Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
A lot of the "You NeEd to DraFT a tOP CenTRE" crowd are too focused on the post-Crosby results. Firstly, the odds of drafting a Crosby are very very low, even if you tank. He's generational plus has leadership qualities. Even then, the new draft rules prevent you from doing what Pittsburgh did. Pittsburgh didn't just draft Crosby, they drafted two 1st overall, and two 2nd overall picks in four years. Without also drafting Fleury and Malkin, the Pens aren't winning as many cups.
You pull out the Pens from the list of Stanley Cup winners, and the narrative that you need to draft a bunch of franchise players falls apart. The majority of the rest of the teams have a couple of former top picks (some they didn't draft but acquired via trade) with the rest of the team being built through good depth drafting and asset management.
Relating it back to the Flames, the Flames had the draft picks. Tkachuk and Bennett are currently the top line of a Stanley Cup winning team. Those two plus a healthy Monahan and prime Gaudreau are the forward core you need to win a cup. The Flames just F-ed up Bennett's development and Monahan got injured. Bad luck/management. That's what separates the champions from the rest. And we've still got posters in here stating that the problem with the last rebuild was that it didn't go on for long enough.
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Calgary also had a Norris calibre Dman, plus Hamilton/Hanifin/Lindholm/etc along the way. Goaltending had a fair bit to do with not making it come together, plus the Monahan injury and whatever went on with Bennett. I'm not putting the latter all on the Flames - I think Bennett wasn't great here
but that he also recognized a second chance when he saw it and made it work.