Boston Bruins
Hockey Canada Announces Blues’ Armstrong as GM of 2022 Olympic Team
Team Canada will have an amazing Olympic staff led by freshly appointed GM, Doug Armstrong.
In his most recent 31 Thoughts, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman noted the possibility of Doug Armstrong becoming the next GM of Canada’s Olympic team (2022 – Beijing). Hockey Canada made that official today by announcing Armstrong as GM along with his accompanying staff – a great one, I might add.
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Armstrong will will be flanked by associate GM Ken Holland from the Edmonton Oilers along with three assistant GMs – Ron Francis of the Seattle Kraken, Roberto Luongo, and Don Sweeney of the Boston Bruins. That group will also work alongside Hockey Canada senior vice-president of national teams Scott Salmond.
Armstrong’s Resume
Armstrong began his NHL career with the Dallas Stars back in 1991. Most recently, he has been with the St. Louis Blues since 2008, starting as the teams Director of Player Personnel. He was then named General Manager in 2013. As such, the 56-year-old was responsible for building the team that captured the organizations first Stanley Cup in 2019.
The Sarnia native is no stranger to Team Canada. In fact, he is the first executive to reach Double Triple Gold status. That is, he has won two Stanley Cups 1999 (Dallas Stars – Assistant GM) and 2019 (St. Louis), along with two Olympic golds in 2010 (Vancouver) and 2014 (Sochi) as well as two World Championship gold medals in 2007 and 2016.
An amazing resume to say the very least.
Canada’s Roster!?
Of course, that kicks off all kinds of roster speculation. One thing is certain, the eventual team is going to be stacked. TSN’s Pierre Lebrun recently tried to take a stab at picking the roster during a recent Athletic article. His subtitle says it all: “Picking the best 25 NHLers to represent Canada is easy, it’s the players you leave off the team that give you shivers.”
He’s right. Case in point, the below tweet which gives a great visual of two different rosters for Canada and the Americans (US will also be very good!).
Candidly, it is far too early for me to try and wrap my head around trying to make any attempt at picking the team. Sure, there will be automatic roster spots – Connor McDavid, Nathan McKinnon, Sidney Crosby – but like any big event, the players who are performing at peak heading into the tournament will land the ‘depth’ spots.
In other words, there is still plenty of time that will dictate the eventual roster.
Oh, and the eventual timeline might also be impacted by one more thing – COVID. Ya, that.
NEXT: Canadian NHL Teams Want A Change to Quarantine Rules
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