was your point again? I mean, besides the fact that you're still here, still beating that same dead horse?

[TBone]

Disclaimer: The video above is hosted on Youtube, and has not be reviewed by the staff of the Post-Dispatch.

[a smell of green grass]

Cool story, bro.

Of course, none of the high draft picks listed as centers for DAL were drafted by the Stars.

Seguin was an import.
Duchene was an import.
Stell was an import.

Their top 2 centers were picked 23rd overall (Johnson), and 49th overall (Hintz).

What was your point again? I mean, besides the fact that you're still here, still beating that same dead horse?

My point is to get the facts out there for people to see.

Dallas is stacked. Army is desperate.

[dhsux]

Cool story, bro.

Of course, none of the high draft picks listed as centers for DAL were drafted by the Stars.

Seguin was an import.
Duchene was an import.
Stell was an import.

Their top 2 centers were picked 23rd overall (Johnson), and 49th overall (Hintz).

What was your point again? I mean, besides the fact that you're still here, still beating that same dead horse?

Johnson and Hintz....and like many others in the league, defeat this guys premise over and over.

As does the presence of Seguin, Duchene and Stell on the Dallas team.

Yet...what does he say to this?


"The point is to get the facts out there for people to see.
Dallas is stacked. Army is desperate."

It's not even laughable....it's actually pretty sad.

[TAFKAP]

Don't kill the messenger. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Next up...
Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is what Doug Army excels at!!! The Blues will now SERIOUSLY OVERPAY to "fix" the Center problem. Another Leddy incoming.

Some franchises use the draft effectively to staff the roster. That is not the Blues way. They guarantee that the draft doesn't work for them by "staying competitve" to the last puck drop every season.

Dallas is on tonight if you want to watch what a team with Centers looks like.

Army is on over the next month if you want to watch desperation.

So funny, thanks for the entertainment of watching you kick yourself in the balls. I do like Dallas, when people would scream about blowing the Blues up and starting over, I used Dallas as an example of how to build a competitive club. Notice that I didn't say "Cup Winning" because they haven't won a Cup since 1999. If you'll remember we had a Cup Parade here 20 years after that in 2019 with Army as the GM.

That '99 Stars Cup team was pretty good. Do you know who was the Assistant GM of that team, who took over as GM in '02 and still has the best winning percentage for Dallas Stars GMs?

Spoiler

Doug Armstrong

[a smell of green grass]

Johnson and Hintz....and like many others in the league, defeat this guys premise over and over.

As does the presence of Seguin, Duchene and Stell on the Dallas team.

Yet...what does he say to this?

Dallas drafts well. They habitually draft BETTER PLAYERS than other GMs draft. In their case, they will be able to find gems lower in the draft. Army does not find BETTER PLAYERS than everyone else. Look at his roster. Where are the outstanding players that he drafted? What was the production of the players that he drafted in the playoffs? Average, if we are being kind. Army needs to draft TOP 5, or he has no chance of bringing the best to St Louis.

A team acquires players using various techniques. The draft is not the whole answer, but it should be a big part of it. For St Louis, our draft picks were virtually silent in the playoffs.

The bottomline is that Dallas is stacked, and the Blues are desperate with no end in sight. The players that made the most impact in the playoffs were the older players who many not even be here next year.

I need to clarify my point about the Blues.
It's not only that they need to draft TOP5. They need to draft better players period.

[zamadoo]

Cool story, bro.

Of course, none of the high draft picks listed as centers for DAL were drafted by the Stars.

Seguin was an import.
Duchene was an import.
Stell was an import.

Their top 2 centers were picked 23rd overall (Johnson), and 49th overall (Hintz).

What was your point again? I mean, besides the fact that you're still here, still beating that same dead horse?

My point is to get the facts out there for people to see.

Dallas is stacked. Army is desperate.

Speaking of facts:

The Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues have both won 1 Stanley Cup each.

Doug Armstrong was the Assistant GM for the Stars when they won, and the GM of the Blues when they won.

The St. Louis Blues defeated the Dallas Stars in the playoffs on their road to winning the Stanley Cup in 2019.

The Dallas Stars have just a 3rd, 2 5ths, a 6th, and a 7th in the upcoming draft, and just a 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th in next year's draft while paying Ryan Suter $1.1M this season and $1.4M next season.

[Atlantis17A]

We know your routine: Army is horrible, I won’t post anymore, Army is terrible, the Blues won’t win more than one playoff game, etc. Your constant moving of the goalpost makes it impossible to take you serious. Better to not post and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.

[blues2112]

In a 12-month span, the knucklehead Armstrong transformed the Blues top three centers from Stastny, Berglund and Lehtera to Schenn, O'Reilley and Bozak.

I'll hang up and be sure to ignore your next spewing of ignorance.

—30—

[TheJackBurton]

Don't kill the messenger. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Next up...
Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is what Doug Army excels at!!! The Blues will now SERIOUSLY OVERPAY to "fix" the Center problem. Another Leddy incoming.

Some franchises use the draft effectively to staff the roster. That is not the Blues way. They guarantee that the draft doesn't work for them by "staying competitve" to the last puck drop every season.

Dallas is on tonight if you want to watch what a team with Centers looks like.

Army is on over the next month if you want to watch desperation.

We needed a 2nd center last year and there were multiple on the markets that got seriously overpaid.

The Blues did not get involved in that market.

If Dougie is so desperate to overpay, as you say, why didn't he do it last year when there were multiple opportunities to do so?

[LGB73]

Don't kill the messenger. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Next up...
Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is what Doug Army excels at!!! The Blues will now SERIOUSLY OVERPAY to "fix" the Center problem. Another Leddy incoming.

Some franchises use the draft effectively to staff the roster. That is not the Blues way. They guarantee that the draft doesn't work for them by "staying competitve" to the last puck drop every season.

Dallas is on tonight if you want to watch what a team with Centers looks like.

Army is on over the next month if you want to watch desperation.

We needed a 2nd center last year and there were multiple on the markets that got seriously overpaid.

The Blues did not get involved in that market.

If Dougie is so desperate to overpay, as you say, why didn't he do it last year when there were multiple opportunities to do so?

He did overpay last year. He paid Buchnevich $8m for 6 years with the idea he would be the stop gap at C. No way Buch deserved $8m especially with our log jam at LW.

[TheJackBurton]

Don't kill the messenger. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Next up...
Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is what Doug Army excels at!!! The Blues will now SERIOUSLY OVERPAY to "fix" the Center problem. Another Leddy incoming.

Some franchises use the draft effectively to staff the roster. That is not the Blues way. They guarantee that the draft doesn't work for them by "staying competitve" to the last puck drop every season.

Dallas is on tonight if you want to watch what a team with Centers looks like.

Army is on over the next month if you want to watch desperation.

We needed a 2nd center last year and there were multiple on the markets that got seriously overpaid.

The Blues did not get involved in that market.

If Dougie is so desperate to overpay, as you say, why didn't he do it last year when there were multiple opportunities to do so?

He did overpay last year. He paid Buchnevich $8m for 6 years with the idea he would be the stop gap at C. No way Buch deserved $8m especially with our log jam at LW.

He's not overpaid.

He's coming off 76-67-63 and had a down year because of attempting him at center and still did 57.

That's a .9 ppg average. That is absolutely going to cost you 8 million or more.

Sam Bennett who is rumored to get 7.5-8 is coming off the following for the same time period-49-40-41-51 that's a .65 ppg average.