In his first professional season during 2025-26, Burns split time between the ECHL’s Florida Everblades and the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds, finishing with one goal and 10 assists for 11 points in 50 games overall while maintaining a plus-8 rating. His AHL portion saw him record 5 assists in roughly 34 appearances with a minus-1 rating across about 583 minutes of ice time, averaging just under 17 minutes per game.

The physical side of his game remained prominent as ever, as he continued to rack up penalty minutes and hits while consistently playing hard on the puck, contributing in puck battles and maintaining a strong pass completion rate in the 80-89 percent range across his pro games. Despite his age and lack of exposure to the professional play style, Burns was already showing he is a player who could handle defensive responsibilities, close gaps effectively, and transition play without overextending.

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The Big Picture

Across three stops this year with Muskegon in the USHL, a mid-season jump to Boston University, and Canada’s U18 team, Lawrence put up 14 goals, 16 assists and 33 points in 36 games, plus a plus-7 rating and a 52 percent faceoff win rate. Not bad for a 17-year-old who spent the season bouncing between three different levels of hockey, while taking 683 draws across those stops. That’s a heavy workload for a young forward, and it tells you coaches trusted him in that role everywhere he went.

Muskegon

The Muskegon stretch is where Lawrence looked like exactly what the Blues drafted him to be. After scoring 25 goals and grabbing 54 points across 56 games in his first USHL season, he won 55 percent of his faceoffs, and managed 10 goals and 17 points in just 13 games with the Lumberjacks.

While his puck battle win rate wasn’t eye-popping (45 percent), his passing accuracy sat at 61 percent and his deke success rate was over 60 percent. Those numbers alone are the ones that tells you this is a guy who wins with timing and IQ more than brute force.

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NCAA

Then he jumped to BU, and this is where looking at the game logs tells you something the box score can’t. In his debut on January 9th against UMass, Lawrence played just 13:41 of ice time. For a guy who’d just been captaining a USHL team, this was a clear rookie leash and an acclimation game with his coach saying “prove it before I give you more.”

Game by game, his minutes climbed. By the Providence College back-to-back in late January, he leaned on more, at times earning up over 21 minutes. The coaching staff began trusting and handing a true freshman more and more responsibility as he showed he could handle it against players three and four years older than him.

The points themselves stayed modest and scattered through that stretch with an assist here, a goal there, nothing that truly jumped off the page. But over his final five NCAA games, Lawrence picked up one goal and five points, with his best individual performance of the college season coming right near the end. On March 14th against UConn, the 17-year-old scored a goal, added an assist, and finished a plus-2 in his second-to-last game of the year. Lawrence was able to add to the scoreboard with the results from two months of steady growth, and a clear sign of the work he'd put in to get there.

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International Play

Straight from BU minutes into the U18 World Championship, and Lawrence didn’t miss a beat. He was involved offensively in four of Canada’s five games, posted a positive plus/minus in four of five, and had his best outing in an 8-0 win over Norway, picking up a goal and two assists. For a player who’d just spent months adjusting to a new level, jumping straight into an even tougher one and producing immediately tells more about the tools in the toolbox he has been building with the adjustment had actually taken.

Now zoom out to the year before in his age-16 season, and you see why nobody should be worried about the college dip in the first place. Lawrence put up 72 points in 69 games (regular season and postseason) with Muskegon in 2024-25, a 61 percent shot-on-goal rate, and a successful deke rate of 66 percent. He was already taking a huge faceoff load (812 draws) and winning half of them (410-402), all before he’d even turned 17. Lawrence has done all of this, all while managing to keep a consistent 84-85 percent passing accuracy rate over the past two seasons and three levels of play.

Put it all together and you get a center who wins with anticipation and habits more than size or speed, who’s proven he can dominate against his own age group, and who just spent a season proving he can handle anything thrown at him. A mid-year jump to college hockey, a tougher conference, and best-on-best international play, all in the span of a few months. While he played fewer minutes due to the transition to the NCAA, it’s clear that BU’s coaching staff didn’t hand him minutes, he earned every one of them.

Projection: Lawrence is easily a future NHL top-nine, two-way center but has real top-six offensive upside once his frame and foot speed catch up to his hockey sense. Expect him back at BU for 2026-27 as a full-time top-six piece from day one, with a legit push for professional hockey in two to three years out.

Stats provided by InStat Hockey

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This ranking, the companion piece to our recent defenseman list, weighs level-adjusted production, trajectory, and two-way indicators over box-score totals alone. Some names here are already NHL-tested; others arrived within the last year and have a single professional season, or less, to their name. What follows is the top 10, presented alphabetically by last name alongside each player’s overall ranking, drawing on both the underlying numbers and what scouts are saying about where their games are headed.

Here’s the top 10, ranked and then ordered alphabetically by last name.

Dmitri Buchelnikov — Buchelnikov competes in the KHL, widely regarded as the strongest professional league outside the NHL. His production dipped this season (15 goals, 29 points in 54 games, down from 15 goals, 54 points in 65 games a year ago), but that decline is deceptive given he’s facing grown men on a considerably tougher roster, and while his point production has dipped, his passing accuracy has continued hover at an impressive 91%. A lengthy injury derailed his production this past season and he will be looking for a strong rebound back to his .80 point per game production.

Projection: a middle-six scoring winger with power-play upside once he eventually arrives in North America.

