Today marks the one year anniversary of the firing of Doug(ass) Armstrong.
I won’t lie - I was ecstatic on November 13, 2007 when I came into my room after class to see that Tom Hicks had fired Armstrong. I called EVERYONE I knew who had the smallest bit of knowledge about the Stars to rave about how happy I was that this idiot finally got kicked out of his position as GM. I was excited by the newness of the Hulljack tandem. After a year, I can’t say I’m happy with Hulljack either. But in my mind, having one of the NESN announcers as GM would be better than Armstrong.
I guess Armstrong was never going to get my love since the only other GM I knew for the Stars was Bob Gainey… and that’s a hard act to follow – it doesn’t matter who you are. Armstrong struck out permanently with my family when he traded Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner his first week in office. Langenbrunner I didn’t care too much about – I never saw what the big deal was about him. He always seemed to be just a step away from being great, but he could never get there.
The Devils didn’t even WANT Nieuwendyk. The purpose of the trade was Arnott for Langenbrunner because they really wanted Jamie. Doug(ass) threw Nieuwy in to sweeten the deal. I still remember where I was when I heard about the trade. It was spring break, and I was trying to take a nap in my room when I heard my mom cry out that the Stars had gotten rid of Nieuwy, her favorite player at the time. Needless to say, that nap didn’t end up taking place.
Then there was the Darryl Sydor debacle. Armstrong didn’t just let go of him once – he did it twice and even refused to tell Syd whether or not the Stars were interested in signing him again. You DON’T do that to a guy like Sydor, and you knew how he thought about it when he said he was disappointed in the organization. Me too, Syd.
This is what Armstrong was so willing to give up – a man who cared so much for the team that he CRAWLED to the front of the net with a broken ankle because he couldn’t get off the ice.
Perhaps even worse than that was when Armstrong was ready and willing to let Mike Modano go to Chicago. Luckily Tom Hicks stepped in, and I like to imagine he said something along the lines of, “Hey stupid, this is our franchise player. Don’t be dumb enough to just let him leave. Ok? Thanks.”
Big moves aside, Armstrong was famous for trading first round draft picks for old and washed-up players who wouldn’t stay with the team for long. Norstrom’s play in the 2008 postseason was enough to almost completely make up for the previous year of over-paid, almost worthlessness.. but I would have liked the first round pick.
I will give Armstrong a little credit – he did manage to steal Ribeiro from Montreal and gave Brenden a huge contract extension.
But I’m not sure Hulljack have done a better job as GM.
The Stars seem to have a protocol for new GMs – be sure to trade my mom’s favorite hockey player as soon as possible. Hulljack’s first move was to send Jeffy, Smitty, and Jokinen to Tampa for Brad Richards. Now, I don’t think Richards is as much of an idiot as I did when we got him (“I only want to play for winning teams” = I don’t want to help work to make a team better), but I still think we gave up way too much in the trade. This would have been Smitty’s last season on his contract, and I think they should have let the 2 goalies split time this season, and then pick a starter at the end of the season. Then work on sending the other guy to a team he wouldn’t be totally against going to.
I’m not saying Smitty would have gotten the job with us. It just would have been nice to actually let them play it out instead of deciding without giving Smitty a chance. Then the Stars would know for sure that they picked the right goalie for the long-term – something I don’t think they can say today.
And just throwing this out there – it’d be really nice to have a good checking line center who can take faceoffs and absorb almost all the short-handed time. We lost that by getting rid of Jeffy and with Stu’s retirement. Basically, we went from 2 great checking-line centers to zero. And Mike Modano is NOT a checking line center. I don’t care if he’s “old” or “not the face of the team anymore”. He could still score a hell of a lot more goals if they would give him the opportunity to.
Then there was my favorite (heh) decision to tell Hagman that the Stars were “going in a different direction” and weren’t interested in signing him. I guess a mid-twenties, 27-goal scorer didn’t fit into their plans. Instead, we needed to sign Sean Avery. I’m still waiting for someone to explain that one to me.
While I’m on this topic, can someone explain to me why we need 4 players who serve the exact same purpose at different levels of effectiveness? Otter, Barch, Avery, and Crombeen are all the same type of player. We don’t need 4 of them – one, or maybe two, would suffice. Ott is best at the job, so keep him.
They have done good things. Getting the long extension for Ribeiro was good, and picking up Brunnstrom has the potential to be great. Sadly they promised him all NHL time when he could really benefit more from playing a lot of minutes in the AHL.
In my mind, Hulljack have built a team with way too many players serving the same purpose (and not that goal-scoring, game-winning purpose) and put all their faith in a goalie who may not have been the best decision for the job.
