It's been a moment since Blues had such a high pick; what do they do? Who do they pick?

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- It's been a moment since the Blues have had the opportunity to make a draft selection this high.

And although Doug Armstrong isn't envious of being in such a position, the Blues general manager is stoked to try and make the most of it and get a player that can make an impact sooner rather than later for the franchise.

"I don't like it," he said Friday. "I'd rather be farther back in the draft. But it is exciting. It's exciting for your staff, it's exciting for people around to see there is a ray of sunshine in a dismal season. And the ray of sunshine is going to come in Nashville on that day. I've enjoyed the process of learning what to look for in top-10 picks, doing a lot of research on what players succeed, what players fail. It's not a lot different because I let the amateur staff do their job at the draft. I have a better knowledge of who we're going to get at 10. When you're picking at 28, 29, 30, 22, there's so many players, you don't know what's going to happen in front of you."

Not since 2010 when the Blues selected Jaden Schwartz 14th and Vladimir Tarasenko 16th that they've had a first-round pick this close, and not since 2008 when they took Alex Pietrangelo fourth overall that the Blues have had a top-10 pick ... until now.

But unless something unforeseen happens in a trade, and by all indications, Armstrong will not move the Blues' pick in the first round unless they can somehow move up (they have three altogether via trades), they will have the 10th pick in Nashville on June 28,

But before they get down to business of trying to help alter the franchise, the first steps will be meeting the prospects when the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo June 4-10.

As of now, the Blues have the 10th, 25th and 29th picks in the first round, with the 25th via Toronto when the Blues dealt Ryan O'Reilly and Noel Acciari to the Maple Leafs prior to the trade deadline, and the 29th pick via Dallas through the New York Rangers, when the Blues traded Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola to New York.

"The way the timeline works is we have the combine next week where they bring in maybe 100 players, somewhere in that neighborhood," Armstrong said. "You get to interview them, you get to spend time with them and then we take that and we go right into our amateur meetings and that's where the excitement's going to build.

"Right now, we know we have three first-round picks. I was over at the U18's in Switzerland when the season ended for 10 or 11 days before I came home and went back to the Men's Worlds. It was exciting because you're looking at a level of player that we haven't looked at in the past. Some of these draft-eligible players played in the World Championships too. It's going to be an exciting meeting because we haven't picked in this area. When you're picking in the late 20's, you're hoping to find players that play in the league. When you're picking in the top 10, you're hoping to find guys that can have more of an impact."

And that's where the Blues have been used to picking, in the 20's. And that's a product of being a consistently strong regular-season team with plenty of playoff success.

But with the excitement of getting to choose an impact player, even if the Blues don't move off of the 10th pick, who's to say they may not at least try and push their way into the top nine?

In order to do that, in a draft that's being dubbed as a deep draft, the price will be hefty. But who's to say the Blues don't listen to someone right behind them moving up a spot or two (Vancouver at No. 11 or Arizona at No. 12) and accruing more capital? It's possible.

"To get to move up from 10, you probably have to use ... let's say you want to move up from 10 to five, it's not going to come with draft picks," Armstrong said. "Most likely our two first rounders 25 and 29 and 10 won't get you to five. They might get you up a slot or two. I'm not against listening to anything anyone might have idea-wise. The combine's a great place to do that too. You're going to run into other managers. Everybody's had a little time. Not the teams that lost in the semifinals but everyone before that, they've gone through their pity party. We went through ours months and months ago, but now everybody's focused on the task at hand, which is the draft. We're open to selecting.

"Moving up's hard to do. Moving back a slot or two to pick up something else, we'll have our list. If you can move from 10 to 12 and you have three guys on your list to do it, but if you go from 10 to 12 and you have one guy on your list that you really like, so it's a risk-reward on what you think is going to do. I've done both. One time we went from 19 to 21 or something in that area and we had two guys, and they went 19 and 20. The whole draft table, they were disappointed. I want to be very careful that we're walking out of there with somebody that we really want."

And in order to do that, the Blues' scouting staff, led by director of amateur scouting Tony Feltrin, will be relied on heavily to help management hone in on who will be available to them while Armstrong and staff have been doing extensive homework.

"I went to Finland in February for a couple weeks for the U-18 over there and then I went for the full U-18 in Switzerland. I saw those countries play," Armstrong said. "But it was more to give me knowledge of the players. I'm not going to override. It allows me to ask questions of the staff because I know and I've seen them more. But they've spent a year or the better part of 18 months seeing these guys. The worst thing I think a manager could do or any of them can do is one-time scouting, coming in seeing something and then voicing your opinion. I trust these guys. They've done a really good job for us. It allows me to ask more questions, but ultimately, they set the list and I go off that list with them."

It's a foregone conclusion that at least the top four are set to go in the top four, unless -- again -- something unforeseen happens. Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson and Matvei Michkov or William Smith are the top four/five guys off the board.

So who could be on the board for the Blues? That's where things get tricky, and that's where Armstrong talks about having multiple names listed who they could target.

Among them could be forward Ryan Leonard (my personal favorite/choice here), center Dalibor Dvorsky (next best pick for me, if available), center Oliver Moore, defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka, forward Andrew Cristall, forward Eduard Sale to name a few. And there's no need to ask if the Blues will draft more for need. Not a chance. They're selecting the best possible player they feel is the best.

"At 10, there's five guys that we know are gone for sure," Armstrong said. "And I think everyone has those five guys gone and then it starts to move around a little bit. That's where it gets exciting. When you're picking in the late 20's, there's guys that drop. For us, if you're picking 25, we usually get 12 or 13 (names) on our list. That's the variance for what other teams are doing. When you're picking 10, I assume we're going to get no one higher than seven, maybe eight on our list. Our list is going to be very similar one through six or seven as to the whole league.

"We're going to draft the best possible player because at 10, you're hoping he's here in 24 months, 12-24 months. I would say we're very excited for what [Ivan] Barbashev did, where we picked him; what [Jordan] Kyrou did, where we picked him. That was five years after we drafted them. Thinking that rubbing the crystal ball and saying, 'We have to take a defenseman right now or a center right now, because in five years, we might need him,' I think so much can change. We take best available more than positional."

As for No. 25 and No. 29, the Blues will cross that bridge when they get there ... if they get there.