Interesting article on the Athletic about the best drafting teams since 2007. The first part was the bottom half of the league. 5 of the 7 Canadian teams were on the list and the 2 that were not are the Flames and Leafs. Oilers were 5th worst, Buffalo the worst.
Edmonton had 10 top 10 picks in that timeframe 4 more than any other team.
I am interested to see where the Flames rank. They are definitely getting a high ranking based on many of their late round picks panning out. Brodie, Gaudreau, Fox, Mangiapane all being closer to top of the lineup players. Kulak, Brossoit carved out decent careers. Tkachuk at 6 was like landing a top 3 pick.
Seeing the Flames as a top half of the league drafting group over a 15 year span should give us hope that the rebuild/retool has a good chance of succeeding. It’s likely a main reason they only picked top 10 3x post Iginla before they had a team that could make the playoffs.
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