Blues Draft Ty Rattie, Dmitrij Jaskin and Joel Edmundson

photo © 2010 leafschik1967 | more info
After much speculation that the St. Louis Blues would trade up in order to pick in the first round on Friday night, the first round came and went without any mention of the Blues. However, the team had three picks right off the bat on Saturday and used them to select Ty Rattie, Dmitrij Jaskin and Joel Edmundson.

Ty Rattie

The 32nd overall pick, Ty Rattie (pictured above) comes to the Blues after skating with Portland in the WHL. The extremely talented right winger had an outstanding 2010-11 season with Portland, scoring 28 goals and 51 assists for a total of 79 points in just 67 games.

Rattie has been with Portland since the 2008-09 season and has contributed a total of 117 points during his 138 games with the organization. He also has 93 penalty minutes to go along with his impressive scoring totals.

As evidenced by his statistics, Rattie has quality hands and knows how to get in position to score – a nose for goal. However, as reported by EliteProspects.com, Rattie does need to improve on his skating and overall strength.

Below you can get to know thanks to an introduction video courtesy of Open Ice Hockey.

Dmitrij Jaskin

With their second pick of the day, the Blues selected Dmitrij Jaskin. From the Czech Republic, the right winger spent the 2010-11 season skating with both the HC Slavia Praha under 20 team (one game) as well as the actual HC Slavia Praha team where he skated in 33 games, recording 10 total points.

Jaskin also spent time with the Czech Republic under 18 squad and would have competed for his country in the 2011 IIHF World U20 Championships, but a knee injury kept him on the outside looking in for the duration of the tournament.

Joel Edmundson

Edmundson is a powerful defenseman from the WHL Moose Jaw Warriors. Measuring in at 6’4″, 192 lbs, there’s definitely plenty of muscle on Edmundson’s frame. Last season he skated in 71 games while scoring two goals and 18 assists.

This is an interesting pick for the Blues as they obviously are trying to build a defensive unit in the future that is bit on stature and muscle – see 2009’s pick of Brett Ponich.

Scoring totals aside, Edmundson is better known for his strength on the ice, as evidenced by the below video courtesy of Hockey Fights.

Edmundson, #3, appears in the black jersey.