GM said team could move up, move down, make pick, use in trade for younger player with some term; won't package it in trade for improving team today
MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- When the St. Louis Blues select 16th at the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas on June 28, they are open to a variety of things, including making the pick, packaging it to trade up, gaining more assets by moving back, or packaging it to trade for a younger player with term.
One thing they won't do?
"I don't see us using that pick to improve today," Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said on Monday. "With that being said, if it's somebody in an age bracket that I see a longer-term vision, would we do that? I think I've seen a lot of teams talk about, 'We're ready to move this year's pick to improve this year's team.' It could be a player with one or two years, maybe three. I don't see that being our vision right now, but if there was the right player that had the right amount of term that we could see growing with certain people, we could do that. But I see it more of a selection type of a draft for us."
In other words, they likely won't use the pick to package in a trade for a veteran player of today.
But any of the other options, they're open for business.
"There's obviously some attractive players," Armstrong said. "My experiences and probably every manager is the same. You pick (No.) 10, there's nine great guys. When you pick (No.) 16, there's 15 great guys. When you pick (No.) 28, there's 27 great guys. It's just sort of going to be fluctuating whether we're going to be moving up, whether we move back to gain an extra asset."
The Blues are scheduled to make nine picks in this year's draft, having an extra second (from the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Ryan O'Reilly trade), an extra third from the trade that sent Vladimir Tarasenko and Niko Mikkola to the New York Rangers, and an extra seventh from the New York Islanders that they acquired in the trade for Robert Bortuzzo. They do not currently have a sixth-round pick.
So there are options of what to do with it.
Should the Blues make the pick, it seems almost certain they will look to add a defenseman in a draft known to have a plethora of them. If that were the case, they would be well-advised to perhaps try and move up if they can. Some teams have been rumored to be winning to trade out of their spots, including the New Jersey Devils at No. 10 and Buffalo Sabres at No. 11.
But according to Armstrong, it's not necessarily the case to have a desire to move up and try to grab one of the top d-men.
"I would say no. There's a good depth in this class. If the right player is there, we're going to take him," Armstrong said. "When you look at the NHL Draft compared to a football draft, your first couple picks automatically have to be starters in your lineup or else it's a poor draft where in hockey, when you're picking 16, the actuary tables say that guy will play his first game in three years and a meaningful player in four, potentially a meaningful player in four. A lot of things change between now and then. I do know that when you have good players at any position, they become assets to other teams that might have a glut of players on one area. You can fix that in different ways.
"All things being equal though, my father scouted back in the 70s and 80s and D first, centermen second, wingers third. All things being equal, those are the positions you try and fill out. I don't really think that's really changed. Speaking for this organization, I don't think out of drafting for positional necessity is proper just because of the runway that these players are going to need to get up and running."
Should the Blues attempt to move up, they do have draft assets some teams don't have, including four picks in Rounds 2-3.
"I think we're like every team. We go on a points system," Armstrong said. "So pick 16 is worth an X-amount of points. Pick 12 is worth X-amount of points, so are our seconds and thirds. We try and make those as equal as possible, so if you take 16 and both seconds, you add that point-total up, does it get you to eight, does it get you to 11, where does it get you and then also, our point total isn't exact to somebody else's. Also then you're working on what they see and where their prospect pool is at. Do they want to have those extra picks? It's the picks in this year's draft, the picks in next year's draft and it's other assets that are already on our reserve list."
The 2023 draft was one in which was considered loaded and teams were more reluctant to make draft day trades. With this year's class not being touted as good as the 2023 class, could there be more willingness, more flexibility for teams to move up or down?
"I think the top 10 is pretty strong in this year's draft. I think the consensus is now there might be more players fluctuating into it, but I'm going back on my experience," Armstrong said. 'Every time we walk out of the draft, what I'm going to hear is next year's draft isn't as good, and then we get to the meetings, this draft's better than I thought it was going to be. So we walked out of last year's draft and this year's draft wasn't as good. Then you say to our guys, 'Should we trade this year's seconds? Oh no, no, no, we're going to get a good player there.' That's just the nature of scouting. There's that belief system that you're going to find a player.
"Coming out of our meetings in Niagara on the lake (at the NHL Combine in Buffalo), I think our guys are excited about who they're going to get at 16. They'd be excited if we can get into the top 10 and I think they understand if we move back and get another second, having three seconds would be exciting too. It fluctuates. Coming out of our amateur meetings, that's why I like doing it when we do it. It gives our staff a couple weeks and then we'll get there, (director of amateur scouting) Tony Feltrin and his main core of cross-over guys and I will sit down and we'll really get down to what do we want to do here. We put them in different categories: chase, don't chase, move back. I've got to find out who's fallen in what categories and how this has fallen in the draft.
"My experience again is probably that Monday before the draft, I'll call different managers that are picking ... you can get into the top four or five, but it's going to cut very, very deep into players we're trying to build around. So let's say you want to get into eight, nine, 10, 11, I think that's doable. It's painful. I've got to get to the threshold or pain that we're willing to take as an organization."
Last year, the Blues had three first-round picks and selected forward Dalibor Dvorsky (10th), forward Otto Stenberg (25th) and defenseman Theo Lindstein (29th).
