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      The St. Louis Blues will be one to watch at the NHL draft

      With three first round picks in this year's draft, the Blues will have plenty of options on what they want to do with them to help the team going forward.

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      The St. Louis Blues are well positioned to make some noise this offseason, with all eyes looking at the three first round picks that they have in the upcoming 2023 NHL draft. Blues general manager Doug Armstrong has shown in the past that he’s not afraid to move those kinds of picks at the draft, just like when he moved two in 2017 to bring in Brayden Schenn, with one being a pick he acquired from selling off Kevin Shattenkirk at the previous trade deadline.

      Jeremy Rutherford joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli on Daily Faceoff Live to talk about the Blues current wealth of first round picks, and what could possibly happen with them.

      Jeremy Rutherford: Of course, they have the number 10 overall pick, and Armstrong has said a couple times that he’ll be shocked if he’s not walking to the stage in Nashville to make that number 10 overall pick. The Blues haven’t had a lot of high picks. You talk about Erik Johnson, number one overall, Alex Pietrangelo, but that’s been about it. So now they get inside the top 10 with a tough season last year, and then also because of the trades of Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko, they’re going to have two later first round picks, #25 and a yet to be determined pick once these playoffs wrap up.

      What are the Blues going to do? I think they’ll make that number 10 pick, but the late first rounders, that’s the key question here. There’s a situation where the Blues could make one of those picks available to trade for an established NHL player, trying to pluck somebody in here to keep this team competitive the next couple years during what Armstrong has referred to as a retool, or they could make both of these picks. You look at our staff pool rankings at the Athletic and the Blues not too high in the prospect pool, so I think it’s a situation where they’d be very well inclined to make those picks as well.

      You can watch the full episode here…

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