Interview With Former LA King Derek Armstrong

Thank you “Army” for … wait, can I call you “Army?”

Yeah sure, everyone calls me “Army.” When you call me Derek, I don’t even know who that is?

Fair enough and thank you “Army” for granting me this interview today!

No worries.

Growing up as a child and getting into hockey, who were your hockey heroes and idols?

My father had 13 brothers and sisters and my mother had 9, so we had a huge family growing up. A very athletic family. I idolized Wayne Gretzky like most kids from my age group. Wayne Gretzky was always good, Mark Messier was always good. Darryl Sittler is a big guy too. So all these guys I watched growing up, especially the [Edmonton] Oilers in the ‘80s who were such dominant players and obviously later on in my career I got to play with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier so it was pretty cool to experience. Steve Yzerman is another guy that I idolized a bit. He was an Ottawa kid. Obviously when you idolize these guys and get to play against them, it’s a pretty cool experience.

We recently heard the bad news that the legendary Gordie Howe, one of the greatest players of all time, sadly passed away. Did you ever get to meet “Mr. Hockey?”

Yeah definitely! I played with him when he played that last game in Detroit with the Vipers. I played in that game with him.

That’s right! In the International Hockey League back in 1997!

There you go, when I played with the Vipers. It’s a pretty cool story. I remember the way he prepared for the game. He was coming in to play the whole game, you know he didn’t want to come in and just play a shift. He actually played the first shift and we were asked to play the “left wing lock,” we were playing the “left wing lock” and that system. He ended up getting beat up on the face-off and he almost got a breakaway but the ref blowed it down. That breakaway was called offside but I think it was pretty close to not being offside. Then he went down (played his shift), stayed out for another 20 seconds, he went down. Then one of the defensemen shot the puck and it hit him in the pants and was almost deflected into the net, so it was pretty cool that he almost scored. Then he sat on the bench and he was hoping to play some more shifts but I don’t think the coach put him in for another shift. He was a very competitive guy, very passionate person. Obviously a huge figure in the sport of hockey. Just seeing him sitting down there, seeing his presence and even seeing his professionalism. You know he went through the team, even got work done on him, he was ready to go even though he was a little bit older at that time. His professionalism and dedication to the game was pretty incredible. I think I was 23 and I was watching him thinking, “Holy smoke, this is crazy!”

Speaking of playing in the IHL, you were drafted by the NY Islanders during the 1992 entry draft, but besides a handful of games in the NHL with them and other teams, you played roughly 8 straight seasons in the minor leagues for various teams and leagues.  By being in the minors so long, were you ever deterred or discouraged from pursuing your dream of playing permanently in the NHL?

No, I was never … I get asked that question a lot and I always answer that same way. I was doing something I loved. I never played the game for the money. I had a passion for the game of hockey and I still have a passion for the game of hockey. I loved playing! There were a lot of people who would say, “Why are you still playing?” and I was like, “What would you want me to do? I don’t want to do another job. I’m getting paid to play something that I love to do. It was still how I was feeding my family and how I was feeding my kids. I enjoyed every second of it.  You know the good thing about playing in the minors is I got to be a highly offensive guy which I’ve always enjoyed my whole entire life. I enjoyed scoring, I enjoy the chess match of the game, especially for offensive guys. You know up in the NHL, obviously those guys are that high-end, world-class athletes. They were a little bit different from I was. At that level I was smart, I always wasn’t a great skater but my smarts made up for my skating. I enjoyed playing in the minors. There always was a great bunch of guys. Great people. They were there for the same reason because most of them loved to play. It’s still an amazing game whether you play it in the beer league or you play it in the NHL. There are a lot of people that aren’t gifted enough to get to play in the NHL but they still have a great passion for the game and that’s what I love to be around.

During the 1994-95 season, you played for the Denver Grizzlies and won the IHL Turner Cup.  What do you fondly remember the most about that championship season and Cup run and how did you find the Denver, CO fan base at that time?

