Random thoughts: Blues aggressiveness pays off, Canadiens making unexpected playoff push and more

St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong has a strong case for the GM of the year award, what your team needs to do to secure an Eastern Conference wild-card spot and more.

Some random NHL thoughts…..

There are a lot of good candidates for the NHL’s general manager of the year award, but if I were a betting man I would put good money on St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong running away with it. Not because he built one of the NHL’s best teams, but because his team is currently exceeding expectations, is going into the playoffs on a dominant run that is going to catch headlines at the right time of year, and because he made some wildly aggressive moves that have all paid off in a massive way.

That stuff gets attention.

Especially when it is as impactful as Armstrong’s moves have been.

— After missing the playoffs two years in a row and settling into the NHL’s “mid” level, Armstrong made one of the boldest moves of the offseason when he hit the Edmonton Oilers with a double restricted free agent offer sheet to try and poach forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg away from a cap-strapped team.

It was the type of bold, aggressiveness not typically seen in restricted free agency, and it was brilliant.

It has also worked out far better than anybody could have possibly hoped.

Holloway has been one of the Blues’ best forwards, is second on the team in scoring, is only 23 years old and under contract through next season at only $2.9 million against the salary cap. He is one of the biggest bargains in the NHL right now, and was one of the best offseason additions in the league.

Broberg, meanwhile, brought some much-needed youth, offense and change to a defense that has been one of the NHL’s worst in recent years. He not only has a respectable 27 points in 63 games entering play on Thursday, he also has excellent defensive metrics and impacts. He is a little more expensive than Holloway at $4.9 million, but that should still be a bargain next season, especially under a rising salary cap.

— When the Boston Bruins made the decision to fire head coach Jim Montgomery early in the season, Armstrong did not waste any time in firing his head coach (Drew Bannister) that he had just made the team’s full-time head coach a few months earlier. You hear sometimes about how if certain head coaches were fired “they’d have another job in a minute,” and the Blues proved that with how quickly they dumped their guy to get Montgomery. It is not that Bannister was necessarily doing a bad job (I am not sure he was doing a great job, either), it is just that Montgomery is more proven and a more highly regarded coach.

— Armstrong also made what has turned out to be one of the best in-season trades of the season when he continued to bolster his defense by adding Cam Fowler from the Anaheim Ducks. Fowler has been absolutely sensational all over the ice since joining the Blues, and along with Broberg has helped completely re-invent the Blues defense.

That is a huge development because the Blues defense was one of its biggest Achilles heels the past few years. They never adequately replaced Alex Pietrangelo when he left for the Vegas Golden Knights in free agency, or Vince Dunn when they lost him in the expansion draft process to the Seattle Kraken.

When they won the Stanley Cup in 2019 they were a top-five team pretty much across the board in defensive metrics, including third in expected goals against. In each year after that the number steadily dropped, going to 11th, to 20th, to 29th, holding at 29th, to 28th a year ago.

Bottom line: They no longer defended well and had not really made any real changes to that unit.

Broberg and Fowler are now two of their biggest minute-eaters and the results speak for themselves.

The table below shows the Blues’ defensive metrics at the start of the season under Bannister, what they have done since hiring Montgomery and what they have done since adding Fowler.

All of it is a great argument for Armstrong to get serious GM of the year consideration.

It is a completely different team since hiring Montgomery and adding Fowler. Also one of the best teams in the NHL.

It is also worth mentioning that Broberg missed pretty much all of November (most of which came with Bannister as head coach) before returning in early December. With him and Fowler in the lineup the defense has completely transformed itself. Which is exactly what the Blues needed.

There has been a big boost in the Blues’ goaltending recently, and especially since the start of February, but it has still only been league average for the season and the defensive improvements overall are what is really driving this turnaround.

It would not be the first time an in-season coaching change helped spark an incredible turnaround for the Blues. I do not know if this team has the high-end talent to repeat what the 2018-19 team did and actually win the Stanley Cup, but I do know they are going to be a miserable matchup for a divisional winner in the opening round.

The Eastern Conference playoff race is, again, a pile of mediocrity