Heres the way I see it. A player is drafted at 18 and lose their impact by around 33. So they have around 15-years as a career. Each draft features 1-4 franchise players. So in total, you get 60 or so of those players at any time in the league. And some are better than others. So each team should have 2 of them, and some could have 3. By definition, you can build a team around any 2 franchise players. With that definition, lets see how many franchise players each team has...
Not only do they have significantly more than 2, but they have the higher quality franchise players.
Pitsburgh has 4 - Letang, Crosby, Malkin, Iginla
Boston has 3 - Chara, Bergeron, Rask. Seguin
LA has 5 - Quick, Richards, Carter, Kopitar, Doughty
Chicago has 4 - Kane, Toews, Keith, Hossa
Do a list of each NHL team, and what the total is. Its about 60 by my count, and these 4 teams have 17 of them.
Now, ask yourself how they got those players:
Drafted in the 1-5 slot: Crosby, Malkin, Toews, Kane, Doughty
Traded using players drafted 1-5: Richards (Schenn), Carter (Johnson), Seguin (Kessel)
Obvious pick outside the 1-5: Kopitar (everyone knew he should have gone top 5)
UFAs that chose them because they were amazing. Spoils go to the best: Iginla, Hossa
Signed as a UFA: Chara
Skilled drafting: Keith, Quick, Letang
Fleecing Toronto: Rask, Seguin
Summary: Its about getting lucky enough to draft multiple top 5 picks in good vintage years, drafting a couple of gems down the draft, and fleecing Toronto. Calgary is at a natural disadvantage because we're the one team that actually gets fleeced by Toronto.
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