You know obviously I met my wife here in ’94 so we get back here a lot. I’ve lived here now for 20 years on and off throughout my career. The fans here are great. We were the first team of Denver and of the state of Colorado to win a professional championship. So when we came in here, the [NFL Denver] Broncos weren’t very good, the [MLB Colorado] Rockies weren’t very good. The Broncos had never won and the Rockies just might have came in, so they weren’t very good. No one had ever won a championship. So when we came in, we were one of the best teams all year so the people were like, “Wow!” so we were getting 12, 13, 14 thousand people for every single game so we were kinda like rock stars! That team had a lot of very special characters on it. Norman Rochefort and Doug Crossman, Andy Brickley, Gord Dineen. You know Tommy Salo, Zigmund Palffy. All these older guys that, you know I was just a 21-year-old the year before when I played in the IHL with Ziggy Palffy on another team, we learned so much knowledge from these guys and they all wanted to teach us younger guys because I was the youngest guy on that team. Where those guys came from and what they have played, that was probably the best experience that I had gotten at that time in my career. How to be professional, how to show up to practice, how to eat, how to carry yourself and obviously when you’re winning it’s much easier. It was a pretty cool experience for being in the minors in Denver, Colorado which is a damn good city. And the fans were incredible. They were very passionate about sports and everybody wanted a winner and we came in and we won so that helped quite a bit.

Oh for sure. Now that was the year before the Quebec Nordiques relocated to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche right?

Yeah, well that’s what helped with that transition. We came in and there had been lots of NHL teams that came in, we had come in and like you said, we won the Turner Cup and there was such a buzz for hockey. The next year Quebec came in and they ended up winning too so we kind of paved the way. Even when I played in the NHL, every time I came back to Denver or when I lived there, people were coming up to me and saying, “It was probably one of the greatest minor league teams ever” and they say it had such an impact on the city because they had never won anything and they had finally won something and now they have taken off as a big sports city in America.

That is fantastic. You guys were pioneers! During the 2002-03 season, you finally got a regular spot on the roster with the Los Angeles Kings.  How did you feel and what do you remember best about becoming a regular in the NHL?

I always had a belief in myself, in my heart and in my body that I could play in the NHL. You know it took me longer than most but I always knew. My skating wasn’t great so I went to Europe in Switzerland the year before and that helped my skating quite a bit on the big ice. And Andy Murray, who used to coach in Europe in Switzerland, had found me so when I came back and I was really good in training camp, I got sent down [back to the minors] and I was disappointed because I had just finished playing in Europe and I believed I could play in the NHL.  So the Rangers ended up trading me to the Kings and I got sent down and I was, you know kinda mad and discouraged again because I thought that would be my last chance.  My first game, it was me, Mike Cammalleri and Steve Heinze and we got 19 shots at the net but we didn’t score a goal. I was like, “What the heck?” The next night I had a hat-trick and one of my best buddies, Zigmund Palffy, who I played with in my first 2 years pro ended up getting hurt in LA, so I get called up and I never looked back and ended up playing 500 games. It was pretty cool. For a person like me, I never accepted being an NHL’er because it was always, you know, I had to always work so hard. I enjoyed the journey but when I was there, it was such work every day for me to stay there because I was always looking over my shoulder, thinking someone was taking my job for so long. I never really got to enjoy it too much because it was such a job and I was always scared to lose it but now that I’ve finished my career, I think it was pretty cool that I actually got to play that many games and put that work in. But every day I had to work harder and harder than everybody else because I was always scared to lose that job.

 Speaking of head coach Andy Murray, who was your coach for the LA Kings and then later on with the St. Louis Blues.  How did you find Andy Murray as a head coach and how was your relationship with him?

He was the man! He was one of the first guys that believed in me at the NHL level. I went through so many coaches in all my career but he always believed in me and he always trusted me. I ended up coaching here in Denver. I was the coach and GM of a professional team called the Denver Cutthroats and a lot of my drills and a lot of my strategies came from Andy. You know he was very demanding and loved hockey. Loved the X’s and O’s. Loved the details and I think that was the biggest reason why I turned into a regular NHL’er was because the details at practice were incredible. In the minors, I was smarter than most of the players at that level so I could out think them but in the NHL, you have to be dead on all the time and I think that’s what I got a lot from him. My habits changed in practice and my work ethic was always there but my details and habits, he really kept me accountable in practice and that’s what had given me a great career in the NHL.

Did Murray ever regularly hand you notebooks of strategic plays underneath your hotel room door in the middle of the night?

