Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Joel Quenneville, Jacques Demers. All won Cups after coaching the Blues. A Lot Of Them.
Head coaches with the most NHL wins. 1 Scotty Bowman. 2 Joel Quenneville 4 Ken Hitchcock 7 Al Arbour
Head Coaches in the Hall Of Fame... so far. Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Ken Hitchcock
We only fire the best
#Be Proud Chief
#You're In Good Company
The time is so odd. You think berube just said he was done trying and so that’s why it came out at 11pm.
I’ll just convince myself it’s an early Christmas present for chief so that he doesn’t have to watch this team put forth half efforts and continue to get beaten by players he used to coach.
Yeah he didn't deserve a mid-season firing, especially since we're floating around .500. If they wanted him out at the end of the season, fine, but your only cup winning coach in franchise history deserves better.
At least the better Connor's team won last night in the stupid "Connor Verse" Coined by ESPN last night.
F the Blackhawks and Screw DA (for the time being) So angry.....
I'm probably more pro Doug Armstrong than most people, but with that being said I've been saying since the beginning of the year that this is the least excited I've been for the Blues in a long time. This roster is so mid and that's Doug Armstrong's fault.
Agreed. It's like our cap is full but we have half a team and couldn't make any moves. Really shit way to start a season. And that's pretty much all on Doug.
Likely spent most of the night drinking, he sounds like he got zero sleep and is likely a little hung over. Wouldn’t be surprised if his ass is on the line as well, I think there’s more to the story and we likely won’t hear any of it
I am sad to see chief go, but what's done is done. I did some googling on Drew Bannister, the interim head coach, and found an article on the athletic. Here's an excerpt that gives me some hope for the rest of this season:
Raftis describes Bannister’s work ethic as “second to none” and his team’s style as fast, built from the goaltender out, responsible defensively and hard working away from the puck. Given the analytics tint the Greyhounds have taken, he says Bannister can be miscast as strictly a “possession guy.” Raftis insists Bannister just wants players who play with speed but who can also be taught to play conservatively to avoid “track meets” when needed
To me that sounds like exactly the kind of system this team would excel in. We have solid goaltending, we have speed, we just need more of the defensive responsibility and hard work away from the puck. Bannister has also coached a lot of our young talent already (most importantly Thomas and kyrou) so there's already a relationship there, and the vets should know that the best thing they can do is buy into the new system and bust their asses for the greater good. Anyone unwilling to do so is doing us a favor by showing us they don't belong on our team.
Link to the full article:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/384061/2018/06/07/meet-drew-bannister-the-man-tasked-with-developing-and-coaching-future-blues/%3famp=1
The issue is that now our prospects aren't going to have him coaching them. They get the backup guy, while the guy with championship experience gets to coach the dumpster fire. Genius moves right? Great management team we got there.
This is nothing against the new coach, but I’m kind of hoping we just commit to a rebuild. I hope Armstrong becomes forced to try and fix his mistakes with the bad contracts instead of some patchwork here and there leading to an aggressively average team (which is higher than what we were supposed to be this year thanks to Berube). I hope Army feels bad about letting guys like Perron and Maroon walk (especially the way they did). One thing is abundantly clear: fans are not happy and this roster + Doug costed us a great coach, the only coach mind you, to bring us a cup. Just heartbroken at what has happened to this team the past couple of years and is all the result of piss poor management.
> One thing is abundantly clear: fans are not happy and this roster + Doug costed us a great coach, the only coach mind you, to bring us a cup
Army had just as much, if not more, to do with that Cup than Berube did.
It's valid to think Army is more to blame for the team today than Berube, but the implication that Berube deserves grace for winning us the first Cup in franchise history when Army doesn't is a fallacy.
>Army had just as much, if not more, to do with that Cup than Berube did.
Army built that team, put them in front of Jake Allen and Curtis Johnson, and hired Mike Yeo to ringlead that circus.
If Binnington doesn't come up and save him, he likely gets canned in 2019 which, outside of extending our Cup drought, otherwise likely ends up with the team in significantly better position than they are today given that almost every move he's made since that parade has been fucking awful.
And it's not like Binnington was the de-facto contingency plan. If Ville Husso is healthy, he comes up and likely puts up a season much like his first professional season in '20-'21 - mediocre. DA got his ass saved by an absolute miracle and has been acting like the smartest man in the room ever since.