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Between the Pipes: A Look at the Blues’ Goaltending Pipeline

Here is a look at the 10 most notable names, listed alphabetically by last name rather than ranked, since each brings something different to the table and each is worth watching for a different reason as camp approaches.

Nick Bogas

Bogas is still the youngest and rawest name on this list, but the alarm bells that might normally go off for a player his age simply aren’t there. Splitting time between the USNTDP’s U18 program and Team USA’s U18 slate this past season, he won just over 55 percent of his puck battles and completed just over 85 percent of his passes. These are solid, foundational numbers that speak to a defenseman who already processes the game quickly even if the frame hasn’t caught up yet.

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A forward can score in a top league one year and it usually means something. A goalie can look unbeatable one season and shaky the next, even if nothing about his game actually changed. That’s what makes the Blues’ current group of goalie prospects so interesting to dig into. It’s not one clear franchise goalie in waiting. It’s four very different paths, at four very different stages, all worth watching for their own reasons.

Here’s a closer look at where each of them stands right now, and what their numbers say about where they might be headed.

Will Cranley

Cranley is the guy in this group who just keeps showing up and doing his job, no matter where he’s playing. In 2022-23, his final season in the OHL, he stopped just over 88 percent of the shots he faced (.884 SV%), and he faced a lot of them, nearly 1,450 shots that season. Since then he’s moved up through junior hockey, the ECHL, and now full-time AHL games with Springfield and the Everblades. The positive trend in his ascension is that his save percentage hasn’t really changed much. Across 74 ECHL games, Cranley has an .896 SV% with four shutouts, and an .890 SV% through his first 13 AHL games.

After sporting a 14-3 record in the ECHL, along with a .915 SV%, Cranley made his way to Springfield and really never looked back. At this point, he looks like the backup goaltender heading into the 2026-27 season and could even push for a few extra starting opportunities should Romanov struggle.

Projection: Cranley probably isn’t going to be the star of this group, but he’s the guy who never makes you worry. He looks like a steady future AHL starter and could even challenge to go as high as an NHL backup.

Marcus Gidlof

Gidlof’s game is all about playing a ton and staying calm when it matters most. This year, in his first real shot at being the main goalie for Leksand in Sweden’s top league, he played a career-high 1,598 minutes and stopped 708 of 786 shots. That’s a 90 percent save rate against grown men in one of the best leagues in the world at only 20-years-old.

Where he really shines is in shootouts. He saved 19 of 33 shootout attempts last season and has kept getting picked for those high-pressure moments ever since, going all the way back to his junior days.

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Gidlof and Leksands IF were relegated to the second-tier Swedish league last season and will begin their quest to return to the SHL. This could bode well for Gidlof as he continues his development and not rush into tougher SHL competition, playing in the same league as fellow goaltending prospect, Love Härenstam.

Projection: This is a goalie who seems to want the puck when the game is on the line. If his save percentage holds up as he keeps playing more, he could turn into one of the more interesting names in this system, someone who could be an NHL backup someday and is already a safe bet as a strong AHL starter.

Vladimir Proskurin

Nobody in this group had a bigger jump in playing time than Proskurin. He played just three games in 2024-25. This season, he suddenly became the main goalie for Atlant, playing 42 games and facing 1,358 shots throughout the season, an average of 32-33 shots against per night. Even with that heavy workload, he still stopped just over 92 percent of the shots (.921 SV%) he faced, which is impressive considering how often his own team left him out to dry.

Proskurin also good with the puck on his stick, completing 86 percent of his passes, the best mark of any goalie in this group. One thing worth remembering: facing that many shots usually means his team struggled to keep the puck out of their own zone.

The 18-year-old will make the jump to the CHL for the 2026-27 season and will be playing with the Victoria Royals after being selected in the first round of the CHL Import Draft.

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Projection: This season was basically a big test for Proskurin, and he passed it. If he keeps playing 40-plus games a season at this save percentage, he starts to look like a real NHL prospect, and being good with the puck only makes him more valuable to a Blues system that could use more of that. This next season in the CHL will be a challenge and a good gauge for where Proskurin is at in his development.

Love Härenstam

Härenstam has the cleanest improvement story of the group, plain and simple. His save percentage has gone up every year for the last three seasons, climbing from 88 to 90 to 92 percent, all while he’s been playing more and more. This year he played a system-high 60 games and nearly 3,500 minutes for Sodertalje. Getting better while also playing more is exactly what teams want to see from a young goalie, and not every prospect can do both at once.

He also got his first taste of senior international hockey this year, playing in 10 games for Sweden with just under 580 minutes allowing 24 goals on 261 shots, while managing a 6-0-0 record at the U20 tournament and capturing the gold medal for his team.

Projection: Härenstam looks like the most complete goalie in this group right now. His numbers keep trending up as his playing time goes up. He has one more season in Sweden at this point and could be heading to the AHL as soon as 2027-28. A safe projection right now is a very capable 1B goaltender who could push for more.

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Dylan Peterson’s route to St. Louis has gotten a lot less clear over the past week. For most of the past year, the 6-foot-4 winger looked like a reasonable long-term bet to fill a physical, fourth-line role for the Blues. The kind of player whose game translates well even if the scoreboard isn’t always favorable. Then St. Louis signed Ross Johnston on July 1, and that path went from “possibly next season” to “genuinely uncertain.”

