Est1967.com

Oughta be a fun day/evening.

A trip around cyberspace reveals the following so far:

* Other GM's have asked about Perron, Pleau said no.

* A Kessel-for-Petro deal is floating around; no idea how valid the rumor is.  As always, we still want Pronger too.

* Strickland said the Blues would probably take Ellis at #17 if he was still on the board (seems odd, considering he's smaller than our other midget D prospects Fairchild, Warsofsky, and K. Berglund).

* Some other names that have been linked to the Blues at #17: Josefson, Shore, Holland, Kassian, Ashton, Kreider, Budish, Schroeder.

Oh, yeah, and we're looking into trading for Josh Harding.

fixered

JR's live chat from Montreal:

JR Live - 6-26-09 (http://www.stltoday.com/discussions/sports/jr-live/LD062409798)

They should cancel the draft out of respect for Michael Jackson.

I say we offer the Blue JAckets.....Brewer and the 17th pick for the 16th pick, which we will trade back to them for keeping Brewer.

The Blues would probably have to sweeten that trade by throwing in their second-round pick and taking Brewer back.

Maybe we could wrangle the negotiating rights for Backman.

There's been a Kaberle-for-Kessel deal brewing all day.  This morning, it appeared to include a pick going from Toronto to Boston...now, the latest report is that Boston will include a pick with Kessel for just Kaberle.

Kessel doesn't seem like Burke's kind of guy...it'll be interesting to see, IF this deal goes down, whether Kessel would be "flipped" elsewhere.

Apparently Tampa & Nashville are talking...it's unclear whether TB is trying to get NSH's #11 pick, or NSH is trying to get TB's #2 pick in the event that Tavares is on the board at 2.  (That would suck if the Preds landed JT.)

Dreger says Pronger trade talks are heating up.

Eklund throws some darts on his latest blog entry:

I would only consider this if Brewer could be repackaged with a third-rounder back to the BJ's for future considerations.

Pronger traded to Flyers?  Stay tuned for details...

Despite last-minute rumors that the Isles would actually take Duchene as the #1 pick, they go the low-risk route and take Tavares.

Tampa Bay needs a defenseman, and Hedman is still on the board.  Two picks, two empty-netters.

PHI gives sbisa, lupul, two 1sts to ANA for Pronger.

absolute robbery for a guy in a contract year.

Linky (http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=282981)

Luca Sbisa, Joffrey Lupul, and two first-rounders for Pronger. 

Lupul is involved in a Pronger trade for the second time in his career.  And unless the Flyers get Pronger's name on a serious contract extension, this trade looks awfully lopsided.

EDIT:  if nhlnumbers.com has everyone's contract right, the Flyers are now about $750K short of this year's cap.  And still have only Ray Emery signed in net.

Another absolute shocker:  Matt Duchene goes #3 overall to Colorado.  Coulda been a Blue if The Scheme hadn't suffered a season-ending back injury.

Evander Kane gets sentenced to Atlanta with the #4 pick.  Three centers in the first four selections.

#5:  Brayden Schenn to the Kings.
#6:  Oliver Ekman-Larsson to the Las Vegas Coyotes.

Trade:  Columbus sends its 1st- and 2nd-rounders to the Isles, in exchange for a lower 1st, two 2nds, and a 3rd.  (#16 and #77 from CBJ, #26, #37, #62, and #92 from NYI.)

Tomorrow morning, the Toronto media will christen Nazem Kadri as the biggest steal of the draft.  Because, you know, he's a Leaf now.

Scott Glennie becomes the highest-drafted winger of the draft, going to Dallas at #8.

#9:  Defenseman Jared Cowen is a Senator.
#10:  Edmonton takes LW Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson.

#11:  Nashville takes D Ryan Ellis.

Minnesota trades #12 to the Islanders for #16, #77 (both flipped from CBJ) and #182.  So Snow essentially traded 26, 37, 62, 92, and 182 for the opportunity to move up 14 spots in the first round.

Snow then uses that pick on defenseman Calvin DeHaan.

