NHL Draft 2024: Would the St. Louis Blues be open to trading their first-round draft pick?

To trade or not to trade? As it currently stands, the St. Louis Blues have 9 draft picks in the upcoming event, which will start on Friday and end on Saturday.

While the St. Louis Blues only have one first-round pick, compared to last year’s three, they hold two picks in both the second and third rounds.

Their first pick, No. 16, could be intriguing if they luck out with a talented player.

St. Louis Blues: It seems a last-minute trade could occur

Although GM Doug Armstrong didn’t explicitly mention entertaining trade offers or being ready to make a move, the conversations seem open for either moving up or out of the 16th selection.

“Armstrong shared some insight with reporters recently about how his team evaluates whether to swap picks. Together with his hockey operations staff, Armstrong assigns a point system to each of their picks. For example, say the team determines a 10th overall pick is worth 28 points, and the Blues’ 16th pick is worth 15 points. In order to trade up to 10, the Blues need to evaluate which of their remaining picks add up to the 13-point difference to justify the swap,” shared Chris Pinkert.

Armstrong has many options in the 2024 draft, with picks in most rounds. If he decides to make a big move on draft day, he also has talented prospects to trade.

He might even throw in a veteran or current player in a deal for promising prospects.

Nobody really knows for sure what Armstrong is leaning toward, which makes the event even more intriguing to watch. However, we can be sure that secret conversations are continuing at this hour.

Are teams ringing Armstrong, or is the successful GM himself trying to broker last-minute deals? Time will tell.

While this draft might not be as thrilling as the 2023 first-round, the Blues still have a great chance to pick talented players or make deals that will benefit the team now or later.