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The Sharks would not be afraid to package their early picks to move up and select a player they covet, but Wilson would also be content to keep what he has.

"We have the extra second-round picks to jump up if we want if things fall the way they do, but we may not need to," Wilson said. "To get quality and quantity, that's your ultimate goal, and we're in a really good position for that.

"We think next year's draft will be pretty good, too. But this draft in particular, it factored into the decisions we made prior to the trade deadline. To lose some players and not get really valuable picks back in a year of a strong draft would have been a double-whammy."

Depth at forward might be one of the Sharks' more pressing needs, as Joe Thornton,

Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski are set to become unrestricted free agents at the end of the 2013-14 campaign. Considering the depth of this draft, it is not unrealistic to think that one or two of the players the Sharks select Sunday would be on the roster during the 2014-15 season.

The Sharks could also trade a player to clear up salary cap space for free agency. After re-signing defenseman Jason Demers to a one-year deal for $1.5 million, the Sharks have a little more than $3.5 million in cap space, and that does not include the deal for 19-year-old prospect Tomas Hertl.

The Sharks also have six defensemen under age 26 who played at least one NHL game this season, and Brent Burns, signed for the next four seasons, remains an option at the blue line. Goalie Antti Niemi is signed for the next two seasons, and a number of younger netminders are in the pipeline.

Two forwards who might fall to the Sharks at No. 20 are Hunter Shinkaruk of the Medicine Hat Tigers and Curtis Lazar of the Edmonton Oil Kings. Both are versatile players who can play center and the wing.

Lazar is the more realistic of the two to be available at No. 20. Thought of as a tremendous skater, Lazar had 38 goals and 61 points this season in the WHL, with a plus/minus rating of plus-25.

Wilson praised the job his scouts have done leading into the draft.

"You have to forecast to see who might be available," Wilson said. "We don't just have a list and say, 'OK, let's take our next best guy.' What we try to do is go get the guys we want. So if you have to move up to get them, we'll move up to get them."

Where the Sharks draft

Here are the selections the Sharks own going into the NHL draft Sunday (round, overall pick, how acquired):

1st, No. 20, own pick

2nd, No. 49, from Rangers in Ryane Clowe trade

2nd, No. 50, own pick

2nd, No. 58, from Pittsburgh in Douglas Murray trade

4th, No. 111, own pick

5th, No. 141, own pick

7th, No. 201, own pick

7th, No. 207, from Colorado (via Anaheim) in 2012 five-player trade

San Jose Mercury News: LOADED: 06.30.2013

683078 St Louis Blues

Blues see prospects in NHL draft

4 hours ago • By Jeremy Rutherford jrutherford@post-dispatch.com 314-444-7135

In 2008, the Blues selected goaltender Jake Allen in the second round of the NHL draft. On Saturday, Allen was announced as the No. 1 goalie on the league’s 2012-13 all-rookie team.

Although the maturation process takes time — five years in Allen’s case — these types of developments are the driving force behind the Blues’ amateur scouting staff.

“For sure,” said Bill Armstrong (no relation to general manager Doug Armstrong), who was the Blues’ scout who pushed the club to take the goalie. “The process to be a really good goaltender in the NHL takes a long time. Jake has shown great steps, and he continues to do so. It’s an exciting time for him and a good reward for our staff, too.”

Since then, Armstrong has been promoted to director of the Blues’ amateur scouting department, replacing Jarmo Kekalainen in 2010. On Sunday, Armstrong will be in charge of his third draft with the organization and his goal is to find more players that will be labeled rewards in the coming years.

The task will be made more difficult this offseason because the Blues will enter the NHL draft, which begins at 2 p.m. (St. Louis time), with only six selections. If they indeed leave with a half-dozen players, it will match 2009 for the fewest taken in the last three decades.

The Blues’ first scheduled pick, after trading their first-rounder to Calgary for defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, will be in the second round (No. 47). After that, the club holds one choice in the third round (No. 83), two in the fourth round (Nos. 94 and 113), one in the sixth round (173) and one in the seventh round (No. 203).