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Vladimir Proskurin’s Jump to the CHL

2026 4th round draft pick, Goaltender Vladimir Proskurin is officially headed to the Western Hockey League. The Victoria Royals selected the Russian netminder with the 27th overall pick in the first round of the 2026 CHL Import Draft.

Looking at this on the surface level, a junior draft pick might seem like minor offseason noise, but the context here tells a much bigger story. For Victoria to burn a premium, first-round import pick on him brings a massive spike in his external valuation. Import slots are highly guarded assets across the Canadian Hockey League. CHL teams rarely waste first-round capital on European goaltenders unless they have a firm commitment that the player is coming over to compete for the starter’s crease immediately.

Proskurin spent this past season carrying the load for MHK Atlant Mytishchi in the MHL, Russia’s premier junior league. Across 41 games played, he maintained a stellar .921 save percentage and a 2.97 goals-against average with a frustrating 14-21-2 record. He finished just outside the top-15 U-21 goaltenders in the MHL in SV%, and the fourth-highest in total saves (1266).

Victoria Royals General Manager Jake Heisinger didn’t hide his excitement about the acquisition: “Vlad is a competitor that does whatever he can to make saves and is extremely athletic. We are very excited to have a goalie of Vlad’s caliber joining our program.”

Beyond Joel Hofer and Love Härenstam, Proskurin just became an interesting netminder to keep an eye on. The transition to North American ice, with its smaller rink dimensions, different puck behavior off the boards, and a relentless, high-pressure pace, is always an interesting test for European netminder’s. Landing a starting role in Victoria gives the Blues a front-row seat to watch him adapt before any tough professional development decisions have to be made.

Windsor Bound: A Trio of Blues Earn Team USA Invites

USA Hockey has released its roster for the 2026 World Junior Summer Showcase, and the Blues’ scouting department has to be smiling. Defensemen Nick Bogas, Landon Nycz, and Luke Schairer have all earned invitations to the event, which runs from July 26 through August 1 in Windsor, Ontario.

This showcase is well worth the attention because it functions as a high-stakes audition rather than a guaranteed roster spot. It serves as USA Hockey’s initial screening process to narrow down the player pool for the official World Junior Championship roster later this winter.

Invitations aren’t roster guarantees, but they are an early signal that USA Hockey is monitoring these players as candidates heading into the fuller evaluation process later this year.

Three Blues-linked prospects on one invite list is a reasonable showing for the organization’s depth. How each performs in Windsor will help shape their longer-term World Junior outlook, and give Blues fans another concrete data point on the pipeline’s trajectory.

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If you somehow fell asleep at 5:30 PM thinking the St. Louis Blues were about to slowly and methodically inject four teenagers into their pipeline, you’ll need to wake up from that slumber. The Doug Armstrong and Alexander Steen front office completed an absolute show in asset management, fundamentally reshaping the identity of this franchise in less than two hours.

The Blues entered the 2026 NHL Entry Draft with a four first-round picks. The spoils of a painful but necessary tear-down that saw core veterans moved over the last year. By the time the dust settled in Buffalo on Friday night, those four chips were converted into two, high-upside prospects and a 23-year-old powerhouse center.

The club had a clear theme of the night adding size, snarl, and a desire to reinforce the spine down the middle of the ice.

Let’s dive deep into the new faces of the St. Louis Blues.

Pick No. 11: Tynan Lawrence, C (Boston University)

6’1”, 185 lbs | Left Shot | NCAA

With their own natural selection, the Blues went for a high-ceiling, dynamic two-way center. Lawrence entered his draft year as a projected top-five talent after a spectacular 2024-25 campaign with the Muskegon Lumberjacks, where he carried the team to a Clark Cup Championship and took home Playoff MVP honors as a rookie.

• 2024-25 (USHL): 54 pts in 56 games | Clark Cup Playoff MVP

• 2025-26 (USHL): 17 pts in 13 games (Muskegon Captain)

• Jan 2026 (NCAA): Made mid-season jump to Boston University adding two goals, 7 points in 18 games

Lawrence’s draft stock became one of the most fascinating case studies in the class due to his aggressive decision to jump directly into college hockey with BU mid-season on January 8th. Transitioning to playing against 22 and 23-year-old men at age 17 shrunk his raw box-score numbers (7 points in 18 games), causing him to slide right into the Blues’ lap at No. 11.

Don’t let the NCAA stat line fool you. Lawrence is an explosive skater with a high-end, linear speed and motor. He is an absolute nightmare on the forecheck, using his closing speed to turn over pucks and instantly attack the middle of the ice. While player comps aren’t always accurate, he has been comped to a Patrice Bergeron-lite player. One who is a highly reliable matchup center who wins puck battles with relentless effort and feeds off the creativity of his wingers.

Roster Fit: He projects as a future high-leverage, 200-foot second line center who coaches can trust in the final two minutes of a playoff game.

The Blockbuster: Turning No. 15 and No. 29 into Mason McTavish

Before the Blues could use their back-to-back picks, Doug Armstrong swung a sledgehammer through the draft floor. The Blues traded Pick No. 15 (from Detroit) and Pick No. 29 (from Colorado) to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for 23-year-old power-center Mason McTavish.

McTavish, was the No. 3 overall pick in 2021, is already a proven NHL commodity with 304 career games and 181 points under his belt. He had a bit of a rollercoaster 2025-26 season under new Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville, managing 41 points in 75 games while seeing his ice time fluctuate to just over 15 minutes per game.

