St. Louis Blues 2024 NHL Draft Profile: Ondrej Kos

St. Louis' 2nd round draft choice was made today, where they selected Czech forward Ondrej Kos, an 18-year-old from Ilves in the Finnish Elite League, also known as the sm-Liiga. Kos is a quality skater, possessing excellent speed and the ability to work off the boards as well. He's been more of a star on the U20 international scale than the domestic one, scoring 5 goals and 6 assists in 21 games to help the Czech U18 team to a quarterfinals appearance in this year's U18 World Championship.

While he played with Ilves, 2023/24 saw him pot a few goals each with their U18 and U20 squads across a small handful of games before he was traded to 2nd tier team Koovee midway through that season. In 14 games with the Mestis squad, Kos notched another small handful of goals, with 3-2-5 goals, assists, and points ratio.

St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong is staying busy with an offensive threat

Goalscoring is just one of a few struggles for Kos, the others being his general shot, playmaking ability, and his obvious lack of offensive production. But with the right tools, Kos can easily overcome those first two obstacles, and remember, he's a young forward.

One of the best aspects of Kos’ game is his relentless competitiveness every time he’s on the ice, never taking a shift off and always keeping his feet moving with his impressive first step and overall top speed. Basically, he's a flier, able to move the puck up the ice when it counts quickly. Kos also possesses excellent balance and core strength, making it difficult for opponents to knock him off the puck.

With these qualities, it makes perfect sense for the Blues to take him here in the 3rd round, as most projections had him there and no later than even the 4th round. He needs development, sure. But Kos' speed and grit are two great qualities that St. Louis needs a bunch more guys on. In summary, Kos' strength is his IQ, which is great because the Blues struggled with turnovers this season.

A strong IQ will help remedy that. Other strengths include Kos' skating power, given his speed, his physicality that helps him get the puck off the boards, and his competitiveness, which is definitely a plus for any NHLer. With the right amount of coaching, Kos could be a star for the Blues this season.