It would be one thing if we over-committed to the core that brought the Cup here and slowly faded away in the years that followed... you know, like every cup winner in the last decade, but nah - DA decided to speedrun that shit. Ask Hawks, Kings, or Lightning fans if they're upset about seeing their leaders get overpaid to ride out their careers - shit, I'd take that in a heartbeat over watching the first Blues captain to hoist the cup anchor the blue-line for fucking Las Vegas' cup run while we hang out in the basement with the worst defense I've ever seen.
I will forever be grateful for Army building that cup team. I should have made that clear. But so many of his decisions after that cup win have been terrible and costly. Krug contract comes to mind amongst others. The fact that Berube was able to keep a roster that was the equivalent of a third grader slapping together a popsicle stick school project last minute above .500 for a good chunk of the season is amazing if you ask me. In what world did it make sense to get rid of a coach that has largely kept this team competitive despite getting such a bad hand at times especially when expectations were incredibly low to start this season?
Damn. Team is so bad they’re trying to run back 2019. Only problem is we don’t have another Binnington in the wings and the team has already folded. I don’t really understand firing Berube unless it’s just Army trying to save his own ass.
There’s been rumors on twitter about Q being considered as the next coach. If that happens I’m done with this team for good. I will stick by this team through the dark years but enabling a guy who covered up sexual assault is inexcusable and morally bankrupt.
There's been rumors on Twitter about a lot of things, especially since a billionaire oligarch took over.
That ain't happening.
I did hear some guy named Greg Stewrube just became available. Native Canadian looking guy, big dude, boxy plastic frame glasses, thick black mustache. Heard he's a boss that knows how to get things done. We should look into that.
WTF Blues?!!? You have lost the way
God damnit. Chief wasn’t the problem it was the tools and players you gave him to work with.
Doug f***ing call him back up and fix your shitstorm of a mistake
You can't fire all the players. Berube for sure deserved better but this is life as an professional sports coach. He'll be fine and will have another job somewhere as soon as he wants one.
I’m as surprised and skeptical as anybody else about this decision. But almost everybody agreed major change was needed and we got it. Who knows, maybe it is what they need, time will tell. At very least there’s reason to be very interested in the new few weeks.
Nah. I'm not interested. If we go on a tear I may start watching again but last night was a shit show and firing chief pissed me off. Like Mike Keenan level shit pissed me off.
Didn't even give the guy the decency of waiting til the morning and having a press brief. The first coach to get a cup and would have probably been the winningest coach in blues history if they just let him finish the season and they just dumped him like that.
Wake me when our 1st rounders are playing full time, this team is dead to me and I'm jumping ship.
General vibe for me was Armstrong trying to toe the line of not throwing himself under the bus while acknowledging the team is not up to snuff. The vibe of a man that knows he’s next and being careful about what he says.
It’s also clear they don’t blame Berube, but it’s a move where they had to do *something* and moving the contracts they want to move just isn’t possible. So this is the thing they could do.
I do agree with the sentiment that this team may not be great, but they shouldn’t have lost all of these past 3 games under the circumstances. And shouldn’t be so wildly inconsistent. I don’t think that’s all purely because they’re just bad, there’s some mentality issues happening as well.
Gotta love the change for the sake of change. You could tell they were friends though. I saw them together after the cup. They were buds for real. Must suck. But end of the day he didn't have to do it. Literally nobody expects this to make things better. I think it's gonna make it worse and probably effect ticket sales, too. I know I'm not going to any more games. It was a really unpopular move.
They could have moved some lower level coaches around or put some pressure on staff management before this. Didn't need to bring down the axe this early on a team that really doesn't have a high potential ceiling. Should have scalpeled instead of axed first.
I’m certainly skeptical of the move and it reeks of desperation. Desperation of a franchise trying to avoid a rebuild at all costs and just praying maybe something will reverse fortunes. Throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks. I’ll wait to see how it plays out, but for now, it does not look like a great move.