Okay, time to head to the store and home.  Hope to be back on by the time the Blues pick.

blues took another defenseman.

Blues take Swedish D-man David Rundblad (http://centralscouting.nhl.com/link3/cs/public-home.nsf/page?readform&app=rankings#)

Ranked at #6 on the international chart.

NO MORE FUCKING SWEDES


take a good Canadian boy FFS.

i dont know.. the wings have won several cups with a team full of swedes...

lagom my friend... lagom

Seriously?  David f-in Rundblad?  Another Swedish defenseman?  This guy wasn't really talked about in the same discussion with Ekman-Larsson and Erixon.

John Moore and Jordan Schroeder were still on the board.  Hell, Kreider, Ashton, Palmieri, Ferraro, Shore...ugh.

If this was Jarmo's guy, we could've traded down 10-15 spots & still gotten him.  In Jarmo we trust, I guess...Strickland twittered that Rundblad was in our Top 10...but this seems like a reach to me.

A plan for redemption:

* Draft one or two of the following forwards: Morin, Budish, Hanowski, Anders Lee.

* Draft one of the top 4-5 rated goalies (anyone notice no 'tenders were selected tonight?): Roy, Lehner, Koskinen, Mike Lee, Pasquale, Bobkov.

* Or, failing either or both of the above, land Josh Harding somehow.

Can't believe Pronger was the only "big name" moved, and floored at what Philly offered to get him.  They seem to be going for it...better find some goaltending.

Pissed that Columbus ended up with Moore, and that Schroeder went to Vancouver, after we passed on both of them.

Overall, considering the hype...kind of a boring first round. 

Give them whatever they want to get rid of Brewer. LOL

So far, really not much of a draft for the Blues as far as name recognition goes. 

2nd round - Brett Ponich, 6'7" defensemen from Portland of the WHL.
(Morin, Budish, Lehner, Shore, Chiasson, Roussel, Werek all went in the 8-10 picks before ours.  Hanowski was still on the board.)

3rd round - Sergei Andronov, 6'0" RW from Russia.  Hooray.

4th round - Tyler Shattock, 6'3" RW from Kamloops of the WHL.  Maybe a budding power forward, which is good.  Some other good kids were out there, though...Nick Oliver from Minnesota, Edward Pasquale was a highly-regarded goalie prospect that went 9 picks after ours.

6th rounder is still coming up, but so far this draft is looking pretty underwhelming.

In Jarmo I trust.

That's what I keep trying to tell myself, but there's some WTF'ers in there.

Final 2 picks (somehow we traded to get a 7th):

6th Round - David Shields, 6'3" D from OHL-Erie.

7th Round - Matthew Tardy, 6'0" C from Duluth East High School in MN.

Center??? WTF??? Don't we need some more d-men?

I trust Jarmo 185%.

It will be Jarmo's cup that we will be allowed to drink from one of these days.

Umm...what now?

over time i have learned that, past the first 2-3 picks in the draft, the pre-draft rankings mean jack shit.  none of the analysts know dick.  being disappointed because the blues drafted player A when players B, C, D, E, F, and G were still on the board means nothing when you have probably never seen any of them actually play.

Highlight of the draft for me.

Kzgalcl3tD8

I think Runblad is a great pick. He was all over people's rankings--anywhere from top 10 to 40-50. He's very good already, and playing 20m in the Swedish Elite League. He's young and playing against men already, ala Hedman--with more offense. I don't think this is a reach at all--someone else would have taken him in the next few picks.

Now, Ponnich does seem like a reach, but you can't teach 6'7. And again, "reach" doesn't mean much. ISS/Redline had Oshie ranked in the 100s. Still, when researching Oshie after that pick, it was all good things being said... Seems mostly negatives on on Ponnich, though. He can't skate, isn't great offensively. Isn't great defensively. Isn't agressive.

well murray should love him then, that's the future captain, right there

Thank you for bringing him out as Brewer's new protege.  I wasn't thinking that till now, but at least we have someone to blame when FuckHeadMurray and Brewer are gone. LOL