Blues Off-season and 2026-27 Season

[GeddyWrox]

Several recent mock drafts have us taking Ethan Belchetz at #11. #15 is more all over the place.

Belchetz is one of the more intriguing players in this draft because he’s not just “big guy who scores in juniors.” At 6’5” and over 220 lbs, he already has NHL size, but the interesting part is the skill level.

His biggest strengths:

Excellent net-front offense and puck retrievals
Surprisingly good hands and touch for a huge winger
Plays with more pace than a typical power forward
Can score greasy goals and make skilled plays in tight

A lot of scouts think his offense may still be underrated because he often played a complementary role. There may be more puck-driving upside there than his raw numbers show.

The concerns:

Consistency shift-to-shift
Still refining skating/explosiveness
Broken clavicle late this season could impact his draft position

For the Blues specifically, he fits what they seem to be building now: bigger, faster, more aggressive transition hockey. A future core with Thomas, Holloway, Snuggerud, Carbonneau, and Belchetz would suddenly have a lot more offensive ceiling and playoff-style nastiness.

If he fully develops, he has legit top-line power winger upside.

[Popeye_Card]

IMO the only way to beat tanking and lottery suspicion is get rid of the lottery and the number 1 pick goes to the first team/best team to not make the playoffs and goes reverse from there. So the team with the worst record would pick, what is it, 16?

It’s the only way to make sure teams are fighting hard till the end trying to get the number 1 pick by actually winning games, which is the entire point of sports. To try and win.

And then no one needs to complain about a suspect lottery, since there won’t be one.

Or maybe just make the odds closer for all the non playoff teams, so that its not such a huge statistical advantage (drafting wise) to top(bottom) 5 tank.

I don't think the current NHL has a big tanking problem. Vancouver was the closest this year, and they started the year with playoff aspirations - everything just fell apart and they made the decision to close the book on the Quinn Hughes era. Only the Blackhawks and to a lesser extent the Flames were not making a push for a playoff spot from the beginning of the season in the West. In the East, you had a weird flip where expected contenders ended up at the bottom and expected non-factors ended up in the playoffs (or just missing). All in all, I don't think the current NHL has teams that are just mailing it in to get top picks for a re-build.

I do think that certain teams end up getting top-5 picks way too many times. I'd be good with some rules that you can only pick within the top 5 for a max of 3 times in 5 years, and only one #1 overall pick in that time.

[GeddyWrox]

IMO the only way to beat tanking and lottery suspicion is get rid of the lottery and the number 1 pick goes to the first team/best team to not make the playoffs and goes reverse from there. So the team with the worst record would pick, what is it, 16?

It’s the only way to make sure teams are fighting hard till the end trying to get the number 1 pick by actually winning games, which is the entire point of sports. To try and win.

And then no one needs to complain about a suspect lottery, since there won’t be one.

Or maybe just make the odds closer for all the non playoff teams, so that its not such a huge statistical advantage (drafting wise) to top(bottom) 5 tank.

I don't think the current NHL has a big tanking problem. Vancouver was the closest this year, and they started the year with playoff aspirations - everything just fell apart and they made the decision to close the book on the Quinn Hughes era. Only the Blackhawks and to a lesser extent the Flames were not making a push for a playoff spot from the beginning of the season in the West. In the East, you had a weird flip where expected contenders ended up at the bottom and expected non-factors ended up in the playoffs (or just missing). All in all, I don't think the current NHL has teams that are just mailing it in to get top picks for a re-build.

I do think that certain teams end up getting top-5 picks way too many times. I'd be good with some rules that you can only pick within the top 5 for a max of 3 times in 5 years, and only one #1 overall pick in that time.

This is sensible.

[cardsfantx]

IMO the only way to beat tanking and lottery suspicion is get rid of the lottery and the number 1 pick goes to the first team/best team to not make the playoffs and goes reverse from there. So the team with the worst record would pick, what is it, 16?

It’s the only way to make sure teams are fighting hard till the end trying to get the number 1 pick by actually winning games, which is the entire point of sports. To try and win.

And then no one needs to complain about a suspect lottery, since there won’t be one.

Or maybe just make the odds closer for all the non playoff teams, so that its not such a huge statistical advantage (drafting wise) to top(bottom) 5 tank.

I don't think the current NHL has a big tanking problem. Vancouver was the closest this year, and they started the year with playoff aspirations - everything just fell apart and they made the decision to close the book on the Quinn Hughes era. Only the Blackhawks and to a lesser extent the Flames were not making a push for a playoff spot from the beginning of the season in the West. In the East, you had a weird flip where expected contenders ended up at the bottom and expected non-factors ended up in the playoffs (or just missing). All in all, I don't think the current NHL has teams that are just mailing it in to get top picks for a re-build.

I do think that certain teams end up getting top-5 picks way too many times. I'd be good with some rules that you can only pick within the top 5 for a max of 3 times in 5 years, and only one #1 overall pick in that time.

This is sensible.

NBA tweaking their lottery to curb tanking…

"What we've essentially done, and we have a proposal that we're going to be bringing to our team owners at the end of May, and that is to create essentially a system of flat odds, so that you have no particular incentive to be bad," Silver said. "There's even something we're calling draft relegation, that if you're one of the bottom three teams in the league, you'll actually have worse odds than teams that sort of are four through up until teams make the playoffs.

"We're still playing a little bit with the system there."

The system -- the "3-2-1" system that ESPN first reported a couple of weeks ago -- would give the three worst teams a lower percentage chance of winning the lottery than the teams picking from fourth to 10th in an effort to curb the need for clubs to be as bad as possible to increase their chances of landing a high pick.

Silver also reaffirmed that the NBA would have the ability to discipline teams for overt tanking beyond what they have been able to do in the past. The league fined the Jazz $500,000 for "conduct detrimental to the league" earlier this season.

"And also ultimately additional authority for the league office that if we do see that type of behavior where there's a sense that teams aren't going all out to win, that we can actually take away draft lottery balls, we can change the order of the draft," Silver said. "Teams have to know it's not just about paying a financial fine, which they may think is worth it in order to get a top pick, but that it'll directly impact their ability to get a top draft pick."

[Popeye_Card]

Yeah, I don't think the NHL has a big enough tanking problem to implement steps like that.

I think such a system would paralyze teams at the trade deadline too, and not want to commit to selling. I guess you could argue if that's a good or bad thing, but I think it brings some excitement at midseason.

I'm OK with the worst teams getting the best picks. And I like that there's a chance that a better team could win the lottery and jump up to a top 5 pick. The only thing I don't like is when some teams consistently get a bunch of #1 overalls and top-5 picks. Maybe I'm just bitter about the whole Blues-have-only-had-two-top-10's-in-35+-years thing.