As of right now, St. Louis Blues General Manager Doug Armstrong has the 16th overall pick at the 2024 NHL Draft.
But what will he do with it?
Will he pick at No. 16? Will he find a way to move up? Will he trade it for a player ready to contribute to the team immediately?
Armstrong admits he certainly has plenty of options.
“There’s obviously some attractive players (in this draft). When you pick No. 10, there’s nine great guys. When you pick No. 16, there’s 15 great guys and when you pick No. 28, there’s 27 great guys,” Armstrong joked. “So it’s just going to be fluctuating based on who is available whether we move up or whether we move back to gain an extra asset. I don’t see us picking at No. 16 to improve our team today, but that being said, if there somebody in a (younger) age bracket that I see a longer-term vision, we’ll do that… but I see it more of a selection type of draft for us.”
Unless Armstrong makes a trade, the Blues will have nine picks at this Draft, which takes place June 28-29 at Sphere in Las Vegas.
In addition to the 16th overall pick, the Blues have two second-round picks (No. 48, 56), two third-round picks (No. 81, 95), a fourth-round pick (No. 113), a fifth-round pick (No. 145) and two seventh-round picks (No. 209, No. 211).
“There’s good depth in this class - if the right player is there, we’re going to take him,” Armstrong said. “Coming out of our meetings, I think our [scouts] are excited about who they’re going to get at 16, (but) they’ll be excited if we can get into the Top 10 and they understand that if we move back and get another second [round pick], having three second-rounders would be exciting, too.”
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.
“On Monday (before) the Draft, I’ll call different managers that are picking (high),” Armstrong said. “You can get into the Top 4 or 5, but it would cut very, very deep into the players we’re trying to build around. So let’s say you want to get to pick eight, nine, 10 or 11, I think that’s doable. It’s painful, but I have to get the threshold of pain we’re willing to take as an organization (to make that deal).”
“The Top 10 is pretty strong in this year’s draft,” Armstrong added. “Every time we walk out of the draft, I always hear ‘next year’s draft isn’t as good.’ And then we get to our meetings and we hear ‘this draft is better than we thought it’d be.’
What will happen in Vegas?
We’ll know soon enough.
