Don't sign off for the season just yet, it's draft week! I don't know a ton about prospects, but it sounds like there might be some intrigue after Lafreniere. It also sounds like there might be a lot of transactions in the next week and at the draft as well. In terms of the actual draft, Corey Pronman posted a complete 7 round mock draft today that will surely be entirely accurate. Here's who he had the Blues select:

ST. LOUIS BLUES

26: Ryan O’Rourke, D, Sault Ste. Marie-OHL
86: Evan Vierling, C, Barrie-OHL
88: Michael Krutil, D, Sparta Praha-Czech
119: Zachary Uens, D, Merrimack-Hockey East
146: Ethan Edwards, D, Spruce Grove-AJHL
150: Oliver Okuliar, LW, Lethbridge-AHL
203: Alex Laferriere, RW, Des Moines-USHL

If you've got thoughts on these guys, the top prospects, or anyone else, let's hear them.

I admittedly haven't been paying close attention the last week, have the Blues announced who will take over Bill Armstrong's duties?

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:44 am I admittedly haven't been paying close attention the last week, have the Blues announced who will take over Bill Armstrong's duties?

They have announced the two guys that will be running the draft......2 of their senior scouts. But they haven’t announced who will fill BA’s spot going forward.

Matangama wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:54 am

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:44 am I admittedly haven't been paying close attention the last week, have the Blues announced who will take over Bill Armstrong's duties?

They have announced the two guys that will be running the draft......2 of their senior scouts. But they haven’t announced who will fill BA’s spot going forward.

I hope they replace BillA with BillP

Dave's a mess wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:00 am Don't sign off for the season just yet, it's draft week! I don't know a ton about prospects, but it sounds like there might be some intrigue after Lafreniere. It also sounds like there might be a lot of transactions in the next week and at the draft as well. In terms of the actual draft, Corey Pronman posted a complete 7 round mock draft today that will surely be entirely accurate. Here's who he had the Blues select:

ST. LOUIS BLUES

26: Ryan O’Rourke, D, Sault Ste. Marie-OHL
86: Evan Vierling, C, Barrie-OHL
88: Michael Krutil, D, Sparta Praha-Czech
119: Zachary Uens, D, Merrimack-Hockey East
146: Ethan Edwards, D, Spruce Grove-AJHL
150: Oliver Okuliar, LW, Lethbridge-AHL
203: Alex Laferriere, RW, Des Moines-USHL

If you've got thoughts on these guys, the top prospects, or anyone else, let's hear them.

Wouldn't that be a hoot if someone took Laferriere thinking they were getting Lafreniere.

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:25 pm

Matangama wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:54 am

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:44 am I admittedly haven't been paying close attention the last week, have the Blues announced who will take over Bill Armstrong's duties?

They have announced the two guys that will be running the draft......2 of their senior scouts. But they haven’t announced who will fill BA’s spot going forward.

I hope they replace BillA with BillP

Yes! Boy,would I love that! I would hire all you guys to be on my staff and together we would build a dynasty!!!

Dave's a mess wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:00 am Don't sign off for the season just yet, it's draft week! I don't know a ton about prospects, but it sounds like there might be some intrigue after Lafreniere. It also sounds like there might be a lot of transactions in the next week and at the draft as well. In terms of the actual draft, Corey Pronman posted a complete 7 round mock draft today that will surely be entirely accurate. Here's who he had the Blues select:

ST. LOUIS BLUES

26: Ryan O’Rourke, D, Sault Ste. Marie-OHL
86: Evan Vierling, C, Barrie-OHL
88: Michael Krutil, D, Sparta Praha-Czech
119: Zachary Uens, D, Merrimack-Hockey East
146: Ethan Edwards, D, Spruce Grove-AJHL
150: Oliver Okuliar, LW, Lethbridge-AHL
203: Alex Laferriere, RW, Des Moines-USHL

If you've got thoughts on these guys, the top prospects, or anyone else, let's hear them.

Okay, you got 2 guys on your draft board rated the same and its your turn to pick. One is a defenseman, and the other is a forward. Who would you like the Blues to pick? A D man or forward? Personally, I prefer a forward at 1 in this years draft.

There are many prospect rankings out there, but this one is free!
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/sp ... l-edition/
And so is this one!
https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-jamie-d ... -1.1534550

Dave's a mess wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:23 pm There are many prospect rankings out there, but this one is free!
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/sp ... l-edition/
And so is this one!
https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-jamie-d ... -1.1534550

Why does Proman have the Blues taking "ROR the 2nd" in the first round, when he doesn't even make the top 40 on the TSN list, or top 36 on Sportsnet's list? Is O'Rourke a RHD?

