Originally Posted by devo22
true, but they hit a few homeruns before Toews/Kane ... those were the franchise players to finish the rebuild. They had drafted a whole core around them in the years before:
2002 1st round, 21st overall - D Anton Babchuk
2002 2nd round, 54th overall - D Duncan Keith
2002 5th round, 156th overall - D James Wisniewski
2002 9th round, 282nd overall - F Adam Burish
2003 1st round, 14th overall - D Brent Seabrook
2003 2nd round, 52nd overall - G Corey Crawford
2003 8th round, 245th overall - D/F Dustin Byfuglien
2004 1st round, 3rd overall - D Cam Barker
2004 2nd round, 32nd overall - F Dave Bolland
2004 2nd round, 41st overall - F Bryan Bickell
2004 7th round, 214th overall - F Troy Brouwer
2005 4th round, 108th overall - D Niklas Hjalmarsson
Plus a few other guys with 100+ NHL games (Kukkonen, Porter, Dowell, Skille, Blunden)
that doesn't excuse them for blowing the 2006 and 2007 drafts except for Kane and Toews, but it's easier to absorb years like that when you hit homeruns with a couple 2nd round picks (Keith, Crawford, Bolland, Bickell) and found some gems in the later rounds (Byfuglien, Brouwer) in the years before.
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