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What a difference 48 hours can make. In two days at the annual NHL Entry Draft in Raleigh, North Carolina, the St. Louis Blues addressed their ongoing goaltending issues for the present, the short-term future, and the long-range future. They also added a number of highly-rated prospects to their pool, and made some additional deals to impact the future of the franchise.

GM Larry Pleau fired the first salvo of an eventful draft weekend by trading last year's first-round pick, defenseman Shawn Belle, to Dallas on the Friday before the draft. Coming back to the Mound City is goaltending prospect Jason Bacashihua, also a former first-round pick (26th overall in 2001).

With a sizeable pool of young NHL defensemen and solid defense prospects, the Blues were able to deal from a position of strength in order to shore up an area of perceived weakness. Bacashihua is expected to be a contender for an NHL job with the Blues, and will at the very least provide the AHL affiliate in Worcester with half of a very nice one-two punch in the nets next season.

The following day, the Blues were handed an early Christmas present when perhaps the top goalie available in this draft, Marek Schwarz of Sparta Praha, fell into their laps with the 17th overall pick. When the Blues pick came up, Pleau and scouting director Jarmo Kekalainen wasted little time getting to the podium and calling on Schwarz, a Top Ten pick in nearly every draft guide.

Schwarz is a smart player with good size. He plays an effective butterfly style, is tough to beat down low, and is mentally tough and confident as well. His quickness and reflexes are exceptional, he likes to play the angles and challenge the shooter, and has a quick glove hand.

On the downside, Schwarz still tends to lose focus occasionally; that his skating is only average; and that his puck handling needs a lot of work. He also sometimes tends to go down a little early and leave the top of the net open to shooters.

All of those drawbacks are things that a goaltending coach can easily correct, and Schwarz has displayed an understanding of his shortcomings, and the willingness to work on addressing them. He has signed with HC Ocelari Trinec for next season, and his rights were chosen 40th overall by Vancouver (WHL) in the CHL Import Draft.

The pleasant surprises didn't stop there for the Blues. With the 49th pick, they snagged center Carl Söderberg. Söderberg, a 6'3, 200-pound scoring machine, dominated the Swedish junior league by scoring at close to a goal-a-game pace, and also had a 24-game trial with the big boys in the SEL, playing regularly and notching a goal and an assist.

Söderberg had been projected to go as high as 33rd overall in some of the draft guides, and was considered by most to be a sure-fire early second-round pick. Söderberg is a very explosive player, a good skater with a powerful stride and quick feet. Söderberg is also possessed of an accurate shot, a fine scoring touch, and good playmaking skills and hockey sense.

Earlier in Söderberg's career, his defense was somewhat questionable. That skill has been worked on, however, and Söderberg is now said to be a much better player without the puck. His size and skills should get him some quality ice time with his hometown MIF Redhawks, and he is considered by Hockey’s Future affiliate Eliteprospects.com to be "a lock" for the 2005 Swedish WJC team.

In the third round, with the 83rd overall pick, the Blues again got lucky with a highly-ranked player when Viktor Alexandrov, Central Scouting's eighth-ranked European in this draft, was chosen. Alexandrov, the son of a former Soviet-era standout, is somewhat small at 5'11, 183 pounds, but displays a high skill level. The 18-year-old managed five goals, nine points, and 26 PIM in 56 games against veterans with Novokuznetsk of the Russian Superleague (the top league in Russia) last season.

Like Söderberg, Alexandrov had been projected to go in the second round, and his fall to the Blues in the third round can be taken as evidence of the great divergence of opinion on players in this draft.

Three legitimate "steals" in three rounds, and that was only the first day of the draft for the Blues.

Day 2 opened with another goaltending bombshell. The Blues sent a conditional fourth round pick in next year's draft to Ottawa for former playoff hero-turned-goat Patrick Lalime, spelling the end of the Chris Osgood era in St. Louis. Lalime is bigger, younger and cheaper than Osgood, and should be a more-than-adequate stopgap until Schwarz and fellow Blues goalie prospects Konstantin Barulin and/or Tuomas Nissinen are ready.

Pleau and Kekalainen then went to work on adding more prospects to the pool, tabbing the Czech Republic's Michal Birner in the fourth round, 116th overall. Birner, a 6’0”, 183-pound right wing, was one of the top scorers in the Czech junior league last year (25-35-60 with 112 PIM in 55 games with Slavia Praha), but was only ranked 68th among 2004 European skaters by Central Scouting.