Did I miss something? This thread has made me realized I hadn't seen Tim around and I checked and he hasn't logged in since the end of August. Kind of odd since the draft always seemed to be his favorite

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:55 pm Did I miss something? This thread has made me realized I hadn't seen Tim around and I checked and he hasn't logged in since the end of August. Kind of odd since the draft always seemed to be his favorite

He seems to have taken a vacation from the board after one of the other threads veered into some rather passionate non-hockey discussion. Hope he comes back, but if not we can all pretend we know who these teenagers are tomorrow night! I plan on forming very strong opinions about them all tomorrow morning.

bradleygt89 wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:19 pm

Dave's a mess wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:23 pm There are many prospect rankings out there, but this one is free!
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/sp ... l-edition/
And so is this one!
https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-jamie-d ... -1.1534550

Why does Proman have the Blues taking "ROR the 2nd" in the first round, when he doesn't even make the top 40 on the TSN list, or top 36 on Sportsnet's list? Is O'Rourke a RHD?

Just a difference of opinion I suppose, though didn't Pronman say that guy was a late riser? That could do it.

Dave's a mess wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:58 pm

bradleygt89 wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:19 pm

Dave's a mess wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:23 pm There are many prospect rankings out there, but this one is free!
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/sp ... l-edition/
And so is this one!
https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-jamie-d ... -1.1534550

Why does Proman have the Blues taking "ROR the 2nd" in the first round, when he doesn't even make the top 40 on the TSN list, or top 36 on Sportsnet's list? Is O'Rourke a RHD?

Just a difference of opinion I suppose, though didn't Pronman say that guy was a late riser? That could do it.

Good write up on him here, just in case Pronman is correct: https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/2 ... n-o-rourke

Sounds like the kind of defensive player we'd love to have: "On the puck, O'Rourke is mean, nasty, violent -- everything one wants from a durable, robust stay-at-home defender. His battle-level is unbelievably high. He never takes a moment off, never mind a shift, and much less an entire game. O'Rourke is a capable puck-mover, too. He consistently makes good decisions with the puck and boasts an absolutely lethal slap shot. -EliteProspects 2020 NHL Draft Guide"

bradleygt89 wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:10 pm

Dave's a mess wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:58 pm

bradleygt89 wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:19 pmWhy does Proman have the Blues taking "ROR the 2nd" in the first round, when he doesn't even make the top 40 on the TSN list, or top 36 on Sportsnet's list? Is O'Rourke a RHD?

Just a difference of opinion I suppose, though didn't Pronman say that guy was a late riser? That could do it.

Good write up on him here, just in case Pronman is correct: https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/2 ... n-o-rourke

Sounds like the kind of defensive player we'd love to have: "On the puck, O'Rourke is mean, nasty, violent -- everything one wants from a durable, robust stay-at-home defender. His battle-level is unbelievably high. He never takes a moment off, never mind a shift, and much less an entire game. O'Rourke is a capable puck-mover, too. He consistently makes good decisions with the puck and boasts an absolutely lethal slap shot. -EliteProspects 2020 NHL Draft Guide"

Kerbs would have a cranial detonation during the play-by-play the first time O'Reilly and O'Rourke were on the ice together. I'm all for it!

Dave's a mess wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:57 pm

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:55 pm Did I miss something? This thread has made me realized I hadn't seen Tim around and I checked and he hasn't logged in since the end of August. Kind of odd since the draft always seemed to be his favorite

He seems to have taken a vacation from the board after one of the other threads veered into some rather passionate non-hockey discussion. Hope he comes back, but if not we can all pretend we know who these teenagers are tomorrow night! I plan on forming very strong opinions about them all tomorrow morning.

Bring the oven mitts! We will be dishing out steaming hot takes

The Cup win sure has skewed my view about the future of our team. As in, “yeah I don’t mind if DA makes some trades today and secures multiple 1st round picks.” I know he doesn’t have a shot trading for a top 3 pick but there’s a lot of forwards that have my attention. Most of them I see topping out as 2nd liners but I feel this draft/offseason DA has an opportunity to stockpile good prospects quickly and we’d be in good shape a few years from now.

Tidbits from JR's draft primer: https://theathletic.com/1803000/2020/10 ... departure/

The Blues will not be replacing him(Bill Armstrong) anytime soon, announcing last month that longtime scout Tony Feltrin will be in charge of this year’s draft, and he’ll be assisted by another scout, Danny Ginnell.

Feltin, 58, was a fourth-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990, and the defenseman played 48 games in the NHL. In his post-playing career, he was a scout with the New York Rangers and Islanders before joining the Blues as a pro scout in 2007 and switching to the amateur side in 2015.

