Quote:
Originally Posted by Caged Great
It seems like some people forget that Chicago started their rebuild in 2002 or so. The same with the Kings and Penguins. They waffled for a number of years. Remember when Bell Calder and Arnason were supposed to lead the team into the future.
They as a team regressed before they got better. Same thing with Los Angeles, they fell apart, which led to them getting Doughty. The Penguins just rolled in the mud for long time before they started to get better.
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Let's look at Chicago for fun. here are the noteworthy picks until they became a Stanley Cup contender.
2002 Entry 21 1 Anton Babchuk D
2002 Entry 54 2 Duncan Keith D
2003 Entry 14 1 Brent Seabrook
2003 Entry 52 2 Corey Crawford
2003 Entry 245 8 Dustin Byfuglien
2004 Entry 3 1 Cam Barker
2004 Entry 32 2 Dave Bolland
2004 Entry 41 2 Bryan Bickell
2004 Entry 214 7 Troy Brouwer
2005 Entry 7 1 Jack Skille
2005 Entry 108 4 Niklas Hjalmarsson
2006 Entry 3 1 Jonathan Toews
2007 Entry 1 1 Patrick Kane
2008 Entry 11 1 Kyle Beach
There are some pretty spectacular duds in the top 10. It wasn't until they sucked so bad for so long that they got 2 franchise players in Toews and Kane.
The big difference is in the developed players in late pics, especially on defence (kinda similar to the Flames). Without those and without the gimmies, the Hawks could have been another Islanders.
We don't want to be the Hawks to be honest despite their recent success. They were the Oilers of the last decade, and had more than 1 rebuild. They went through a few management changes before getting to where they are now. While the Hawks eventually came out of it with riches, this year looks to be an extremely weak draft to be bad, with a potential Cam Barker in the wings.
The one good thing, is that after this year, the Flames are finally able to get rid of a lot of anchor contracts.
Speaking of the Islanders
1994 Entry 9 1 Brett Lindros
1995 Entry 2 1 Wade Redden
1996 Entry 3 1 J.P. Dumont
1997 Entry 4 1 Roberto Luongo
1997 Entry 5 1 Eric Brewer
1998 Entry 9 1 Mike Rupp
1999 Entry 5 1 Tim Connolly
1999 Entry 8 1 Taylor Pyatt
2000 Entry 1 1 Rick DiPietro
2000 Entry 5 1 Raffi Torres
No 2001 first round
2002 Entry 22 1 Sean Bergenheim (rebuild over!)
2003 Entry 15 1 Robert Nilsson
2004 Entry 16 1 Petteri Nokelainen
2005 Entry 15 1 Ryan O'Marra
2006 Entry 7 1 Kyle Okposo
No 2007 first round
2008 Entry 9 1 Joshua Bailey
2009 Entry 1 1 John Tavares
2009 Entry 12 1 Calvin de Haan
2010 Entry 5 1 Nino Niederreiter
2011 Entry 5 1 Ryan Strome
2012 Entry 4 1 Griffin Reinhart
2013 Entry 15 1 Ryan Pulock
2014 Entry 5 1 Michael Dal Colle
2015 Entry 16 1 Mathew Barzal
2016 Entry 19 1 Kieffer Bellows
Islanders are currently 29th