The St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals completed a blockbuster deal, with Jordan Kyrou heading to the Capitals in exchange for the 16th overall pick in the 2026 NHL draft, center Connor McMichael and prospect Milton Gastrin.

For the Capitals, they land a two-way scoring winger who will bring speed and another right-handed shot to the fold. 

For the Blues, they land a middle-six center in McMichael, who posted a career-high 26 goals and 57 points just a season ago; a 19-year-old prospect in Gastrin who was selected 37th overall in 2025; and, maybe even more importantly, another first-round pick in this year’s draft. 

The Blues now own four first-round picks: the 11th, 15th, 16th, and 29th picks. 

It’s almost unheard of for a team to own this many picks in a single round, let alone the first round. In 2023, the Blues made three picks in the first round, selecting Dalibor Dvorsky (10th overall), Otto Stenberg (25th overall), and Theo Lindstein (29th overall), all of whom played NHL games this season for the Blues. 

But are the Blues really going to make all four selections, or could a bolder move be on the way?

GM Doug Armstrong has been asked on several occasions whether the Blues would be open to trading up, and he has never ruled it out. 

“I don’t want to say what we won’t do because then we’ll end up doing it,” Armstrong said on Monday. “But I think we want to get some variety in our picks if possible. We’ve drafted heavily defensively lately, and our organizational depth chart could use players in a couple different slots. We don’t want to ask the scouts to jump out of a block to get a position, but we do want to talk about taking a position within a block, if that makes sense.”

While trading up remains a possibility for the Blues, could they also use these picks to acquire an established NHL player? There have been loose rumors connecting the Blues to Elias Pettersson. Could they go after Bowen Byram or Mason McTavish, a pair of players who have been strongly linked to the Blues? 

The Blues are in an awkward spot: they have plenty of young prospects waiting to break into the lineup, but also veterans who are still contributing to their success. Deciding whether a rebuild is needed or going all in is still in the cards.

The options are plentiful for the Blues, but what may be most obvious is that they can’t hold on to all these picks. 

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