Quote:
Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden
The blues are an exception all together. my claim is too simple to be true. Winning a championship is complicated.
The point at the core of my series of posts is that teams very rarely, sign a core of vets long term into their 30s and turn that into championships. more often than not, they draft star players and develop them. Often times some of these players come from the top 5 picks. Not always, the blues brought in a red hot goalie and rode him to the promises land, and Kopitar was an 11th pick.
Sometimes teams full of aging vets and huge term contracts do win it all. Vegas did, Washington did, the 2001 Avs did, and the 1989 Flames did. It isn't impossible, but it is not a well travelled path.
Exceptions always exist. again, no one is suggesting drafting in the top 5 turns into championships no matter what. But I know how the Avs landed Makar and Mackinnon, or how the Blackhawks landed Toews and Kane how the Penguins landed Malkin and Crosby, or the Lightening landed Hedman and Stamkos.
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The counter to your argument that not having multiple top 5 picks over the course of 7-8 years is not a well-traveled path by championship teams OR by bottom-dwellers. Very few teams will fail to have multiple top 5 picks over that course of time. So the correlation between having multiple top 5 picks and winning championships is barely better than chance alone.
The Flames are an interesting animal when it comes to top 5 picks. They have certainly traded away many 1st round picks, but those have been for the most part mid to late 1st round picks, so they haven't lacked for top 5 picks due to trades. One thing they have had is terrible draft lottery luck; I believe they are the only team (perhaps aside from the recent expansion teams?) that has moved down in the lottery but never moved up.