ST. LOUIS -- Ken Hitchcock says he has "unfinished business" in St. Louis.
Hitchcock, who signed a one-year contract Tuesday to return to the Blues for a fifth season, said he isn't coaching at this point for the sake of coaching.
"I want to coach to win," Hitchcock said.
Not just Hitchcock, but his entire coaching staff will return, general manager Doug Armstrong confirmed.
Armstrong estimated he and Hitchcock spent the majority of the past few weeks detoxing from the Blues' third consecutive first-round playoff exit, and putting it into perspective compared with Hitchcock's overall tenure with the organization, which includes four playoff appearances and two Central Division titles. The conversations between the two were wide-ranging, and included discussions on personnel, the season itself and the playoffs.
Following a "decided change," as Armstrong called it, in the style of players the Blues brought in last year -- a common refrain from the club during that time was the skill they'd added to the roster to complement their blue-collar identity -- the general manager admitted the organization went through several bumps in the road that had become foreign over the past several seasons.
"I thought those bumps continued into the playoffs," Armstrong said. "These were things that Ken and I talked about."
Armstrong admitted that this year's first-round postseason exit felt different from the previous two seasons.
"I felt that we didn't play to the level of expectation in this year's playoffs," he said. "I think against Chicago and Los Angeles, the results were the same but, when the emotion settled down, you could take probably more positives away from the individual competition of some players, and just the level of competitiveness from start to finish."
"This is the first time since I've been here that there is real disappointment, and real anger, in the players right now. There's guys still angry, which is a great thing." - Blues coach Ken Hitchcock
Armstrong, though he knew people would already be curious about next year's playoffs, insisted that the Blues needed to be ready to play in September, or "we won't make the playoffs."
In fact, the club has already started.
"Today was the first day we started preparing for next season," Hitchcock said. "The thing that was exciting for me today was today was the first day that we started looking ahead. This has been a process of reflection, of focus on what went right and what needs to change, and we're now in the process of getting ourselves mentally and physically prepared to get the players into the right frame of mind so we can begin building our team again."
That attitude was something that, before reaching a deal, Armstrong wanted to be assured Hitchcock was prepared to bring through the course of another 82-game regular season.
"I had to make sure that the passion level that is going to be necessary in November, December, January, February -- the dog days of the season -- that Ken still had that passion," Armstrong said.
Meanwhile, it sounds like not only the coach, but the players are ready to work, too.
"This is the first time since I've been here that there is real disappointment, and real anger, in the players right now. There's guys still angry, which is a great thing," Hitchcock said. "This is the first time I've seen this, that the players themselves feel like we underperformed in the playoffs from what we did in the regular season."
He addressed what he characterized as strong personal relationships with some of the players on the roster, particularly in the leadership group (composed of David Backes, Alexander Steen, T.J. Oshie, Alex Pietrangelo and Barret Jackman).
"For the first time in my life, this was the longest (postseason) conversations I've had with players," he said. "And it was there to gather as much information, good and bad."
That information, he added, invigorated him.
"I needed to hear the bad before the good," Hitchcock said. "When things aren't going well, I wanted to hear from the players what they want to see. And when I got that information, allowing me to coach, the way I coach, gave me a lot of confidence that we could do the job."
Hitchcock admitted he couldn't miss the media developments this offseason regarding Red Wings coach Mike Babcock's coaching destination -- the Blues were rumored to be one of the interested teams -- but said frankly, he didn't care.
"We have a relationship where we can tell each other pretty much anything, and there's no consequences," Hitchcock said of Armstrong. "I know one thing -- he keeps me informed on everything."
Another topic the two discussed was the club's advantage at having two core groups of players -- an "aging" one, as he characterized it, in its late 20s to early 30s, and a "young" one, in the lower to mid 20s.
"I want to make sure we're servicing both," Armstrong said, "but understanding that the long-term look on this franchise is around Schwartz, Tarasenko, Alex Pietrangelo, Shattenkirk. I think Jake Allen has a great career ahead of him."
He also confirmed there would be roster changes going forward -- even if it's relegated to adding players from the club's AHL affiliate in Chicago -- but made it clear he's not interested in trading someone for the sake of a trade.
"No trade is better than a poor trade," Armstrong said. "We're going to explore improving our team to levels that we probably haven't explored in the past, but it has to make sense."
You can follow Elisabeth Meinecke on Twitter at @lismeinecke or email her at ecmeinecke@gmail.com.
