Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
No. The only high draft pick they had was Yzerman.
They built their team through free agency and knocking two picks out of the park (Lidstrom and Datsyuk).
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Yzerman was a fairly important player for them. He might have been in a different role at the time, but he was still integral to their success. I mean, he's probably a top 20 player of all time, so I guess it was good they were so bad back in 1983. As for their other pieces, their scouting was ahead of its time and they probed areas other teams didn't. Times have changed, and that's not exactly an effective strategy to build a team around now because scouting is so much better across the league. So yes, kudos for them for finding guys like Fedorov and Lidstrom where they did. If they were prospects today, they would go in the top 3-5 of whatever draft they were in IMO.