1990's NHL Entry Drafts Were Not Good To The St. Louis Blues

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Any team in any sport is often built through the draft. This is especially true in the NBA and NFL, though perhaps less in the NHL and MLB. However, every team needs to hit on a draft here or there to be a winner and the St. Louis Blues are no different.

Think about the team that won the Stanley Cup. Sure, there was a lot of mixed talent in there from other places.

However, Alex Pietrangelo, Jaden Schwartz, Vladimir Tarasenko, Ivan Barbashev, Jake Allen, Jordan Binnington, Robert Thomas, Joel Edmundson, Colten Parayko, Vince Dunn and Sammy Blais were all Blues draft picks. Most active rosters have 22-23 players, so half of that championship team was drafted by the front office.

That’s how you build champions more often than not. We all get jealous of franchises like the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers because they can buy whoever they want. It is less true in the NHL due to a hard salary cap, but there’s still the allure of Chicago and New York and L.A. for free agents.

Even then, teams that win win with draft picks. Even the vaunted Blackhawks teams of the early 2010’s were mainly stocked with their homegrown talent.

With all that in mind, it’s actually surprising that the 1990’s Blues were anything resembling good. Their drafts were, quite frankly, garbage.

Before we break it down year by year, think about this. The modern day Blues have won consistently and rarely had a draft pick higher than 14 in the last decade or so. The one top pick they had turned out to be a lemon for the Blues and just a solid NHL defender overall.

St. Louis had a whopping three first-round draft picks in the entire decade from 1990-1999. Only one of those three spent the majority of their career with the Blues. That’s 10 years and only hitting on one first-round pick. I suppose statistically, it’s not that bad when you say one out of three, but it’s still astounding for a 10-year period.

The main problem, as mentioned, was the Blues didn’t even have the opportunity to pick. More often than not, they traded their first-round pick as part of some “blockbuster deal” that occurred at the trade deadline.

Ron Caron was about as entertaining a GM as St. Louis has ever seen, but he also did next to nothing with the farm system. Mike Keenan was Mike Keenan and should have never been in charge of anything except coaching. Larry Pleau rebuilt the inner workings relatively well, but he was also dealing with ownership problems that would lead to an eventual sale in the following decade.

It was all a pretty good mess. How the Blues consistently made the playoffs at all was a wonder, but perhaps a testament to the work those GM’s did at the NHL level, even if their drafts were mediocre. Let’s look at the drafts, with the information taken from Wikipedia.

Jamal Mayers #21 of the St. Louis Blues(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

1990

The Blues had no first-round pick.

Craig Johnson was taken in the second round, 33rd overall. The left winger went on to play 557 career games with 75 goals and 173 points.

Patrice Tardif was taken in the third round, 54th overall. The center played 65 NHL games and only seven career goals.

The main claim to fame for these two was being packaged to Los Angeles in exchange for Wayne Gretzky. The Blues gave up a 1997 first rounder in that trade.

The rest of the 1990 draft had a combined NHL total of 12 games with Jason Ruff, Kurtis Miller, Wayne Conlan, Parris Duffus, Steve Widmeyer, Joe Hawley, Joe Fleming and Geoff Sarjeant

1991

This year may have been the worst of the bunch. Again, no first-round pick.

Only two players selected played in over 100 career NHL games and one of those players never played for the Blues. Not a great draft.

Steve Staios had a good, long NHL career. The 27th overall pick, second round, suited up for 1001 career games and racked up 1.3 penalty minutes per game. None of those 1001 were ever in a Blues uniform. He was traded for Stephen Leach, who played 31 games for the Blues, spread over two seasons.

The Blues had back-to-back picks in the third round. Surely, they hit, right?

Kyle Reeves never played an NHL game as the 64th pick. Nathan LaFayette played 187, but only 38 with St. Louis.

Grayden Reid, Jeff Callinan, Bruce Gardiner, Terry Hollinger, Chris Kenady, Jed Fiebelkorn, Chris MacKenzie, Kevin Rappana, Mike Veisor and Chris McKee were the rest of the picks. It’s disappointing to not hit on some draft picks, but when the vast majority never even played a single NHL game for any franchise? That’s a monumental swing and miss.

1992

Hey, we’re getting somewhere here. Some of these names Blues fans will actually have heard of.

No first rounder again. However, the second round pick and the two third rounders all suited up for the Blues.

Igor Korolev was taken 38th overall in the second round. The Russian center played in 795 NHL games and scored 119 goals. Only 10 goals and 147 games were with the Blues.

