How GM Doug Armstrong rebuilt the Blues at center: ‘It’s very impressive’

There’s a lot to like about the Blues’ roster.

The club has one of the most prolific goal scorers in the NHL, when healthy, in right winger Vladimir Tarasenko. There isn’t a team in the league that wouldn’t drive to St. Louis and pick up Colton Parayko. And no franchise in league history has ever had a rookie goaltender record all 16 Stanley Cup wins, as Jordan Binnington did in 2019.

No position, however, has the quality and depth that the Blues have at center, where there’s Ryan O’Reilly, Robert Thomas, Tyler Bozak and Oskar Sundqvist. There’s enough that coach Craig Berube can afford to move Brayden Schenn to left wing and flip Sundqvist to right wing because Ivan Barbashev can also play in the middle.

“That’s probably one of our biggest strengths on our team,” Blues winger David Perron said. “I think for years we had some great centermen, but to have that high-end, offensive skill and playmaking ability, I’m not sure we ever had that to the level we have right now. It’s very impressive and those guys, they make it so much fun to play. You know you’re going to get your chances.”

In two short seasons, O’Reilly has won a Stanley Cup, a Conn Smythe trophy, a Selke Trophy, made two All-Star appearances and was recently named captain. That’s not all: O’Reilly has also taken Thomas under his wing the past two years, and now the 2017 first-round pick is ready for a top-six role, centering Jaden Schwartz and Mike Hoffman.

“It’s really exciting,” Thomas said. “It’s something I’ve worked the last two years for. I’ve tried my best to earn it, and to feel that trust from the coaching staff is awesome and it kind of shows the hard work’s paid off to get me this chance and now I’ve just got to run away with it.”

Then there’s Bozak, Sundqvist, Barbashev and the list goes on.

“I may be biased because I’ve played center most of my career, but I think it’s a pretty important position to have a lot of depth in throughout a team,” Bozak said. “We’ve got guys that can move to center or move to wing. I think that helps a lot with injuries and just how guys are playing throughout the year, who’s confident and who’s playing better in certain areas. So yeah, you can never have too much center depth for sure.”

It wasn’t always this way in St. Louis, where for years the Blues struggled to find a No. 1 center and all-around quality, whether it be missing out in the draft, the inability to make an impactful trade or be able to afford help in free agency.

In April, Mark Lazerus from The Athletic Chicago and I posed this question: What if the Blues had drafted Jonathan Toews No. 1 in 2006 instead of Erik Johnson? They didn’t, as Toews went No. 3 to rival Chicago, and the search continued.

What if the Blues had drafted Jonathan Toews No. 1 overall in 2006? Colleague @MarkLazerus and I went back in time … https://t.co/29Mgf6flj9 #stlblues #blackhawks

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) April 22, 2020

In 2006, the summer the Blues took Johnson at No. 1, they selected Patrik Berglund later in the first round. He did have a productive 10-year career with the club, but after Hall of Famer Paul Kariya once said that Berglund would be a 100-point player in the NHL, Berglund eclipsed half of that total (52 points) just once.

In 2007, the Blues had the No. 9 pick in the draft but traded it to San Jose for the Nos. 13 and 44 picks that year and a third-round selection in 2008. The Sharks drafted Logan Couture, who has gone on to post 256 goals and 546 points in 715 games. The Blues took center Lars Eller at No. 13, right winger Aaron Palushaj at No. 44, and right winger Ian Schultz at No. 87 the following year. Two years later, they traded Eller and Schultz to Montreal and sent Palushaj to Montreal for Matt D’Agostini. Both Jaroslav Halak and D’Agostini had decent careers for the Blues, but nothing like Couture’s impact in San Jose.

Later in 2007, they acquired Andy McDonald from Anaheim, and in six seasons in St. Louis, he put up 230 points in 294 games. He was solid and brought much-needed skill to the club, but in his early- to mid-30s, his expiration date was looming.

In 2008, the Blues drafted Jori Lehtera in the third round, but the Finnish center needed seven years to finally come to North America and make his NHL debut. He showed some promise with 14 goals and 44 points as a rookie in 2014-15, but after getting a three-year, $14.1 million extension, he never saw the end of it in St. Louis.