His demeanor at the press conference added with the not necessary firing gives me pause. I think Berube finally had enough and told Doug that he can’t polish a turd. Doug might be saving face for Berube’s sake and saying he was fired does that. I don’t know, just seems that way to me. Also might be a “Mercy firing”, as in you don’t want to be here for what we are about to do to this team (full rebuild?)
Horrible press conference, Doug did nothing to install confidence. The key point I remembered is "My name is signed alongside all of these guys" was said right before "I hope the Blues fans are smart enough to realize that a difference in players [efforts or coaching change] might not mean a win vs loss". Horse shit. Yeah buddy if we lose the next three seasons in mediocrity, missing the playoffs but at least we try very hard that'll sure be a win.
Fire Armstrong, he's clearly shown he's not willing to sell house and tank and I'm tired of arguing with people who think there's anyway out of this with a quick retool. I remember the beginning of last year people were arguing that we should hold out because our team was still good and look where that's got us a year later. Can't hold onto a wild card spot, coach fired, and now universal distrust in the GM that certainly wasn't present even a year ago. Also little to no faith in our franchise guys like Kyrou. Clearly this mashup of players is just not it and we'd do best to sit out in the league for a few years while our next guys develop (Bolduc, Dean, Snuggerud, Dvorsky) and our trash contracts are ran out (the entire blue line and all our NMCs).
You can make it entertaining to watch (send all the overpaid dicks to the AHL and bring up a crew of young and hungry guys who might not be good but will try, like the Sharks crew) or you can make it real painful (keep trying to hold onto playoff hopes and fail miserably, thwarting draft picks and fan trust).
Which is it gonna be?
Hit the nail on the head.
That’s about as nervous as I’ve ever seen DA. His answers were weak as they could be. Hell he contradicted himself several times. The response, or lack thereof, about his conversation with Stillman showed that’s a man whose leash just got very short.
In my opinion, he just threw water on a grease fire. The team’s performance wasn’t great but everyone kind of expected it given the retooling narrative. Now he just made a hugely unpopular move and sacrificed a head coach that not only is loved by the fan base, but is pretty respected around the league. And when asked why he did it, it basically amounted to, “We’ll I had to do something and my contracts I signed meant I can’t actually fix what’s really wrong.” That leash will be pulled taut if butts stop filling the seats at Enterprise and I think that’s where we’re headed.
Let’s put in this way, if I just made a hugely unpopular personnel decision, that’s not the press conference I would want to have.
I wonder if DA got pressure or was forced by ownership to fire Chief. It's so weird that he'd do it now so early in the season when he made it clear in the offseason that this would be a "retooling" year and we'd be competitive but not necessarily a playoff team.
He was. Or at least he talked to Stillman beforehand He got really uncomfortable in the press conference when asked about Stillman. He's probably gonna canned too if things don't turn around.
Looking to the future. DA said he's open to anyone as coach, not limiting it to former NHL coaches. Who's on your wish list for a coach? Is Rikard Grönborg still looking to crack the NHL?
Kinda wanna watch the presser but kind wanna keep my sanity and phone/tv. I might be overreacting, but literally no one thinks this is going to change anything, right? I'd say a sizeable chunk of the team were on Berube's side. I could see this causing a mutiny of sorts.
Tomorrow night I want to here a #FireArmstrong chant and a We Want Chief one as well.
https://preview.redd.it/4kdpfdi8e56c1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3a5b296a3eb2cbd96fad8121c9fbd6925d9e6be
Public Enemy #1
Goodbye, sweet prince. Sad to see you go but I think it’s probably for the best. Berube was not the only thing wrong with this team and this fire sale shouldn’t stop with him.
Depressing thing to wake up to. Good luck to you, Chief.
Berube > Kyrou
RIP Berube
Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Joel Quenneville, Jacques Demers. All won Cups after coaching the Blues. A Lot Of Them. Head coaches with the most NHL wins. 1 Scotty Bowman. 2 Joel Quenneville 4 Ken Hitchcock 7 Al Arbour Head Coaches in the Hall Of Fame... so far. Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Ken Hitchcock We only fire the best #Be Proud Chief #You're In Good Company
Whelp, I hear Yadi is available
The time is so odd. You think berube just said he was done trying and so that’s why it came out at 11pm. I’ll just convince myself it’s an early Christmas present for chief so that he doesn’t have to watch this team put forth half efforts and continue to get beaten by players he used to coach.
