Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong Calls Out the NHL Trade Market Amid Slow Offseason

Originally posted on House of Hockey | By Tom Banks | Last updated Jul 9, 2025 10:21 AM ET

This NHL off-season has been slower than usual, and in his latest interview, St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong has revealed how weird it's been on the inside.

The NHL started strong this summer with some intriguing trades heading into the 2025 NHL Draft, and while that was exciting, since that point we've had very, very few surprises.

Mitch Marner ended up in Vega, Brock Boeser re-signed in Vancouver and Nikolaj Ehlers made his way to Carolina after Florida locked down their three big free agents, and with those players off the board, there's been very little else happening.

Plenty of fans have been disappointed at the lack of action, despite plenty of rumours that moves could be made, and now, St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong has expressed his thoughts, labelling this a very 'strange' off-season thus far.

In my 21 years of GM this has been my strangest summer. We have all of our contracts done on July 2nd. We signed Suter and put the "go fish" sign on the door. We'll talk to other teams but we'll just prepare for August.

Coming into the off-season, the Blues were reportedly in on the likes of Mitch Marner and Nikolaj Ehlers, and with plenty of speculation surrounding Jordan Kyrou, it's surprising to see that signing Pius Suter and trading for Logan Mailloux have been their only noteworthy moves.

In the past few weeks, there's been multiple reports of big moves coming in the very near future, but thus far, it's been over a week since a significant move has been made, and with the Blues looking to build on their strong push to the Stanley Cup Playoffs a year ago, it's easy to see why Armstrong is sincerely frustrated.

This article first appeared on House of Hockey and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: