The 2016 NHL Draft gets further into the rear-view mirror, but the St. Louis Blues may have had a decent draft. Let’s continue our look at their 30 best picks with 19-11.
For those of you who missed it, you can check out our previous part of the list here. There were some pretty good names on that list, including recent players like T.J. Oshie and Jaden Schwartz. There were guys with 1000 games under their belt and guys who had their careers cut short but were a brilliant flash for their brief time.
Now it’s time to continue our list. While Schwartz made the list at 20, a player younger than him has already had an impact as much while being more of a surprise. That surprise lands him at our 19th spot
19. Robby Fabbri
Young Robby Fabbri had an explosive rookie season, which came somewhat out of the blue. While there were many that expected Fabbri to be a solid NHL player, if there was anyone outside of his family that expected it to happen this quickly, they are probably lying.
Fabbri was drafted by the Blues in the first round, with the 21st overall pick, in the 2014 draft. There were rumors that he had a good enough camp to make the team that very next season but was held back to give some of the veteran players more time. Regardless of the validity of that, he made the most of his next chance.
Along with some other talented rookies, Fabbri made a big impact for the Blues in 2015-16. He was a crucial player to help them getting all the way to the Western Conference Finals.
Fabbri had 18 goals and 37 points in a strong rookie campaign. To put that into context, Vladimir Tarasenko had 43 points in his first full NHL season.
He also had a good first playoff season as well. He had 15 points in his very first playoffs and may have only scratched the surface of his potential.
By the end of his career, he may be much higher on this list. However, after only one year, 19 is pretty good and he has plenty of room to grow.
18. Igor Koralev
Igor Koralev was taken by the Blues in the 1992 NHL Draft. He was actually selected in the second round with the 38th overall pick.
Koralev was part of the Blues own Russian experiment, in an attempt to copy what the Detroit Red Wings were being so successful at. Sadly, he never achieved much with the Blues.
He scored 43 points in two seasons with the Blues and was then claimed by the Winnipeg Jets in the waiver draft following the work stoppage. He then had career highs (for the time) with 30 points in 45 games and then 51 the following year.
While he never amounted to be a star, he was still a reliable second or third liner. He ended up with 346 points over a 795 game NHL career.
Koralev returned to Russia for an additional six years once he wrapped up his NHL career. Sadly, not quite a year after his retirement, he was killed along with Pavol Demitra and members of the Lokomotiv team in a plane crash.
He may not have done much as a Blue, but he still ranks in the top 20 scorers drafted by the team. He goes on the list of what-if’s, in terms of he may have had more impact had the team protected him. One will never know for sure.
17. Michal Handzus
Michal Handzus was selected by the Blues in the 1995 draft. He went in the fourth round with the 101st overall pick.
Fourth round picks are usually where you start figuring players are going to be projects and have just as much chance of not even making the AHL as they do of playing in the NHL.
In spite of this, Handzus played his first season with the Blues in 1998-99. It was an underwhelming season with 61 games played and only 16 points.
To the surprise of many, he clocked in for 25 goals and 53 points the following year. It was a very pleasant surprise and what many hoped would be the springboard to a long career in the note, scoring and setting up goals.
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His next season he had a decent start with the Blues with 24 points in 36 games during an injury shortened year. However, the Blues were presented with an opportunity they could not pass up. Handzus, Nagy and a draft choice were sent to the desert in return for Keith Tkachuk.
While nobody would choose Handzus over Tkachuk, his production could have been used. He ended up with a total of 483 points and played in 1009 NHL games.
While he was a bit of a roller coaster scorer, he was consistent in one way. His second season with a team was always his highest point production with them. Also, in a rare turn of events, the Blues actually got the best out of someone.
His 25 goals were a career high in his second season and he only topped the 53 points with a 58 point season once in Philadelphia.
16. Jochen Hecht
Jochen Hecht was drafted by St. Louis in the same draft as Handzus, in the second round with the 49th overall pick. 1995 turned out to be a decent draft due to those players.
However, like Handzus, Hecht’s time in St. Louis was rather short. He was another name in a long list of players that fans pinned early hopes on, but over the course of his career would prove to be steady but disappointing due to expectations.
Hecht scored 34 and 44 points in his two full years with the Blues. He then went to Edmonton for a season before having a pretty lengthy career in Buffalo.
In the grand scheme of things, injuries and a rather sharp decline cost him. He played in 833 NHL games and scored 463 points.
That’s just over a point every other game. He never matured into a true goal scorer the way many would have liked, but his production over the number of games played was not a bad ratio.
If nothing else, he joins Reasoner, Nagy and Handzus for another reason. They were all traded for important pieces. Hecht was sent to Edmonton as part of a trade that saw Doug Weight come to the gateway city.
15. Jay McClement
People are going to see Jay McClement‘s name this high on the list, or on the list at all, and say “I’ll have what he’s having.” In all honesty, his name being this high is a bit of a cheat, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
For what McClement was asked to do, he actually ended up being a pretty productive player. While it seems unlikely that any player is truly drafted with the intention of being a bottom six forward, he still was good at it.
He was selected with the 57th overall pick in 2001. It would take him a few years to see NHL action, but he made sure he wasn’t going to be sent down once he did.
