Quote:
Originally Posted by traptor
This has been fleshed out alot but theres a key difference in having a player drafted top-3, which almost every team has including the flames, verse having a player that you've drafted top 3.
The only teams to win the cup in the last decade without having a top-3 picked player that they draft are:
Blues (had pietrangelo though, they drafted 4th oa)
Golden knights (recent expansion team)
If you go back 20 years to 2004 you can throw in bruins, ducks and wings.
So 2/10 last 10 years and 5/20 cup teams didn't have a top 3 player they drafted.
If you change it to a top 5 player they drafted that number is further reduced by half.
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It’s also not just about the one top 3 pick. Yeah, that guy needs to be a player, but if you’re bad enough to draft top-3 one year, you’re probably going to be bad enough to draft at least top-10 the next year, and you probably weren’t drafting in the 20s last year.
If you have three drafts of high-ish picks, three trade deadlines of selling UFAs for picks and prospects, that lays the foundation for a decade of successful hockey.
Zary, Coronato, Pelletier and Honzek are the depth players that will lift our next generation of superstars - they aren’t the superstars themselves.
By the time the new building opens, Conroy will likely have added 15-25 assets through prudence alone.
Of course it makes sense to add a good young roster player for a 1st and two 2nds. You can do that when you have six 1st rounders over the next three years with 12 UFAs on bargain contracts.
But a team needs superstars. This team doesn’t have any, but I do believe we’ll have one in the fold on draft night.