The St. Louis Blues prospect pool has reached unprecedented heights with what is believed to be a franchise record seven prospects slated to represent their countries at the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship, which will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5.
Jimmy Snuggerud (USA), Otto Stenberg (Sweden), Theo Lindstein (Sweden), Aleksanteri Kaskimaki (Finland), Jakub Stancl (Czechia), Dalibor Dvorsky (Slovakia) and Juraj Pekarcik (Slovakia) will all represent the Blues in the tournament. Four of those prospects - Snuggerud (2022), Dvorsky (2023), Lindstein (2023) and Stenberg (2023) - are first-round draft picks.
With seven prospects participating, the Blues share the most World Junior Championship participants with the Arizona Coyotes and Buffalo Sabres amongst NHL teams. Five of the prospects participating were part of the Blues' 2023 draft class.
Over half of the Blues current roster (14 of 22) has played in the World Junior Championship, representing the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden and Finland.
Canada defeated Czechia to win last year's championship, followed by Team USA and Finland for third and fourth place, respectively. Snuggerud finished third overall in last season's tournament with 13 points in seven games, trailing only Arizona's Logan Cooley and Chicago's Connor Bedard. Kaskimaki and Dvorsky also competed last year, though both are ready to contribute to their national teams in bigger roles now.