Armstrong weaponized draft picks that have a historically low probability of turning into stars to buy low on a 218-pound powerhouse entering his prime. McTavish is locked down through 2030-31 at a highly manageable $7 million AAV. Slotting him directly behind Robert Thomas to contend with Dalibor Dvorsky and compete for the second line center job gives Jim Montgomery a terrifyingly physical one-two punch down the middle.

Pick No. 16: Maddox Dagenais, F (Quebec Remparts)

6’4”, 196 lbs | Left Shot | QMJHL

With the pick acquired from the Washington Capitals in the recent Jordan Kyrou trade, the Blues targeted a player with pure, unadulterated size and scoring pedigree by taking Maddox Dagenais at No. 16.

Dagenais is a forward who carries premium NHL bloodlines as the son of former Montreal Canadien Pierre Dagenais. Maddox has completely earned his draft stock this year, taking home the prestigious Michael Bossy Trophy as the QMJHL’s best professional prospect after putting up 30 goals and 62 points in 62 games.

Dagenais is a true modern power forward. He plays like a bull in a china shop below the goal line, protecting the puck effortlessly with his massive 6-foot-4 frame. What makes him special, however, is his shot. He possesses a lethal, NHL-caliber volume wrist shot with a deceptive, lightning-fast release. He can overpower goaltenders from the dots or act as an immovable net-front screen.

Roster Fit: While he can play center, he has transitioned to play on the right wing with the Quebec Remparts this season. His heavy board-play and net-front presence project very well to the NHL wing where he could find himself as a middle-six winger to one of McTavish or Dvorsky in the near future.

Wrapping Up the First Round

In less than two hours, the Blues completely redefined their future identity. Jim Montgomery’s system demands high-intensity, structured, physical hockey, and the front office delivered exactly that.

By adding Lawrence, McTavish, and Dagenais to a forward core that already includes Thomas, Dvorsky, Jake Neighbours, Jimmy Snuggerud, Dylan Holloway, and Connor McMichael, the Blues have constructed a massive, high-skill forward group that is going to be incredibly miserable to play against in a seven-game playoff series.

The rebuild didn’t just get fast-forwarded tonight, it got bigger and more well-rounded.

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The Blues’ return in the Jordan Kyrou trade included a high-upside prospect in Milton Gästrin, a 19-year-old Swedish forward acquired from the Washington Capitals along with Connor McMichael and the 16th overall pick. Gastrin, selected 37th overall in the 2025 NHL Draft, projects as a reliable two-way center who could develop into a valuable middle-six contributor.

Born June 2, 2007, in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, the 6-foot-1, 194-pound left-shot forward has already logged meaningful professional experience. In his first full pro season with MoDo in Sweden’s second-tier league, HockeyAllsvenskan during 2025-26, he grabbing 24 points (10 goals, 14 assists) in 39 games while ranking sixth in team scoring while averaging 14:38 each game. Among his peers, Gästrin led all under-18 skaters in the league in goals and the second-highest point producer. A late-season assignment to the AHL’s Hershey Bears gave him his first taste of North American hockey, where he appeared in only one game in the Calder Cup playoffs playing 8:38 in the game.

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Looking under the hood from his 2025-26 campaign, there are quite a few encouraging signs for a teenager. He generated 2.7 shots per game (1.63 on goal) and a willingness to compete in puck battles, winning roughly 44% overall this past season. For a now 19-year-old, he was not a liability and certainly showed plenty of signs of life and reliability for MoDo Hockey as he will look to continue pushing his way forward in professional hockey.

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The Blues carry 12 total selections into the 2026 NHL Draft, their most since 2003, including three picks in the first round at 11th, 15th, and 29th overall. Armstrong, who will formally transition out of the general manager’s chair on July 1, spoke to media Monday ahead of the draft and was candid about what this week means, what the organization is willing to do, and what it has already learned from the year it would rather forget.

Two of the three first-round picks are the direct product of the most painful afternoon of this past season. Armstrong made the decision at the March trade deadline to move captain Brayden Schenn to the New York Islanders and veteran defenseman Justin Faulk to Detroit, ultimately dealing away two of the team’s most experienced voices in exchange for futures. The 15th pick came back in the Faulk deal, while the 29th, originally Colorado’s, arrived via the Islanders in the Schenn trade.

Armstrong was direct about the thinking behind it. “I guarantee if we didn’t have three first round picks, we’re not nearly as active,” he said Monday. “Those hard decisions that are made in March pay dividends now.”

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In typical Armstrong fashion, he was direct in all of his questions asked during the sit-down. The 61-year-old was equally direct about how he measures success coming out of the weekend. “What I look at is what does our war chest look like after the draft, and do we have the ability to go to that war chest when needed to improve our team?” And he was clear that the evaluation window extends well beyond Saturday night. “This chapter is not closed on Saturday night,” he said. “The chapter’s closed about October 1.”

That framing of his answer, referring to the draft as the beginning instead of the conclusion, runs through everything Armstrong said Monday. The possibility of a trade-up appears very much so on the table, though not to the degree some might imagine. Armstrong said he has discussed moving up two or three slots using available picks, but was measured about the ceiling.

“Going from 11 to two, three, or four would be seismic,” he said, “and I haven’t seen a seismic move like that in a long time.” A modest bump is certainly doable. Anything into the true top tier is a different conversation entirely.

