Quote:
Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale
Nailed it. But what are the Hawks doing on the farm that nobody else can seem to replicate?
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I think they just got luckier for the most part.
It's not like the Hawks have drafted a bunch of stars recently. Nearly all the main players for them were drafted before they started winning Cups. Their draft years 2002-2005 really set them up flush with assets before they hit lottery on Kane and Toews.
Since 2007, the best player they have drafted is Saad. He's a good player, but his career high is 53 points. Shaw and Kruger are just depth guys. Is Teravainen going to break out? Hard to say.
The thing that sustained the Hawks the most is that their core all aged gracefully. None of their big 6 suffered premature drops in play.
This meant that the Hawks never had to scramble to fill any major holes. They traded off all of the minor talent and ended up drafting more often than a lot of rebuilding teams in the top rounds of the draft.The year they won their first Cup they had 4 second round picks. Ridiculous.
Compare that to LA.
Brown signed a big contract at the age of 26. coming off like 4-5 50+ point seasons. His production just completely tanked over the next two seasons.
Mike Richards was done in the NHL at 29.
Voynov got kicked out of the country for being a garbage human being.
Three big parts of LA's core just bit the dust one after another. Who could have predicted any of that?
That's some bad luck IMO.