Blues best suited to think D at draft, known under Armstrong to select best player available

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- Doug Armstrong and the St. Louis Blues will be in an all-too-familiar position when the 2024 NHL Draft unfolds Friday and Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Last year was one of the rare exceptions to the rule when the Blues had three first-round picks, including the 10th pick, but for a franchise that's typically been int he playoffs for the past decade or so, selecting in the late teens or in the 20s is nothing new.

And just like 2017 when they barely missed the playoffs, the Blues repeated that feat, this time, missing out by seven points.

By having the 16th pick on Friday, the Blues have a number of options of what to do: try and move up, trade down and accrue more assets, trade the pick/package of picks for a young player(s) with term or restricted free agent status or simply make the pick.

Should the Blues make the pick, Armstrong has always maintained the Blues don't necessarily go for need as opposed to going for the "best available player." Could they take another forward? Absolutely, if the fit is right.

But whether the Blues keep the pick or move up in this case, it's evident the organization needs to replenish the cupboard with defensive prospects.

"You've got some big horses back there and you've got some small, dynamic forwards or some small, dynamic, puck-moving D," Armstrong said recently. "There's a wide variety. If you're looking for a defenseman and you can get the 5-11, 6-footers and you can get the 6-7 guys too. It seems to be a good selection of smorgasbord of whatever you like at the buffet line, but there's a lot of depth in that area, certainly at the top of it."

They did grab left-handed Theo Lindstein with the 29th pick a year ago, and the Swede had himself a fine season this past year, so there's a good start already. But in a draft that that is being dubbed as one with good defensive prospects, can the Blues potentially net themselves a future NHL blueliner?

Unless they move up into the top teens/mid-to-bottom 10, it will be hard-pressed to land one of the top left-handers in Sam Dickinson (London, OHL) or Zeev Buium (University of Denver). They're not getting either of the Russians (Artyom Levshunov, Michigan State or Anton Silayev, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, KHL) because the Blues almost undoubtedly will be able to trade into the top five, but there are some solid players that could be available to them at 16.

Two players that are really intriguing are both right-handed defensemen, and could one or both certainly fall to the Blues should they not move into the the top 15? Sure.

The Blues could use a blueliner with an upside for scoring, and there would be none better than Carter Yakemchuk (6-foot-3, 202 pounds) who played in Calgary of the Western Hockey League last season and put up 30 goals and 41 assists in 66 games last season.

And then there's Adam Jiricek (6-2, 178), a bit smaller but plays bigger for his size, who toiled for HC Plzeň of the Czech Extraliga last season who had his season cut short to 19 games (one assist) after sustaining a right knee injury at the World Junior Championship.

Jiricek is the younger brother of Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman David Jiricek who could slip due to injury.

"I think you rely heavily on your medical staff. The NHL does a lot of great work to get us information," Armstrong said. "We do a lot of internal work getting with the agents.

"I think [Aleksander] Barkov, who we're watching to play (in the Stanley Cup Final), had a major issue and he fell a little bit and I know one team is happy that he fell. You have to weigh the risk with the reward. Modern medicine changes so much. Things used to be career-ending injuries are now just on the shelf for a small bit and back on the ice. It certainly adds another layer to the process that you go through to select the guy. Every injury is an injury on its own but you have to do your research. I wouldn't totally say we would back away from someone because of an injury another player has healed up on in 6-8 months and played another 15 years with."

In a perfect scenario, the Blues would be wise to try and get bigger and stronger on the blue line, but taking the right complement would outweigh a specific trait in a player.

"I think it's fluid. The theory obviously is you'd like to have big guys," Armstrong said. "Then you see [Quinn] Hughes and [Adam] Fox being dominant players. I think there's a risk-reward with smaller players at any level. If you had two exact, skilled players and one was 5-11 and one was 6-4, you'd gravitate towards the 6-4 one. But they're usually not like that. There's usually a give-and-take with size and give-and-take with skill. I think we just have to play that out and listen to our scouts. We do a lot of, 'How does he compare to this guy? How does he compare to that guy?' When you go back in the draft, who's had success at a certain size, where were they taken? And where did they fail? Where did they fail at too? There is somewhat a science behind it, but at the end of the day, every player is different and you can't hold a 5-11 player in this year's draft against him if he's better than a 5-11 player a year ago. He's just better. Obviously we would all like to have bigger players.

"I think one of the things that I learned is after the year-long lockout when we came and the game changed, there was less hooking, less holding and smaller players that had the freedom to do what they wanted. And then what we found out after four or five years, bigger players got faster so they could play in the league. That's always an evolution where I think in any sport, players are getting bigger, stronger, quicker and it makes it harder on smaller players."

The Blues, who also have two second-round picks (Nos. 48 and 56), two third-round picks (Nos. 81 and 95), a fourth-round pick (No. 113), a fifth-round pick (No. 145) and two seventh-round picks (Nos. 209 and No. 211), are one team that could get creative in moving up or down.

The draft begins with Round 1 at 6 p.m. (CT) Friday (ESPN, ESPN+) with Rounds 2-7 on Saturday starting at 10:30 a.m. (ESPN+, NHL Network).