Blues Round 1 and 2 Review

Another year in the rebuild, another cornerstone added to the Blues rebuild, along with two more interesting pieces on the first night of the draft.

At second overall, Blues GM rsyzygy had a few interesting choices to look at, notably Russian winger Ivan Demidov and Michigan State defender Artyom Levshunov. In the end, the scouting team decided to bet on Demidov’s upside and scoring potential to add to the team’s core of highly skilled forwards. Blues fans across the country have already started arguing which of Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson, and Will Smith will look best centering Demidov (creative fans have even pointed out you could move one of them to the wing and run something like a Demidov-Fantilli-Carlsson first line for the next decade. Those fans were described as “salivating” at press time, though sceptics question what will happen when those players’ ELCs are up and the Blues have to start paying them)

The Blues came up again at 18th overall, having traded up with the Seattle 1st rounder acquired in last year’s Vladimir Tarasenko trade as well as the Carolina 2nd round pick that the team won in a bankruptcy auction last year. With that pick, the team decided to go for a right handed defender with a familiar name in Adam Jiricek, whose brother David was a top pick of the Washington Capitals in the 2022 draft. Blues fans are hoping that Adam lives up more to his performance in last summer’s Hlinka Gretzky tournament more than the remainder of his season, where he struggled playing with men in Czechia and then lost the rest of his season in the first game of the World Juniors. Their scouts must be betting on Jiricek returning to his form in his next season, and their fans will have to dream on adding a 6’2” RHD to the blueline.

The Blues final pick of the night was in the second round at 34th overall where they added center Cole Beaudoin from the Barrie Colts of the OHL. Real NHL sickos will recognize his name from his father, Eric Beaudoin, who played parts of three seasons with the Florida Panthers. The thing that sticks out most about Cole is that he is the type of player that a coach will fall in love with. He’s a hard worker, both on the ice and in the gym. His motor never stops on both ends of the ice, and he’ll fight like his life depends on it for every puck. While he may not have the high end skill of some other higher end prospects, Beaudoin seems to be lined up well to make himself an indispensable part of the Blues forward core moving forward.

Blues fans and their scouts now turn their attention to the third round and beyond. The Blues pick next at 66th overall, with three picks in the third round, and thirteen more picks in total. Fans will likely be looking for them to leverage those extra picks to move up and add more pieces to the foundation of the rebuild.