Quote:
Originally Posted by bubbsy
but not having good prospects cannot be the reason to not to go out and draft lottery picks. living in toronto, the city was ready for a rebuild, so rushing seguin wouldn't have been a must (similar to how many fans on CP will be just fine, heck maybe even a bit relieved, if monahan goes back to ottawa this fall).
It also makes little sense to go out and invest 2 first rounders to get a 21 year old, as it poses the same problem (putting the load of a franchise on the shoulders of a young player without the necessary talent around him).
he made a major blunder in completely miscalculating the quality of his roster and giving up 1st round picks, despite not having anything close to a playoff grade team.
Just like a bad avs team traded 1st round picks for varlamov... bad teams just shouldn't trade first round picks. sure if top tier players are available i suppose you gotta look at it, but kessel/varlamov are not top tier players. kessel is a solid piece, but is not a player you build your franchise around.
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Burkes previous dealings with Kessel with USA Hockey suggested that even at 21 he had the correct demeanour and NHL experience to better withstand the Toronto marketplace than those picks. And your assumption about Toronto's willingness to accept a long term rebuild is actually not accurate. Toronto is driven by corporate money. If the product stinks, you lose that key piece. They couldn't afford to alienate corporate partners with a long term rebuild, thus Burke was brought in to overhaul on the fly.