Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Rating Doug Armstrong

by Todd Maternowski

Hola, los fanaticos de los hockey, donde esta su biblioteca? For you none-Espanic speakers out there, I just welcomed you to the hockey-fan fold. Last week we discussed Mike Modano's shattering of the all-time record for American-born scorers (sorry, Wilt): this week, I just have to tell you about this amazing dream I had. Gary Bettman, Dave Tippett and myself were driving a 77' Buick through Mordor when the car seemed to change into a jumbotron showing nothing but parking infractions. We three stripped down to the waist and continued on foot, but our legs turned into serpents which disappeared into the Adam Dead Marshes, which by the way was now a highway with all signs leading to "Republican Aircraft Magazine." We worked out a system of transport involving the ingestion and rectal expulsion of depleted uranium, and finally got to our destination: a little touristy spot overlooking a waterfall, underneath which was a Giant Land Squid of Antiquitum. I dropped the mine cart of iron ore I'd been gnawing on, onto my lap, and the pain sent me into a deep sleep. And this is where the dream began....

I was planning on deeply analyzing that dream, including the 4am phone transcripts I got from both Bettman and Tippett and their profanity-laced interpretations (for the record, what exactly is a "clown scrotum?"), but a couple of under-the-radar events in Starsworld this week changed all that. As you may or may not know, two days ago Tom Hicks canned Doug Armstrong, GM of the Stars since 2002. Hicks cited the need for "change," and the next day went out and wasted Stars President Jim Lites with a high-powered rifle.

Now, I have, on many occasions, called for the head of Tippett to be ritualistically brought to me on a silver platter, while lithe bellydancers swayed hypnotically in my palatial chamber (no Ice Girls, please! Those skeletal lobsters make the Dallas Cowboy Cheerharpies look like actual women by comparison) (Actually, come to think of it, that should be the other way around: the Cowboy Cheerharpies make the Cryptkeeper look juicy and voluptuous) (Good enough to eat, too!) (Please forget I said that) (I'd better erase all--damn!! My delete key is stuck!) (I really need to quit eating tomato sauce with my hands while writing these things) (Anyways, where were we?) Ah, yes: Dave Tippett and Shawn Chambers writhing in bellydancing costumes -- now, in this dream, it kinda gets a little creepy, so--

Wait! Back to the issue at hand: Doug Armstrong's firing. This summer, I strongly approved of his non-moves, generously pouring praise upon him for not jumping in head-first into the Moron Pool that seems to affect General Managers every summer. His signings --Todd Fedorsuck (waste of a jersey), Toby Pederson (yeah, I know, right?) and Brad Winchester (clearly the best of the bunch) -- were not exactly inspired, but not cap-crushing either. My hope was that the Stars team that defied the odds and the oddsmakers last season would show up to, once again, dominate the West and contend for the toughest division in hockey.

What actually transpired in the first month and a half of the season was not exactly up to snuff: unmotivated, uninspired play, where the Stars seem physically and mentally incapable of playing a full 60 minutes of hockey. Adding to the frustration, they seem to play with their food when facing the Ducks and Sharks (sometimes), yet are completely run off the ice by allegedly "bad" teams like the Blackhawks and Coyotes. Had the Stars lost 5-0 to Phoenix in 1999, they would have bulldozed Reunion that very night and salt the earth where Reunion once stood. This season, it seemed like each mind-numbing Stars loss was met with a big bag of "eh?" by management.

But firing Armstrong? I really have to wonder whether that's the answer to what ails the Stars. A GM's job is to put the best team he can on the ice, within the strict boundaries of the salary cap. Since the Stars can't just go out and spend vast amounts of ca$$h-money on free agents anymore (their payroll was ridiculously high in 2003), this means the GM has to be good at scouting, drafting, and fleecing other teams. This all starts with the draft, which I have painstakingly researched here:

2002 - Martin Vagner at #1, Tobias Stephan and Trevor Daley #2

2003 - Loui Eriksson at #2 (no #1 pick that year)

2004 - Mark Fistric #1, Nik Grossman #2

2005 - Matt Niskanen #1, James Neal #2

2006 - Ivan Vishnevskiy #1

2007 - no #1 pick

Other than wasting a #1 in his first season at GM on the still-not-NHL-ready Vagner, I'd say that is a solid drafting record in the first two rounds (yeah, I did leave out some other #2's, but go do your own research, ya bums). Fans may get on Armstrong's case for not drafting seven or eight Sidney Crosby's, but I say Daley, Fistric, Grossman, Niskanen and Vishnevskiy will be Armstrong's lasting legacy with this team, with the Doan-like James Neal likely becoming that gem that Gainey had with Morrow. Stephan showed against the Blackhawks that he can play at this level, and really the only huge question mark is Eriksson, who has shown flashes of goal-scoring goodness in the 5-7 minutes of ice time he's allotted in those rare games he's not a healthy scratch.

