Quote:
Originally Posted by TheScorpion
No, I didn't mean because of Kane's contract (although who knows what kind of raise he gets). I think they're at the point where they're out of range from being able to reliably pick blue-chip prospects in the draft. Their core is solid, but not great, and because they've graduated to being a playoff bubble team, they're out of lottery range — but I think they might be capped out as a bubble team with this core unless they can pull off a miracle trade for Elias Pettersson or something.
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I'd agree with all of that...though it's also the case for most rebuilds and really most teams at any given point in time. So the question is what to do about it:
1. be deliberately bad to move up a bit in the draft (digging yourself a deeper hole to dig out of)
2. Aggressively spend assets to find that potential high-end talent (generally creates an unsustainable situation where the cupboards can't effectively fill gaps). Sometimes this works (Stone, Eichel), but much more often you find more 'very good' than 'great'
3. Hold onto draft capital and young assets with discipline while doing everything else possible to improve in the short term.
Yzerman picked door #3 and so far it's working pretty well. You can find superstars anywhere in the draft. DET made 5 picks in the top 50 last year, and they've got dozens of other lottery tickets that may pay off. Odds of that happening are far better if they come into a culture on the upswing.
Picking 9th again this year isn't changing their franchise fortunes compared to picking 19th.