Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragomir
That trade is an anomaly in the NHL though, the majority of impact players are usually drafted and developed not traded for. We also gave up a huge piece in Hamilton for him so it wasn’t nearly as effective as it would’ve been if we drafted and developed Lindholm.
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Not sure your first sentence is true at all. Depends on the team. Some teams do well drafting and developing their own players, some trade or sign for theirs. It doesn't have to be just one or the other either. Smart GM's will draft core players AND trade for them, best of both worlds no?
Your 2nd sentence doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.
Isn't trading a mid 1st and two 2nds for Hamilton and then trading Hamilton for Lindholm pretty similar to drafting Lindholm with a high 1st?
Why do you consider one more effective than the other? In both cases pretty much the same value was spent to acquire Lindholm. A high first is probably worth around a mid 1st and two 2nds.
Anyways I don't really follow what point you're trying to make.
My point would be that in different stages of the team's cycle you want to draft players vs trade for them. Earlier in our rebuild we mostly wanted to draft players. But (and some fans completely miss the point on this) you have to surround them with some veterans and some other decent players otherwise they'll lose and lose and become serial losers (see Edmonton.) You can't go all kids. They'll never learn to win by themselves. Anyways, that was a bit of a sidetrack. We are now just starting to contend. At this point in the lifecycle drafting a kid who will play in 2-3 years isn't as effective as trading our 1st for a top two line forward who is in the same age range as our young core.
Drafting another Lindholm next summer who will break out 5 years later isn't as preferable as trading for a young core piece now. You need context to evaluate the effectiveness of whether 1st rounders are best spent as a trade asset or by drafting. Sometimes you wanna be building your core through the draft. Now we want to be supplementing the core through trades for young players who are near in age to the core. I'm always happy to keep the 1st rounder as you might guess from my username but it seems like this year could be a prime year to be adding to the core and using the 1st as a trade asset.