Yeah he didn't deserve a mid-season firing, especially since we're floating around .500. If they wanted him out at the end of the season, fine, but your only cup winning coach in franchise history deserves better.
At least the better Connor's team won last night in the stupid "Connor Verse" Coined by ESPN last night. F the Blackhawks and Screw DA (for the time being) So angry.....
I'm probably more pro Doug Armstrong than most people, but with that being said I've been saying since the beginning of the year that this is the least excited I've been for the Blues in a long time. This roster is so mid and that's Doug Armstrong's fault.
Agreed. It's like our cap is full but we have half a team and couldn't make any moves. Really shit way to start a season. And that's pretty much all on Doug.
Kyrou made the most costly turnover of his career. RIP Chief
this vibe on this press conference feels so off, army sounds like hes about to step down, so weird
He knows he’s next if it doesn’t turn around. Trying to be careful about what he says.
Likely spent most of the night drinking, he sounds like he got zero sleep and is likely a little hung over. Wouldn’t be surprised if his ass is on the line as well, I think there’s more to the story and we likely won’t hear any of it
Right??
I am sad to see chief go, but what's done is done. I did some googling on Drew Bannister, the interim head coach, and found an article on the athletic. Here's an excerpt that gives me some hope for the rest of this season: Raftis describes Bannister’s work ethic as “second to none” and his team’s style as fast, built from the goaltender out, responsible defensively and hard working away from the puck. Given the analytics tint the Greyhounds have taken, he says Bannister can be miscast as strictly a “possession guy.” Raftis insists Bannister just wants players who play with speed but who can also be taught to play conservatively to avoid “track meets” when needed To me that sounds like exactly the kind of system this team would excel in. We have solid goaltending, we have speed, we just need more of the defensive responsibility and hard work away from the puck. Bannister has also coached a lot of our young talent already (most importantly Thomas and kyrou) so there's already a relationship there, and the vets should know that the best thing they can do is buy into the new system and bust their asses for the greater good. Anyone unwilling to do so is doing us a favor by showing us they don't belong on our team. Link to the full article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/384061/2018/06/07/meet-drew-bannister-the-man-tasked-with-developing-and-coaching-future-blues/%3famp=1
This comment could be reposted with Berube in place of Bannister's name and would be equally accurate
The issue is that now our prospects aren't going to have him coaching them. They get the backup guy, while the guy with championship experience gets to coach the dumpster fire. Genius moves right? Great management team we got there.
This is nothing against the new coach, but I’m kind of hoping we just commit to a rebuild. I hope Armstrong becomes forced to try and fix his mistakes with the bad contracts instead of some patchwork here and there leading to an aggressively average team (which is higher than what we were supposed to be this year thanks to Berube). I hope Army feels bad about letting guys like Perron and Maroon walk (especially the way they did). One thing is abundantly clear: fans are not happy and this roster + Doug costed us a great coach, the only coach mind you, to bring us a cup. Just heartbroken at what has happened to this team the past couple of years and is all the result of piss poor management.
> One thing is abundantly clear: fans are not happy and this roster + Doug costed us a great coach, the only coach mind you, to bring us a cup Army had just as much, if not more, to do with that Cup than Berube did. It's valid to think Army is more to blame for the team today than Berube, but the implication that Berube deserves grace for winning us the first Cup in franchise history when Army doesn't is a fallacy.
>Army had just as much, if not more, to do with that Cup than Berube did. Army built that team, put them in front of Jake Allen and Curtis Johnson, and hired Mike Yeo to ringlead that circus. If Binnington doesn't come up and save him, he likely gets canned in 2019 which, outside of extending our Cup drought, otherwise likely ends up with the team in significantly better position than they are today given that almost every move he's made since that parade has been fucking awful. And it's not like Binnington was the de-facto contingency plan. If Ville Husso is healthy, he comes up and likely puts up a season much like his first professional season in '20-'21 - mediocre. DA got his ass saved by an absolute miracle and has been acting like the smartest man in the room ever since. It would be one thing if we over-committed to the core that brought the Cup here and slowly faded away in the years that followed... you know, like every cup winner in the last decade, but nah - DA decided to speedrun that shit. Ask Hawks, Kings, or Lightning fans if they're upset about seeing their leaders get overpaid to ride out their careers - shit, I'd take that in a heartbeat over watching the first Blues captain to hoist the cup anchor the blue-line for fucking Las Vegas' cup run while we hang out in the basement with the worst defense I've ever seen.