Draft day promises to be chaotic, largely because the top of the board is so wide open. Armstrong pointed out that up to four prospects are being viewed as potential first-overall picks, while nearly double that amount could sneak into the top five. It’s exactly the kind of volatility that forces teams to pivot on the fly, and the Blues plan on being aggressive when the board starts shifting.

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“We got to be ready for the Crazy Ivans,” Armstrong said, using a phrase his staff uses for the unexpected phone calls that inevitably reshape draft day regardless of how much preparation preceded it.

The Blues’ draft strategy this year appears that it could have a heavy influence thanks to some organizational self-awareness. Armstrong openly acknowledged that after leaning hard on defensemen in recent drafts, the pipeline has glaring needs elsewhere. While the front office won’t reach for a position and completely blow up their draft board, positional need will absolutely act as a tiebreaker between players in the same tier.

“We don’t want to ask the scouts to jump out of a block to get a position,” he said, “but we do want to talk about taking a position within a block, if that makes sense.”

Beyond the Draft

The bigger picture Armstrong noted on Monday is one of a franchise trying to thread the needle between a youth movement and immediate competitiveness, and he was honest about the fact that they haven’t always nailed the execution. He went as far as taking a very pointed self-responsibility for failing to conduct a thorough enough evaluation after the 2024-25 season’s seven-game, first-round exit to Winnipeg. As the Blues pushed the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Jets to the absolute brink, the organization chalked too much up to bad luck while ignoring deep structural flaw like their special teams and a frustrating inability to close out home games. They carried that blind spot right into a difficult 2025-26 season.

That painful lesson is directly shaping how the front office handles the young talent on the current roster. Armstrong specifically named Otto Stenberg and Theo Lindstein as two prospects who got a taste of the NHL this past season, while stating that their readiness for bigger roles must be evaluated with extreme caution.

“NHL teams fail as many players as players fail NHL teams,” Armstrong said. “If we put a player in a spot that they can’t handle, and they’re treading water, and they don’t get any better, shame on us.” He pointed to Logan Mailloux’s development as the ideal template. The kind of young, talented player who built a strong enough foundation to absorb early NHL adversity and use it to grow, rather than let it break his confidence.

The blueprint for taking the next step begins this weekend and will carry into the summer. If the Blues pull the trigger on a trade, it will be for a foundational piece they can control for three or more years. The Blues do not appear to be searching for a quick fix, and certainly not a rental. If the trade market doesn’t materialize, they will gladly keep the picks and keep infusing the pipeline with talent. Either way, the objective doesn’t change.

On Friday night, Armstrong will sit in the draft room alongside Steen, while director of amateur scouting Tony Feltrin and his staff steer the player evaluations. In a very literal sense, this draft serves as a passing of the torch. Once the calendar flips to July 1, navigating the path forward becomes Steen’s show.

Round 1 begins Friday night at 7 p.m. ET in Buffalo on ESPN.

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Let’s play it out… if both of these guys start next season in the AHL and stay there healthy for all 72 games with no call-ups, no scratches, nothing, what does that season actually look like?

Before getting too ahead of things, it is worth saying up front that no one plays a perfectly healthy 72-game ironman season, especially not 19-year-olds adjusting to a pro schedule. This is purely a “what if everything breaks clean” exercise. With that out of the way, here’s how it plays out for each of them.

Adam Jiricek

The thing that jumped out watching Jiricek in the playoffs wasn’t anything that showed up on the scoreboard, but how unbothered and in control he looked with the puck. Pro forecheckers took away the space he was used to having in juniors, and instead of panicking or chucking the puck away, he just kept finding the right outlet pass. He was hitting his target at a high rate by the end of the postseason run. It was no secret that his hands and the read of the game are already pro-ready even if the shot isn’t.

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Stretch that over a full season and you could see a guy who isn’t racking up points so much as quietly making his team’s transition game work. Jiricek could find himself racking up somewhere in the realm of five goals, 20-25 assists, about 25-30 points across the 72 games, with a shooting percentage that stays low. He has had plenty of international experience but he will still be figuring out how to get a shot through at this level. That being said, if he is producing a modest shot total, he is likely producing somewhere around 112 for the year.

Justin Carbonneau

Carbonneau is the opposite kind of problem to have. He scored 51 goals in the Q this past season doing exactly what you’d expect, beating people to loose pucks, and unloading from in tight. That game doesn’t need much projection work because it’s a simple formula: get to the inside, get shots off, repeat.

The grind of a full pro season is the real question mark for a power winger like him. At the end of the day, there’s a reason rookie forwards built this way tend to hit a wall somewhere around February.

Fans will need to temper expectations as the shooting percentage is going to come down some now that he’s shooting on pro goalies instead of junior ones. However, his shooting volume should maintain well regardless, so even with a dip to somewhere around a 10.8 percent shooting clip, fans could still reasonably see anywhere from 15-20 goals, another 15-20 assists, and a final stat line likely around 35-40 points, with a shot total near 175 for the season with the expectation that Carbonneau manages somewhere around two and a half shots a night. If he can manage this, he is a guy who’d be in Springfield’s top six from day one, and very likely starting on power play two while pushing for power play one deployment throughout the season.

Final Thoughts

This is a little different than my usual posts but it’s really the fun part of this exercise. Jiricek’s value over a full rookie AHL season could barely show up in the box score. For him, it’s all in the clean exits and the quiet stuff that makes everyone else’s job easier. Carbonneau’s is the complete opposite as he is a guy built to put pucks in the net and not think too hard about anything else. If they’re both healthy and in Springfield’s lineup all year, the Thunderbirds end up with one guy starting the play and one guy finishing it. Worth keeping an eye on whether reality cooperates.

