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All was quiet on the Midwestern front for about two thirds of the 1st round of the 2017 NHL draft until general manager Doug Armstrong unleashed a small tornado of trade activity. Let’s recap the latter part of the first round.
While I am not 100% certain, I am very confident the Blues tried hard to move into the top 10 of the draft. I believe they had their eye on two players who went between 4 and 10. Director of Amateur Scouting Bill Armstrong hinted at as much, saying at least one player they identified and were hoping would fall to them was taken in the top 10.
The Blues held onto their 20th pick, going a bit off the board with center Robert Thomas.
According to Bill Placzek (Wiz here at Hockeybuzz) at Draftsite.com, Thomas is a good all-around center who plays at high tempo and with creativity. Read more about Thomas
here and
here.
Thomas was expected to go in the late 1st round or the early second round. They passed on players like Kristian Vesalainen and Eeli Tolvanen. They also passed on goalie Jake Oettinger who I believe they thought would fall to them at the 27th pick.
After losing out on Oettinger when the Dallas Stars traded up to steal him before the Blues pick, GM Armstrong pulled the trigger on a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers, sending the 27th pick, Jori Lehtera and a conditional 2018 1st round pick (protected if it is a top ten pick) to them in exchange for Brayden Schenn. Initial fan reaction was less than popular as two 1st round picks and Lehtera seemed like a fairly big overpay for Schenn but more on that later.
As the Nashville Predators were selecting one of the best snipers in the draft, Eeli Tolvanen (a player I had hoped the Blues would take with the pick they traded), Armstrong was finalizing a trade to send Ryan Reaves to and the 51st pick to the Penguins for the 31st pick and Oskar Sundqvist. All of a sudden, the Blues faithful seemed a bit more excited as the Blues selected the only Russian player of the 1st round, forward Klim Kostin. Kostin has already stated he wants to play in North America and has been in Detroit rehabbing from shoulder surgery. He is also AHL eligible next season.
Kostin did play in a tournament with the shoulder injury, still averaging a point a game before he was shut down for surgery. If not for the shoulder injury and Russia connection, it’s thought he may have been a top 10 pick in the draft. Does that sound somewhat familiar with a Russian player who wants to plan in North America slipping?
According to Wiz, Kostin is a big man who is strong on his skates and hard to move off the puck and has very good stick skills and a good shot who needs to lose a little of his pass-first mentality. Read more about him
here and
here.
Bill Armstrong couldn’t hardly contain his excitement sharing that it was “one of the ones that fell together” and this morning he “had to remind myself it wasn’t a dream”. They never thought they would be able to get Thomas and Klostin.
With the trade, the Blues didn’t have another pick until the 4th round where they took right wing Alexei Toropchenko, a teammate of Klostin. According to Armstrong, Toropchenko is big, can really skate and push the pace and plays north American style game. NHL Central Scouting had him as the 5th best international right wing and commented that he likes to “park himself in the front of the net and cause havoc in tight”.
In the 5th round, the Blues selected defenseman David Noel at 130. According to Armstrong, he was one of their “super sleepers” and possesses a “bomb of a shot”. He was ranked 136th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting.
In round 6, the Blues took defenseman Trenton Bourque who has played in the OHL in the past three seasons. Bourque is decent sized at 6’2” and over 200 pounds and was ranked 154th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting.
With their final pick at 206, the Blue selected defenseman Anton Andersson. Andersson is even bigger at 6’4 216lbs. He has done very well with the Swedish junior leagues, averaging more than a point per game in their U-18 leagues. After moving up to the U-20 league, he only had 3 points in 13 games.
Let’s go back to the first trade. Essentially the Blues traded a very late 1st round pick and either a mid to late first round pick along with Jori Lehtera for Braden Schenn. Let’s ignore the draft picks and compare Lehtera and Schenn for a minute.
Even though Schenn almost four years younger than Lehtera, he has played almost twice as many NHL games while more than tripling Lehtera’s goal production. Lehtera has average 0.135 goals per game and 0.458 points per game while Schenn has averaged 0.245 and 0.573 respectively. Schenn has one fewer playoff points than Lehtera while playing nine less games.
Over the last two seasons, Lehtera has consistently scored at 0.11 goals per game while Schenn has consistently been at 0.33. Expect this trend to continue or even widen. Scheen also has been pretty consistent in assists per game the last two seasons around 0.39. Lehtera fell from 0.32 to 0.23 last season. This fall off is in spite of his offensive starts going up almost 8%. More impressive is that Schenn’s averages are better even though his offensive zone starts are lower than Lehtera, more than 7% last year.
Historically, Lehtera has been better in the face-off circle but Schenn has been improving, getting to 47% in the regular season and 49% in his last playoff season while Lehtera has been regressing falling to 49% in the regular season and a putrid 35% in the playoffs.
Going further on the Lehtera decline trend, take a look at the rolling average HERO chart trends:
Lehtera’s primary production is definitely regressing while Schenn’s shows signs of slight but steady improvement. Be careful in reading too much into Schenn’s shot suppression statistics given the defensive core differences between the Blues and the Flyers. The Flyers have some good young defensemen but they were not anywhere near comparable to Pietrangelo and Bouwmeester.
The Schenn situation reminds me a lot of the Jay Bouwmeester situation. In both cases, the Blues were rumored to have interest and to have inquired about the player for years. Both player should improve the Blues team though in this case though, the Blues seem to have paid a heavier price to obtain Schenn. Part of this heavy payment is likely due to Lehtera’s mis-sized cap hit at $4.7 million for the next two seasons. Given Lehtera’s age and declining production, moving his cap hit would have likely become more difficult in the coming months. Compare that to Schenn who has a$5.125 million cap hit over the next three seasons. How much is it worth to only spend $425,000 more in cap hit to get two to three times more production? It would appear it’s bumping the second draft pick in the trade to a first rounder.
The second trade sure seems to have explained why Ryan Reaves was protected in the expansion draft. In essence, the Blues traded Reaves for Sundqvist and a one round upgrade in the draft so they could get their Russian sleeper pick. Sundqvist was described by Wiz in his draft year as a sleeper with size and offensive upside while already being committed to a two-way game. It appears this review has held true so far. Sundqvist was 3rd on the AHL Wilkes Barre Penguins this past season in points and 2nd in goals but led the team in non-power play goals. He made nice progress in his 2nd AHL season raising his goal total from 5 to 24 and points from 17 to 46. Perhaps a more telling story of his two-way play is that in 10 NHL games this past season, he had over 51% defensive zone starts. It will be interesting to see how he fits into the Blues plans as he is an unsigned restricted free agent.
The second deal and the picking of Kostin made losing the 2nd 1st round draft pick for Schenn a lot more palatable.
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz blogger
Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace agreed to a 1st round, friendly charity wager. Since the Blues won, Dan will be making a donation to Dream Factory St. Louis (http://dreamfactoryincstl.org/). Dream Factory grants dreams to critically and chronically ill children from the ages of three to eighteen. They have one of the highest program expenditure ratios I have ever seen, an amazing 97% is used for actual program services. Usually, more than 3% is used for administrative and fundraising efforts but not at Dream Factory.
With the Predators win, fellow Hockeybuzz blogger
Nashville Predator's Paul McCann won our bet and I made a donation to Best Buddies of Tennessee (https://bestbuddies.org/find-programs/tennessee/). Best Buddies works to establish a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and development capabilities.
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