Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarongavey
How many elite teams do you think there are in the league? There are 4 currently who did not pick in the top 4 in the past 10 years including the upcoming draft that you deem elite and you have not excluded like Washington. Half of the top 10 teams in the league according to the standings tonight have not had a top 4 pick in the last 9 drafts. The you have to draft high is just an excuse for poor franchises.
As for the arbitrary cutoff, one has to pick a cutoff somewhere.
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Top 4 picks picks from 2004 (Ovi, Malkin), 2005 (Crosby), 2006 (
Toews, Backstrom), 2007 (Kane), and 2008 (Stamkos, Doughty, Pietrangelo until this year), 2009 (Hedman drafts are all still important players on their original teams. Many of the other picks from that draft are still in the league, and their trade-return-trees are still benefitting their original teams.
Your cutoff isn't arbitrary, it's disingenuous. None of the top 4 drafted since 2018 are impacting good teams except for Svechnikov...the most recent drafts don't really matter yet.
Even though the Islanders ultimately lost Tavares for nothing, you can't ignore the impact he had in moving that decade plus dumpster-fire towards credibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarongavey
Because basically every team gets a top 4 pick sometime in a ten year stretch. It is also true that if you do not you can also build elite teams. In fact, statistically it seems to be more likely to be elite this year without one, if you have one you have a one in 4 chance of being in the top 10. If you did not have one it is almost a one in two chance.
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Every cup winning team in the cap-era has drafted top 2 in their previous ~15 years, and had a top 2* draft pick on their roster.
*The Blues are the lone exception - but they had #3 Bouwmeester, #4 Pietrangelo, and #5 Schenn.
Maybe you can build a contender w/o such a high pick, but the next team to win a cup will be the first** (2nd if you really want to nitpick STL, but they got lots of assets from Erik Johnson).