[Boreal]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

It's not like the Avs were terrible that whole time. They usually made the playoffs and even had a couple of division titles and playoff round victories over that period. I think any fanbase can be patient with results like that.

In order to win a team needs a series of things to go their way.

Ultimately in the cap era it’s about having players on maximum value contracts. Either entry level, back diving, cap circumventing, or extreme value deals have been needed to win for most team. Off of the top of my head, Boston & Anaheim are the only two who weren’t overly reliant on several of these.

Both Colorado & Tampa have been build over time with punctuated periods of sucking.

Tampa started one year earlier in 2008 with Stamkos, but Colorado went straight from Sakic to Duchene (#2 OA). Two years later with Landeskog (#2 OA) then another two years later with Mackinnon (#1 OA).

Roy’s biggest asset to the franchise’s latest championship was insisting they choose Mackinnon & not Jones in 2013.

Two years after Mackinnon they select Rantanen (#10 OA), Makar 2 years later, and Byron two years after that.

Even with the punctuated sucking they needed Mackinnon’s Uber value deal, and the Melynk/Dorian Clown show to recycle Duchene into Byron & Girard, and the acumen/luck in drafting. Even their questionable high pick in Jost was turned into Sturm to help them win.

They made savy deals for other parts like Kadri, looking for value deals, but without the core drafted pieces these deals keep them competitive.

Tampa also had their punctuated period of suck, and managed assets to maximize returns, like Drouin for Sergechev with similar acumen/luck in drafting in later rounds.

Are the Avs & Lightning better at drafting? Well yeah, but it’s not that simple either. They’re also better at development, and most other teams are terrible at drafting and/or development.

“The general point of view seems to be to hope that they are not unlucky in the first round and hope to be lucky in the later rounds,” says Tingling, who has previously studied teams’ spending on innovation and scouting success.

The pair examined the quality of the decisions made by NHL teams during the 1995-2003 entry drafts, and after determining measurements of draft errors, found that player selection “may be influenced by widespread and systematic decision biases.”

“The general advice that we give is to keep track of which scouts have historically made good recommendations (which surprisingly few organizations do), continue to make individual assessments, and to look deeper in the draft,” says Tingling. “Our research shows that even teams that pick late can have a great draft.”

https://beedie.sfu.ca/ideas/2013/08/...ockey-players/

“Our research says nobody is particularly good at making (draft) decisions,” he said. “There’s this myth of Detroit as a great late-round chooser. They do a great job (scouting) in Europe, not so good in North America. But what Detroit is absolutely tremendous at is retaining and developing players. At some point, drafting well is useless if you can’t develop and retain (the players), as many teams know.”

“What teams are really good? The short answer is no team is consistently good. Central Scouting does an amazing job of identifying the first 60, 70 players, maybe 100. After that, it basically flatlines.”