Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
Do you know what a "maybe" is? A draft pick. Regardless of how high, they are all maybes. There are no guarantees. You could draft Sam Bennett or Nolan Patrick with one of those high picks. That is as maybe as you can get, and those maybes turned into busts really quickly. So instead of having a first line Draisaitl level talent, capable of carrying a line, you get a borderline third line complimentary mucker that leaves you shaking your head. There are no guarantees.
The same can be said about tanking for a better draft pick. With the advent of the lottery system, there are no guarantees you're going to get a top pick. Someone can come in and win the golden ticket and leave you drafting yet another maybe. So all this bull#### about tank for a first pick is just garbage. It's a crapshoot. If you really want to be concerned about the development of the team, dump all over Treliving for his asset management. Trading away draft picks and holding on to players too long has hurt the team. Asset management is what drives a team toward success, and Treliving sucks at asset management.
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Yeah, there is no guarantees on any side of this conversation.
The data available does show that Stanley Cup winning teams are built with top-3 draft pick, but not every top-3 draft pick wins a Stanley Cup.
I think the closest "plan" you can get to properly building a contending team is:
1 - Draft in the top-3 (hopefully at least twice), and do so in years where centres and defensemen are the strength of the top of the draft
2 - Be one of the best managed teams in the league
3 - Be one of the best coached teams in the league
Skipping any of these three steps seems to be a recipe for guaranteed failure. It's a competitive league and "keeping up with the Jones'" is effectively the name of the game. Why were the Flames so good in the late '80s? To combat the Oilers of the late 80s.
In today's league, you just don't win a Stanley Cup without the Elite gamebreaking talent found at the top-end of the draft. The Blues are the closest thing to doing that without a top-3 pick (they had a #4), but they also caught lightning in a bottle with a goaltending performance that hasn't been seen since Kiprusoff in 2004. Going back further takes you to the Bruins where they had what looks to be the best run of 2nd round picks I can remember seeing a team hit on as they landed the best defensive centre in the league (Bergeron) at #45 in 2003, Krejci at #63 in 2004, Lucic at #50 in 2006, and then Marchand in the 3rd round at #71 in 2006, and that was all backed up by a defensive generational talent in Chara who landed their via free agency (...and they also had a #2 overall in Seguin playing, so...yeah)
...also it had been a long time since I had written "Kiprusoff"...and I can't look at his name without thinking "that looks wrong".