Oh yeah! You would get them in the morning. You would get them on game days. One of my good buddies is Luc Robitaille. He used to put his towels underneath the door so he couldn’t get it in the morning. I was his linemate and Andy would always ask him what was on the sheet and Luc would always answer, “I didn’t get it,” because he would put his towels there. So Luc would always end up asking me, “Army, what was on the sheet?” and I was like, “What the heck? Why do I have to answer all of your questions all the time?” but that was one thing that was tough about Andy. He was very demanding. Like in morning skates, a lot of players would just get out of bed and just get a little sweat on you know, but he was always demanding and that’s why he was a successful coach for a long time.

How did you find the Los Angeles Kings’ fan base?

They were great! When I first got there, [the Kings] had just beaten Detroit in that second playoff series and they were really starting to get some buzz. The first two years I was there we had lost almost 500 man games due to injuries. We had a really good team in those 2 years so it was frustrating for the fan base but they realized that we were building something. The next couple of years after that, we went through a couple of new GM’s and you could see that they were building for younger so then we had Anze Kopitar, who was my roommate and “Brownie” was my roommate so I got to see that transition. The fan base has always been strong in California, people don’t realize that. Even when I was there in the beginning, you know you would bring your family and take them to a Hollywood movie or something, or you would be out on the street and there was a lot of Hollywood people who liked or really enjoyed the Kings. There was always a big fan base there.  People were really liking hockey ever since Gretzky went there and it took off!

You mentioned your first two seasons with the Kings and the 500 man games lost due to injury, which is now known in the Kingdom as the “injury epidemic years.” Could you tell us what was going on behind the scenes during those injury riddled seasons and what the mood was like in the locker room while that was going on?

The mood was just frustrating because there was a really good core group of guys there. You know Jason Allison, Adam Deadmarsh and Ziggy Palffy were one of the best lines in the league at that time. Mathieu Schneider was there and Felix “The Cat” Potvin was there. They had a really good core but you could see half way through the season that everybody was getting drained. Guys were going down and those two years were just bad luck. It would’ve been nice if that team could have stayed together because it was such a good group of guys and you only get a certain amount of windows with players that hopefully can end up winning championships or at least having a good long run but it just didn’t happen. Guys were getting hurt, Dmitry [Yushkevich] ended up getting hurt, [Alexander] Frolov ended up getting hurt, it was just one of those things that you couldn’t explain.

The year after the year-long lockout, the 2005-06 season was a hopeful one for the LA Kings and it’s fan base but it ended up being heartbreaking when during the first half of the season, the Kings seemed to be on a roll and were even in second place in the conference around Christmas time but everything seemed to have collapsed during the second half of the season and the Kings ended up not making the playoffs.  In your opinion as a player who was there, what happened or may have caused that disappointing second half?

We had a really good team that year. I remember that we went into Ottawa and I think it was early January, and they were number 1 in the East while we were number 2 in the West and we ended up going there and got beat really bad. It just kind of turned things around. That year was an Olympic year too and Frolov and [Pavel] Demitra both played in the Olympics and when they both got back, they both got hurt and we just couldn’t get momentum after that Olympic break. We just started spiraling and we just could not put a winning streak together. It was the weirdest thing. Like I said, it helps to have a little bit of luck in there as well.  We didn’t get the luck or the bounces and now [the Kings] have won a couple of Cups and they got the luck and the bounces. You know, it’s not easy to win and all those guys I played with were great but sometimes, it’s just not meant to be.

After the collapse of ’06, there were changes in management and to the coaching staff.  Dean Lombardi was brought in to replace legendary LA King Dave Taylor to be the new GM.  How was your experience with Dean when he first arrived and how different or similar was he to Dave Taylor?

Yeah, they were a lot different. Dave was a former player and obviously a famous Kings’ player. Dean’s a thinker. Dave relies more on his playing days and what worked when he played and he was a great GM for me. He gave me an opportunity. Dean was more of a thinker, he was about development, especially during the salary cap era where you have to be able to develop players. He came in and you could see that he wanted [the team] to go younger right away but he kept me around for a few more years to help with the younger guys. Obviously the plan he had in place when he first got there ended up working and that’s tough to do. He’d come into an organization that had never won before. Everyone was questioning some of his decisions but he stuck to his guns and he hired some good people around him and he’s a good leader and obviously it worked out great for the LA Kings and for himself.