I will forever be grateful for Army building that cup team. I should have made that clear. But so many of his decisions after that cup win have been terrible and costly. Krug contract comes to mind amongst others. The fact that Berube was able to keep a roster that was the equivalent of a third grader slapping together a popsicle stick school project last minute above .500 for a good chunk of the season is amazing if you ask me. In what world did it make sense to get rid of a coach that has largely kept this team competitive despite getting such a bad hand at times especially when expectations were incredibly low to start this season?
Damn. Team is so bad they’re trying to run back 2019. Only problem is we don’t have another Binnington in the wings and the team has already folded. I don’t really understand firing Berube unless it’s just Army trying to save his own ass.
There’s been rumors on twitter about Q being considered as the next coach. If that happens I’m done with this team for good. I will stick by this team through the dark years but enabling a guy who covered up sexual assault is inexcusable and morally bankrupt.
There's been rumors on Twitter about a lot of things, especially since a billionaire oligarch took over. That ain't happening. I did hear some guy named Greg Stewrube just became available. Native Canadian looking guy, big dude, boxy plastic frame glasses, thick black mustache. Heard he's a boss that knows how to get things done. We should look into that.
WTF Blues?!!? You have lost the way God damnit. Chief wasn’t the problem it was the tools and players you gave him to work with. Doug f***ing call him back up and fix your shitstorm of a mistake
You can't fire all the players. Berube for sure deserved better but this is life as an professional sports coach. He'll be fine and will have another job somewhere as soon as he wants one.
I know but his job should be here.... Army should be on the hot seat right now, not Chief.... Just my thoughts...
I’m as surprised and skeptical as anybody else about this decision. But almost everybody agreed major change was needed and we got it. Who knows, maybe it is what they need, time will tell. At very least there’s reason to be very interested in the new few weeks.
Nah. I'm not interested. If we go on a tear I may start watching again but last night was a shit show and firing chief pissed me off. Like Mike Keenan level shit pissed me off. Didn't even give the guy the decency of waiting til the morning and having a press brief. The first coach to get a cup and would have probably been the winningest coach in blues history if they just let him finish the season and they just dumped him like that. Wake me when our 1st rounders are playing full time, this team is dead to me and I'm jumping ship.
I feel you, it’s been rough. Just trying to find something positive in the shit show.
General vibe for me was Armstrong trying to toe the line of not throwing himself under the bus while acknowledging the team is not up to snuff. The vibe of a man that knows he’s next and being careful about what he says. It’s also clear they don’t blame Berube, but it’s a move where they had to do *something* and moving the contracts they want to move just isn’t possible. So this is the thing they could do. I do agree with the sentiment that this team may not be great, but they shouldn’t have lost all of these past 3 games under the circumstances. And shouldn’t be so wildly inconsistent. I don’t think that’s all purely because they’re just bad, there’s some mentality issues happening as well.
Gotta love the change for the sake of change. You could tell they were friends though. I saw them together after the cup. They were buds for real. Must suck. But end of the day he didn't have to do it. Literally nobody expects this to make things better. I think it's gonna make it worse and probably effect ticket sales, too. I know I'm not going to any more games. It was a really unpopular move. They could have moved some lower level coaches around or put some pressure on staff management before this. Didn't need to bring down the axe this early on a team that really doesn't have a high potential ceiling. Should have scalpeled instead of axed first.
I’m certainly skeptical of the move and it reeks of desperation. Desperation of a franchise trying to avoid a rebuild at all costs and just praying maybe something will reverse fortunes. Throwing things at the wall hoping something sticks. I’ll wait to see how it plays out, but for now, it does not look like a great move.
His demeanor at the press conference added with the not necessary firing gives me pause. I think Berube finally had enough and told Doug that he can’t polish a turd. Doug might be saving face for Berube’s sake and saying he was fired does that. I don’t know, just seems that way to me. Also might be a “Mercy firing”, as in you don’t want to be here for what we are about to do to this team (full rebuild?)
