St. Louis Blues - No picks at 83 draft

[Gilles Meloche]

"Purina lost an estimated $1.8 million a year during its ownership of the Blues, but took the losses philosophically, having taken over out of a sense of civic responsibility. In 1983, Purina's longtime chairman, R. Hal Dean, retired. His successor wanted to refocus on the core pet food business, and had no interest in hockey. He only saw a division that was bleeding money, and put the Blues on the market. The Blues did not pick anyone in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft because Purina did not send a representative; the company basically abandoned the team."

"The St. Louis Blues chose not to participate in this draft, shortly after the league blocked the franchise's relocation to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan."

How different a team would the Blues be??....they could have had the following players, admittely I chose the best in the draft....they could have traded away these players or who knows??...they came in 16th place in a 21 team league so they would have picked 6th overall....not sure if they had traded any of there picks away or added any....but here it goes St. Louis was lucky it was a weak draft after the first round

Round 1 - Cam Neely (taken 9th overall in first round)
Round 2 - Sergio Momesso (taken 6th pick in second round)
Round 3 - Brian Bradley (taken 9th pick in third round)
Round 4 - Esa Tikkanen (taken 18th pick in fourth round)
Round 5 - Garry Galley (taken 18th pick in fifth round)
Round 6 - Kevin Stevens (taken 6th pick in sixth round) Rick Tocchet also there
Round 7 - Christian Ruuttu (taken 12th pick in seventh round) Tretiak drafted by MTL
Round 8 - Pelle Eklund (taken 19th pick in eighth round)
Round 9 - Brian Noonan (taken 17th pick in ninth round)
Round 10 - Dominik Hasek (taken 17th pick in tenth round)
Round 11 - Uwe Krupp (taken 12th pick in eleventh round)
Round 12 - Sergei Makarov (taken 9th pick in twelvth round)

Of course it is easy to armchair the draft 25 years later and to grab the best guys available but the Blues would have grabbed somebody half decent and maybe taken their team to the next level thru the 80's and 90's.....thought??

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[reckoning]

They had already traded away their 1st and 2nd round picks, so while skipping the draft cost them some good players, they wouldn't have had a chance at getting Neely anyways.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Yeah, I wouldn't cherry-pick the results 25 years later to get an accurate reflection.

It's probably best to take their actual pick locations, and assume that they would have selected the player taken immediately after. It's not perfect, but it's better than assuming that they would have taken (for instance) Hasek in the tenth round.

 

[Chili]

As mentioned they had already traded their first two picks and the odds are much stronger that they would not have drafted an impact player anyway. So the real effect was on prospect depth only which Ron Caron tried to address by trading for some extra picks the next year. As well, he lobbied for some extra picks because of the lost picks but was turned down by the league. The Blues went on to trade or lose some of their first rounders by signing rfa's.

I think the lost picks had some impact but not a big one.

 

[Heat McManus]

Or?

1st Rd - Bruce Cassidy
2nd Rd - Shawn Evans
3rd Rd - Vesa Salo
4th Rd - Tim Lorenz
5th Rd - Jerome Carrier
6th Rd - Chad Pusey
7th Rd - Jeff Hogg
8th Rd - Craig Butz
9th Rd - Harri Laurila
10th Rd - Milos Riha
11th Rd - Jan Blaha
12th Rd - Jindrich Korkment
13th Rd - Hiro Nakamura

 

[Ted Hoffman]

As mentioned they had already traded their first two picks and the odds are much stronger that they would not have drafted an impact player anyway. So the real effect was on prospect depth only which Ron Caron tried to address by trading for some extra picks the next year. As well, he lobbied for some extra picks because of the lost picks but was turned down by the league. The Blues went on to trade or lose some of their first rounders by signing rfa's.

I think the lost picks had some impact but not a big one.

Emile Francis would have been running the draft so the chances are we'd have picked up a couple NHL'ers [maybe even a guy like Galley or Noonan], but not having those 1st and 2nd round picks would have hurt.

 

[Chili]

Emile Francis would have been running the draft so the chances are we'd have picked up a couple NHL'ers [maybe even a guy like Galley or Noonan], but not having those 1st and 2nd round picks would have hurt.

Caron's group had a pretty decent draft in 84 (including Cliff Ronning). Don't know if they had the same scouts but really we'll never know how it would have unfolded.

I was at that draft btw, I remember how eery it was to look down at that empty table on the draft floor.

 

[reckoning]

Trading away that 1st round pick was in hindsight a good move by the Blues. They got Rob Ramage in the trade, who had a more productive NHL career than any of the defencemen drafted in that '83 draft. He gave them five decent years, then was traded in the deal that brought Brett Hull to St. Louis. Not a bad return for a pick they wouldn't have been able to use anyways.

 

[bruins309]

I'm a bit confused as to why they didn't trade all their picks if they weren't going to take part in the draft. They might have been able to pick up a useful part in trading some of the picks beyond the 2nd round that went to waste.

Was it a last-minute decision by the Blues to do this? Would they have had a chance to dump those picks?

 

[Jumptheshark]

They had already traded away their 1st and 2nd round picks, so while skipping the draft cost them some good players, they wouldn't have had a chance at getting Neely anyways.

If memory serves me correct, the blues had traded away 8 of their 12 picks that year if I am not mistaken. I think they owned the 4th and 8th and the later picks

 

[Jumptheshark]

For those who do not recall--during this time the team was nearly moved to Saskatoon---so muh so that they were advertising tickets--although it was Wild Bill Hunter doing it and he had nothing to with the blues at the time--he was part of a group that was trying to buy the team