A Draft For The Dogs

The 1983 NHL Entry Draft holds a unique spot in NHL history, but not for the reasons you may think. The man to the left, Brian Lawton, was selected first-overall in the draft by the Minnesota North Stars, becoming the first US-born player selected as the top pick in any NHL draft to that point. The graduate of Mount St. Charles High School in Woonsocket, Rhode Island played 483 NHL games in his career, but this article isn't about Lawton, his former high school, or Rhode Island. Instead, it's about an NHL team that had no general manager and made a total of zero selections at the 1983 NHL Entry Draft on June 8, 1983 when the draft took place - something that will likely never happen again.

I wrote about the potential sale of the St. Louis Blues to Batoni-Hunter Enterprises of Saskatoon who intended to move the team to the Saskatchewan city back in December 2011, and the Blues' lack of selections and management at the 1983 NHL Entry Draft is the topic of this article. The battle between Purina-Ralston and the NHL loomed over the franchise all season long, and it resulted in the Blues finishing with in fourth-place in the Norris Division with a 25-40-15 record. Despite winning Game One in the best-of-five series against Chicago, the Blues were eliminated three games later on April 10.

Pittsburgh was the league's worst team that season as they finished with 18 wins and 45 points, one win worse that the 19-win, 45-point Hartford Whalers. Pittsburgh wouldn't choose first-overall, though, as they swapped that pick in an October 28, 1982 trade that saw George Ferguson and Pittsburgh's first selection in the 1983 draft traded to the North Stars for Anders Hakansson, Ron Meighan and Minnesota's first selection. You have to wonder if the Penguins would redo that trade knowing they'd be simply terrible that season.

The New York Islanders chose third after they made a 1981 trade with the Colorado Rockies to acquire their 1983 first selection. The Rockies became the New Jersey Devils in 1982-83, and they struggled all season as they finished third-worst that season. Detroit was selecting fourth-overall, and St. Louis should have picked fifth-overall based on the final standings. Except they didn't.

On May 2, 1983, Blues GM Emile Francis was fired by the team, and Purina-Ralston reportedly refused to participate in the NHL Entry Draft in response to the NHL blocking the move of the franchise to Saskatoon. As such, the NHL determined that the Blues would forfeit all of their picks in the 1983 Entry Draft which, when one considers some of the names available, seems profoundly stupid and short-sighted by Purina-Ralston. As a result of their decision, the NHL moved all teams up one selection spot, allowing the Buffalo Sabres to select fifth-overall instead of sixth-overall after they had acquired Los Angeles' first selection in a 1981 trade for Rick Martin.

Brian Lawton, as seen above, went first-overall to Minnesota, and the next selections saw Sylvain Turgeon go to Hartford, Pat Lafontaine go to the Islanders, and Steve Yzerman go to the Red Wings. That would have placed St. Louis next, and the names that were still on the board at the time of the fifth-overall selection included Tom Barrasso, John MacLean, Cam Neely, Russ Courtnall, Dave Gagner, and Jeff Beukeboom. I'm not saying that St. Louis would have selected any of those players with the fifth-overall selection, but the amount of talent still available to be selected was ridiculous.

Imagine Bernie Federko, Joe Mullen, or Doug Gilmour skating alongside Cam Neely, John MacLean, or Russ Courtnall. The Blues could have had a top pairing of Rob Ramage and Jeff Beukeboom in 1983 as one of the toughest defensive pairings in the league. And you can't tell me that Tom Barrasso wouldn't have slotted in nicely behind Mike Liut as the Blues' netminders in 1983. By staging their protest, the Blues might have set themselves back a season despite new head coach Jacques Demers pushing them to second-place in the Norris in 1983-84, but they may have gotten higher if they had an infusion of talent from the 1983 NHL Entry Draft. We'll never know, though.

To wrap up this story, Purina-Ralston might have sank the Blues at the 1983 NHL Entry Draft when they literally gave the franchise to the NHL to "operate, sell or 'dispose of in whatever manner the league desires'" on June 4, 1983. If you're doing the math, that was four days before the NHL Entry Draft was taking place in Montreal, and, as stated, there was no general manager who could make selections for the Blues. While I'm speculating here, my belief is that Purina-Ralston never had any intention of holding onto the franchise to that point in the summer of 1983, and simply never gave a hoot about the draft.

They let Francis go on May 2 and fired the rest of the front office staff days later, so there would have been no one even close to being prepared for the draft. In the end, the NHL solved that problem by not having the team make selections, and the NHL washed their hands of the Blues' saga in 1983 when they conditionally sold the team to Harry Ornest on July 21, 1983. Three weeks later, Ron Caron was hired as the new Blues general manager on August 13, 1983, and the Blues would begin rebuilding after a tumultuous year of history.

It's hard to imagine any team forfeiting its picks at the NHL Entry Draft in any year, but that 1983 year will go down as one where the Blues could have grabbed a franchise player had the owners simply played by the NHL's rules. I get that Purina-Ralston wanted to maximize their profits in the sale, but their attempts to be catty in selling the team could have put the Blues in the doghouse.

In a season where relocation, failed efforts to sell the franchise, and a disaster of an offseason were real, not having a selection in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft could have been real "ruff" for the Blues.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!