Doug Armstrong is in his 12th year running the St. Louis Blues, making him the second-longest-tenured general manager in the NHL. While he's not sure what to make of his team this season, he knows one thing.

"I've never been part of a group that's had such a diversity in play and results," Armstrong told ESPN over the weekend. "Our peaks are high and our valleys are low. And we get to both quickly."

The Blues have had a dramatic start to the season. A franchise-record eight-game losing streak was followed by a seven-game winning streak.

Along the way, the Blues demonstrated some bad habits, like allowing a one-goal deficit to quickly become two or three. They've also engineered incredible comebacks, like Saturday; down 4-1 entering the third period, St. Louis stunned Florida with an overtime win.

"I know what our identity has been in the past and I don't think this team has an identity yet," Armstrong said. "That's one of the struggles our coaches are having right now. You're a quarter into the season and you still haven't found anything you can hang your hat on and say, 'This is what a good game looks like.'"

With an average age of over 28, the Blues have the eighth-oldest roster in the NHL. And they'll face big decisions soon: The two highest-paid players (captain Ryan O'Reilly and winger Vladimir Tarasenko, with matching $7.5 million cap hits) both become unrestricted free agents this summer.

But for now, Armstrong is exercising patience — despite his team hovering around .500 in a competitive Central Division. With tenure comes perspective, and Armstrong knows how to weather a storm. In a wide-ranging conversation, the Blues GM explained why seismic moves this season are unlikely — and a rebuild isn't in the team's plans anytime soon.

The quarter mark is too early to panic

Rewind to the Blues' 2019 Stanley Cup season. In January, the Blues had the worst record in the league and had already undergone a coaching change, replacing Mike Yeo with Craig Berube. The team had made several big free agent acquisitions the previous summer: O'Reilly, Tyler Bozak, Pat Maroon, David Perron.

"A lot of pundits thought we were a solid team, a Cup-contending team, but we weren't playing like it," Armstrong said. "We wanted to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Good players have bad years. I learned that early in my career from Bob Gainey. If a player is going to have a 12- or 16-year career, they're not all going to be memorable. You don't want to make a mistake out of frustration."

On a Western Conference road trip just before Christmas, a shift began. "We didn't win the games, but we started to play really well," Armstrong recalled. "It didn't look like we had turned the corner, but inside it felt like we were turning the corner. In January, Jordan Binnington came in and a storybook season was had after that."