When the St. Louis Blues selected T.J. Oshie with the 24th overall pick in 2005, I’ll be honest, I was a little confused with the pick. After all he was just some high school kid from Minnesota and he sure as heck wasn’t pictured in my Hockey News draft issue. After doing a little more research, I found out he was from the Seattle Washington area and that didn’t help matters. How many kids from Seattle make it to the NHL, let alone are 1st round draft picks? Well apparently not only was I wrong, I was wrong in a big way. Since Oshie was going to play college hockey at North Dakota, I thought at least I’ll be able to see a few of his games via my satellite dish. All it took for me was to see one game of his and I knew he was going to be a special player for the Blues somewhere down the road. All questions had been answered.

Fast forward to three years later and it seems as if Oshie has been in the Blues organization forever. We heard over and over just how much the Blues future lies in the hands of T.J. Oshie and now that time has finally come as Oshie is finally signed, sealed, and delivered after three years of hockey at UND.

Oshie leads the way in regards to the Blues youth movement and he will be given every chance to make the team out of camp. After watching him the last couple of years, I don’t see how he doesn’t make the 2008-09 roster. Oshie put up better numbers at UND his first two years than Chicago Blackhawks 2007 Calder trophy finalist Jonathan Toews. I don’t expect Oshie to put up NHL numbers in his rookie year like Toews did because he’s probably not going to get as much ice time on an Andy Murray(veterans first) coached team. He will play though and hopefully he’s going to bring so much energy to the team that Murray will be forced to put him on the ice. I would like to see him play on a line with veteran Keith Tkachuk and 2nd year man David Perron. If you haven’t seen Oshie play just yet, think Jeremy Roenick early in his career with the Blackhawks. Oshie plays a very similar game.

With the subtractions of Jamal Mayers (Toronto), Ryan Johnson (Vancouver) and Martin Rucinsky (Who cares), the Blues youth movement is in full swing. Joining Oshie in that group is 2006 1st rounder Patrik Berglund who’s been playing in Sweden for Vasteras IK the past three years. Berglund is the big center the Blues have been lacking for sometime and management is expecting big things from him. Berglund has said that his goal is to play in North America this year, meaning he will play for the Blues farm team in Peoria if need be. As long as he doesn’t have a bad camp, he’s in fine position to make the opening night roster and center the 2nd or 3rd line to start the season. Add in last year’s rookies, defensemen Erik Johnson(06) and winger David Perron(07) and eventually Lars Eller (1st round 2007) and Alex Pietrangelo (1st round 2008) and things are looking good for the future of hockey in St. Louis.

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