The Biggest Draft Mistake The St. Louis Blues Ever Made

[PPG]

My memory of Turnbull missing the 1981 playoffs was that he had a mysterious illness or a virus of some kind.

It was odd that he played in almost every game, even late in the season. I remember him playing in a game against the Kings in early April and he scored a goal. The playoffs started around April 8th. So sometime in that last week, he came down with something....Lots of speculation but nothing was ever officially announced.

[moose-and-squirrel]

My memory of Turnbull missing the 1981 playoffs was that he had a mysterious illness or a virus of some kind.

It was odd that he played in almost every game, even late in the season. I remember him playing in a game against the Kings in early April and he scored a goal. The playoffs started around April 8th. So sometime in that last week, he came down with something....Lots of speculation but nothing was ever officially announced.

Bad back iirc.. wa my fave back in the day. Got him to sign my tryout number from the vipers camp

[Absolut]

1977. Campbell ahead of Bossy
1979 Turnbull over borque,Vaive, Gardner, Lowe and Goulet. Ouch.
1987 Osborne over sakic


Could rewrite some history!

Turnbull was a very good player almost immediately. Got derailed by injury for the 80-81 playoffs. It's akin to ragging on Jake Neighbours, though one could argue Turnbull was a better player.

He was. But he wasn’t an all time great like we missed on. Again, it’s easy to 20-20 hindsight these things.

[somni]

The game of hindsight.

You all mentioned some good ones. I throw out there the 2002 draft, Alexei Shkotov as their first pick in the 2nd round. And when the player that played the most games from all their picks is DJ King at 118 games, that's pretty poor. Could have had Duncan Keith or Matthew Stajan

Except for Nagy, that 1997 draft wasn't that great either. Tyler Rennette as the first pick in the 2nd round...never played a game in the NHL.

And how about Stephane Roy from 1994 (Rd 3, Blues first pick)? Players after him a few picks later...Chris Drury, Sheldon Souray, Milan Hejduk.

I don't think Fabbri is anything near the worst mistake. He's played over 400 game at an almost 0.5 pt per game pace.

[bud white]

Yes, passing on Sakic. For that matter, how many times did they (and everyone else) pass on Datsyuk?

Datsyuk was drafted in the 6th round, 171st overall. So not only did every team make a huge mistake not drafting him, every team including Detroit, did it five times over! Unbelievable.

not so unbelievable when you consider the chances a russian would actually make the trip at the time

Datsyuk was drafted 9 years after Bure. The Russians had been coming over for a while by then. It was still a risk but the main reason Datsyuk didn’t get drafted sooner was because he played for a far remote team in Yekaterinburg, Russia (his hometown) and he was around 5’9” 145 lbs at the time. His team stunk too winning only 6 games that season and his 7 pts were 1 off the team lead that season.

Rumor has it the Wings were the only team to get a scout to see him. There was another team that was planning on going to see him but there was a big snowstorm and the flight got canceled so that team never got to see him play. That team is the St. Louis Blues.

The dynasty that was the Red Wings can be attributed to having "boots on the ground" throughout Sweden, Finland, Czech and Russia. They invested heavily in scouts - flew them to those remote outposts - and it paid huge dividends. It was a brilliant strategic move knowing that the world had opened up.

[Harry S Deals]

I don't know about EJ as the top mistake. Time unfolding / opportunity missed is what made us question that one. At the time EJ was consensus #1. A handful wanted someone else (offense is always sexier), but over the years many more people have discovered who they really wanted instead, but at the time and for a year or so after it looked like a very reasonable way to start a franchise. They literally tried it again two years later and it worked to perfection, they got precisely what they wanted out of the top of the draft, an absolute cornerstone defenseman. His injury doesn't go back and make the draft analysis worse, because you could say what if the other four all hurt their knees while EJ didn't. It clearly became a missed opportunity later ... something people only realized after he was effectively supplanted by a player who gave us the a Cup foundation as was hoped for from EJ, so the franchise itself was just delayed a couple years. It was the right concept, and the NYI absolutely crushed this past draft, it was a spooky good draft for them. If Schaefer blows out his knee in two years they still made the right pick at the time they had the info. The EJ situation is like poker where the turn card just smokes your hopes and dreams but you had something going before the flop and on the flop. You don't go back and say getting involved in the beginning was the worst decision, most of the time the turn card isn't the worst possible card.

