Larry Pleau had taken over by then and we usually attributed draft success or failure to him. That was Pleau's first draft as GM. Some here may be able to speak to the weight of the scouting staff's input. Pleau and his team had several misses in their early years of drafting, but got much better as we transitioned to Army.
As others here have stated, Backman was big and skated well, so there was some reasonable expectation that he'd be able to hold his own in the NHL.
Matt 'Pylon' Walker (same Blues draft class) played more games than Backman.
Pretty sure Detroit was shocked when the Blues took Backman instead of Fisher in that draft. Ken Holland or on of the Detroit writers pointed out that Backman was a one dimensional defensemen.
Backman was ranked top 5 in European skaters and the Blues absolutely thought he was going to be the next Lidstrom.
The issue wasnt selecting Backman, before the higher rated Scott Gomez or J Cheechoo, it was the fact they used their first 3 selections on defensemen in 97, then their first 4 selections on defensemen in 98. They passed on some really solid forwards in 97-01 in the draft. They had a solid group of forward prospects, however traded nearly everyone of those forwards between 2000-2003.
Just some really crappy scouting and selections from 97-02.
53 total draft selections
10 draft picks played more then 100 games in the NHL
7 players played more then 200 games
3 players played more then 348 games
35 of the 53 players never skated in an NHL Game
6 of the 53 players never skated more then 28 games in the NHL