“(Feltrin) has had a long history in the NHL running drafts, either with the Islanders or the New York Rangers, and will take both hands on the wheel,” Doug Armstrong said. “(Ginnell) will be riding shotgun with him to get through this draft, and after that we’ll sit down and chart out a course moving forward for next season. With the uncertainty of the 2020-21 season, there’s no real rush to make a decision there.”

Prospects: Pronman’s list put the players into these three tiers …

Very good NHL players: Thomas, Kyrou, Perunovich, Kostin and Hofer

Legit NHL players: McGing, Mikkola and Alexandrov

NHL potential: Tucker, Laffiere, Toropchenko, Washkurak and Zhrenko

Biggest need
Right-shot defense has been a position of strength at the NHL level with Pietrangelo and Parayko, but Pietrangelo could be on the move. That would slide Parayko into the No. 1 pair, with Faulk and Robert Bortuzzo rounding out the top-six. Faulk’s seven-year, $45.5 million contract could keep him in the fold through 2026-27, and Bortuzzo’s three-year deal has him around through 2021-22, but the depth chart is fairly bleak after that.

Prospects the Blues are targeting in the draft
Last month, Pronman asked The Athletic’s NHL staff for help in putting together a mock draft for the 2020 first round. I contributed, but I don’t know how much I helped.

In the mock draft, I chose Hamilton center Jan Mysak from the Czech Republic for the Blues at No. 26 overall, and I was promptly put in my place when Pronman gathered reaction from the scouting world.

“A couple of scouts thought Mysak and (Tyson) Foerster went too high and wouldn’t go in the first round,” he wrote.

Last week, Pronman took on a major project, trying to predict all seven rounds of the draft. In it, he had the Blues using the No. 26 pick on Sault Ste. Marie defenseman Ryan O’Rourke, who, go figure, is another lefty! Mysak, by the way, went No. 37 to Nashville, so that shows you what I know.

Here’s who Pronman had for the Blues’ seven other picks …

No. 86: Evan Vierling, C, Barrie-OHL

No. 88: Michael Krutil, D, Sparta Praha-Czech

No. 119: Zachary Uens, D, Merrimack-Hockey East

No. 146: Ethan Edwards, D, Spruce Grove-AJHL

No. 150: Oliver Okuliar, LW, Lethbridge-AHL

No. 203: Alex Laferriere, RW, Des Moines-USHL

So as far as the actual draft, I'll just drop some tidbits I read about throughout the day since I'm sure many of you guys, like me, are catching up with the prospects/rumors now.

It sounds like the Kings are going to take Tim Stutzle, the German center at 2. It had been assumed for a long time that Quinton Byfield (also a center) would be the #2 pick since he's skilled and is 6'4. The shift seems to be because scouts are worried that Byfield's production was over-reliant on being so much bigger and stronger than his OHL competition. The logic makes sense, and should make for an easy pick for Ottawa at 3.

NHL mock drafts below

The Athletic: St. Louis Blues: Justin Barron, D, Halifax-QMJHL
Barron has some concerns in his profile, but he has too much talent between his size, skating and some offense to not go somewhere in the tail-end of the first. There is still first-round interest in him, and he would make a lot of sense in what the Blues would covet in a blueliner. I think Soo defenseman Ryan O’Rourke is possible here too.

TSN Canada: William Wallinder - D Sweden

NBC Sports: 26. St. Louis Blues – Dylan Holloway, LW, University of Wisconsin Badgers (NCAA/Big 10)
Like many teams with a recent record of success, the St. Louis prospect pipeline is quite shallow. In fact, in the Prospect Report we recently released at McKeens, the Blues system was graded as the weakest of all 31 NHL teams, with room to spare. So outside of a little bit of depth in young goaltenders, the Blues need everything. With only a few exceptions, this is a team that likes to draft bigger players, with grit and puck transporting capability also generally desired. If the finer points of a player’s game are a little rougher around the edges, they have been OK with that. And looks who’s on the board! Dylan Holloway!

The Wisconsin forward was a leading scorer in Jr. A in Alberta, but played a more complimentary role as a freshman last season, behind luminaries like Cole Caufield and Alex Turcotte. He is a physically mature power forward who has very good wheels and has shown soft hands as well. The reason he might still be available at pick 26 is a concern about his offensive upside as he can show clear signs of tunnel vision, leading to a lack of creativity. He can play the game too fast, and out of control, leading to too many rushes that go straight to the corner and die out. If he can reign himself in, he could prove a very valuable late first rounder within two or three years.

