Douglas Armstrong (born September 24, 1964) is a Canadian professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

executive, currently the general manager for the

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the ...

of the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL). He is also a former general manager of the NHL's

Dallas Stars The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and were founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Minne ...

Front office career

Dallas Stars

Armstrong joined the

Minnesota North Stars The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for ...

organization for the

1990–91 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

season, and remained with the team when they relocated to Dallas to become the

in 1993, eventually being appointed general manager on January 25, 2002. He won the Stanley Cup as an assistant general manager with the Stars in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

. Armstrong replaced

Bob Gainey Robert Michael Gainey (born December 13, 1953) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played for the Montreal Canadiens from 1973 until 1989. After retiring from active play, he became a hockey coach and later an executive wit ...

as GM of the Stars with 32 games to go in the 2001–02 NHL season, and one of his first moves was hiring

Dave Tippett David G. Tippett (born August 25, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey coach and player. Tippett played in the NHL from 1983 to 1994 as a winger for the Hartford Whalers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Cap ...

as head coach. Armstrong is the son of NHL Hall of Fame linesman Neil Armstrong, inducted in 1991. On November 13, 2007, in the wake of a 7–7–3 start and a colossal meltdown by the team away against the

Los Angeles Kings The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent ...

(losing 6–5 in overtime after leading 4–0 with seven minutes remaining in the game), Armstrong was fired as GM and replaced by former Stars player

Brett Hull Brett Andrew Hull (born August 9, 1964) is a Canadian–American former ice hockey player and general manager, and currently an executive vice president of the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League (NHL). He played for the Calgary Flames, ...

and assistant GM Les Jackson as interim co-general managers. During Armstrong's tenure, the Stars went 210–109–35–23 in the regular season, representing a .634 winning percentage, which is best in Stars history for a General Manager. Some important moves Armstrong made during his time as GM included the drafting of players like

Trevor Daley Trevor Daley (born October 9, 1983) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman for the Florida Everblades of the ECHL and also serves as a hockey operations advisor for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL). He played ...

, James Neal,

Loui Eriksson Loui William Eriksson (born 17 July 1985) is a Swedish professional ice hockey forward currently playing for Frölunda HC of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). Eriksson was selected by the Dallas Stars in the second round, 33rd overall, at the ...

and Jamie Benn. He also made a trade for Mike Ribeiro in exchange for defenceman

Janne Niinimaa Janne Henrik Niinimaa (born May 22, 1975) is a Finnish former professional ice hockey player. He played 10 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Philadelphia Flyers, Edmonton Oilers, New York Islanders, Dallas Stars, and Montreal ...

, which turned out to be beneficial for Dallas' offence.

St. Louis Blues

On May 29, 2008, the St. Louis Blues announced they had named Armstrong as the club’s director of player personnel after signing him to a two-year contract. When the two years were up, Armstrong became the club’s general manager after Larry Pleau’s retirement. On June 17, 2010, the Blues acquired goaltender Jaroslav Halak from the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for prospects Lars Eller and Ian Schultz. Although he had yet to officially take over duties as GM, this was considered to be Armstrong’s first big move as the GM of the Blues. In 2013, Armstrong was named the NHL General Manager of the Year and runner up again in 2019. In his ongoing tenure with the Blues, Armstrong has acquired many marquee players (whether by trade, free agency or the NHL Draft), including Martin Brodeur, Ryan O'Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz, Alex Pietrangelo, Jay Bouwmeester, Paul Stastny and Ryan Miller. In 2018-19, Armstrong's Blues would surge up the standings for a third-place finish in the Central Division before eventually defeating the Boston Bruins in seven games to win their first Stanley Cup championship in franchise history. In Armstrong's twelve seasons as General Manager with St. Louis, the Blues have won three Central Division Regular Season titles (2011–12, 2014–15, 2019–20) and reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs ten times, Divisional Finals five times, Conference Finals twice and won the Stanley Cup in 2019. On February 15, 2022, Armstrong earned his 500th win as the Blues general manager (710th as NHL General Manager) becoming only the 25th GM in NHL history to achieve such with a single franchise.

International

Armstrong has been part of Hockey Canada's management group for the gold medal-winning teams in the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics; 2007 and 2016 Gold Medal World Championship Teams, 2016 World Cup Championship Winning Team plus the Silver Medal Winning Teams in the 2008 and 2009 World Championship. After winning the Stanley Cup in 2019 with the St. Louis Blues Armstrong became the 1st person in management to become part of the Double

Triple Gold Club The Triple Gold Club is the group of ice hockey players and coaches who have won an Olympic Games gold medal, a World Championship gold medal, and the Stanley Cup, the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). The International Ice ...

( Winning Stanley Cup in 1999 and 2019, Olympics in 2010 and 2014 plus World Championship in 2007 and 2016). He also served on Canada's 2002 World Championship Team (did not medal). On February 3, 2021, it was announced that Armstrong would be the general manager for team Canada’s 2022 Olympic team.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Doug 1964 births Living people Canadian people of Scottish descent Dallas Stars executives National Hockey League general managers Sportspeople from Sarnia St. Louis Blues executives Stanley Cup champions Minnesota North Stars executives