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That makes the center-rich portion of this draft class particularly interesting for St. Louis. Outside of Caleb Malhotra, this class doesn’t have an elite center at the very top. However, the second tier of centers is genuinely interesting, and the Blues may be in position to land one of the more intriguing names in that group.

Below, I’ve broken down and in-depth analysis of two centers who could realistically be available when the Blues are on the clock, and what each brings to a franchise that needs to address and strengthen its organizational center depth.

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When Doug Armstrong and the St. Louis Blues front office used the 211th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft on Matvei Korotky, it barely registered on many radars. Seventh-round flyers on Russian prospects buried in the SKA St. Petersburg pipeline are typically long-shot gambles.

Korotky is making that posture harder to justify. Before a severe lower-body injury derailed his season in October, the 20-year-old center had posted a hat trick against HC Sochi and earned a KHL All-Star nod. A recent interview with the Russian MHL website (translated below) shows exactly what kind of player the Blues have developing overseas.

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The St. Louis Blues have moved quickly to solidify their minor-league goaltending this off-season. In the span of a few days, they re-signed Georgii Romanov to a two-year, two-way extension and Will Cranley to a one-year, two-way deal. That leaves the 25-year-old pending UFA, Vadim Zherenko, who carried the heaviest load for the Springfield Thunderbirds last season, as the lone unrestricted free agent in the organization’s goaltending picture.

2025-26 Springfield Goaltending Recap

The Thunderbirds leaned on a three-headed rotation in net all season. Zherenko handled the starter’s workload, appearing in 42 games and posting a 17-16-6 record with a 3.08 GAA and .902 SV%, which were the most consistent numbers of the group.

Romanov played 28 games, going approximately 9-12-4 with a 3.29 GAA and .896 SV%, adding a shutout along the way.

Cranley saw limited AHL action appearing in 10 games and sported a 3.03 GAA, .892 SV%. The numbers were not terrible for the call-up netminder. Earlier in the season, he showed he has put in the hard work in the ECHL with the Florida Everblades, earning a 14-3-1, 2.17 GAA, .915 SV% stat line in 18 games. The 24-year-old has pushed himself to compete for the backup role in the AHL and could find himself earning the role by Opening Night of the 2026-27 season.

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Both deals carry an $850,000 cap hit at the NHL level and a $95,000 minor-league salary, set up as more of a “prove-it” contract that buy the organization time while putting the pressure squarely on the players to solidify their standing in the pipeline.

What do these signings mean though for the Blues and the Springfield Thunderbirds?

Zach Dean (F) | Extended through 2026-27 (RFA in 2027)

Dean’s extension is all about getting his development back on track. After an entry-level contract heavily disrupted by injuries and a stint in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program, the 23-year-old former first-rounder needs stability.

He has shown flashes of his tenacious, high-motor forechecking that makes him a valuable top-six AHLer, maybe even a fourth liner in the NHL after returning to the Thunderbirds in January, chipping in 14 points in 36 games and grinding through 11 playoff games. This one-year deal gives him a little breathing room to prove he can handle a full, uninterrupted top-nine deployment in the AHL and force his way back into the bottom-six conversation in St. Louis. Dean has yet to play a full 50 games in a single AHL season and will need to prove he can stay healthy.

Will Cranley (G) | Extended through 2026-27 (RFA in 2027)

Cranley earned this extension on the back of a highly encouraging split season. He stabilized his game in the ECHL with a .915 save percentage over 18 games and proved capable of filling in for Springfield when called upon (.892 SV% in 10 games). At 6’4”, the 24-year-old provides valuable organizational depth in net, though his main hurdle this fall will be carving out consistent AHL starts in a very crowded crease.

The Looming Offseason Priorities: Who’s Next?

While Dean and Cranley are checked off, the Blues’ front office still has a massive stack of paperwork to get through regarding the rest of the Springfield roster. A significant chunk of the Thunderbirds’ core from this past season is currently sitting without a contract for the 2026-27 campaign.

Here is the tracker of notable RFAs and UFAs who need answers this summer:

Dylan Peterson (F): After completing his two-year entry-level deal out of Boston University, the physical 6’4” forward is currently a restricted free agent. His size and heavy two-way style are exactly what the organization likes to marinate in the minor leagues for eventual bottom-six utility. At this point, Peterson could even push for a bottom-six NHL role out of training camp.

Vadim Zherenko (G) & Georgi Romanov (G): A fixture in the Springfield net over the last few seasons, Zherenko’s unrestricted status makes this a fascinating storyline. There was rumor swirling ahead of the 2025-26 season that Zherenko could be heading back to Russia and with Romanov’s push in the postseason, where does that place “Z” at this time?

Romanov showed he was capable of stealing games and could be interested in searching for a starting goaltending job in the AHL, maybe even a backup role in the NHL. With Cranley already locked up, whether the Blues retain one or both of these netminders will dictate the entire dynamic of the Springfield crease this fall.

Dillon Dube (F): Dube carried a heavy offensive load for Springfield this past season, potting 20 goals and 37 points in 46 games. His offensive production is undeniable valuable at the AHL level, and likely even the NHL level, making him a priority piece if the Blues choose to bring him back.