Vitali Karamnov and Vitali Prokhorov were selected 62nd and 64th, respectively. This was when the Blues were trying to play catchup to the Detroit Red Wings who were drafting a lot of Russian talent. Time would show it worked in Detroit and not so much in St. Louis.

4 86 The Blues missed on Lee Leslie and Bob Lachance in the fourth and sixth round. They did find some talent in the seventh round when they picked Ian Laperriere. Laperriere played 1083 career games and was a fan favorite in St. Louis, albeit only for 71 games spread over three seasons

Lance Burns, Igor Boldin, Nick Naumenko, Todd Harris, Yuri Gunko and Wade Salzman rounded out that year’s draft. Not a game played among them for the Blues or anyone at the highest level.

1993

This was another incremental improvement. Baby steps people.

No first rounder again. Maxim Bets was a whiff with the 37th overall pick, a second round pick. He played three NHL games.

The Blues actually hit pretty good with Jamie Rivers. The more modern-day style defender played 454 games in the NHL and actually resides in St. Louis now and is a co-host on a local radio show.

Jamal Mayers is another name we’ve actually heard of and gained some notoriety in St. Louis. Drafted 89th overall, he played 915 career games, but unfortunately he sullied himself by suiting up with the Chicago Blackhawks. It was just a paycheck, right Jamal?
Todd Kelman and Mike Buzak never played in the NHL. Eric Boguniecki played 178 games, but few with the Blues and was traded for another player that barely did anything at the NHL level.

Mike Grier actually had a very solid NHL career with 1060 games and 162 goals. Grier never played for the Blues, but he was traded for two first round picks, one of which we’ll get to in a couple years and the other was traded as part of that Gretzky deal. I’ll take that.

Libor Prochazka, Alexander Vasilevski and Christer Olsson were all no shows as late-round picks.

1994

1994 was another awful draft year. 156 total NHL games for everyone involved that was drafted by the Blues

Stephane Roy, Tyler Harlton and Edvin Frylen did nothing and those were all earlier round picks.

Roman Vopat at least featured in the NHL and he was a seventh-round pick. Still, the Czech center only suited up in 133 NHL games. He can still say he was the only other NHL-ready player that was included in the Gretzky deal.

Steve Noble, Marc Stephan, Kevin Harper and Scott Fankhouser rounded out the rest of this dud. Only Frankhouser played in the NHL and the American goalie ended his 23-game career with a 3.31 goals against.

Jochen Hecht (55)Mandatory Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports /

1995

1995 was actually a decent draft, at least considering the other drafts of the Blues in the 90’s. Off the bat, there’s just another year with no first-round pick.

In the second round, the Blues actually struck a decent NHL player. Jochen Hecht ended his NHL career with 833 games played and 186 goals, with 458 points. He spent a decade in the wastelands of Buffalo, but did play 138 games with the Blues. Additionally, his trade brought Doug Weight to the Lou.

Third round pick, Scott Roche, failed to play an NHL game in net. However, fourth-round pick Michal Handzus played over 1000 games in the NHL. Oddly, the Blues were the third most games played of any team with 187. Like Hecht, Handzus was valuable as a trade asset as he was packaged to bring Keith Tkachuk to St. Louis.

Fifth-round pick Jeff Abrosio didn’t play a game, so we seem to be bouncing around in this draft. Sixth round selection, Denis Hamel played 192 games but none with the Blues.

The Blues took Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre in the seventh round. He played 269 NHL regular season games, but none on the St. Louis blue line.

The Blues took Derek Bekar in the eighth round. He played 11 career games, with one being for the Blues.

Ninth-round pick, Libor Zabransky played 40 games. All of them were with the Blues, but he eventually went back home to play in the Czech league.

1996

1996 had some similarities to the previous draft. At least the Blues were not completely striking out. Still, it wasn’t filled with gems.
However, the Blues did finally have a first round pick. They used it on American center Marty Reasoner. Reasoner played in just under 800 games and scored just under 100 goals. Reasoner was part of the package that sent Weight to St. Louis though, so still worked out.

The Blues had no second round pick this year. They took Gordie Dwyer in the third round and he played 108 games, but the Blues never even looked at him and he eventually got taken in the Re-draft in 1998.

St. Louis completely missed on Jonathan Zukiwsky, Andrei Petrakov and Stephen Wagner in the fourth, fifth and sixth round. Daniel Corso and Reed Low were selected in the seventh round and both had games played with the Blues, with Low becoming a fan favorite.

