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What isn't easy to find are franchise centres, 1st line powerforwards and top 3 defensemen.
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How are first line power forwards not easy to find? Going by
your loose definition of "power forwards" let's see how teams acquired theirs:
The St. Louis Blues drafted David Backes in the 2nd round.
The St. Louis Blues traded Lee Stempniak (lol) for Alex Steen.
The Boston Bruins traded 15th overall and Dennis Wideman (lol) for Nathan Horton.
The Boston Bruins drafted Milan Lucic in the 2nd round.
The L.A. Kings traded 14th overall + a goalie who wanted out anyways for Lucic. Who was a cap dump for the Bruins.
The Chicago Black Hawks drafted Brandon Saad in the second round.
The Chicago Black Hawks drafted Dustin Byfuglien in the eighth round.
The Jets/Thrashers traded #24 OA and #54 OA for Dustin Byfuglien
The Jets/Thrashers traded Rich Peverley and Boris Valabik for Blake Wheeler
The Jets/Thrashers traded a 2nd round pick for Andrew Ladd.
The Chicago Black Hawks draft Troy Brouwer in the seventh round.
The Washington Capitals traded #26 OA for Troy Brouwer.
The Columbus Blue Jackets traded Marko Dano (a Klimchuk type pick from 2013) and Anisimov (who is not even Backlund-tier IMHO) for Brandon Saad.
The Sharks signed Joel Ward in UFA.
The Leafs traded Luke Schenn (lol) for James van Riemsdyk
so....Let's not put so-called power forwards on the same tier as #1Cs and top pair D. Unlike the former they aren't almost exclusive to the top ~10 draft picks, and unlike the latter they don't dictate whether a team is a playoff team or not and rarely if ever hit free agency.
If History tells us anything, we are gonna flip Klimchuk, Frolik, and Wotherspoon for Mark Stone because that's how randomly valued so-called power forwards are. In fact most of them don't even develop into dominant NHL forces until their second team or third... having great scouts who can identify budding power forwards seems to be more important than finding them early in the first round. Sure there's the occasional Dustin Brown. But they are the exceptions unlike #1 centres.
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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Patrick Sharp was a 40 goal scorer recently traded as a cap dump. What do the Blackhawks have left from that trade?
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What exactly do they have left from the Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien, Nick Leddy, Brandon Saad, Troy Brouwer, Brian Campbell Trades? That's power forwards, top 3 defensemen,
and top 3 defensemen who are also power forwards.
The Hawks dump great players of all sorts every year. Sharp was around for all three of their cups so to call him just an ordinary cap dump is disingenuous as he was a beast.
We need to draft talent not fit a profile. We've been seemingly burned every time we try to draft to fit a profile (Irving, Chucko, Pelech, Smith, Kanzig) and we've come away with good players when we draft for skill and hockey sense (Ferland, Backlund, Brodie, Gaudreau). Maybe in this top 6 there's no wrong choice available but there's still better choices. Looking to 2015, I'd rather have Connor over Zacha or Meier. Looking to 2014 I'd rather have W. Nylander over Reinhart, Dal Colle, Ritchie, Virtanen. Looking to 2013 I'd rather have Drouin than Lindholm or Nurse. Sometimes the most skilled player isn't the BPA but if he is, you take him and worry about the roster profiling after.