St. Louis Blues All-Time Draft Team Hard To Argue

The St. Louis Blues have done their best to make their teams through the draft, like all NHL teams do. While we love trades and free agents, the players the Blues picked in the draft were some big names.

The St. Louis Blues have had plenty of weird luck or history with the NHL draft. We all remember the ones they missed on or passed up more than anything.

That’s just human nature, I suppose. As humans, we always tend to focus on the negative, forgetting the positive just as quickly.

However, the Blues have had some fantastic draft picks. Their main problem was too many of them were traded away right before they broke out.

We saw what talented draftees could do for a team when put in the right situation. Much of the team that won the 2019 Stanley Cup was drafted by St. Louis, with some outsiders sprinkled in.

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Recently, The Hockey News compiled a best all-time team comprised of only St. Louis Blues draft picks. While many lists or all-time teams are loaded with changes to be made, this one is pretty well on point.

Forwards

Rod Brind’Amour (9th, 1988), Doug Gilmour (134th, 1982), Vladimir Tarasenko (16th, 2010)
Jaden Schwartz (14th, 2010), Bernie Federko (7th, 1976), T.J. Oshie (24th, 2005)
Brian Sutter (20th, 1976), Michal Handzus (101st, 1995), David Backes (62nd, 2003)
David Perron (26th, 2007), Cliff Ronning (134th, 1984), Paul MacLean (109th, 1978)

Defenders

Alex Pietrangelo (4th, 2008), Erik Johnson (1st, 2006)
Bret Hedican (198th, 1988), Barret Jackman (17th, 1999)
Colton Parayko (86th, 2012), Risto Siltanen (173rd, 1978)

Goalies

Ben Bishop (85th, 2005)
Mike Liut (56th, 1976)

Like any list, there are tweaks that could be suggested. Even though it’s a minor thing, placing Backes as a winger seems odd when he was a center for most of his Blues career.

The bigger complaint might rest with the goaltenders. Most fans will bring up the fact Jordan Binnington was drafted by the Blues and also won a Stanley Cup.

The argument against him is lack of time in the league. His first season was quite fantastic, but he has only played 83 games as of writing this.

Bishop has 200-plus wins and solid career numbers. As of July 2020, Liut is still the winningest goaltender in Blues history.

If Wayne Babych had stayed healthy, he might be on this list instead of someone like Oshie or Backes.

Some might argue for Perry Turnbull over Schwartz. The numbers are around the same and Tunbull’s career was also shortened by injury.

The biggest gripe has to be on defense. Siltanen had a good career, but he did not suit up for the Blues for one game.

St. Louis drafted guys like Bob Gassoff, Jack Brownschidle, Rik Wilson, Brian Benning, Robert Dirk or Jamie Rivers.

Stiltanen was a power play specialist, so the Blues could use him in this kind of all-time team. However, when you never actually play for the team that drafts you, it’s hard to make that case when guys that did play in the sweater, and had good careers, could be put in there too.

Yet, overall, there is little to pick at in this list other than small nitpicks. It is interesting to see what kind of players the Blues drafted as well.

We all focus on the trades or the free agents like Brett Hull, Ryan O’Reilly or Paul Kariya. Yet, this team stacks up pretty well against any sort of all-time team of Blues you could put together.