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Akil Thomas (F): Acquired from Los Angeles mid-season in the Nikita Alexandrov trade, the former second-round pick provided solid utility down the middle for the T-Birds but is now hitting the open market as a UFA.

Julian Gauthier (F): Brought in from the Islanders organization at the trade deadline, Gauthier added high-end AHL size and experience to the lineup but is slated for UFA status.

Hugh McGing (F): McGing has been a heart-and-soul piece for Springfield for years, but as a UFA, both sides will have to decide if a return makes sense. It would be difficult to move on from McGing but that is sometimes the business of sports.

Hunter Skinner (D): The physical right-shot defenseman adds blue-line depth and even pushed for an NHL role out of training camp ahead of the 2025-26 season. However, he finds himself looking for a new deal after playing a second-pairing role on the Springfield back end.

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With mock drafts shifting, the Blues are facing a fascinating strategic fork in the road.

Here are four realistic, updated targets who could be on the board at #11, along with the deep-dive metrics that make each a compelling case for the Note.

Ethan Belchetz | LW | Windsor (OHL)

6’5”, 227 lbs

57 GP | 34 G | 25 A | 59 PTS

You don’t pass on a 6-foot-5 winger who skates smoothly, dominates the net-front, and possesses soft playmaker hands just because of a positional depth chart. Belchetz is a premier heavy-cycle force who grabbed a 34-goal OHL campaign with a standout performance for the Windsor Spitfires.

Something to keep an eye on, however, will be a major developmental twist, as Belchetz is committed to Michigan State University. His transition from the OHL to the NCAA next fall will provide an excellent environment to refine his pace and physical habits against older, stronger collegiate players. If he slides out of the top 10 due to a run on premium pivots, he brings a high-upside identity piece that could perfectly round out a future top-six alongside Dalibor Dvorsky or Jimmy Snuggerud.

Tynan Lawrence | C | Muskegon (USHL) / Boston U (NCAA)

6’0”, 185 lbs

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Ilves Tampere made a pair of moves on May 26, that will have Blues fans paying close attention this offseason. Swedish defenseman Leo Lööf is heading back to the Finnish Liiga on a two-year contract (2026-27 and 2027-28), rejoining the club where he first made his pro mark. At the same time, Blues 2024 third-round pick Ondřej Kos signed a one-year extension, keeping the young Czech forward in Tampere through at least next season.

The two signings mean Lööf and Kos will once again be teammates, a nice full-circle moment for the organization that drafted both.

Leo Lööf Heads Back “Home” to Ilves

Lööf, the 24-year-old left-shot defenseman from Karlstad, Sweden, originally played for Ilves from 2021-23, helping the club to back-to-back SM-liiga bronze medals. In his final season there (2022-23) he posted 16 points (4G, 12A) in 55 games with an outstanding +22 rating. The Blues liked what they saw back in 2020 enough to draft him in the third round (88th overall) in and eventually sign him to a three-year entry-level contract in 2023.

After three seasons in North America, all of which were spent with the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds, Lööf never cracked the Blues’ NHL roster. He appeared in 168 AHL games total, including 47 last season where he registered just 6 points (2G, 4A). With his ELC now expired and the Blues’ left-side depth looking crowded (recent extensions for Philip Broberg and Cam Fowler, plus other young options), a return to Europe made sense.

Ilves Sports Director Timo Koskela was thrilled to welcome him back:

“Leo Lööf is a familiar returning player to us who brings strong all-around play to our defense, both with and without the puck. He is capable of playing high-quality, physical, and aggressive game that effectively advances the team’s cause across the entire ice. It’s great that we’re getting Leo back to Ilves on a two-year contract.” ilves.com

Lööf is a big, poised, physical blueliner who can move the puck and play a heavy game. Ilves clearly sees him as a top-pair piece who can help them push for another deep playoff run. For Blues fans, though, this feels like the end of the road. At this point, it is doubtful Lööf returns to North America with the organization. The window has closed.

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Ondřej Kos Stays Put for More Pro Development

Meanwhile, 20-year-old Czech winger Ondřej Kos (6’2”, 176 lbs, left shot) inked a one-year extension with Ilves. Drafted 81st overall in 2024, Kos remains unsigned on an NHL entry-level deal. After spending most of the season dealing with post-concussion symptoms, he split time between Ilves’ Liiga squad and their U20 team this past season, showing flashes of the two-way energy game that made him an intriguing mid-round pick.

Staying in familiar surroundings in Tampere gives Kos another full pro season of ice time against men before he has to decide on crossing the pond. It’s a smart, low-risk move for both player and club, and it keeps him on the Blues’ radar without forcing an immediate jump to the AHL.

What It Means for the Blues

Lööf’s departure is another reminder that not every mid-round European prospect translates to NHL success, especially on a crowded blue line. Kos’s extension, on the other hand, is pure development strategy — exactly the kind of patient approach you want for a raw but promising 20-year-old.

The real upside here is that Ilves gets stronger in the short term with a proven veteran (Lööf) and a high-upside prospect (Kos) who already knows the system. For St. Louis, it’s business as usual as one prospect moves on, another keeps grinding overseas.t

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However, if you only look at the final, macro-level statistics from the Thunderbirds’ Calder Cup postseason run, the data is going to deceive to you.

If you just glance at the back page of the ledger, you’ll see an ugly 8-1 blowout loss to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday night that officially ended the season. You’ll see a team defense that finished with some bloated goals-against metrics and a power play that looked entirely toothless on paper.