So Armstrong and Co. won’t be in the running for players such as Halifax’s Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin and Portland’s Seth Jones, but with a deep draft the Blues are expecting to come away with a significant prospect.

“If any year you’re picking 47 as your first pick, this year would be it,” Armstrong said. “This year in particular, there’s a little more depth in certain areas of the draft, and when we’re picking, it could be a pretty good player. Somebody could fall down to you that you really, really may like. So there’s good odds that that could happen.”

Two years ago, in Armstrong’s first draft, the Blues also did not have a first-round pick after dealing it away to Colorado in the Erik Johnson trade. And while it will take time before the 2011 picks can be graded accurately, the class appears to rank as one of the best overall in recent years, with Ty Rattie (No. 32), Dmitrij Jaskin (No. 41), Joel Edmundson (No. 46) and Jordan Binnington (No. 88).

Again armed without a top pick, Armstrong is hoping for a repeat.

“We hope so,” he said. “But you have to remember that when we go pick on Sunday, 46 selections are already happening in front of us. Some of it has to do with what’s left over … you get the best. Then when we pick, it’s up to us to get the right order — that whatever is sitting in front of us, we select the right one.”

There will be one difference perhaps complicating this year’s draft. In recent years, the selection process has been a two-day event, with the first round on day one and Rounds 2-7 on day two. That format gave clubs a chance to re-group after the first 30 picks.

“You don’t get the time to go back to the hotel room and do some more digging, like ‘Hey, why is this guy still on the board?’” Armstrong said. “For example, when we selected Rattie, we had a night to go back and dig. You won’t get that opportunity. We have to be over-prepared and be ready to make adjustments on the fly.”

The Blues aren’t expected to move up into the first round, but that can change. In 2010, the club dealt defenseman David Rundblad for the No. 16 overall pick and took Vladimir Tarasenko.

“Our group has always been pretty unique, and if there’s something that we really want, we’ll find a way to get it,” Armstrong said. “The management listens to us, and if this guy is coming down in the draft and we’ve got a chance to go up and get him, we’re pretty good about finding ways to move up.”

The Rundblad-Tarasenko move was pulled off by Kekalainen. This year, Armstrong’s predecessor will be at the Columbus draft table, after taking over as its general manager last season. The Blue Jackets are slated to have three first-round picks, barring any trades.

Armstrong joked that knowing Kekalainen’s tendencies won’t help the Blues know who their ex-boss will take, but “I know the guys he’s not taking. You’ve been in the room with him when he’s said, ‘I’m not going to take that guy.’ That doesn’t really help us, though, and they’re going to be swinging three times before we even get up to the plate.”

But if the Blues make no moves, they will get six swings themselves and the club is planning to come away with a few prospects like Allen.

“It’s exciting,” Armstrong said. “It’s like before a hockey game, you’re nervous and that’s a good thing. Here we go, let’s go, let’s go get it. You work all year, you travel through all of those snow storms, all the plane flights, and now you’ve got a chance to get these kids. It’s an addicting job.”

St Louis Post Dispatch LOADED: 06.30.2013

683079 St Louis Blues

Strauss: Stillman insists club ‘not sitting idle’

4 hours ago • Joe Strauss jstrauss@post-dispatch.com

The Blues enter today’s NHL draft between a puck and a hard place, a locale that offers hard financial truths and difficult perceptions stemming from an abrupt postseason exit.

Good enough to enter a strike-shortened season billed as a viable Stanley Cup contender, the Blues lost their first-round playoff matchup against the Los Angeles Kings without selling out at home. Worse than just losing, they teased a fatalistic fan base by winning the first two games and leading the fourth by two goals before being dismissed in six games.

The Kings might have been defending Cup champions but for the second consecutive spring they entered seeded lower than the Blues.

A year ago, the Kings rolled the Blues. This time the Blues played the Kings shift for shift, a show of progress. However, losing by a sliver rather than a chasm only enhanced a sense of “what if?”