He played 67 games in his rookie season and had 27 points, followed by 36 the season after. He never scored fewer than 20 points with the Blues and while that doesn’t sound impressive, it’s pretty good for a third or fourth line player.
He’s played over 800 NHL games and is still going as well.
Now we come to the portion of why this is a cheat. One of the main reasons he gets so high on the list outside of his actual production with the Blues is his involvement in the best trade the current management team pulled off.
McClement and Erik Johnson were sent to Colorado in return for Kevin Shattenkirk, Chris Stewart and a draft pick that the Blues would turn into Ty Rattie. Shattenkirk and Stewart both had career seasons with the Blues and Rattie is a player many are excited about for the future.
McClement, himself, was a hard-nosed player that had a knack for scoring but knew his role. He was a heavy player even at 6’1 and didn’t shy away from the physicality.
14. Lee Stempniak
Lee Stempniak is a name that conjures many different feelings in fans. Some just appreciate what he did while he was here. Others say he was a failure. Some actually wanted him back in the summer of 2016 or to trade for him during the deadline. Others feel he is not worth the effort.
The middle ground is usually always where the truth is and so it is with Stempniak. The Blues took him with the 148th overall pick in the fifth round of the 2003 draft.
Blues fans, longing to find a pure scorer since Brett Hull, placed too much on his shoulders when he was never likely to be that kind of player. In 57 games as a rookie he had 14 goals and then 27 the next season. That’s when he was declared the next guy.
A drop off of 14 goals and 14 points the next season soured him with many. After a slow start in his fourth season, he was shipped to Toronto.
However, despite the fact he has bounced around like a hot potato across the league, he has still managed to produce where ever he goes.
He has never failed to score double-digit goals in a full season and even had a good rebound year in 2015-16 with 51 points for the Devils and Bruins.
Stempniak knows how to score and can still thrive when placed in the right situation. His downfall was having a good early career coupled with expectations of a fanbase craving someone who would score and then being unhappy when he did not live up to those lofty goals.
13. Alex Pietrangelo
In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t many defenseman on this list. That’s not to say there should not be, but it’s harder to quantify a good defensive draft pick outside of games played or perhaps plus/minus rating.
That said, Alex Pietrangelo deserves to be on this list. He was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2008 draft and played almost immediately.
He saw eight games in his first season and nine the year after that before being thrown into it in the 2010-11 season. While he hasn’t necessarily been quite the goal scorer he appeared to be in juniors, his scoring touch has not been a disappointment.
He has scored 51 points twice in his career to this point and actually had a somewhat down year in 2015-16 with 37 points, while he was still helping the Blues to their best playoff finish in 15 years.
He’s been a stallwart on the blueline as well. He’s never missed more than nine games in a season. His ice time has gone up each season as well. His average time on the ice during the 2016 playoffs was almost half a regulation game at 28:48.
Pietrangelo can still get better as well. He’s still relatively young at 26 and has areas he can still improve on.
Regardless of that, he has shown qualities that show how much he cares about the game and the team. It is those qualities that may make him the next Blues captain. That is a discussion for another time though.
12. Wayne Babych
If you haven’t heard of Wayne Babych or don’t know much about him, you’re not alone. Most of us in that company are probably showing our age though.
Babych was taken in the 1978 NHL Draft with the third overall pick. He translated that confidence into immediate success for himself and the Blues.
In his rookie season he scored 27 goals and 63 points in 67 games. He managed 61 points the following season in only 59 games.
Babych was a true goal scorer in those times, but for whatever reason could not get it to last.
In his third season with the Blues he had 54 goals and 96 points. However, he never again got above 20 with St. Louis. In fact, he only scored 20 goals one more time in his career.
He bounced around the NHL for awhile, showing glimpses of the bright future he once had. He never achieved those lofty heights again though and retired after nine seasons in the NHL.
Even though he flamed out, Babych still had some high career totals. He ended his career with 438 points in 519 games. That works out to a point in almost 85% of the games he played in. He may have been somewhat of a flash in the pan, but at least he burned brightest in the Lou.
11. Mike Liut
As a fan of goaltenders, it was a little sad to not be able to put more tendys on this list. However, until recent times, the Blues have not had a good track record of drafting the men between the pipes.
So, Mike Liut was the best of the bunch and gets the 11th spot on our list. Liut was drafted in the fourth round of the 1976 draft with the 56th overall pick.
Drafted out of the University of Bowling Green, Liut actually elected to play with Cincinnati of the WHA before finally joining the Blues for the 1979-80 season.
Liut was never flashy. He never had a goals against under 3.00 with the Blues. His save percentage wasn’t overly high either. According to hockeyreference, he never had one above .900 in St. Louis.
He got the job done though. In his first season with the Blues, he won 32 games. He also helped the team in the playoffs.
Next: Blues Top 30 Draft Picks 30: 10-1
Though his stats were not gaudy by today’s standards, he still held several Blues’ records for many years. He was a goaltender of his day. He wasn’t overly acrobatic like today’s goaltenders, but he found a way to get the job done and helped the team win. That’s the important stat in a goaltender’s mind.