St. Louis Blues Doug Armstrong Has No Time To Celebrate

St. Louis Blues fans have never had to think about actual hockey for this long during the spring, so while the rest of the league is gearing up for the offseason, Blues fans need time to decompress. Doug Armstrong does not have the luxury of time.

St. Louis Blues fans are still experiencing the hangover from the Stanley Cup win. The final game was 11 days ago and we are all still basking in the glow of that most precious trophy in all sports.

It might actually take until the start of the 2019-20 regular season for some of us to finally get used to the idea of being champions. The offseason is incredibly short for champions and we will need every bit of it to come back to reality.

There is no rest for the weary in Doug Armstrong. Armstrong’s vacation is more likely to happen at the start of any given season in a sense. That’s when all the deals are done and nobody is thinking about any trades.

Right now, Armstrong has no time to celebrate. He even made mention that he had celebration time through the championship parade and then it was back to the serious work of a general manager.

There will be plenty of work for Armstrong to do this summer. While all of the top-six forwards are under contract for at least one more season, there are a lot of deals that have to be worked out with the rest of the team.

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St. Louis only has four unrestricted free agents, but they have seven restricted free agents. As of this moment, the Blues have a little over $17 million, but that will dry up quickly with seven offer sheets likely to be handed out.

Armstrong also has some interesting decisions regarding his unrestricted free agents. Carl Gunnarsson became slightly expendable during the playoffs, but the Blues are not quite as deep defensively as we thought just months ago. Do they want to bring him back at 32-plus or will another team offer him too much money?

Pat Maroon is probably the biggest question mark for the Blues going forward. He took the hometown discount to be closer to his son for one year and did everything any St. Louis kid could dream of by winning the Cup in his home city.

Even if he wants to stay in St. Louis, there is no way he will sign a new deal for the same amount of money. How much extra will he want and does that price the Blues out of the equation?

They have some other players that will demand raises too in the restricted market. The blues have already stated they are going to give Jordan Binnington a hefty raise.

Now, Binnington was earning under $1 million before bonuses. So, a hefty raise could mean different things to different people.

Ivan Barbashev, Robby Fabbri, Oskar Sundqvist and Zach Sanford are all restricted free agents as well. All four of them were key players in the Stanley Cup Final at one point or another, so you would figure Armstrong would like to bring back all or most of them. While you have a certain amount of certainty with restricted free agents, they are all going to be wanting raises of some kind.

Armstrong also has an difficult decision regarding Alexander Steen. Who knows how deeply it is being looked into, but there is a rumor that the team is considering buying out the remaining two years of his contract.

That sounds all well and good, but that still gets you a cap hit. The total cap hit would be $8.5 million, spread over four years. However 2020-21 would have a hit of over $3 million.

On the one hand, you do clear off space, freeing up almost $4 million for 2019-20. On the other hand, it just feels slightly dirty to basically cut a guy right after winning the Cup. That is part of the business and even something most fans would have jumped on before now, but still feels a bit icky to consider.

These are the things facing Armstrong mere days after celebrating the biggest achievement of his professional career. Oh, and the NHL Draft is this weekend too.

The Blues do not have a first round pick, but that does not preclude them from making deals or listening to phone calls.

Nobody is going to cry for Army. He’s getting compensated very well. Nevertheless, it seems so odd to get such a short time to celebrate before you have to go right back to work in earnest.