St. Louis Blues: Did The Blues Just Hire Their Next General Manager?

The St. Louis Blues have unexpectedly, and unwelcomingly brought on Peter Chiarelli as an advisor. Is he the next GM in waiting for the Blues? I will pause for a few minutes so you can get your vision back after that terrible, seizure like cringe.

The St. Louis Blues and Doug Armstrong are famous for bringing in former GMs as advisors. Army has a penchant for giving the falling GMs in the fraternity a leg up when times are rough. He’s done so for the likes of Tippet and others. I don’t have the full list handy, but it has been quite a few.

There were reports that Peter Chiarelli was chilling in the St. Louis Blues booth back in March, and the social media reaction was,” Get him far away from our team!” Apparently, Army doesn’t read much social media. Tom Stillman, I can understand, and no offense to my more senior readers, he’s from a different generation so it can be overlooked.

Kudos to Army for trying to help a brother out, but seriously? What on Earth can Chiarelli, AKA Chiapet, advise on? Hopefully, it’s on what not to do. I hope that they ask him his take and Doug says, “Ok everyone! You’ve heard him! Let’s do the opposite of everything he just suggested!” The picture I chose for this article says it all! He looks lost!

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What has Chia done recently that merits any role with any hockey team from pee-wee to the NHL? He has demolished Edmonton and left them in a state of cap turmoil!

He lucked out and got Connor McDavid, but after that, he’s systematically destroyed the roster around him.

Bad trades, bad contracts, and bad, bad, bad drafts are all anyone sees when you say Chia’s name.

So I ask again, “What on Earth?” My first thought and this is really going to strike fear into the hearts and minds of the Blue Bleeders and that Stillman wants Army to groom him as the next GM in waiting.

Have you picked up your phones, laptops, and desktops yet after reading that? I almost threw mine too after typing it!

Now GM Doug Armstrong has a contract until 2022-23. I don’t foresee him leaving prior to the end of the contract. So we have time to fret about this. It’s not out of the question for this to be a legitimate situation. We saw them do it with the head coaching position with Mike Yeo and Ken Hitchcock when Yeo was hired as the head coach in waiting.

Seeing how well that went, it makes perfect sense that the Blues would try this in another important team role. (sarcasm) Yeo did so well with the club we had to fire him, so let’s hire on his doppelganger as an advisor and see if we can sneak him into a more meaningful role. Let’s make it interesting and see if he can outdo Mike Keenan.

There is one other reason that Army and Stillman have done this, and it is a reason I can be on board with. That would be the Blues are throwing this dog a bone, hoping he lands another GM role on another club and Army can get all the top talent from Chia’s new team at a bargain-basement price!

Masterly manipulative yes, but if he’s going somewhere else, then Army better make sure he’s on his A-list for trade partners. Chiarelli was a disaster in Edmonton, he was okay in Boston, but I think that had more to do with the people around him and not Chiapet himself. What he’s doing as an advisor on the Blues I can’t say for sure. I can only speculate. Whatever it is I hope it’s short-lived and just a friendly courtesy like we’ve seen Army do for others.