10 First-Round NHL Draft Prospects Who Could Interest the St. Louis Blues

Logan Stanley, D, Windsor Spitfires (OHL)

6’7, 225, ranked as #19 North American skater prospect by NHL Central Scouting

Since most players aren’t ready to contribute at the NHL level for at least two or three years after being selected, the NHL Draft isn’t one where teams are usually drafting for positional need. With Jay Bouwmeester showing major signs of age, though, the Blues are going to need a lefthanded-shooting defenseman to plug in on their top defensive pairing sooner than later, and there’s a player in this draft who looms as a perfect candidate to be groomed for that role in 18-year-old Logan Brown.

Stanley is already built like a lefty-shooting version of Colton Parayko, and he’ll presumably be bulked up even more once he gets into an NHL strength and conditioning program. The biggest question mark with him at the moment seems to be his skating—which vastly differentiates him from Parayko—but if he can improve a little bit as a skater over the next couple years, he could be a major addition for a club that has quite a few lefty defensemen that look like second-pairing types (Joel Edmundson, Petteri Lindbohm, Vince Dunn, etc.) but not one that stands out as a future number one.

Next: Tage Thompson