Andrej Podkonicky was taken in the eighth round. He had a cup of coffee in the NHL, but not with the Blues. His draft mate in the same round, Tony Hutchins, never played in the NHL.

Konstantin Shafranov, the ninth-round selection, had an incredibly long career – just not in the NHL. He played five games with St. Louis and then spent the rest of his career in the IHL, AHL or some Russian leagues. He kept playing until 2009-10.

1997

This draft ranks up there for the worst for the Blues.

The Blues first three selections did not play an NHL game anywhere. They had picks in the second and two in the fourth round, named Tyler Rennette, Didier Tremblay and Jan Horacek

Fellow fourth-round pick Jame Pollock played nine NHL games. Those were actually with the Blues.

St. Louis missed on their sixth-round defenseman. Nicholas Bilotto never played in the NHL.

St. louis kept hitting on late-round picks though. Ladislav Nagy was taken in the fourth round and played 435 games. Nagy was part o the trade that brought Tkachuk to St. Louis though, and he forged a decent career in Phoenix.

Eighth-round pick, Bobby Haglund and ninth-round picks Dmitri Plekhanov and Marek Ivan did not play in the NHL. The total of games played for this entire draft by the Blues was less than 500 games.

1998

St. Louis actually rounded out the decade with two of their three first-round picks. Only one really hit and it wasn’t this year.

No offense to Christian Backman, who played 302 NHL games, but that wasn’t the best pick to take in the first round. Granted, you don’t know these things at the time, but the Blues could have had Scott Gomez, Brad Richards or Jonathan Cheechoo

Maxim Linnik was taken in the second round. Don’t mind his name because he never played.

Matt Walker played 314 NHL games, taken in the third round. 175 of those were with the Blues, though he never featured in a full season.

The sixth round was a waste. Brad Voth and Andrei Troschinsky never touched NHL ice, nor did Brad Twordik in the seventh round or Yevgeny Pastukh in the eighth round.

John Pohl was taken in the final round. He played 115 games, but only one for St. Louis.

1999

The final year of the 1990’s and it was a lot of nothing for the Blues outside of their rare first rounder.

Barret Jackman was taken with the 17th overall pick. He turned out pretty good, logging 876 games and over 800 games were in a Blues sweater.

Say what you will about his later years, but Jackman was a good defender when he was brought in. He did not win the Calder Trophy accidentally. His flaw was coming up as a certain style of player and then having that style basically outlawed after one of the NHL’s many lockouts.

The Blues got six out of the 28 career games from third-round pick Peter Smrek. They got no games, nor did any team, from their fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounders (Chad Starling, Trevor Byrne, Tore Vikingstad and Phil Osaer)

The eighth round yeilded some games. Colin Hemingway played three NHL games with the Blues and then Alexander Khavanov had an NHL career of 348 games. Khavanov became a playoff performer, scoring five goals in 26 career playoff games with St. Louis.

The ninth round was more of nothing. Brian McMeekin and James Desmarais did not play an NHL game.

Barret Jackman #5 of the St. Louis Blues(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /

Overview

On the one hand, you have to hand it to the GM’s of the Blues in the 1990’s. Despite some truly putrid drafting, the team never missed the playoffs once in the decade.

In fact, it wasn’t until their ownership stripped everything from the team, including a Hall of Fame defender, in the early 2000’s that the Blues had their playoff streak ended.

You could argue that those bad drafts caught up to them then, but the sale of the team had little to do with the minor league system. It was poor financial management.

Still, despite names like Hull, Gretzky, Tkachuk, Weight, Pronger and MacInnis playing in St. Louis, none came from the system. As noted, out of three first rounders, only Jackman played the vast majority of his career here.

The other two first rounders were either trade bait or, simply, didn’t pan out. Not all first round picks pan out for any team, but you’ve got to hit on some of them, especially if you have them so infrequently.

In recent years, the Blues have been much better. Almost two thirds of their Stanley Cup winning team was drafted by the organization.

The Blues still have exciting pieces they’ve drafted recently that should have promising NHL careers. That was not true a couple decades ago.

Next. Blues all-time best All-Star players. dark

Granted, the league and the minors were different. Even so, to not even call up some of these guys shows how bad their eye for talent was. Players get hurt all the time, so if you’re not counting on your draft picks, you’ve failed your farm system and your franchise.

Somehow, it never tanked the organization. I don’t think St. Louis would be as lucky if they went through a similar period of poor drafting now.

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