Sometimes, hockey comes down to luck, and Monday night’s NHL draft lottery perhaps is the biggest example the league has.
The Blues enter the lottery hopeful for a lucky bounce that vaults them up the draft from their current No. 10 position into picking a potential franchise-changing player.
According to Tankathon, the Blues have a 3.5% chance of jumping to No. 1, a 3.7% chance of No. 2, a 0.1% chance of No. 3, a 73.3% chance of remaining at No. 10, a 18.4% chance of dropping to No. 11 and a 0.9% chance of dropping to No. 12.
The lottery will begin at 7 p.m. on Monday and will be televised on ESPN. The draft is set for June 28-29 in Nashville.
The biggest prize of the evening will be Connor Bedard, the unanimous No. 1 prospect in this draft and, according to some draft experts, the best draft-eligible player since Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby. Bedard led the Western Hockey League with 71 goals and 72 assists in just 57 games while playing for the Regina Pats. His 143 points were 36 more than the next-closest player in the WHL, and Bedard also won a gold medal with Canada at the world junior tournament.
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If the Blues jump to No. 2, there will be a discussion over who to take: Michigan forward Adam Fantilli or Swedish forward Leo Carlsson.
Fantilli won the Hobey Baker Award as college hockey’s best player with 65 points in 36 games, which was 15 more points than Blues prospect Jimmy Snuggerud. Carlsson has played the last two seasons professionally in Sweden’s SHL, with 34 points in 79 games.
The Blues have a distant shot at the No. 3 pick if Ottawa wins the No. 2 pick. Because Ottawa enters the lottery with the No. 12 pick, it can only move up 10 spots, according to the recently-adjusted NHL lottery rules.
The Blues will drop to No. 11 if one team behind it wins the lottery, and to No. 12 if both lottery teams are behind it.
No matter where the Blues end up with their own first-round pick, they still own Dallas’ first-round selection (from the Vladimir Tarasenko trade) and Toronto’s first-round pick (from the Ryan O’Reilly trade). Those positions will be determined via playoff results.
The best-case scenario for the Blues would be the Stars, Maple Leafs and Golden Knights losing in the second round. That would leave the Blues with picks No. 23 (Dallas) and 24 (Toronto).
Regardless of the outcome Monday, the Blues and general manager Doug Armstrong will have their highest selection since 2008, when the franchise took Alex Pietrangelo at No. 4.
As the Blues transition to a different core centered around Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou, with reinforcements on the way in the form of Snuggerud, Zachary Bolduc and Zach Dean, a high-end pick is a box that remains unchecked.
Each of the remaining eight teams in the playoffs has at least one player selected with either the No. 1 or No. 2 pick. Since the salary cap was introduced in 2005, only two teams have won the Stanley Cup without a player drafted either first or second: the 2019 Blues and the 2008 Red Wings.
In the Blues’ organization, only one player even was selected in the top five: Brayden Schenn, by the Kings in 2009.
The Blues have only picked first once in their history, when they selected Erik Johnson with the top pick in 2006. They have only picked second once, selecting Perry Turnbull in 1979.
St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong says that offseason evaluation will be about discovering if this year's failures are a trend or aberration.
Matthew DeFranks
Matthew DeFranks is a Blues beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered the Blues since the 2022-23 season and previously covered the Stars for the Dallas Morning News from 2018 to 2022. He also covered the Panthers for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. DeFranks graduated from the University of Notre Dame.
