St. Louis Blues Prospect Profile: Evan Fitzpatrick

The St. Louis Blues have made a habit of spending a draft pick almost every year on the position of goaltender. 2016 was no different with the selection of Evan Fitzpatrick.

The St. Louis Blues drafted Evan Fitzpatrick with the 59th overall pick in the second round of the 2016 NHL Draft. The Blues have drafted a netminder in each of the last three drafts and in five of the last six years.

While some have yet to make their names known among the NHL ranks, the Blues have actually been fairly decent at drafting goaltenders in recent history. At the very least, they’ve had more success than in the team’s past.

If you look at our list of top draft picks of all time by the Blues, Mike Liut is currently the only goaltender on the list. However, in recent times the Blues selected Ben Bishop, who has gone on to great success with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Jake Allen, who despite a rather vocal section of detractors has looked like a starting goaltender and been handed the reigns for the upcoming season.

All that said, the drafting of Evan Fitzpatrick is somewhat of a head scratcher on the surface. There might be no such thing as too much depth at a position that can change as the wind blows. However, the Blues seem overladen with goaltenders at the moment.

They have their NHL situation settled with Allen and Carter Hutton. They have a decision to make at the AHL level since they already had Pheonix Copley and Jordan Binnington there and Ville Husso seems ready to play at that level as well.

The Blues also have Luke Opilka, who is coming off minor hip surgery, in their system. So, what becomes of Fitzpatrick?

Well, there is always room at the ECHL level, but, no offense to anyone who has played there, it is not usually a level that players actually graduate from to the NHL. In all likelihood, he will return to Sherbrooke in the QMJHL.

In all honesty, that’s probably where he belongs at this stage of the game. Watching him all four days at the Blues Prospect Camp, he looked like an 18 year old going against men, even though he was among players that were only a maximum of five years or so older than he.

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He looked indecisive, shaky and unathletic at times. His best showing was in the scrimmages, so that’s where you really want any goaltender to do their best. If you can make up for your faults during the games then a lot can be forgiven.

Still, he became visibly frustrated at times during the drills. Whether he was just having a bad week or something more will be up to him going forward.

In terms of things he has to work on, regardless what level he plays at, there are quite a few.

He must get better positionally. Whether on drills or in scrimmages, he was beat on the nearside post far too often.

He needs to sharpen things up technically. His position would put him in awkward places to try and make a save. Sometimes, he would get beat five hole because the shooter could tell he was not in the right spot to close that down quickly enough.

He will have to get stronger in the legs. His lateral movement was probably his biggest downfall other than letting the goals in shortside. He may never be Gumby like Jonathan Quick, but his movement post to post was too slow at this stage for him to be considered for a pro level.