The Blues see themselves as a team still ascending but a crestfallen fan base sees a team that failed to duplicate its opening series win of 2011-12 and suspects a plateau, even regression.

So close to breaking out its city’s third pro sports franchise, the Blues instead hear the “same old” accusations.

New ownership and a decorated general manager and head coach see momentum. Much of their fan base is getting over the irritation from being asked to commit to a season-ticket price hike in order to retain priority for this year’s playoff seats. A number of fans saw the demand as insulting so soon after a lockout truncated the regular season by 34 games.

Ownership compares the franchise now to where it stood two seasons before – nearly bankrupt and not part of the postseason. The fan base awaits its first Cup since the club’s inception almost a half-century ago. It’s no fun being labeled “the Chicago Cubs of the NHL.”

The Blues see themselves doing it the right way, developing their own talent, refusing to overextend for players past their prime.

Fans wonder if the franchise has the jack to push itself over its historical hump. Meanwhile, owner Tom Stillman pledges payroll will escalate significantly before next season.

The Blues have indicated a willingness to retain their restricted free agents and have opened talks with unrestricted free agent defenseman Jordan Leopold. Financial pressures, insists Stillman, will not manifest themselves on ice.

“We didn’t buy this team with the idea of just participating,” he says. “The intention here – the plan – is for this team to win Cups. That’s plural. And I’m not backing away from that.”

There is much to like about a franchise that boasts local ownership and men such as general manager Doug Armstrong and head coach Ken Hitchcock who have constructed a champion in Dallas. The Blues remain a young but not necessarily inexperienced team. If the adage holds that a player fully develops after appearing in 300 games at this level, only star defenseman Alex Pietrangelo awaits further definition. A postseason that a front office might consider invaluable to taking the next step may strike many outside the building as underachievement stacked atop immaturity.

The Blues can endure a difference of opinion with their fans. They can not, however, survive disconnect.

Stillman purchased the team from a carpet-bagging front man while hopeful that the lockout would provide small-market teams another $10 million or so via revenue-sharing. Whether naïve or sandbagged, it doesn’t really matter. Stillman’s group got nothing except another year of operating in crimson.

Popular as the sport is here, hockey has not worked in St. Louis for decades.

The Blues operate with an atrocious concessions deal negotiated in a fit of desperation by former owner Dave Checketts to enhance cash flow. That same leadership fabricated attendance figures. A poor deal with cable rightsholder Fox Sports Network doesn’t expire until 2018, when a partnership with the Cardinals on a regional sports network may prove appealing if this group can hang on. The Blues don’t enjoy the same tax breaks as the behemoth down Clark Street. Stillman pared more than 40 jobs from the franchise’s business side after purchasing the club. He sold the Peoria affiliate. But sources insist the club isn’t close to breaking even.

Loathe to provide specifics about the team’s balance sheet, Stillman has set a goal of advancing revenues by at least $10 million before next season. A ticket price hike covers a small fraction. Stillman’s emphasis is on the local and regional corporate community.

“That’s our project for this offseason,” he says. “Our group came in. We reduced the debt in half. We cut non-hockey payroll expenses. We cut our other expenses. We started increasing our revenue in various ways. But now we need to develop a much bigger increase in our revenues. That has to come with more businesses on board. We’re grateful to the companies that give us great support. You can see those names around the arena. We need to get fuller participation from the business community. We need to get that participation or I don’t see how the Blues can be successful long-term here....We need to do it now.”

Stillman faces an uphill climb. The city has bled corporations for the last decade while others embrace the Cardinals or Rams. Making the Blues cool – something success typically accomplishes – seems imperative.

The Blues have not cut hockey operations. And Stillman insists he has not plans to do so. Pursuing the kind of player needed by an offensively-challenged roster, the Blues have engaged free agent and former Tampa Bay Lightning center Vinny Lecavalier in talks, according to league sources. Also, Armstrong is aggressively defining the potential market for goalies.

Any suggestion that the Blues were satisfied with their first-round exit causes Stillman’s voice to raise an octave. He squirms a bit in his seat and tries to control his decibel level. Complacency, he realizes, would be a death sentence to this ownership group.

