10 questions with Doug Armstrong

Blues General Manager Doug Armstrong met with the media Wednesday for his annual press conference to wrap up the season.
Among the topics discussed were Vladimir Tarasenko's injury, whether Alex Pietrangelo will be re-signed, Jordan Binnington's play in the postseason and more.
Here's what Armstrong had to say:

1. Do you have any general thoughts on why it didn't click for your team up in Edmonton?
DOUG ARMSTRONG: We're still sort of digging through that. I thought coming into Phase 3, there was a lot going on around our organization. Of our regular players, I think we had like 20 percent of those guys had had COVID at some point. Their mindset was always to be competitive and to play hard, but they had a lot going on around them. Four or five guys had just had babies or were going to have babies. The information about COVID was changing every day on how it was going to affect older people, younger people and babies. It took us awhile. I thought we got the most comfortable when we finally got to Edmonton, but I didn't think we were comfortable heading into Edmonton. I think that showed early on in our first couple weeks there.
2. Do you think the COVID cases affected the conditioning level of some of your players?
ARMSTRONG: Yeah it did, just because when they were quarantining, they couldn't go to the gym or do certain things. It affected each player differently. Some lost a considerable amount of weight. They all felt some form of a symptom. It wasn't that they had it and didn't feel anything.
3. Do you have any update on Vladimir Tarasenko and how limited was he throughout his play up there in Edmonton?
ARMSTRONG: He was very limited (when he returned) He had shoulder surgery obviously at the start of the season. He rehabbed, he came back, we had to do another MRI. He wasn't feeling good. That surgery [in October] didn't take the way that we had hoped, it wasn't successful. He's going to go back in and have more surgery next week, and it's serious in the sense that he won't be with us and he won't be re-evaluated until five months after the date of the surgery.
It's certainly not a positive that we're going through right now. We just know he prepares and trains hard and needs to get back and play well for us. It's a concern in the sense that he's going to have three surgeries.
4. The team performed very well without Tarasenko in the regular season. Because of this news, and that a five month absence could eat into the regular season, do you have to think about looking for more scoring to add to your lineup?
ARMSTRONG: Scoring wasn't an issue for us last season. Having Vladi in our lineup makes us a better team, so no, I don't think we're going to go out and try to replace Vladi with another Vladi. We all know what the salary cap situation is. Jordan Kyrou has to come back and be given an opportunity to have an impact on our team and he has to take that opportunity to run with it. I think there are internal players that are going to come back (and we can use)… The core group that had a good 70-game (regular season) are under contract."
5. What about other injuries? Does anyone else need offseason surgeries?
ARMSTRONG: A couple of guys are getting some more information, but nothing I'm prepared or able to report today. For the most part, the majority of the guys seem ready to get to their fall programs and get back up here and ready to go. No one that might need a clean up or whatever is in danger of not being ready when we start.
6. How does the salary cap affect whether you'll be able to re-sign Alex Pietrangelo, and what pieces might you have to shuffle to fit under the salary cap if you do?
ARMSTRONG: I think the first phase is going to be find out if we can find common ground with Alex. If we can, then we go to work to move other pieces. It's an either/or (situation). If we can't find common ground with Alex, then there's really no need to do anything. If we can find common ground with Alex, there's a need to do a lot.
I've said this since July of 2019. Alex is our captain, I've grown up with Alex in this organization and he's grown up with me in this organization. I'd like to see that continue for a number of years moving forward, and that's my focus right now.
7. How do you view Jordan Binnington's play? Does it change how you look at your goalie picture at all?
ARMSTRONG: Obviously Jordan didn't play to the level he played at a year ago. He set a high bar for himself expectation-wise, and we as a group didn't get there. He didn't do it by himself a year ago in the playoffs, and he's certainly not by himself on why we're not playing right now. We believe in Binner. He's a proud, competitive player and I think he's going to come back ready to go and play like he did during the first 70 games of the regular season.
8. David Perron and Craig Berube have talked about how the energy level, the buy-in and being fully invested was lacking in Edmonton. Did you see that in the team?
ARMSTRONG: I thought it was growing as we were up there. Going into it, I thought we had players that for whatever reason didn't report in the conditioning level that was going to give them the best success. It's not an indictment on those guys, there were no gyms open. We didn't do enough to give ourselves the best opportunity to have success.
9. Do you react differently to this offseason vs. previous years when you were knocked out early in the playoffs simply based on these odd circumstances? Is it important not to overreact?
ARMSTRONG: I would say you have to take the 70 (regular-season) games and look at what went well, what didn't go well and where we have to improve. Then you have to take the tournament itself and figure out what went well, where you can improve and (ask) why are we not playing right now? You don't want to overreact to it. If it had been normal year where we got to game No. 82, go into the playoffs and weren't competitive, I think that would have been a different look than what happened (this year) vs. Vancouver.
I didn't feel like we got outplayed. If you break an NHL game down into four components: 5-on-5 play, power play, penalty kill, goaltending… I thought we were strong 5-on-5 and I thought the opposition had the upper hand in the other areas.
10. Are you expecting a motivated group coming back next year?
ARMSTRONG: Yeah. I've been able to talk to a majority of the players. I think in the summer of 2018 when we brought in (Ryan) O'Reilly and (David) Perron and we did other things, we talked about a window opening for five years. We're entering Year 3 of that. If they don't believe we can win, I'd be shocked. I expect they're going to be motivated, I expect they're going to want to come back and put their best foot forward and be competitive to want to win a championship.