Birner hit the weight room hard in the summer of 2003. As a result, the Litomerice native got bigger and stronger, and developed a bit of a mean streak to go along with the added bulk, as evidenced by the penalty minute totals in his stat line. He also worked on his shooting skills, especially a slapshot that's now harder than ever before, and more accurate as well. In addition, Birner is one of the best skaters on the Slavia junior squad, and often used his speed and skating ability to generate offense, again as evidenced by his statistics from last year.

Birner still needs to focus more on driving to the net, and on playing in traffic as opposed to staying on the periphery, but he is considered a solid prospect who is expected to play a larger role next year with the senior Slavia squad. Adding to Birner's resume is the fact that he has actually been drafted twice in the last week, as he was the eighth overall pick by Barrie (OHL) in the 2004 CHL Import Draft.

In the fifth round (136th overall), the Blues went back to Europe for Russian defenseman Nikita Nikitin. Ranked 46th among 2004 European draft-eligibles by Central Scouting, the tall and skinny (6'3, 172-pound) blueliner managed three goals, 11 points, and 22 PIM in 34 games with Omsk of the Russian second league last season.

The Blues then "stole" another player in the sixth round (180th overall) with the selection of defenseman Roman Polak from Vitkovice of the Czech junior league. Polak is 6'1, 198 pounds, and was projected to go as high as the third round -- and no lower than the fourth -- in most draft guides.

The Ostrava native is a smooth skater with impressive leg strength and balance, and that he is a tough player to knock off his skates. His acceleration and agility are solid, and all of his skating assets contribute to his good positional play and an ability to throw solid hits.

Not just an excellent skater with a good feel for the physical game, however, Polak is also possessed of a cannon of a shot. He is also a valuable special teams player, on both power play and penalty kill, and has good passing skills. His downside, however, is that he remains prone to the occasional bad decision when moving the puck, and lacks good vision.

Polak is also said to be very interested in coming to North America to play major junior as soon as next year, and was recently chosen 19th overall in the CHL Import Draft by Kootenay (WHL).

The Blues used their last two picks on power wingers with size. In the seventh round (211th overall), they chose Swedish winger David Fredriksson, a 6'2, 214-pound left winger who was Central Scouting's 51st-ranked European prospect. Fredriksson tallied nine goals, 12 points, and 42 PIM in 18 games with HV 71's J20 SuperElit team, and skated a few shifts in the SEL as well.

Eliteprospects.com ranked Fredriksson the 20th-best Swedish prospect available for selection this year. Fredriksson is a potential power forward who is as strong as they come. The big kid from Jonkoping is a hard worker who's not afraid to use his size, strength, and great reach along the boards and in front of the net. His offensive numbers haven't been outstanding, but HV 71 has signed Fredriksson to play in the SEL next year, and he will probably be a 12th or 13th forward on a very deep roster.

It took until the last round of the draft, with the 277th pick, but the Blues finally chose a North American player in the person of Jonathan Boutin. The 6'2, 196-pound winger tallied 31 goals and 60 points for Shawinigan of the QMJHL last year, and came out of nowhere a bit, as he was not ranked by Central Scouting.

The final draft tally? Eight picks, all of whom give the Blues' fan base good reason to be optimistic for the future. And that's not even the end of the story. In order to fill the hole left in the organization's depth chart by the Belle trade, the Blues signed a pair of defensemen over the draft weekend, players who had been drafted recently by other clubs and failed to come to terms with them.

Dennis Wideman (6'0, 200 pounds), a former eighth round pick (241st overall) of Buffalo in 2002, tallied 24 goals and 65 points for London (OHL), and was the runner-up for the OHL's top defenseman award this past season. Patrick Wellar (6'3, 210 pounds) was a third round pick (77th overall) by Washington in 2002, and racked up 132 PIM to go along with 17 points in 68 games for Calgary (WHL) last year.

All in all, the Blues added 11 prospects to their list over the weekend, at every position, and served notice that they're ready to move into the upper ranks of NHL developmental organizations. Just a typical 48 hours' work for Pleau, Kekalainen, and the rest of the Blues scouting and player development staff.

Johan Nilsson and Robert Neuhauser contributed to this article.