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The boxscore sheet makes it look like a mediocre team that got cleanly exposed.

It’s that final box score that hides the true reality of what happened this May. At the macro level, this group didn’t lack heart, and they didn’t lack structure. For the first two and a half weeks of the playoffs, the Thunderbirds were an elite, grit-and-grind defensive machine. They didn’t get out-played, but simply ran out of margin. The bottom line of it all was that Springfield’s postseason was a month-long tightrope walk. They possessed an ironclad defensive shell, but were trapped in an absolute offensive desert. When you score just 18 goals over your first 8 games, averaging a minuscule 2.25 goals per game across nearly three full weeks of playoff hockey, you demand absolute perfection from your goaltender and your blue line. You leave yourself zero room for bad bounces, and you leave yourself entirely vulnerable to a single, chaotic discipline breakdown.

Throughout the first round against Providence, the recipe worked. In the second round against a highly structured Wilkes-Barre/Scranton team, the bill finally came due. The power play stagnated into a 3-for-25 (12.0%) frostbite over the 9-game stretch, completely killing five-on-five offensive momentum and putting a suffocating amount of pressure on the evening’s starting goaltender.

To understand how this pipeline run succeeded as long as it did—and to see the exact structural pressure points where it finally fractured by diving into the granular, game-by-game micro-data. Take away the offensive blackouts, the late-period discipline collapses, the individual overtime heroes, and deliver our final, scouting-grade Pipeline Stock Report on the organization’s top ELC prospects.

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For the St. Louis Blues, a franchise that consistently values a blend of high hockey IQ, competitive bite, and positional premium, this draft presents an excellent opportunity to add a high-impact piece to the pipeline.

Here are five underrated prospects who could be prime, under the radar targets for the Blues in the first round.

Alexander Command – C, Örebro HK U20 (Nationell)

• Ht/Wt: 6’1” / 187 lbs | Shoots: Left

• 2025-26 Stats: 17G - 27A - 44PTS in 30 GP

Command has used his draft season to execute a massive climb up Swedish boards. Finishing ninth overall in league scoring with 44 points in 30 games as a 17-year-old, he has evolved from an overlooked depth piece into a premier play-driver. Command is a physical and competitive menace; he doesn’t have a passive shift. He relentlessly hounds puck carriers, forces turnovers on the forecheck, and possesses excellent spatial awareness to sneak into high-danger areas.

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Why He Fits the Blues

He is the quintessential “heavy, skilled” European center that NHL front offices crave. While he isn’t a burner on his skates, his edge work is exceptionally crisp, allowing him to cut inside and shield the puck. He projects as a highly effective, modern middle-six center who changes momentum through sheer force of will, making him a safe bet to stick down the middle.

Maddox Dagenais – C, Québec Remparts (QMJHL)

• Ht/Wt: 6’4” / 196 lbs | Shoots: Left

• 2025-26 Stats: 30G - 32A - 62PTS in 62 GP

The former 1st overall pick in the 2024 QMJHL Draft took a massive leap forward in the second half of this season, racking up 37 points from January onward. Dagenais is a true power-forward project. He moves very well for a 6’4” teenager, plays like a bull in a china shop, and has a heavy, lethal wrist shot and an accurate one-timer. He fired 273 shots on net this year (fourth in the QMJHL), with a clear shoot-first mentality.

Why He Fits the Blues

The Blues’ development pipeline loves raw size paired with an elite scoring mechanism. Dagenais is already winning 51.3% of his faceoffs and playing a heavy board game. If his defensive consistency and shot-selection catch up to his raw physical tools, he has middle-six power-forward upside written all over him. He’s a high-ceiling gamble worth taking late in the first round.

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What follows are four prospects worth tracking as Buffalo approaches. Each one fits a genuine organizational need. Each one comes with data that suggests the production is real. The first is available to all readers. The remaining three are for paid subscribers.

Data provided via InStat Hockey

Elton Hermansson | RW | MoDo/Frölunda (Sweden)

2025-26: 85 GP | 29 G | 37 A | 66 PTS | +19 | 52 PIM | 14:14 ATOI

There is a version of the 2026 draft where the Blues walk away from the 15th pick with a winger who can do everything St. Louis has historically valued. A winger who can battle for pucks in the corners, generate offense in transition, and tilt the ice in his team’s favor shift after shift. Elton Hermansson could be that version.

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Playing across MoDo and Frölunda, Hermansson posted a 60% Corsi and 59% Fenwick. This is the type of player who dictated possession throughout the game rather than chase it. Despite his strong surface-level production of 66 points across 85 games at 14:14 of average ice time, it’s his underlying numbers that truly makes him compelling at this range. He recorded 335 zone entries and logged over 31 minutes of total individual puck control time, which is a strong indicator already of a primary puck carrier trusted to make things happen in limited minutes.

Offensively, he’s a dual threat. His quick-release wrist shot generated 220 attempts, converting on 29% of inner-slot opportunities, showing genuine NHL finishing ability. He had 23 primary assists and maintained 88% passing accuracy across the season. He also forced 180 turnovers, including 105 in the offensive zone, a number that should speak directly to the forecheck identity the Blues have long prioritized.

Hermansson projects as a top-six winger with power-play utility. This is a a player who doesn’t just fill a roster spot but changes what a line can do. For the Blues, that combination of heavy Swedish pro-style play and analytical dominance is a genuine fit, not a convenient one.

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