1983 is obvious, but in terms of some others. I would agree with 1977. That was just a brutal pick in a first round where literally everyone else hit better. 1987 is also very bad. 1981 is pretty ugly at the top. We could have had Arniel in the first (kind of joking) and Chelios in the second. I pretty much can't choose any year where they did not have a first round pick because really, the worst pick is a second rounder who missed?

(HM to Rundblad, who sucked)

Johnson was regarded as the best blueline prospect in 15 years by many

[STL fan in MN]

Yes, passing on Sakic. For that matter, how many times did they (and everyone else) pass on Datsyuk?

Datsyuk was drafted in the 6th round, 171st overall. So not only did every team make a huge mistake not drafting him, every team including Detroit, did it five times over! Unbelievable.

not so unbelievable when you consider the chances a russian would actually make the trip at the time

Datsyuk was drafted 9 years after Bure. The Russians had been coming over for a while by then. It was still a risk but the main reason Datsyuk didn’t get drafted sooner was because he played for a far remote team in Yekaterinburg, Russia (his hometown) and he was around 5’9” 145 lbs at the time. His team stunk too winning only 6 games that season and his 7 pts were 1 off the team lead that season.

Rumor has it the Wings were the only team to get a scout to see him. There was another team that was planning on going to see him but there was a big snowstorm and the flight got canceled so that team never got to see him play. That team is the St. Louis Blues.

The dynasty that was the Red Wings can be attributed to having "boots on the ground" throughout Sweden, Finland, Czech and Russia. They invested heavily in scouts - flew them to those remote outposts - and it paid huge dividends. It was a brilliant strategic move knowing that the world had opened up.

Absolutely. They excelled at drafting. Probably a super cheap investment all things considered that paid huge dividends.

[seattleblue]

I don't know about EJ as the top mistake. Time unfolding / opportunity missed is what made us question that one. At the time EJ was consensus #1. A handful wanted someone else (offense is always sexier), but over the years many more people have discovered who they really wanted instead, but at the time and for a year or so after it looked like a very reasonable way to start a franchise. They literally tried it again two years later and it worked to perfection, they got precisely what they wanted out of the top of the draft, an absolute cornerstone defenseman. His injury doesn't go back and make the draft analysis worse, because you could say what if the other four all hurt their knees while EJ didn't. It clearly became a missed opportunity later ... something people only realized after he was effectively supplanted by a player who gave us the a Cup foundation as was hoped for from EJ, so the franchise itself was just delayed a couple years. It was the right concept, and the NYI absolutely crushed this past draft, it was a spooky good draft for them. If Schaefer blows out his knee in two years they still made the right pick at the time they had the info. The EJ situation is like poker where the turn card just smokes your hopes and dreams but you had something going before the flop and on the flop. You don't go back and say getting involved in the beginning was the worst decision, most of the time the turn card isn't the worst possible card.

1983 is obvious, but in terms of some others. I would agree with 1977. That was just a brutal pick in a first round where literally everyone else hit better. 1987 is also very bad. 1981 is pretty ugly at the top. We could have had Arniel in the first (kind of joking) and Chelios in the second. I pretty much can't choose any year where they did not have a first round pick because really, the worst pick is a second rounder who missed?

(HM to Rundblad, who sucked)

Johnson was regarded as the best blueline prospect in 15 years by many

You're right, that's why Schaefer is a pretty strong analogy given the trio that went right after him

[a smell of green grass]

How big of a mistake can be made when bobbing for apples? Mistakes can only be made when selecting among jewels. The Blues purposefully draft 15-25, the land of apples. As such, Armstrong has insulated himself from creating mistakes and raising fan disapproval.

Consider Jiricek. He will spend 8 years in the minors, and when he busts, only Jiricek will be blamed, not Armstrong.

[lidstrom5]

1983, everything else pales in comparison. Worst (most wasted) pick might have been Scott Campbell in 1977.

Double whammy is that the Blues traded Paul MacLean to get him back.

