Quote:
Originally Posted by Hackey
The Leafs obvious problem is goaltending, defense, and depth. They absolutely nailed their top picks landing Nylander, Marner, Matthews, in three consecutive drafts. They have never drafted higher than 15th since. They almost got to lucky to fast.
Where would they be without these guys?
To build a true contender you need to nail your high picks, draft well beyond these picks, make savvy trades and signings. The Leafs did one but failed at most of the others.
The problem I foresee for the Flames is they might do a good job in the areas the Leafs didn't, but landing those superstars to carry the team will be a challenge unless they get a few high picks. The whole point of the thread was to show how highly unlikely it is to land superstars outside of the top 5. For every Kucherov there are 1000 other guys who never amounted to anything.
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You can skip the nailing your high picks (or really almost any picks) if you are Vegas (I know they don’t count as a NHL team for this argument but I believe they are one). They have never had a top 5 picks and their drafting is horrific. They just nailed their trades and signings and outside of one player in their franchise history have never drafted a player who has averaged more than 0.5 points per game (41 point player) and outside of those two studs have never drafted a player who has averaged more than 0.3 points per game (25 point player). For at least one team all you need to do is make savvy trades and signings.
There literally is a team that demonstrates the answer to the question in the thread title is “yes”