Blais' road to the NHL:
“He was about 5-foot-9 and looked skinny, but he had the puck,” Picard said. “When he played those two or three shifts, he made some plays. After that, he was gone. But I always had this kid in mind and I said I’ll wait until Christmas and if he’s not coming back, I’ll go watch him play the Midget AAA. But the talent he had, I knew he was coming back.”
Sure enough, Blais (pronounced Blay) did return to Victoriaville that season, and confirmed Picard’s hunch. His role remained limited, playing minimal shifts on the fourth line, but Picard said it was funny “because when the team was short a goal, like 2-1 late in the game, Sammy was still on the ice. His puck skills and hockey sense, he was way better than everybody else.”
Picard, who played 61 of his 166 games in the
NHL with the Blues in the late 1990s, began to mention Blais’ name at organizational meetings. He felt compelled to summon Bill Armstrong, the club’s director of amateur scouting, to watch him in person, but there was one problem.
