Until a team without back-to-back top-5 draft picks wins a Stanley Cup, or even doesn’t get crushed in the SCF, I’m going to find it difficult to say that tanking wasn’t the right idea. We absolutely could have pulled it off and 2015 would have been perfect timing because McDavid was up in that year.
Had we gone full tank in 2015, we could have drafted Barzal. (Obv we could draft him anyway but in hindsight he is the best pick outside of McDavid and maybe Eichel). In 2016, if we tanked again, we could have had a shot at Tkachuk, Keller, McAvoy. Last year we probably would have been in a position to try and make minor improvement trade/signings and try to push us back to being a playoff team. We could have a young core of Hertl, Barzal, Sergachev, Tierney, LaBanc, Ryan, and whatever other players we traded our core players for.
We probably could have traded Logan Couture for Seth Jones since Jones got a struggling Ryan Johansen 1-for-1 and Couture is better than Johansen. A guy like Vlasic or Burns could probably have returned a player like Draisaitl in 2014. The other of that duo could have returned us another
It’s very realistic to say we could have a young core of the following:
Hertl-Barzal-Pavelski
X-Draisaitl-X
X-Tierney-LaBanc
Sergachev-Jones
Ryan-X
The 2016-2017 season would be a season to try to make the playoffs. A UFA signing like Boedker then wouldn’t have been a bad idea at all although he probably would have cost more. You get the team entirely out of the tank mentality and try to win. Maybe they don’t make the playoffs, but improvement is key. During this 2017-2018 season, doing exactly what DW did with Evander Kane wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.
Kane-Barzal-Pavelski
Hertl-Draisaitl-Boedker
Trade Acquisition-Tierney-LaBanc
Sergachev-Jones
Ryan-Trade/Homegrown pick
This is a fantastic core and one of these moves are very unrealistic or idealistic at all. I guess you’re assuming that our picks don’t bust, but you’re also assuming that we don’t win a single lottery. Realistically, you could be replacing Barzal with McDavid/Eichel, or Sergachev with Matthews/Laine/PLD, and potentially adding another elite core piece from any one of the Marleau/Thornton/Burns/Vlasic/Braun trades.