If I knew last year at this time that Jeffy, Haggy, Smitty, Mittens, and Jussi would be gone and replaced with Brad Richards and Sean Avery… well I probably wouldn’t have been so excited on the phone with everyone.
Amy
I couldn’t agree more with just about every point that you made!
The way the Stars treated Sydor is ridiculous. And now he’s the odd man out for the Penguins too; I don’t get it. He might be getting paid more than they feel like he’s worth, but the guy can still contribute. Let him skate! (I’d love to see him come back to Dallas to replace Norstrom’s veteran experience in the D… but I can’t imagine he’d be thrilled with that scenario.)
I also can’t believe we let so much (relatively) young talent walk away in the past year. Gimme Hagman and Mittens (or even Hagman OR Mittens) over Avery any day. (Not to say Avery isn’t good at what he does, but like you said, how many guys do we REALLY need filling that role? Especially at the price we’re paying?)
I wouldn’t be so upset with the Richards trade if we didn’t have to take on his monster salary… but we gave up a goaltender with a lot of potential, a great checking center, and a great “glue player” for (essentially) one guy — and, in doing so, we’ve put ourselves in a sticky salary cap situation. I hope this doesn’t turn into another Bill Guerin situation!
Sure, Modano can play PK (and he can play PK well), but he can also still put the puck in the back of the net. I’ll agree, he’s not a checking line guy; give him a bigger role (or at least let him skate with Neal again) — he can handle it!
I’m happy with the Brunnstrom and Parrish signings (even at Brunnstrom’s salary, and with his — essentially — one way contract; and especially with Parrish’s relatively small salary).
Considering what we gave up for Arnott (Langenbrunner was my favorite player. He’s got great leadership skills and he plays “Stars hockey”. He’s just too injury prone. The same could have been said for Todd Harvey), I wish we would have kept the guy around instead of letting him leave via free agency. I’m certainly glad we didn’t make that mistake with Modano.
I’ll give Armstrong a C and Hulljack a B-.
Thanks for your opinion Colby
Langenbrunner is a good player, I just felt like he never really quite “got it” while he was here. I’m sure part of that had to do with him playing on a team with Modano, Hull, Nieuwy, Keane… a lot of guys who had already gotten it. I am glad to see he’s doing well in New Jersey – it’s always good to see players do well when they go to the other conference!
I liked Arnott a lot too. It took me a while though because I disliked him simply because he wasn’t Nieuwendyk.. but he ended up being one of my favorites after he played a full season with us. I was sad to see him go, but he really wanted to be a first line center somewhere, and that wasn’t an option at that time with the Stars.
I like the Parrish deal so far, but he hasn’t really played enough for us for me to judge him one way or another. And I find it’s better to remove players’ first games when looking at how well they’ve done – Richards, Brunnstrom, and Parrish all had amazing first games, but I wouldn’t kick Brenden and Ribeiro off the first line to make room for any of them
Be sure to stick around the blog – I’d love to hear more about what you have to say.
Amy
Langenbrunner “got it” in the ’99 playoffs. I already liked the guy, but 10 goals and 7 assists for a guy that most people outside of Dallas had never heard of? That was pretty awesome! (Granted, he definitely didn’t keep that pace, statistically, over the remainder of his career in Dallas.)
Arnott wanted to be a first line center, and that wasn’t happening in Dallas… but I can’t remember why? By then, they’d already started demoting Modano (even though they shouldn’t have). We had Lindros, but I think we went into that deal knowing that he wasn’t as dominant as he was in his days with the Flyers. We didn’t get Ribeiro until after we lost Arnott, right? Barns and Stefan weren’t first line guys, and Lundqvist was struggling for ice time.
It always felt to me like they brought in Ribeiro and Nagy to replace Arnott. (In hindsight, it’s definitely worked out with Ribeiro; but it seemed like a bad move at the time. It always feels like a bad move when we let good players walk away though, even when it’s the right business move.)
I don’t like the Parrish deal based on his first game. I like the Parrish deal based on the fact that we got a veteran presence (for stability, which we desperately need) and potential finisher for all of our set-up men. If we signed him for $2mil, I’d say the jury was out. He’s a bargain at $500k though!
I think I remember reading that the Stars told Arnott that Modano would always have the “title” of first-line center, and Arnott wanted to be somewhere he was the leader. That’s not really their viewpoint now though. We didn’t Ribeiro until Arnott left.
I do like that we got Parrish for the veteran presence, but I really thought Shanahan would have been a better fit and able to provide a lot more veteran knowledge. It wouldn’t be any sort of long term solution though, since he probably only has a year or two left of playing time.
Amy
Wow. Maybe I should make statements here more often. The Stars just re-acquired Sydor! Woot Woot!