Later in 2008, they acquired Alexander Steen in a trade with Toronto. He had a 33-goal season in 2013-14, but his career in St. Louis was spent mostly on the wing and he was known more for his all-around ability than his offense.

In 2010, the team traded for Boston’s Vladimir Sobotka, but like Steen, Sobotka was more of a defense-minded center with a limited scoring touch.

That summer, Doug Armstrong officially took over as the Blues’ general manager, after two years as the team’s GM-in-waiting. A year later, his centers were Berglund (6-4, 215), David Backes (6-foot-3, 215 pounds) and Jason Arnott (6-5, 220).

“I think the general philosophy is a hockey team is built down the middle of the ice — center ice, defense and goalie — and I’ll go back to my first year in St. Louis,” Armstrong said. “I really liked the size of our centermen. We were able to bring Jason Arnott in, we had Backes and Bergie. You have to remember it was a different time back then. You were playing against (Anaheim’s Ryan) Getzlaf in his prime, you were playing against (San Jose’s Joe) Thornton in his prime, Toews was coming on. So you really needed size and strength down the middle.”

It’s hard to argue with Armstrong’s blueprint because the Blues would make six consecutive trips to the playoffs, and while they had their chances against Los Angeles and Chicago, those clubs proved to be more seasoned.

Then the NHL saw a shift to a faster, more skilled league, and the Blues didn’t have any centers with those traits. They had a tough time signing top free agents, but in 2014 they brought St. Louisan Paul Stastny back home on a four-year, $28 million deal.

“The game evolves and you have to evolve with it,” Armstrong said. “Down the middle of the ice, we had to change as the game changed.”

With Backes already locked into a deal, the Blues re-signed Berglund to a three-year contract extension in 2014, added Stastny and lured Lehtera to town.

Stastny was the Blues’ first top-two line center in a long while and will be remembered as a solid signing, netting 56 goals and 175 points in 267 games. But in 2018, with a long playoff run unlikely, the Blues unloaded him in the final year of the deal, after already moving Lehtera.

“Lehtera was one that we did draft that showed great chemistry with Vladi (Tarasenko),” Armstrong said. “His first year over here was outstanding, so we hoped we had a great player with size who had chemistry with Vladi. That obviously didn’t work out, so you knew that you had to start looking outside. So we went after Schenn, you know, trying to build your team the way most successful teams are built straight down the middle.”

Schenn was drafted by Los Angeles as a center, but after a trade to Philadelphia, he found himself on the wing. The Blues gave the Flyers two first-round picks and Lehtera for Schenn, whom they gave a shot at center. He responded with a career-high 28 goals and 70 points.

“I knew that Schenn liked to play the middle, but he had played a lot of wing,” Armstrong said. “We were just looking to get a better hockey player on our team, someone that was versatile, that if we got him into the middle and he had success, we could keep him there. But just because a player wants to play a certain spot, his best spot might be somewhere different.

“So we were going to give him an opportunity at center, but I knew that if he went over to the wing, he was still going to be a good top-six player. Schenner was just to improve our team. We needed a player that could make us better and we gave up future assets to be a better team.”

That day — June 23, 2017 — was the start of the Blues’ transformation at center, which is illustrated year by year in this chart.

In the first round of the 2017 NHL Draft, the Blues selected Thomas with the No. 20 pick. He played one more year of junior hockey, then helped the Blues win a Stanley Cup as a rookie.

“Keith Tkachuk knew him very well because he played in London (Ontario), so he had some information,” Armstrong said. “I’ve got to give Keith a lot of credit, you know, because that’s the experience you have with guys in the field. We had Robby higher on our draft list, to the point if we were picking seven or eight slots higher, he still would have been our pick.

“But Keith said, ‘We don’t have to move up to get him. He’s going to be there.’ So instead of using other assets to move up, I trusted the guys in their assessment that he would be there, and, lo and behold, he was. (Thomas’) story is still in the first chapter, but it looks like it could be a long book and a fun read.”

In a draft-day deal later that night, the Blues traded Ryan Reaves to Pittsburgh for a first-round pick and a bottom-six center. They turned the pick (No. 31) into Russian prospect Klim Kostin, and the bottom-six center, Sundqvist, was an afterthought. But after a slow start in St. Louis, Sundqvist has been a phenomenal find.