How was your experience and relationship with head coach Marc Crawford?

You know “Crow” is a passionate person. In the summer time, he is laid back but at work he’s a demanding head coach. He was more on the old school side of, you know using swear words and bullying a little bit to get you to do what you need to do but that was what his theory is and that was the era he grew up in for coaching.  He was a great coach. I think I had my best season underneath him so obviously his passion for me worked. Everyone in hockey has different outlooks and different ways of getting people motivated, he was just more of the old school, tough love then he was with the new school of patting you in the back. My dad was a military guy so I was kind of used to that. When he was there, he had a bunch of goalies, I think we had like 26 starting goalies and you can’t win like that, no matter what. I have nothing bad to say about Marc Crawford. He was a motivator and he motivated differently than other coaches but he was successful as well so I think he was great too.

As you mentioned, the Kings organization had decided to go in a younger direction. Many young faces were drafted by and brought on to be the future of the team that are now today the core pieces of a team that won 2 Stanley Cups. What were your initial opinions of the rookies Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick when they first arrived to play on the main roster?

Yeah you could tell “Brownie” was going to be a power forward. He was a quiet kid, like a farm kid, strong! He had a good shot and he wanted to learn. He came in and he was very young at his age but he worked. He was always a worker. He worked as hard as he could the whole time and it paid off for him. “Kopi,” was my roommate for the first 2 or 3 years and you could tell in the first game that he played in, I think he scored a goal against Anaheim that was a world-class goal while I think it was only his second shift, you could just tell that he grew up around hockey and was a big, strong kid. He has a love for the game and has a drive for the game. Comes from a hockey family. Most of all when talking about those kids, they were all really good kids that had come from good families. They were good people. I think that’s another reason for their success. Doughty, you could tell he was gonna win the Norris [trophy] within the first month, even though he hasn’t won it yet but he’ll win it eventually. He just had that swagger. You know he wasn’t in top condition when he came in but when he got onto the ice you could tell, he could control the game. He had a big personality, very confident kid and he’s not scared of making mistakes. I think that’s the biggest thing about Drew Doughty, when he makes a mistake, it’s out of his mind in like 2 seconds and that’s what’s made him such a great defenseman in the league. And with Rob Blake there, it helped him so much. A lot of those guys there helped them so much. They did such a good job of bringing all those guys up. “Kopi” wasn’t thrown into a role, “Brownie” wasn’t thrown into a role, they just made them to be a part of the team and I think that’s what helped them the most. They didn’t have all those expectations on them. They surrounded good players around them, and good people around them to teach them. And even with that, they were such good kids that wanted to learn and listen and that’s what did the best job. “Quickie” was the same thing. He played in the minors for the first couple of years because he wasn’t ready. You know the way these kids looked at the game and the way other organizations look at the game, you got to get lucky a bit but those guys were all talented. Especially “Quickie” because Jonathan Bernier was a high draft pick. He came in and he had a bigger body, very athletic and Quick had to work really hard for his first couple of years, I mean really hard to get to where he got to. A lot of credit has to go to Billy Ranford who has done an unbelievable job with all of goalies there as you can see with [Martin] Jones in San Jose, he had him as well.

What was your favorite memory of living in Los Angeles?

I had lots. I enjoyed everything about it. The biggest thing was just to be able to play in the NHL. That was my dream for my whole entire life. I loved every second of it and I loved every one of my teammates. To just be able to call myself an NHL’er, and accepting it, and playing as hard as I could for the fans and the people, I enjoyed every second of that. To just be an NHL’er and be happy to have the LA Kings believe in me and go out there every day to work hard for them.

You, Dustin Brown, Kyle Calder and some other Kings’ players made an appearance on the long time game show, “The Price is Right.” How did that come about and how was your experience on the show?