Success on the ice hasn’t guaranteed profits in the past but a lack of success will certainly assure an erosion of support.

“Believe me, we know what’s at stake here,” Stillman says. “We’re not sitting idle. Everything we discuss is about getting better, not just staying where we are.”

There are worse things than to be caught between a puck and a hard place. You can move the puck. Freezing it, however, is no longer acceptable.

St Louis Post Dispatch LOADED: 06.30.2013

683080 St Louis Blues

Next wave of Blues prospects shows bright promise

Published: June 29, 2013 Updated 4 hours ago

By NORM SANDERS — News-Democrat

While the St. Louis Blues have continued to assimilate their top prospects onto their NHL roster, the next wave is coming and has displayed plenty of promise.

Some of these names could end up with the Blues' new Chicago minor-league affiliate and will likely get a look in training camp:

Ty Rattie, winger

Age: 20

Drafted: 2nd round (32nd overall) 2011

Team: Portland, WHL

2012-13 stats: 48 goals, 110 points in 62 games, plus 20 goals and 36 points in 21 playoff games.

In the last two seasons, Rattie has piled up an incredible 105 goals and 231 points in 131 games with the Western Hockey Leagues Portland Winterhawks.

"He's an exciting player because his brain processes the game on the offensive side of the puck very quickly," said Bill Armstrong, the Blues' Director of Amateur Scouting. "He's really detailed in his game as far as working hard on the defensive side of the puck and he's made huge strides that way."

Armstrong knows that Rattie's off-the-charts numbers suggest something special. However, his size could be a concern in the NHL.

"He's got crazy numbers where he's scored the most playoff goals in the WHL of all time, (50)," Armstrong said. "With somebody with that type of offensive hockey sense, it takes some time to develop and his game has to translate into the NHL, so that's going to take a little bit of time with the strength and speed factor."

Jani Hakanpaa, defenseman

Age: 21

Drafted: 4th round (104th overall) 2010

Teams: Finland Blues, Peoria, AHL

2012-13 stats: 3 goals, 9 points, 40 penalty minutes in 48 games.

The Blues believe they have quite a find in Hakanpaa, a large, mobile defenseman with plenty of upside. He finished last season with the Peoria Rivermen, his first season in North America.

"He's the kind of guy that flies a little bit under the radar because other guys get more attention," Armstrong said. "I'd put him on the (top prospect) board because he's a big man with a lot of effort. I'd keep my eye on him, there's a lot of people on staff that like him.

"He's played in the Finnish Elite League for a couple years now and has had some good seasons over there."

Jordan Binnington, goaltender

Age: 19

Size: 6-foot-2, 170 pounds

Team: Owen Sound, OHL

2012-13 stats: 32-12-6, 2.17 goals-against average, seven shutouts, .932 save percentage

The Blues drafted Binnington more on potential than anything back in 2011 and since then have been rewarded with excellence. He played for Tam Canada at the last World Junior Championships and is considered one of the top goaltending prospects in his age group.

He could see time with the Blues' new minor-league affiliate in Chicago this season depending on his progress.

"With goaltending when they're draft eligible sometimes they don't play a lot in the junior ranks so they're tricky to draft," Armstrong said. "There always seems to be some question marks. Where we really liked him was his long, lanky body type with a lot of room to grow."

Armstrong and several Blues scouts watched Binnington help lead Owen Sound to the 2011 Memorial Cup tourney, one of the top honors in Canada.

He was named the top goaltender at the event.

"He's playing in a national championship tournament and here's this kid's as cool as a cucumber and fluid in his motions where nothing rattled him," Armstrong said. "There's this young kid playing in net and he was just great. We were all convinced that he was going to be a good goaltender. It was just a little bit of luck that he falls on your plate."

Binnington earned Ontario Hockey League Goaltender of the Year and Owen Sound MVP honors this season, posting seven shutouts.

