One thing people (myself included) give Treliving credit for is greatly improving the drafting, and being able to hit on winners outside of top 15. So... if that is the primary strength of your franchise, shouldn't you be doing whatever you can to draft as often as possible??? Think about simple logic: UFAs generally don't want to come here, unless you overpay and over-commit; many players have us on "no trade" lists; yet we continuously spent picks to fill short-term holes with mediocre players, when picks are our only real source of high-end talent. We got absolutely nothing for trading our picks, aside from the Hamilton trade tree. NOTHING. How many more Mangiapanes and Dubes could we have if we simply used them? I would venture a guess more than nothing...
You should never spend assets on depth, unless you a bone fide Cup contender. All that depth should be in your system. I would make the following hypothesis - if Treliving did nothing in the last 7 years, except trade pending UFA's, we would be much closer to winning a Cup. If you are good at something, do it as much as possible.
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