St. Louis Blues resisted temptation and made a wise decision in the NHL Draft
With someone like Cole Eiserman still on the board, it had to be tempting for the St. Louis Blues to roll with him over a massive need in the NHL Draft.
To be clear, had the St. Louis Blues drafted Cole Eiserman last night over Adam Jiricek, I would have praised the pick. But I’ll give general manager Doug Armstrong and company even more praise for resisting the temptation to draft someone like Eiserman, instead rolling for need and taking an incredible blueliner in the NHL Draft.
Adam Jiricek is exactly what the Blues prospect pool, one ultra-thin of high-impact defensemen, needed. And the timing also couldn’t be better, with many of the Blues current defensemen on the other side of age 30 and with less time remaining in their respective NHL careers. Enter Adam Jiricek, a defenseman who will end up with elite size and one who won’t score you a lot of points.
But he’s not in the prospect pool to score goals or even to provide primary and secondary assists. Instead, Jiricek can leave that task to players like Dalibor Dvorsky and Jimmy Snuggerud when they’re ready for the big time.
Adam Jiricek wasn’t the glamorous pick for the St. Louis Blues, but…
Adam Jiricek was what this team needed to get better, and better they got, in time, anyway. And you can also applaud the timing, because when players like Torey Krug, Nick Leddy, and Justin Faulk have played their final shifts with the Blues, assuming they’re in town through the duration of their respective contracts, Jiricek should be ready to be their heir apparent.
This is exactly why players like Jiricek are often my favorite picks; the man running the front office had a chance to snag glamor picks in the first round, but he already did that over the previous two drafts. It wasn’t necessary to do so again, and by going with need, Doug Armstrong made the organization better, or at least that’s my instant reaction.
We won’t know until Jiricek takes the ice as an actual member of the Blues, which won’t happen for the next couple of seasons. But if I were to make a prediction right now, at this very second, I’m saying Jiricek is going to excite this fanbase early and often.
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