It may not have been the level of accountability that some bloodthirsty Blues fans were seeking with their team in last place in the NHL, but on Jan. 2, ownership held a quarterly meeting with GM Doug Armstrong.



“I met with Mr. (Tom) Stillman and just sort of … they wanted to talk to us about where we thought we were going with this group,” Armstrong said Tuesday. “The trade deadline was coming up (Feb. 25) and we wanted to give these players every opportunity, but there had to be some form of consistent improvement or else we were going to have to make harder decisions. You deliver both sides of the coin. You deliver the positive and the negative and hope for the positive, and that’s what we got. We never had to get to that point and that’s what everyone in that room wanted.”



The day of that meeting was the last full day the Blues spent in the basement of the league’s standings, but it would not be the end of the...