Blues, rest of NHL set for virtual draft

Alexis Lafreniere was supposed to hear his named called in front of family, friends and an adoring crowd inside Montreal’s Bell Centre.

The presumptive top pick in the 2020 NHL draft from Quebec would then climb on stage, shake hands with commissioner Gary Bettman and pull on the jersey of his new team — presumably the New York Rangers.

The pandemic, however, took care of that.

The draft originally was scheduled for June 26 and 27. Instead, the league this week will hold a pared-down draft by video conference. The first round is Tuesday, with rounds two through seven on Wednesday.

“It’s been a pretty long (wait),” Lafreniere said. “It’s coming pretty soon.”

The Rangers beat the odds and won the second phase of the lottery in August, setting them up to take the flashy winger.

Lafreniere is the top-ranked North American skater, according to NHL Central Scouting. He is a two-time Canadian Hockey League player of the year, having totaled 35 goals and 112 points in 52 games before the 2019-20 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League season was canceled.

Lafreniere was the MVP of this year’s world junior hockey championship after leading Canada to a gold medal. He would join a forward group in New York that includes Hart Trophy finalist Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and 2019 No. 2 selection Kaapo Kakko.

“The Rangers are a really big organization, a really good team,” said Lafreniere, who turns 19 on Sunday. “We’ll see what happens, but it’s a really exciting thing.”

Unless the St. Louis Blues make a trade involving draft picks, their first selection will be No. 26 overall, then not again until the third round, where they have two picks (Nos. 86 and 88). The Blues also have a single pick in the fourth round, two in the fifth and one in the seventh.

The NHL finished its pandemic-delayed season inside the Edmonton and Toronto bubbles and under tight health and safety guidelines. June’s draft combine was canceled, meaning there was no physical testing of prospects and no in-person interviews.

“It’s certainly been a challenge,” Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said. “Everybody’s had to adjust.”

Flames general manager Brad Treliving said it will be a change conducting the draft remotely.

“We have a few of our people coming in,” he said. “The biggest difference is we won’t have all of our scouts in attendance.”

The NFL and WNBA held virtual drafts because of the pandemic in the spring, with both going relatively smoothly.

“We’ve talked with other GMs from other sports that have had to go through this,” San Jose general manager Doug Wilson said. “We’ll have enough setup that we’ll have all of our staff accessible.”