Blues GM Armstrong Named GM of 2026 Canada Olympic Hockey Team
The current Blues GM, who's held the position since July of 2010, will oversee all of Canada's international competition leading up to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.
By Andy Knapp
Team Canada has named current St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong as one of its 3 main leaders for its future 2026 Olympic men's hockey team. Armstrong joins former player Ryan Getzlaf, current director of player development for the Anaheim Ducks, and Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada's senior VP of high performance and hockey operations.
The 59-year-old Armstrong, a Sarnia, Ont. native, has won 3 gold medals at the World Championships in 2007, 2016, and last year, plus 2 silvers in 2008 and 2009. With the Blues, Armstrong is a Stanley Cup winner in 2019, after winning as assistant GM of Central Division rival Dallas in 1999, and won NHL GM of the Year after the 2011-12 season, which saw the Blues make it to the conference semifinals, eventually being swept by that year's champion, Los Angeles.
He also recently became the 11th GM in NHL history with 800 career wins after the Blues' 2-1 shootout victory in Philadelphia on March 4. Coincidentally, the next winningest GM is Flyers great Bobby Clarke with 806 wins, so if Armstrong should surpass him, it'd put him in 10th all-time, with 9th ahead being Emile Francis, a former Blues GM, coach, and executive VP from 1976-83 who is most remembered for rebuilding the New York Rangers in the midst of their 54-year Cup drought.
Armstrong has been in charge of the Blues for nearly 14 years and has logged nearly 1500 games with the franchise. That ranks 3rd all time in franchise history, behind Ron Caron, GM from 1984-1997 and his successor Larry Pleau, who served from 1998 to the beginning of Armstrong's tenure.
He is the winningest GM in Blues history percentage-wise, holding a strong .635 over 2nd place Scotty Bowman, who held the position for only 2 years (1969-71), garnering a .584 win percentage. Once more, Armstrong is the only Blues GM to win a Cup with St. Louis in 2019, as mentioned earlier.
Armstrong was originally slated to be named GM for Canada's 2022 Olympic team in Beijing but chose not to after the NHL decided not to send its players to the Chinese capital. He was replaced by longtime Arizona Coyotes captain Shane Doan. These three men will bring a tremendous amount of international hockey management experience to Milan in a couple of years, but it may just be Armstrong's resume that is most impressive.