The NHL world will hold their breathe as the Draft Lottery will take place in Secaucus, New Jersey tomorrow night. The St. Louis Blues have the most to gain with this ping-pong ball extravaganza, as they hold the 11th-best odds and 15th best-odds.
With these two picks projected inside of the top-15, there is a lot to do with them to prepare for the retool in 2026-27. Figuratively, they can set themselves up with two more parts of their core group following this upcoming season.
Here is what is at stake.
Blues first step toward a big summer
Aside from Free Agency, the Draft is a really big deal over the summer months. The Hockey world stops and watches as their favorite team gets their pick number, and then the guessing games truly begin.
The Blues are fortunate enough that both the Justin Faulk trade to Detroit, and their own misfortune of not making the playoffs put them in a great position for their future. This team showed that the old core group has got to go, hence the movement of Faulk and captain Brayden Schenn. The focus now, is on the prospects and younger core players like Philp Broberg and Jimmy Snuggerud.
This is also Blues General Manager Doug Armstrong's last official job, as he will be handing over the keys to Alexander Steen on July 1 for free agency. You can bet that Steen is going to have a heavy hand in who the Blues take in this upcoming draft, and that will become very clear following the Lottery.
Whether they need to find another Snuggerud, or Justin Carbonneau to supplement the top-six forward group, or aiding a defense that is still relatively underwhelming with Colton Parayko and Cam Folwer taking steps back, all of that will be answered by which number they select.
The Red Wings pick at No. 15 is not going to be able to be a first-overall selection, but the Blues own pick at No. 11 could. Right now, that pick has a 3% chance of being the first-overall selection.
Small, but not impossible.
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