“That’s an interesting one because we were going to take Sundqvist (in the 2012 draft) and Pittsburgh got him right before we picked that year,” Armstrong said. “He was a player that our scouts liked. (Assistant GM) Kevin McDonald scouted (the Penguins’ minor-league affiliate), and he kept saying, ‘This Sundqvist, he’s really coming on.’ I thought we were going to get him, but then Pitt took him. So Sundqvist was a player when they acquired about Reaves, he was someone we felt could help our franchise.”

As it turns out, the Blues got lucky. Five picks later, at No. 81, with Sundqvist off the board, they took defensemen Colton Parayko, who’s now their No. 1 defenseman.

But it’s hard to say that development has been more fortunate than the one that happened July 1, 2018, when they acquired O’Reilly for Berglund, Sobotka, prospect Tage Thompson and a first-round pick. The deal has been well documented, but the extended backstory makes it even more unbelievable.

“You start to date yourself, but I remember his draft year (2009), we would ask players who’s the hardest guy to play against in the (Ontario Hockey League) and O’Reilly’s name kept coming up,” Armstrong said. “It’s something that sticks in your mind, and then you saw him as a young player in Colorado. He looked good, but then he had a contract situation, so as a manager, you don’t sour on him, but you start to wonder about him. Then he gets into Buffalo, and they weren’t having success in the regular season, so he made a lot of World Championship teams. And with me being involved in Hockey Canada and getting ready for the Olympics, I asked the (World Championship coaches) ‘Who played well over there?’ and his name kept popping up again.

“So he was a guy where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and (Blues director of player personnel) Robby DiMaio thought very highly of him, so he was a guy we targeted. We tried to do that trade at the draft and it didn’t work out. We couldn’t get him, so we re-engaged with Stastny at the time, and we went after Bozak. Then Buffalo came back and everything happened in a couple of hours.”

Earlier in the afternoon, thinking the ship had sailed on O’Reilly, the Blues signed Bozak to a three-year, $15 million contract. In a matter of hours, he went from the Blues’ No. 2 center to their No. 3, bolstering their depth.

“That was another situation where Robby DiMaio saw Toronto play a lot,” Armstrong said. “I have a ton of respect for (former Maple Leafs coach) Mike Babcock, and I know Mike had big trust in (Bozak). I think Mike would’ve liked to have Bozak back, but they were committing dollars to other players, and what Mike wanted and what their salary was were different, so he became a free agent. He was a player that wasn’t going to be front-page news, but because he touched so many aspects of our game and his character, he was going to affect us on and off the ice.”

Here’s the kicker: If the Blues had pulled off the O’Reilly trade at the draft, and Berglund had not been included, they wouldn’t have pursued Bozak.

“So somehow everybody’s tentacles touch somebody else’s,” Armstrong said.

Suddenly, the roster had Schenn, O’Reilly, Bozak, Sundqvist and Thomas on the way from junior hockey.

“So we went from a team that was lacking centermen to a team that was trying to throw centers back to the wing, which is a much better problem to have,” Armstrong said.

Which is what they’re doing with Schenn this season, moving him to left wing so Thomas can climb the depth chart, and Sundqvist, switching him to right wing and putting Barbashev in the middle.

The quality and depth now are much more impressive than just a few short years ago. It took a lot of wheeling and dealing and maneuvering.

“I don’t know if we’d have this philosophy if we were picking in the top five for four or five years, but we’re not picking in the top five for four or five years,” Armstrong said. “So you build your team around the assets you can acquire, and the assets that we have the ability to acquire are players that are maybe 50-75 points players that help you win, not 100-point players. If you get enough 50-75 point players, or 18-25 goal guys, you’re going to win a lot of games.

“I don’t want to sell those guys (from previous years) short. If you look at those guys, those guys were all a part of 100-point teams. It’s not like they’re chopped liver. Our point totals haven’t really changed over the last decade. But this group here, there’s more players in their prime than we’ve had in the past, meaning our top two centermen are in their 20s. We have a lot of players in our group that are in the prime of their careers.”

(Photo of Robert Thomas and Ryan O’Reilly: Scott Rovak / NHLI via Getty Images)