An early look at the St. Louis Blues needs for the 2024 NHL Draft
St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong should look to improve a few weak areas of his prospects pool in the 2024 NHL Draft.
The St. Louis Blues aren’t the kind of organization that will just tear everything down and rebuild, so they will instead look to improve their organization by slowly promoting NHL-caliber talent to the big club steadily. But that strategy will also require general manager Doug Armstrong to make the right calls in the 2024 NHL Draft and beyond.
If there was one priority I outlined in the Blues Ultimate Checklist piece, it involved Armstrong focusing on defense round after round. And before we start our odyssey, you will see why by taking one look at Scott Wheeler of The Athletic’s prospect rankings, where six of the first seven names listed are forwards.
Right-hand defensemen should be the top priority
Wheeler’s list doesn’t list a single right-hand defenseman until we get to Noah Beck, who is 12th overall in the ranking. The former seventh-round pick spent his previous four seasons at Clarkson University and will play one more year of college hockey at Arizona State. It’s also unclear at this time whether Beck will sign with the Blues, so it only increases the overall sense of urgency here.
While I’m a huge advocate of picking the best on the board in the first round, the Blues pipeline is so loaded at forward, I’m making an exception here as Doug Armstrong would be better off rolling with the top defenseman available and, ideally, a right-handed blueliner.
He could have a couple of them fall to 14th overall (or wherever the Blues ultimately land), as names like Carter Yakemchuk and Adam Jiricek could fall. Someone like Yakemchuk would be brilliant, as the 6’3, 194 lbs blueliner already has an NHL frame. And with 71 points and 30 goals for the Calgary Hitmen this past season, you’re looking at a potential steal in the middle of the first.
Jiricek could still stand to put on some size, but he will gain some valuable experience this year when he plays his first season with HC Plzen in Czechia. Yakemchuk would bring more immediate results, but Jiricek could be worth the wait.
Left-handed defensemen should be Priority No. 2
Left-handed defense is another position that could use quite a bit of attention heading into June’s draft. While it’s not as high of a priority as an RHD, Armstrong shouldn’t feel guilty if he instead rolled with an LHD in the first instead of the former.
As with a couple of right-handed defensemen mentioned in the previous slide, there is a greater influx of LHD toward the top half of the 2024 class, starting with Denver’s Zeev Buium. Zeev is one player I watched in the National Championship, and he wouldn’t just upgrade the depth in the Blues prospects pool but would find himself ranked rather highly should he be there when it’s Armstrong’s turn to pick.
While Tankathon has both Buium and Anton Silayev going in the top 10 in their latest mock, there is always a chance one of them will fall should the Blues stay somewhere between 11th and 16th - the Blues pre-lottery draft slot is 16th.
Of the two, Buium would be the top choice, thanks to the way he exploded for 50 points and 11 goals in 42 games, showing that he can be a two-way player. Buium is also closing in on having ideal NHL-caliber size, something that will more than come to fruition over the next three years.
Armstrong has got to find multiple goaltenders in late June
Finally, there was only one goaltender listed for the Blues in Wheeler’s rankings this past season, and with Joel Hofer taking the next step and exceeding expectations, Armstrong needs to refill the void he left.
While Vadim Zherenko has been serviceable with the Springfield Thunderbirds, he would ideally make quite a few more appearances at the AHL level before the organization crowns him either as Jordan Binnington’s eventual successor or as the undisputed goaltender topping organizational depth - that’s if the former seventh-round pick sticks around following his contract season in 2024-25.
Anyway, there isn’t a top-tier prospect in this draft class, so Armstrong’s best bet would be to draft based on potential this season. If it doesn’t look like he snagged anyone he feels would be NHL-ready within the next few seasons, he can always try again in 2025.
The good news regarding the goaltender position is that it’s locked down with Binnington and Hofer. That said, if Armstrong wanted to spend his first few picks on the blue line and also at forward (hey, why not?), he shouldn’t be too worried for at least the foreseeable future in filling organizational depth in the crease.
But if he sees a potential NHLer in this draft class, even in the late rounds, take the flier and add them to the organizational depth chart.
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(Statistics provided by Elite Prospects and Tankathon)