The St. Louis Blues are in a good position to make some noise this offseason, with all eyes on the three first-round picks they have in the upcoming 2023 NHL Draft. Blues general manager Doug Armstrong , has shown in the past that he’s not afraid to move those kinds of picks, much like when he moved two in 2017 to bring in Brayden Schenn, one being a pick he acquired in selling Kevin Shattenkirk.
Jeremy Rutherford joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli on Daily Faceoff Live to talk about the Blues’ current wealth of first-round picks and what could possibly happen to them.
Jeremy Rutherford: Of course, they have the No. 10 overall pick, and Armstrong has repeatedly said he’d be shocked if he didn’t take to the Nashville stage to make that No. 10 overall pick. The Blues didn’t have many high picks. You talk about Erik Johnson, number one overall, Alex Pietrangelo, but that’s about it. So now they’re getting into the top 10 with a tough season last year, and then also because of Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko trades, they’re going to have two first-round picks later, #25 and a no yet pick determined once these playoffs are over.
What will the Blues do? I think they’ll make that pick number 10, but first-round stragglers, that’s the key question here. There’s a situation where the Blues could make one of those picks available to an established NHL player, trying to get someone here to keep this team competitive for the next two years this which Armstrong called retooling, or they could do both. You look at the ranking of our personnel group at Athletic and the Blues not too high in the prospect group, so I think that’s a situation where they would be very inclined to make those picks as well.
You can watch the full episode here…
