The young pipeline for the St. Louis Blues should be flowing throughout the next couple of years, offering solid depth contributors at the NHL level. However, there are some areas where the Blues' organizational depth chart is still lacking.
Doug Armstrong and Alex Steen do not currently hold very many picks in this upcoming NHL Draft (1 first, one fifth, and one sixth-round pick), so they will have to be selective with their draft day decisions. What areas should they focus on?
The biggest need: centers
Currently, the Blues have a very weak center core, both at the NHL level and among the various minor league affiliates. The talk of the offseason is the need for Army and the Blues to find an upgrade at 2C to help the NHL club, and part of the reason for that is there is no chance of that upgrade coming internally.
Currently, the list of players at center waiting in the wings behind Dalibor Dvorsky includes Zach Dean, Aleksanteri Kaskimäki, and maybe Adam Jecho.
Zach Dean was acquired by the Blues in the Ivan Barbashev trade in 2023 and has yet to stick on the NHL roster. Since being moved to the AHL, Dean has struggled to produce and stay on the ice. He is in the final year of his current contract, and Doug Armstrong and Alex Steen will have a real decision to make whether or not to keep Dean in the system.
Kaskimäki is a center with an okay floor for playmaking and shooting ability. His skating is his best quality, as he is very fast and uses it to his advantage well. Kaskimäki looked solid in his one year in the AHL, meaning he will probably get a chance to crack the NHL roster this upcoming season as a 21-year-old. The book is not fully written on Kaskimäki, but he could have the upside of being a productive 4C.
Jecho was drafted by the Blues in 2024 as part of a very impressive draft class for the Blues front office and scouting department. Jecho is often defaulted to center because of his size as a 6'5" skater, though the question remains if he is truly made for the position. He is a physical skater with upside given his size, but has a long way to go, and there's a possibility the responsibilities of a center may be too much for him to handle.
The hope for the Blues, of course, lies with Dalibor Dvorsky, who is one of the best center prospects in the NHL. However, nothing is given, and the options behind Dvorsky do not inspire a lot of confidence, making this a huge long-term need for the Blues front office to address.
The right stuff: LHD
The Blues have a very strong defensive pipeline on the left side (RHD) with Philip Broberg and Theo Lindstein, and eventually Adam Jiricek. However, their future defensive partner options are not as exciting.
Tyler Tucker is the only real NHL-level option on the right side. Behind him are a bunch of prospects considered as lottery tickets with a chance to maybe play some third-pair minutes as a seventh defenseman: Leo Lööf, Michael Buchinger, Quinton Burns, and Lukas Fischer. Of those options, I'd hedge my bets on the latter two, but truthfully, all are fringe prospects who will have to scrap their way to NHL playing time.
This leaves a big gap on the right side of the future Blues' blue line. Tucker should be able to become a second-pair defenseman if he can continue with what he showed this past season, but behind him, the Blues do not have a real option. Perhaps one of their minor league players miraculously turns it around, but I think Doug Armstrong and Alex Steen would be wise to look for LHD with one of their picks in this upcoming draft.