Is that an amazing drafting record? Not really, but ask me again in 3 years when Zubov is pushing 40 and those five young d-men are blowing away Western conference forwards, and you might shed a single tear for Army. Or is his abysmal trade record that thing that made so many Stars fans cheer his departure? Time to Grade the Trades:

Mattias Norstrom for a #1 and #2? Hard to say - for a Cup contender, this is a pretty typical trade. Norstrom wasn't a longtime team captain and respected defenseman for nothing. Unfortunately, he hasn't had a lot of time here, and the ice time that he is getting is kind of choppy: sometimes he looks like the same massive Swede that frustrated the Stars' forecheck for a decade, but other times he looks like a turnover machine in his own zone. It's safe to say, with Grossman so solid on the backline, the Stars could do worse than trading Norstrom to someone in the East for those same picks back. I give this trade a grade of "Incomplete."

Jason Arnott and Randy McKay for Joe Nieuwndyk and Jamie Lagenbrunner? In hindsight, a terrible trade, worst in Stars history. At the time, though, the trade was an excellent one: Arnott was a 27-year old center on the league's deadliest line, and had just broken Dallas' hearts with his swift stick in the Cup Finals a few years earlier. Who would have expected him to become an overpaid, overgrown crybaby that showed up when he felt like it? There were times when that Arnott-Guerin-Morrow line was the most dominant in all of hockey, if you don't count scoring. 45-second shifts in the offensive zone, perfect cycling, opposing defensemen routinely stapled to the boards: those were fun shifts to watch. Arnott/Guerin standing still, not skating, and passing to the boards instead of taking wide-open shots on net in the playoffs? Not as fun to watch. At the time, this trade was a B+, nowadays, more likely a C-.

Stu Barnes for a #2 pick? Considering Buffalo --allegedly a far superior drafting team than Dallas-- did nothing with that pick, this is a freebie. Stu may not have the jets he once did, and he probably needs to rest every fifth game or so nowadays, but ultimately you can't fault DA for this trade. A

Ladislav Nagy for a #1? Terrible trade, even at the time. Picking up a soft, diving set-up guy for a team that needs scorers? And mortgaging the future for it? And only for like a month and a half? Total waste. F-

Niklas Hagman for #7? No explanation needed. A+

Finally, Mike Ribiero for Janne Niinimaa? Holy crap, this is an awesome trade: after seeing the Finished Finn in action, I would've been happy with just taking Niinimaa out back and beating the crap out of him with a garden hose full of buckshot. The guy just plain sucked, no qualms about it, and trading him straight-up for a guy who has become our #1 center, and a point-a-game guy on our amazing first line, is a no-brainer for awesomeness. A+

So far, a mixed bag: solid if unspectacular drafting record, and an up-and-down trading history. What about free agents? Armstrong signed some of the team's top players through free agency: Robidas, Boucher, Halpern, Winchester. More importantly, he spent smart money on the players he had: Zubov at $4 million a year? Modano at $3.5 million? Those are numbers that Eastern GMs couldn't even conceive without having their eyeballs explode. Considering Zubov's numbers and impact, being the 18th highest paid defensemen is something of a bargain: especially when you consider names like Jovanovski ($7 mill), Sergei Gonchar ($4.5), Adrian Aucoin ($4 mill), and even Vladimir Mahlakov ($3.6 mill). Say what you will about the Stars' payroll, but they've been managed quite tightly, without a single player consuming too much of the salary cap.

Even Marty Turco, who leads all Stars at $6 million a year, is getting paid less than the Blackhawks are paying Khabibulin ($6.75 mill), and only slightly more than the Avs are paying for huge bust Jose Theodore ($5.5 mill), or the Caps with their aging Kolzig at $5.45 million. When it comes to comparison shopping, and tying up the critical team leaders to affordable salaries, Armstrong was actually exceptionally good.

So will this firing have a positive or negative impact on the Stars? Hard to say (chickenpoop answer, I know). The full impact of Army's drafting won't be felt until years after he's left, provided his replacement(s) don't try and sell off the young talent for talentless veterans, a la John Hart. In the short term, it probably means that, unless the Stars start playing the way they're capable of playing, guys like Boucher, Norstrom, Barnes and maybe even Lehtinen will likely be wearing different team's uniforms by the end of this season, Tippett may be looking for a real estate agent sometime soon, and Modano may be strongly encouraged to spend more "quality time" with Willa.

Well, that's it for this week's Cupcheck. Tune in next week when we publish Jim Lites' most recent open letter to Stars fans, entitled: "Eff all yawl bitchez!!"