Continuing the look at the best of the best that have come up from the ground up with the St. Louis Blues. Now it’s time for the cream of the crop.
They’ve been jockeying for position. They’ve been calling me up, begging to get on the top of this list. Ok, maybe not, but being at the top of this list is still an honor.
The St. Louis Blues have been hit or miss throughout their history in terms of drafting players. However, they’ve had some great ones come through that door (no pun intended since Gretzky did briefly don the note).
So now, it’s time to reveal our top ten list of the top 30 draft picks of all time. Here is the cream of the crop, because it always rises to the top.
10. Nelson Emerson
Nelson Emerson was never the biggest or the strongest, but he was a heck of a competitor. Drafted in the third round of the 1985 NHL Draft, taken with the 44th overall pick, Emerson came out of the old school.
He spent an entire four years with Bowling Green University, almost unheard of these days. After being drafted, he spent a season with the Peoria Rivermen before joining the Blues for a full season in 1991-92. He never really looked back from there.
He scored 59 points in his true rookie season with 23 goals to go along with it. He then had 22 goals to follow up the next year, but started setting up teammates more with 73 points.
Then, in typical Ron Caron fashion, Emerson was dealt away. While the Blues did get Phil Housley, one of the best offensive defensemen in history, in return, it still feels like another good offensive piece taken away before they really got to bloom.
Emerson scored 74 points the next season with the Winnipeg Jets before going on a bit of a tail spin. So, in the end, considering the Blues got Housley and then traded him for Al MacInnis, perhaps the Blues made the right decision.
Even so, Emerson was a heck of a pick. In only two seasons (technically three since he played four games in his first season) Emerson had 135 points with the Blues.
While he fell off the map later in his career as he got traded around, he still managed to be a decent scorer. 488 career points in 771 games isn’t too shabby at all.
9. Perry Turnbull
The Blues haven’t had many first round picks that came in the top five, but Perry Turnbull was one of those. He was taken with the second overall pick of the 1979 NHL Draft.
Turnbull wouldn’t have a very long career. He only played in nine seasons. Though that seems to be a bit more standard for the time period when he played, it was still a brief but brilliant flash and then it was gone.
Turnbull came into the NHL the very same season as he was drafted and scored 13 goals and 35 points. He scored 34 goals the next season to go along with his 56 points. Turnbull would average 33 goals a season over the next three years.
He had a poor season in 1983-84 and got dealt to Montreal for Doug Wickenheiser, Gilbert Delorme and Greg Paslawski. He signed with the Jets after continuing that poor year and rebounded with seasons of 43 and 51 points.
Then an injury plagued season ended his time with the Jets and perhaps his career. He returned to the Blues for one final season in 1987-88 and had 19 points in 51 games.
While it wasn’t how he wanted to end his career, he wasn’t done in St. Louis. He became a player and also general manager of the St. Louis Vipers of the Roller Hockey International League.
Turnbull’s time in the league was not very long, but he was a great offensive threat while he was there. He scored 351 points in 608 career games and 238 of those points came with the Blues, averaging 40 points a year with the Blues.
8. Paul MacLean
Paul MacLean didn’t come with a lot of fanfare. Like our last two picks, he didn’t have an incredibly long career either. However, what a mark he made during the time he was there.
The St. Louis Blues took MacLean in the seventh round of the 1978 NHL Draft with the 109th pick overall. Unfortunately, he never got to shine for the Blues. After one career game in his rookie year, he got sent to Winnipeg with Bryan Maxwell and Ed Staniowski for Scott Campbell and John Markell.
He made sure Winnipeg got the better of the deal. Immediately after the deal, MacLean went off for 61 points. For the rest of his career, he only had one season where he did not score 50 or more points and only two seasons where he did not have 60 or more points.
He got traded back to the Blues in 1989-90, along with Adam Oates, and scored 67 points and 34 goals. Unfortunately, just when it seemed the Blues would benefit from the player they drafted a decade earlier, a broken rib force MacLean to retire.
MacLean played in only 719 games but scored a whopping 673 points. With .936 points per game, it’s about as close to a point per game as you can get.
MacLean stuck with the Blues for a little bit after, becoming the Rivermen coach from 1993-96. He’s also got one of the best mustaches in the league.
The Blues only benefited from 84 games in his brilliant, yet short career. However, the fact they were smart enough to draft him, if not smart enough to keep him, shows they saw something in him.
7. Wayne Merrick
Wayne Merrick was selected by the Blues with the ninth overall pick in the 1972 draft. While he also had a very productive career, the reason he gets a higher selection than MacLean is the fact he played more games with the Blues.
Merrick played immediately after being drafted and had an ok rookie season. 21 points, 10 goals and 50 games played isn’t too bad. His next season was bigger proof of what kind of player he was going to be.
His point and goal totals went up each year the next three seasons.
Merrick would go on to a decent career with the New York Islanders after being traded to the California Golden Seals for Larry Patey. The Blues actually got a good return for one of the players they traded away on this list.
Even though Merrick tailed off a little after his Blues career, he was still a pretty good player and thus a good pick spent.
He had 144 points in 209 games in St. Louis. He also ended with 456 points in 774 career games.
Playing for the Blues during that time period and scoring was no easy task. The Blues had high picks because they were in a dry period in terms of winning, but Merrick did his best to help the team win while he was here.
6. Cliff Ronning
869 points. Need I say more?
Cliff Ronning was selected by the Blues in the 1984 draft, but not until the seventh round. He was taken with the 134th overall pick, likely due to his size. Though the NHL has had periods of size and others of speed, Ronning was small in almost any era at 5’8.
He used that as a chip on his shoulder and used it well. He came in and scored 25 points in 42 games in his rookie season after spending two years in the Canadian junior league, WHL.
In typical fashion, he was sent away from the Blues before we got to see his full potential. Even though he scored 55 points the season prior to being dealt away, the Blues had gotten tired of his injury woes since he could not seem to last a full season.
Of course, he played a full year the next season and had 71 points with the Canucks. He went on to score 85 the season after. He was a good playoff performer for the Canucks as well. He had 15 points in their Stanley Cup Final run in 1994, where they lost to the New York Rangers.
Ronning kind of jumped around over the course of his career for unknown reasons. He was always productive, so it was either always due to his size or simply due to the fact that other teams had interest in him and he got dealt.
Regardless, even in his mid 30’s he was scoring over 60 points. In his final full season, at 37, he scored 48 points. Even only playing 40 games in his final season, he still had slightly more than a point every other game with a total of 24.
For someone who wasn’t given a great shot from the get-go, he made the most of it. He scored 125 points in 180 games with the Blues. He played in 1137 career games and had 869 points. Pretty good for a small guy.
Next: Top 5 Picks