St. Louis Blues: First NHL Mock Draft Has Blues Selecting Defenseman…
The NHL Draft is the next big thing on the calendar for the St. Louis Blues. While they still have plenty of time to wheel and deal, the early picks are in and the Blues might be looking to the blue line.
There is still over a month to go before the NHL Draft actually arrives. However, the St. Louis Blues are in that mindset as that is the next big thing on the calendar for them.
As fans, the NHL Draft is an odd thing. We have taken more interest in it over the years because more and more kids are NHL ready, if not immediately after the draft, then only a year or two later.
So, we begin analyzing their junior careers. We try to see what they’ve done on an international level and figure out how long before they can suit up for the big club.
The problem with that is we also set ourselves up for disappointment. We all want the NHL equivalent of the big name QB, which would be a scorer that is going to come in and help right away.
Hockey’s draft is much less sexy and teams are sometimes drafting with a plan that player might not be available for years. Such could be the case for the Blues in 2018.
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The early mock drafts are out and some of them have the Blues looking to the blue line. Clearly, that is not going to sit well with some fans as the team is still in need of scoring help. However, the Blues had to give their early first round pick to Philadelphia as part of the Brayden Schenn trade, which was worth it. So, St. Louis has to wait until late in the round to select anyone.
Fansided’s mock draft has the Blues taking Adam Ginning. You would not be alone if you were asking who that is.
Ginning is an 18 year old defenseman from Sweden. Once you get over the fact that we have reached the point of drafting kids born in the 2000’s, it still is not a very sexy pick.
Ginning has some good size at 6’3, but needs to fill out a bit coming in at 193 lbs – for 6’3 that is a little thin, but not terrible. He’s young though, so there would be plenty of time to eat and bulk.
The main reason Ginning would not be a popular pick is he’s a defender. He does not put up points and has not put up points at any level. His best offensive season was in the U16 league when he scored 18 points in 24 games.
Despite the changes in the NHL, with teams going to multi-demensional, dynamic players, you do still need that stay-at-home defenseman. It’s just not that fun to speculate on their future.
As of right now, Ginning is expected to stay in Europe next season. So, he still has a lot of seasoning to do. So far, he only has 40 professional games under his belt in the Swedish Hockey League.
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On the plus side, Ginning is still a decent player. He’s ranked by NHL Central Scouting as the fifth best European prospect.
Studying up on him, he strikes very much like a Carl Gunnarsson type right now. He’s not going to wow you and some nights you might not know if he played, but he’ll do his job. Sometimes that’s what you need. It just doesn’t get the tickets sold is all.