My bad memory is that Campbell had bad headaches. Is that correct? If so, what was the cause? He was still a young guy.

My choice is Scott Campbell. He played in Winnipeg and he developed asthma which dogged him I think.

[BluesDom]

How big of a mistake can be made when bobbing for apples? Mistakes can only be made when selecting among jewels. The Blues purposefully draft 15-25, the land of apples. As such, Armstrong has insulated himself from creating mistakes and raising fan disapproval.

Consider Jiricek. He will spend 8 years in the minors, and when he busts, only Jiricek will be blamed, not Armstrong.

You are too short sided. The team improved under current GM. They havent selected tops in the draft in the modern era all that often,: Pietrangelo and EJ. Outside of that its typically late first round. The team had a record playoff run. The team hasnt missed the playoffs much in their entire history. So its not about Army. You little boy are full of sh*t. You have no idea what you are talking about. You are no match for us. Go away do uuche bag. The team has been a winning franchise always. This regime is looking like one of the best in franchise history. but....Facts do not matter to a mere troll. Playoffs 46 times out of 57 seasons. Most all Blues Gms's typically picked in later 1st round.

You just lost another court case bro. You lose every single argument. all your points stink. What else you got little boy?

[seattleblue]

There's a whole team of adults whose entire focus is scouting for the Blues. They meet and discuss, and everything. This current team may have crushed the 2023 draft out of the park and the GM supplied them with extra 1sts and 3ds to do it. 2024 broke badly on luck since other teams didn't reach in the first 15 picks which is very rare. Blaming the GM for injuries to players is dumb. It's intrinsically unfair and only people using bad faith do it.

[hockey jedi]

EJ was not a mistake. We were aching for a big cornerstone defenseman in the mold of Chris Pronger. The knee injury on the golf outing was his downfall from greatness.

For me, passing on Logan Couture in the 2007 draft was a terrible move, but I know the Blues were hoping to get Ryan McDonagh.

The drafting of David Runblad was a head scratcher at the time, but worked out okay for us in the end

The drafting on Dominik Bokk was terrible at the time.

[seattleblue]

I know we traded him right away for the biggest choker in the game but Taffe always underwhelmed me as a weak pick, and Shawn Belle was just a straight up terrible pick. That era of Blues scouting was pitiful. Christian Backman? Come on man

[Sweet Jones]

EJ was not a mistake. We were aching for a big cornerstone defenseman in the mold of Chris Pronger. The knee injury on the golf outing was his downfall from greatness.

For me, passing on Logan Couture in the 2007 draft was a terrible move, but I know the Blues were hoping to get Ryan McDonagh.

The drafting of David Runblad was a head scratcher at the time, but worked out okay for us in the end

The drafting on Dominik Bokk was terrible at the time.

Agreed. The specter of what a Pronger-type defenseman could mean do for this franchise loomed large. And cornerstone defensemen are like Quarterbacks in the NFL draft, there is always a premium placed on them.

The logic was sound. The results were a different matter.

Glad they went right back to the well 2 years later and got it right that time.

[Harry S Deals]

How big of a mistake can be made when bobbing for apples? Mistakes can only be made when selecting among jewels. The Blues purposefully draft 15-25, the land of apples. As such, Armstrong has insulated himself from creating mistakes and raising fan disapproval.

Consider Jiricek. He will spend 8 years in the minors, and when he busts, only Jiricek will be blamed, not Armstrong.

You are too short sided. The team improved under current GM. They havent selected tops in the draft in the modern era all that often,: Pietrangelo and EJ. Outside of that its typically late first round. The team had a record playoff run. The team hasnt missed the playoffs much in their entire history. So its not about Army. You little boy are full of sh*t. You have no idea what you are talking about. You are no match for us. Go away do uuche bag. The team has been a winning franchise always. This regime is looking like one of the best in franchise history. but....Facts do not matter to a mere troll. Playoffs 46 times out of 57 seasons. Most all Blues Gms's typically picked in later 1st round.

You just lost another court case bro. You lose every single argument. all your points stink. What else you got little boy?

Jiricek is going to be on a pretty good Brantford team this year under Jay McKee he will be just fine and like Calum Ritchies hattrick i will be here every day to remind.