Quote:
Originally Posted by TX_Flame
All of those teams found serviceable to excellent talent in the later rounds of the draft beyond the no brainers that were their rewards for well timed ineptitude. They all had significant talent on D and in net. For each of those examples one can also point to teams such as Washington, NYI, and the Oilers themselves to prove that it takes more than sucking your way into a bunch of #1 overall picks to build a Stanley Cup Champion.
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It should be noted with the Caps that while they aren't cup winners yet they did have dramatic improvement following getting their superstar. It took the Caps four seasons to reach 108 points after they got Ovechkin.
Really, it's hard to pick out counter examples to the Oilers' situation because these so-called generational talents just don't come around that often. Ovechkin is a generational scoring talent, Crosby has been the best player in the world for ages and Toews appears to be the best leader the league has seen in a long time. Tavares, though great, doesn't seem so unique.
If McDavid lives up to the hype, Crosby is probably the only real comparison since the 2004 lockout. Combine that with the promise of improved organisational leadership and it's not unreasonable to think the Oilers will be strong cup contenders in short order.
Of course nothing is for sure. It's all speculation. My point is not that the Oilers will certainly win even though I think that MacLean's prediction is reasonable. I think looking at the turnarounds from being brutal to being champs of recent cup winners and the impact of generational talent supports that his prediction is a reasonable bit of speculation.