Oh it was pretty cool. You get to do a lot of cool things in LA and that’s one of the great things about that city, you get to do things besides hockey but that’s also why a lot of people have a lot of trouble playing there because they can’t focus on hockey all the time and that’s another good thing that Dean Lombardi has done, to change the culture of the Kings. He keeps tabs on everybody and what everybody is doing. It was cool. Drew Carey was a cool guy and the winner of the showcase ended up going to the season opener and got to go on a trip with us. It was a really cool experience. Everyone has grown up watching that show. I watched with Bob Barker as the host and we all watched it and we just had some laughs with the show and my mom was probably more excited than I was. It was bigger than winning the Stanley Cup to her.

Well it is such an iconic and classic game show, right? It’s been around forever so being on there is a big deal!

Oh yeah.

Is Drew Carey a Kings’ fan or no? What’s the scoop there “Army”?

Yeah, I think he was a Kings’ fan. He knew all our names and was calling us by our nicknames. He’s just a happy, go lucky guy and funny and is definitely a Kings’ fan over a Duck’s fan. Well I hope.

After retirement as you mentioned, you became the head coach and then general manager of the Denver Cutthroats of the Central Hockey League.  How did you find the adjustment from being a player to becoming a coach and/or someone in management?

You really get humbled. As a player you just show up to the rink and everybody does everything for you. You don’t a have clue to what it takes to put on a game day. I ended up at the end as the GM and President of the team so I ended up doing everything. So I’d be running the power-play, talking to the mascot, I’d talk to the PR Director, talking to the announcer of the radio, making sure the Zamboni was going so I was doing everything at the end. You really do get humbled of what it takes to put on a game day. Whether it’s dealing with the season ticket holders, if there’s tape in the boxes for both teams, where they players are going, you know what kind of interviews the guys get, where the popcorn guy is gonna sell popcorn, you really don’t understand what it takes so I really got humbled quick from being an NHL hockey player to all of a sudden running a team. It takes a lot of work and you have to hire good people but it is a very cool experience. It helped me adjust a little bit to the real world. I struggled just like everyone else. Being a player, everyone caters to you to all of a sudden having expectations to do things for the fans and for the league was a pretty cool experience.

Any plans, ideas, dreams of becoming a head coach in the NHL?

Ah, we’ll see where the world takes me. I definitely enjoyed the coaching aspect of it. We did pretty good. I went from the first season, not even knowing anything about the league to putting 22 guys into the AHL so we broke the record with that, in two years we went to the finals and I won coach of the year. My old friend Brad Smyth, who I used to play with, was my assistant coach so I got to coach with my buddy. One day if the opportunity comes, I would like to get back into coaching but as for now I just love development hockey. I love to be with the youth kids and I really enjoy teaching the game that has given me such a great life to other people and help grow the sport as much as possible.

Today (at the time of the interview), is the 4 year anniversary of when the Kings won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. The word on the street was that you followed those Kings’ playoff games very closely, and cheered on and supported them, by not only watching every game but by also wearing your own Kings’ jersey that you used to wear and play with when you were a King when watching those games! Let’s set the record straight right now “Army!” Is this a true story?

Yeah! You know you go through such a tough time when you retire. It’s tough to realize and admit to yourself that you’re not a player anymore. I have a pretty good basement so I watched most of that playoff run. And yeah I put my jersey on for a couple of games for sure!

That … is … beautiful!

All those guys were … deserving and to think that I helped get them there when I was there, when they were 18, 19 years old, I had been watching them mature for so long. And for a city to have so much passion for sports, especially for the Lakers who have been running that city for so long, it was a really cool experience for me because I got to see that fan base grow. There are such passionate hockey fans there. To see those kids that I watched in person for 2 to 3 years and see how far they came to win the Stanley Cup was rewarding to me as well. I was kind of like a proud dad to watch those guys raise the Stanley Cup. It’s not always just about winning the Cup, through that it was great to know that my work in LA was appreciated and hopefully I gave those guys some opportunities and lessons on how to be professionals. Hopefully they took it and it looked like they did when they won the Cup so it was nice to feel a part of it. But yeah, I definitely wore my jersey for a couple of games in my basement down there by myself cheering them on!

You have no idea “Army,” how happy that makes me feel. The Kingdom has always loved Derek Armstrong from your time playing there, and your toughness and work ethic and you were a King in every way but learning about this back in 2012 and you confirming it today has and had put you in the upper echelon of popularity in the eyes and hearts of all Kings’ fans. You don’t hear about that too often when it comes to former players putting on the jersey again when they don’t have to or without some type of publicity involved, but you did it just to support the team and such, so on behalf of all the Kings’ fans around the world, thank you for that, Mr. Derek Armstrong! That is fantastic!