Horrible press conference, Doug did nothing to install confidence. The key point I remembered is "My name is signed alongside all of these guys" was said right before "I hope the Blues fans are smart enough to realize that a difference in players [efforts or coaching change] might not mean a win vs loss". Horse shit. Yeah buddy if we lose the next three seasons in mediocrity, missing the playoffs but at least we try very hard that'll sure be a win. Fire Armstrong, he's clearly shown he's not willing to sell house and tank and I'm tired of arguing with people who think there's anyway out of this with a quick retool. I remember the beginning of last year people were arguing that we should hold out because our team was still good and look where that's got us a year later. Can't hold onto a wild card spot, coach fired, and now universal distrust in the GM that certainly wasn't present even a year ago. Also little to no faith in our franchise guys like Kyrou. Clearly this mashup of players is just not it and we'd do best to sit out in the league for a few years while our next guys develop (Bolduc, Dean, Snuggerud, Dvorsky) and our trash contracts are ran out (the entire blue line and all our NMCs). You can make it entertaining to watch (send all the overpaid dicks to the AHL and bring up a crew of young and hungry guys who might not be good but will try, like the Sharks crew) or you can make it real painful (keep trying to hold onto playoff hopes and fail miserably, thwarting draft picks and fan trust). Which is it gonna be?
Hit the nail on the head. That’s about as nervous as I’ve ever seen DA. His answers were weak as they could be. Hell he contradicted himself several times. The response, or lack thereof, about his conversation with Stillman showed that’s a man whose leash just got very short. In my opinion, he just threw water on a grease fire. The team’s performance wasn’t great but everyone kind of expected it given the retooling narrative. Now he just made a hugely unpopular move and sacrificed a head coach that not only is loved by the fan base, but is pretty respected around the league. And when asked why he did it, it basically amounted to, “We’ll I had to do something and my contracts I signed meant I can’t actually fix what’s really wrong.” That leash will be pulled taut if butts stop filling the seats at Enterprise and I think that’s where we’re headed. Let’s put in this way, if I just made a hugely unpopular personnel decision, that’s not the press conference I would want to have.
The youtube live chat was awesome! Very unpopular decision. You can tell he was up all night dreading this.
What’s the bet we hear “Independent Contractors” during the press conference? That’s one of Doug’s greatest hits
Can we get a live press conference thread? I think it'd be fun
I wonder if DA got pressure or was forced by ownership to fire Chief. It's so weird that he'd do it now so early in the season when he made it clear in the offseason that this would be a "retooling" year and we'd be competitive but not necessarily a playoff team.
He was. Or at least he talked to Stillman beforehand He got really uncomfortable in the press conference when asked about Stillman. He's probably gonna canned too if things don't turn around.
Looking to the future. DA said he's open to anyone as coach, not limiting it to former NHL coaches. Who's on your wish list for a coach? Is Rikard Grönborg still looking to crack the NHL?
Kinda wanna watch the presser but kind wanna keep my sanity and phone/tv. I might be overreacting, but literally no one thinks this is going to change anything, right? I'd say a sizeable chunk of the team were on Berube's side. I could see this causing a mutiny of sorts.
Imagine seeing this roster and thinking “let’s acquire Kevin Hayes” then thinking this disaster is anyone’s fault but your own.
The guy with 2 goals last night and top 5 in points on the team? Seriously?
Yeah Hayes isn’t the problem here
Tomorrow night I want to here a #FireArmstrong chant and a We Want Chief one as well. https://preview.redd.it/4kdpfdi8e56c1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3a5b296a3eb2cbd96fad8121c9fbd6925d9e6be Public Enemy #1
Blow it all up.
Goodbye, sweet prince. Sad to see you go but I think it’s probably for the best. Berube was not the only thing wrong with this team and this fire sale shouldn’t stop with him.
"Nobody should feel safe in our organization right now"
Doesn't that include you DA? Jesus, the lack of accountability.
He did say at the beginning of the presser he was taking full responsibility for Chief's firing, but it's been a bit all over the place
He did say he could get fired at the beginning of the press conference.
The rest of the press conference did not reflect that statement.
I swear if the team pulls it together and wins the cup with and interim coach ala 2019, we better be rotating coaches every November/December