Quote:
Originally Posted by fleury
I tend to disagree. Getting a high pick gives you a much higher chance of getting a stud. Edmonton seems to have ruined players for whatever reason. Could be their development system or it could be the supporting cast, but you remove Edmonton picks and there’s a good chance you’re getting a person to build a franchise around. Edmonton seems to be an outlier.
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A high draft pick is no guarantee of anything. Look at the Flames. Highest draft pick in team history was a massive bust. That pick pans out and becomes the same level player as Draisaitl and we likely aren't having these conversations. But the reality is that there are more swings and misses than there are hits, even when drafting high.
Take the fabled 2014 draft when Ekblad went 1st and three centers followed. #2 pick was Sam Reinhart, who is now a winger. #4 pick we don't have to rehash. The best center of the bunch was Draisaitl and he's really more of a winger now as well. So even with three very highly touted center prospects, all of which were supposed to be franchise level centermen, not a single one turned into what was drafted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
The 2012/2013 season was lost, and at the deadline we sold Bouwmeester and Iginla - so selling on a failed season.
The 2013 Summer:
Tanguay and Sarich for O'Brien and Jones.
4th rounder for Galiardi
5th rounder for Russell
4th rounder for Colborne
Brossoit and Horak for Smid and Roy
Jackman for a 6th rounder
6th for MacDermid
Nemisz for Westgarth
Berra for a 2nd rounder
Stempniak for a 3rd rounder
We sent out a 4th, 5th, 4th, 6th and brought in a 2nd, 3rd and 6th. Pretty much all "hockey trades" brought back veteran players (Smid, O'Brien, Jones, Westgarth), but to Feaster's credit he didn't spend in free agency like a drunk sailor. Feaster's "build" got us the 4th overall pick. Would have been nice to have kept the 4th, 5th, and 6th rounder picks if it was a targeted tank-job, but hard to argue Russell's acquisition as it later turned into a 2nd round pick, but he also helped in the short-term which hurt us from a tanking perspective.
Then the team immediately went right back to spending in free agency and trying to win. So if 2013/2014 was a tank, it was a pretty light tank - as capping it off at a 1-year tank was certainly short sighted. I wonder if Feaster had plans to keep tanking, but Burke coming in (the mastermind behind trading Hamilton and Seguin for Kessel) and then bringing in Treliving...yikes, yeah I see where things went off the rails.
...was this team better off with Jay Feaster than they were with Brad Treliving and Brian Burke?
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And this is why a rebuild is such a horrible idea. Nothing is ever enough. The fanbase will never be happy regardless of what is done. You didn't burn it to the ground hard enough. Or, you should have got better players to support the young talent so they don't bust. Rebuilds are very difficult and the vast majority of them fail. With the advent of the new draft rules and lottery system, the likelihood of a scorched earth approach working is pretty small. All you're doing is making sure you have years of getting your head caved in with no real guarantee of a brighter future ahead, like previous years. Unless you happen to get that first pick lottery ball to select that generational talent that comes along every decade or so, you're doomed to suck. Better to have a good scouting team that can find talent, and then a good development program to get the most out of the players you pick. Find the diamonds in the rough and profit. The Lightning have been great because of Stamkos and Hedman. The Lightning have been great because of Braydon Point (#79), Nikita Kucherov (#58), Anthony Cirrelli (#72), Alex Kilhorn (#77), Ondej Palat (#208!), Cedric Paquette (#101), and so on. It also doesn't hurt that they pulled Yanni Gourde and Tyler Johnson out of thin air as free agents. Tampa has a great system. We need to emulate that rather than crap the bed for half a decade and hope things fall into place because we draft a McDavid.