You know the Kings gave me an opportunity. Every time I went on the ice, I was proud to be a King and hopefully I helped change the culture there with my work ethic. LA was always great to me and I really appreciate everything about that city.  Like I said, I was a proud dad watching that team and having my jersey on was a pretty cool experience.

What were your feelings and experience when the Kings won the Stanley Cup a second time in 2014?

You know they’re a good group. They lost some crucial pieces in the last couple of years and I think they have to get back to finding that leadership which is the most important. For that second one, they flew me in to a couple of fan events, and you don’t get to win it but it was good to experience it there with them. The expectations were higher for that second one but it was good to see that could live up to it after that first one. It was really cool to see people step up when they needed to and that’s what I remember. There was such a buzz around the team and just to watch them fight for every second was pretty cool.

How well do you think the Kings will do next season?

I’m hoping they win the Stanley Cup again!

Nice!

I’m like a fan now so I want to see them win.  It depends because they need to get a little bit faster up front and the [Slava] Voynov loss was big, so they got to find another defensemen that can make those plays. That’s why Pittsburgh has been so great. They’re defensemen are making such great plays in their own end while under pressure and that’s the key. They had two or three really good guys who were good at that. I mean, they’ll have a good chance as anyone else next year and they’ll be fresh and whether they’ll get their bounces here and there and whether they can get back to the higher level, and I really thought they could win it this year but as you can see with Pittsburgh and Washington, Chicago, they play much faster now and they’ve caught up. I’m sure Dean and “Blakie” and [Darryl] Sutter and all those guys, they are very smart hockey people and they’ll make the adjustments and will give the team what they need so hopefully they can win another Cup!

Speaking of Pittsburgh and the current Stanley Cup between the Penguins and the San Jose Sharks, who has impressed you so far in this Cup final and who do you have to win it all?

I thought San Jose was gonna win it but Pittsburgh has just been so fast. I’ve been in awe of Pittsburgh’s back-end. You know that was their biggest thing going into the playoffs and they lost [Trevor] Daley too so the back end wasn’t what it was supposed to be but San Jose can’t even get on the forecheck because of the way Pittsburgh is moving the puck and they’re making great plays in their own end. Obviously [Matt] Murray the goalie, what a story that is! He has, maybe a Hall of Famer behind him and he’s not giving up the reins. He’s looked good. You know that has been the biggest thing, how well the Pittsburgh’s defense has played, especially with a big, strong team trying to get to them all the time. They don’t seem to be letting down.

Now what is your favorite goal of all time and what was your favorite game of all time as a LA King?

My favorite goal was probably when Luc broke the record for the all-time left-wing scorer. I was his linemate for 2 or 3 years and the last year, we were really trying to get him that record as a team. Being on the ice and probably being the first guy to give him a hug and see the emotion and expression on his face, from a guy that got drafted really late and was told he couldn’t skate his whole life, to see him become the greatest left winger in history when he scored in that game, I was the first one to hug him. That was such an experience. It was a pretty cool experience, like I said, him and Rob Blake are probably two of the nicest guys you will ever meet in your entire life. And they had really done a lot for hockey in California. They really don’t get enough credit for that. Those guys do so much for hockey there. So watching the relief on his face and the joy he had and giving him that hug was a pretty cool experience.

Now probably the one game that I remember the most was when were down 5-2 against Dallas going into the 3^rd period, and we came back to win 6-5 was cool. To be a part of that on the ice, whenever it was, January, February …

Yeah, that was during the 2005-06  season and you scored the winner!

There you go, yeah. To be down 5-2 and to come back in the 3^rd period, the building was rocking. People couldn’t believe it. Those two games were probably my best experiences as a Kings’ player. My whole experience as an LA King was an incredible experience but watching Luc score that goal, a Hall of Famer break the record like that and with me on that ice was priceless.

Well, “Army,” on behalf of CaliSports News, and for myself as a long time LA King and Derek Armstrong fan, thank you so much for this interview and for your time sir!

You got it brother and have a great day!