USA Today - 26. St. Louis Blues: Helge Grans, RD — Among the next level of defensemen prospects, the 6-foot-2 Swede is perhaps the most intriguing due to his combination of skating and puck-moving ability.

MyNHLDraft: JohnJason Peterka
Ht/Wt:5'10"/181 lbs
Position:LW
Team: EHC Munchen (GER)

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:55 am NHL mock drafts below

The Athletic: St. Louis Blues: Justin Barron, D, Halifax-QMJHL
Barron has some concerns in his profile, but he has too much talent between his size, skating and some offense to not go somewhere in the tail-end of the first. There is still first-round interest in him, and he would make a lot of sense in what the Blues would covet in a blueliner. I think Soo defenseman Ryan O’Rourke is possible here too.

TSN Canada: William Wallinder - D Sweden

NBC Sports: 26. St. Louis Blues – Dylan Holloway, LW, University of Wisconsin Badgers (NCAA/Big 10)
Like many teams with a recent record of success, the St. Louis prospect pipeline is quite shallow. In fact, in the Prospect Report we recently released at McKeens, the Blues system was graded as the weakest of all 31 NHL teams, with room to spare. So outside of a little bit of depth in young goaltenders, the Blues need everything. With only a few exceptions, this is a team that likes to draft bigger players, with grit and puck transporting capability also generally desired. If the finer points of a player’s game are a little rougher around the edges, they have been OK with that. And looks who’s on the board! Dylan Holloway!

The Wisconsin forward was a leading scorer in Jr. A in Alberta, but played a more complimentary role as a freshman last season, behind luminaries like Cole Caufield and Alex Turcotte. He is a physically mature power forward who has very good wheels and has shown soft hands as well. The reason he might still be available at pick 26 is a concern about his offensive upside as he can show clear signs of tunnel vision, leading to a lack of creativity. He can play the game too fast, and out of control, leading to too many rushes that go straight to the corner and die out. If he can reign himself in, he could prove a very valuable late first rounder within two or three years.

USA Today - 26. St. Louis Blues: Helge Grans, RD — Among the next level of defensemen prospects, the 6-foot-2 Swede is perhaps the most intriguing due to his combination of skating and puck-moving ability.

MyNHLDraft: JohnJason Peterka
Ht/Wt:5'10"/181 lbs
Position:LW
Team: EHC Munchen (GER)

Fact or Fiction based on an excerpt from the article -------------------- With only a few exceptions, this is a team (Blues) that likes to draft bigger players, with grit and puck transporting capability

BillP. wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:13 am


Fact or Fiction based on an excerpt from the article -------------------- With only a few exceptions, this is a team (Blues) that likes to draft bigger players, with grit and puck transporting capability

I don't know, I feel like the Blues are always drafting undersized forwards. Rattie, Thomas, Kyrou, Fabbri. Then Dunn and Perunovich on D.

Personally, my hope after looking over mocks and draft rankings is for Kaiden Guhle - 6'3 LHD - WHL.

Seems like a good skating physical d-man. I've seen him mocked/ranked anywhere from the teens to 20's so he may have to fall a bit but players always do.

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:21 am

BillP. wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:13 am


Fact or Fiction based on an excerpt from the article -------------------- With only a few exceptions, this is a team (Blues) that likes to draft bigger players, with grit and puck transporting capability

I don't know, I feel like the Blues are always drafting undersized forwards. Rattie, Thomas, Kyrou, Fabbri. Then Dunn and Perunovich on D.

Yeah, I'm with ya. Don't forget Bokk too.

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:44 am Personally, my hope after looking over mocks and draft rankings is for Kaiden Guhle - 6'3 LHD - WHL.

Seems like a good skating physical d-man. I've seen him mocked/ranked anywhere from the teens to 20's so he may have to fall a bit but players always do.

Yeah, I wanted a forward in the first rd but it sounds like there's more choices at D. ............as long as he's damn good, what's the difference. Let's just hope they pick a guy that's got top pair potential.

BillP. wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:47 am

Dread_Pirate_Westley wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:44 am Personally, my hope after looking over mocks and draft rankings is for Kaiden Guhle - 6'3 LHD - WHL.

Seems like a good skating physical d-man. I've seen him mocked/ranked anywhere from the teens to 20's so he may have to fall a bit but players always do.

Yeah, I wanted a forward in the first rd but it sounds like there's more choices at D. ............as long as he's damn good, what's the difference. Let's just hope they pick a guy that's got top pair potential.

Agreed. And you can't really draft for "need" but the Blues don't seem to have another Joel Edmundson type on the roster or in the system to my knowledge. Physical d-men is definitely an area of need for them.