Coyotes GM Armstrong inspired by winning past
A photo in Bill Armstrong’s office has become a source of motivation for the Arizona Coyotes’ general manager.
It’s a scene from one of the Coyotes’ playoff games, in which everyone in the crowd at Gila River Arena is wearing white as they cheer on the team.
It’s been more than eight years since that scene was reality for the Coyotes, but it’s where Armstrong wants to take the team again.
“I can’t wait until that day happens, that everybody is wearing white and waving the white towel and we’re ready to go,” Armstrong said Wednesday. “It’s just awesome, you know what I mean? We want to get back to those days, and not once. … You miss (the playoffs) every once in a while but the majority of times, you’re going to training camp and you’re knowing ‘Hey listen, we’re going to be in playoffs, it’s just a matter of how many rounds we’re going to win.’”
A day after making the media rounds, the work begins in earnest for Armstrong, a first-time general manager who will be meeting with current Coyotes hockey staff the rest of the week as he gathers information with which to make decisions involving the roster.
These include the possibility of acquiring draft picks, and whether to re-sign veteran free agents or cut payroll. Armstrong gets to run his own team after years as part of the St. Louis Blues front office, where he helped build the Stanley Cup-winning team from last season.
Armstrong has been in town less than a week, but said he’s already picked up on what Coyotes fans have gone through for years with the team. From ownership changing hands several times to uncertainty about whether the team will remain in the Valley and more, there’s been no shortage of reasons for fans to question their allegiance.
“But the thing about this is,” he said, “it would be one thing if you and I were sitting here talking about they never showed up. But they have. And that’s the thing that I keep in the back of my mind. They have wanted hockey in the desert.”
As Armstrong begins to put his offseason plan into action, he looks at another young NHL franchise, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and sees where he wants the Coyotes to be in the near future.
The Lightning are playing for the Stanley Cup for third time since they started play in the league in 1992.
“The owner came in, said this is the way it’s going to be, hired a good GM and said ‘OK.’ Stevie Y (Steve Yzerman) came on board and he went to work,” Armstrong said, also praising the work of assistant general manager Al Murray, who also is Tampa Bay’s director of amateur scouting. “He just hired good people. So that’s who we want to be. We want to be just like that franchise in turning it around.”
Yzerman was the Lightning general manager from 2010 to 2018. The Lightning had missed the playoffs three straight seasons before he was hired by then-new owner Jeff Vinik, and Tampa Bay made the postseason in five of Yzerman’s eight seasons.
Armstrong said both the Lightning and Dallas Stars, the two Finals participants, are well-built teams.
“Tampa Bay has been built by drafting. I think Dallas has been built with a little bit of that and some trades,” Armstrong said. “A lot of good hockey people have been involved in building both those teams.”
At 19 years old, Armstrong scored a memorable game-winning and titlewinning goal for the Oshawa Generals in the 1990 Memorial Cup, the championship of major junior hockey in Canada. Though not known for his goal-scoring ability as a player, Armstrong still hears from older fans about the goal, and it set the tone for a long career in the sport as player, scout, coach and personnel executive.
“It’s kind of my foundation. Some people go the Marines, or some people go to Harvard and they create this foundation from being in this intense time in their life,” Armstrong said. “That, for me, was being part of the Oshawa Generals. I was surrounded by great hockey people and great hockey players. It just left a lasting impression on me and we were able to win it as a team and as a franchise. It was just a huge thing in my life and I’ve always thought back about those people, and how everybody worked together to achieve.
“When you win a championship like that, it’s like salt water. It just makes you thirstier,” Armstrong said.
Collaboration, Armstrong said Tuesday in his first news conference as GM, is the style of managing he will implement, gathering information from his staff before making decisions. It was how things were done in St. Louis, where Armstrong was assistant general manager and director of amateur scouting.
“I want to make sure that we have the right hockey people in the right roles, we’re evaluating the right way, and then I want those people to be a part of the solution, part of the process in bringing everything to the table,” Armstrong said.
“The NHL is too big and too complex to just do it yourself. Show me a good GM and I’ll show you the good people around him.”