Sportsnet 590 THE FAN: St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong on the offer sheets, the Edmonton Oilers cap situation and the Blues overpaying but using up their cap space.
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Ailish Forfar: “Give the sheets, which has seemed a bit dismissive at times. He said he will still give the sheet to your mother, it doesn’t matter.
So we went through the process of sending the Edmonton Oilers an offer sheet, and finally got two new players for the St. Louis Blues,
Armstrong: “Yeah, it actually started on July 3 or 4, second, third, fourth. I thought Jeff Jackson had a great start to free agency. He greatly improved his team forward. But to do that, you have to use equity. And he, along with the Oilers spent a little bit of equity and put us in a position to look to see if we could improve our team.
The groups have different positions, themselves, in their current growth patterns. The Oilers, obviously, you know, one goal away from taking game seven into overtime.
And we have been there. We have had our successes. Now we build and come back. So we are looking to add young players to our core team going forward, who can grow.
We have, I think we have 10 first-round picks, 10 over a six-year period on our roster or on our reserve list. And if seven, let’s say 7, 6-7-8 of those guys are successful, they can play together for a long time. I believe that’s how you build a winning foundation, having guys that can play together for a long time, and having first round picks that can play together for a long time, is important.
Jesse Rubinoff: “Ailish said offer sheets are very rare in this day and age in the National Hockey League. I believe there are only 10 since 2006.
What is the process after finding out that you want to go out and make an offer sheet? Because if it’s rare, I think it doesn’t always come up in conversation. Was it something you just thought about because you knew about the situation with the Oilers, or did someone inside the front office say, ‘hey, this would be a good opportunity to go out and do this.’
Because if it’s rare, it just made me think, like, what, when? What would be the impetus to get out and do it now?
Armstrong: “Yeah, it was just a situation there, where everyone was at some point. And I’ve used the example a few times.
As you look at Boston right now, and I’m allowed to talk about (Jeremy) Smayman, he’s a restricted free agent. But they went, they left a large sum of money there, yes, for him. Then look at the Red Wings who also have two good players who left a lot of money.
So the offer sheet there, you know, I’m not speaking for the other parties. I don’t see an avenue to get players that way, because of the situation. How they set that up. Edmonton’s situation is a little different.
Emerging players, emerging players that we have overpaid, it is clear that, if you look at their work, what they have done so far, which is not in line with their contracts. But, you know, cap space is a weapon. And we had the space but we don’t have it, we wouldn’t use it in any other fashion this year or next year. So we wanted to use it to try to get young players.
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