Most teams are fairly patient with goaltending prospects. Jake Allen spent much of the past three seasons in minor-league Peoria after being drafted in the second round in 2008.

"You can't really be in a rush with these guys," Armstrong said.

Belleville News-Democrat LOADED: 06.30.2013

683081 St Louis Blues

Blues know success in the NHL draft combines hard work and a little bit of luck

Published: June 29, 2013 Updated 4 hours ago

By NORM SANDERS — News-Democrat

During a St. Louis Blues pre-draft meeting in 2010, General Manager Doug Armstrong was listening to opinions on two players being considered for a first-round pick.

After listening to the pros and cons about college forward Jaden Schwartz and Russian forward Vladimir Tarasenko, one of the Blues' scouts offered his thoughts.

"We were all sitting in the room and Doug had asked a question about the players," said Bill Armstrong, the Blues' Director of Amateur Scouting. "Dan Ginnell said 'What the heck. Let's go get both of these guys, we love them.' That kind of planted a seed with Doug and the (staff). The next thing you know, we're walking out of the first round and we had both Schwartz and Tarasenko."

The Blues, who had only one first-round pick heading into the draft, made it happen by acquiring Ottawa's No. 1 pick at 16th overall for former first-round pick and defense prospect David Rundblad.

They drafted Schwartz at No. 14 and Tarasenko two picks later. Two years later, both were on the Blues' opening night roster and made significant impacts at times last season.

Right now, the Blues don't own a first-round pick in Sunday's NHL Draft in New Jersey, having traded it to Calgary last season for veteran defenseman Jay Bouwmeester.

But with Doug Armstrong's track record for under-the-radar deals -- and the Blues apparently shopping goaltenders and looking for forward help -- don't rule anything out.

"It would be difficult right now to move up into the first round," Doug Armstrong said, "because I think we're a team that's positioning itself as trying to compete at the upper echelon right now.

"The way we're currently sitting I wouldn't predict us moving into the first round."

While the Blues typically stress a need to take the best player available, they're not picking until 46 other players have been selected. They own one pick in the second and third rounds, two in the fourth, none in the first and one each in the sixth and seventh.

Bill Armstrong believes the Blues will leave this draft with talent despite not having a first-round pick.

"I just think the depth of the draft is there," he said. "Sometimes you get into certain areas and you wouldn't be as excited with the talent level there. This year after you get through the first round it just runs for a long time and there's some exciting players there that could be pushed back.

"There's going to be a good player that comes down the pipe to us."

Armstrong talked about the 12 months of work that go into making the Blues' NHL draft day a successful one.

"It is a great job in a sense because you work as a team," he said. "There's a team on the ice and a team of scouts off the ice that are relentless in their pursuit of information about players. We've got a lot of passionate guys that have been around the Blues for a number of years, but it's all about projecting and looking into the future.

"When you do get one that works out, it's certainly worth the time you put in to get them."

Does it bother the scouting staff when picks and prospects are included in trades?

"Not really because if you look to win a Stanley Cup, you have to have a good amateur scouting side and a good pro side," Armstrong said. "There's so many different divisions of the hockey club and if you want to be successful, everybody has to take part in that.

"We get attached to them, but the scouts understand we have to put the best team on the ice."

The Blues have scouts around the globe scouring their particular areas for talent. Much cross-checking is done and players are seen numerous times searching for tendencies and potential flaws.

The team also does in-person interviews with players and coaches and anyone else connected to a prospect.

After that, the scouting staff meets and compiles a draft board list of talent from which the selections are made.

"We go back and massage it a little bit with new information that we find out in the weeks before the draft," Armstrong said. "We keep working at it and plugging along until there's a complete list on the board."

Before a pick is made, the Blues' braintrust of Doug Armstrong, Bill Armstrong, senior advisers Al MacInnis and Larry Pleau and vice president Dave Taylor all have final input.

"There's a lot of good hockey minds that sit around that table," Bill Armstrong said, noting that Doug Armstrong has the final say. "The main thing is to get the talent through the door."

Through the years the Blues have endured more first-round misses than hits.