There is a bit of selection bias here. How many teams had a top-3 pick on their roster but didn't win a cup?
Re-Tool or full on Rebuild?
- Thread starter Kaapodonna
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There is a bit of selection bias here. How many teams had a top-3 pick on their roster but didn't win a cup?
By an overwhelming majority, 179 out of 221 to date, the board agrees with me: 
"Keep our young core and build around them."
Dismiss bernmeister at your own peril!
"Keep our young core and build around them."
Dismiss bernmeister at your own peril!
Amazing Kreiderman
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- Apr 11, 2011
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In the 10 years since the full lock-out there have been 30 players drafted in the top-3.
Players who won a Cup:
Sidney Crosby
Jordan Staal
Jonathan Toews
Patrick Kane
Drew Doughty
Tyler Seguin
Players who didn't:
Bobby Ryan
Jack Johnson
Erik Johnson
James van Riemsdyk
Kyle Turris
Steven Stamkos
Zach Bogosian
John Tavares
Victor Hedman
Matt Duchene
Taylor Hall
Erik Gudbranson
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Gabriel Landeskog
Jonathan Huberdeau
Nail Yakupov
Ryan Murray
Alex Galchenyuk
Nathan MacKinnon
Aleksander Barkov
Jonathan Drouin
Aaron Ekblad
Sam Reinhart
Leon Draisaitl
Samuel Culper III
Mr. Woodhull...
Stamkos, Hedman & Drouin.
Ekblad, Barkov & Huberdeau. Gudbranson was used as a trade chip.
Could have pretty good chances soon.
Draisaitl, RNH & Yak (Hall applies to the logic). McDavid as well. All could have a chance it Edmonton gets it together. Hall will have been used as a chip to build the winner (Larsson is a high pick as well). Others may be traded as well.
Ditto Mackinnon, Duchene, Landeskog, EJ. Plenty of time for Colorado to put it together. Doesn't look likely but who knows.
Ditto Reinhart and Eichel (and Bogosian, barring trade) in Buffalo. Could become a contender.
Tavares and the Islanders could still be very good.
It's basically too early in most of those players' careers to use the list to prove/disprove the necessity of top picks in winning. What if Tampa wins this year and Florida/Buffalo become contenders? Or Edmonton finally gets it together? Drastically changes the results. Obviousl zero guarantees but players who "did not win" should probably be "haven't won yet". Can we really say that Stamkos and Hedman "did not win"? Their careers aren't over and their team is clearly going to be in the running for a bit. I know it's semantics, but these are young players and some in very promising positions. They haven't won yet but it doesn't mean they will not.
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BroadwayStorm
Registered User
KingWantsCup
#FightLikeHell
After the idiocy that occurred with several trades today, I think it may be possible to rebuild this team without tanking. The stupidity of GMs in this league must never be underestimated...
Whiplash27
Quattro!!
RangerBoy
Dolan sucks!!!
Nashville traded Shea Weber and New Jersey traded Adam Larsson. If Weber was available to the Rangers,8 out of 10 people here would jump at him. Larsson was the 4th pick overall five years ago. Edmonton should have gotten more for Hall. Still Larsson is a good player.
Who do the Rangers have to trade to acquire players like Subban and Hall?
Amazing Kreiderman
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AIexisLafreniereNYR
Registered Drug User
Marc Savard.
We weren't patient enough. The signs were there. That was an awful trade.
He was putting up 100-point seasons before the concussions. Hell, he might still be playing if he was never traded.
#whatmightvebeen
I'm not of the opinion that we should rebuild because we don't have a good enough team and cant be contenders with a couple solid moves. Im of the opinion that we have solid assets to put us in a position to consistently compete for multiple cups rather than seemingly be 1 move away or a slight retool every summer. If you look at how the current team was built it was by developing a solid homegrown core with guys like Dubi, Cally, Anismov, Staal, Girardi and eventually Step, McD, & Del Zotto were all apart of that group. We used some of these guys to upgrade and futher supplement the team with our draft picks (Kreider, JT Miller, Fast). We have a solid young core we could again build around in Kreider, Miller, Hayes, Buch, McD, Skjei, McI, Graves and despite the round drafted Day and Reunanen may have a solid future. Move some vets for solid prospects and picks and with this core being more skilled than the past one we can potentially build a far superior team. But.. we all know no rebuild will ever happen so its a nice fantasy at least
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Dijock94
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- Apr 1, 2016
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Amonte? Kovalev? Weight? We have had a few superstars. We just didn't keep them
Glen Sathers Cigar
Sather 4 Ever
This is pretty different, though.
It was about teams that have won cups after lockout. The top 3 pick itself could have been from the 90s.
True. It's basically "players who won a Cup before they turned 29/30" and those who haven't...yet. Lots of youth on that list.
I think it's obvious that this team lacks an identity.
It was effort and commitment to team defense under Torts.
It was then "speed kills" under AV when we actually had a fast team.
Now we're stuck in this middle ground without Hagelin, Pouliot, Cally/MSL on the wings, and without character guys like Stralman, Boyle, Dorsett, and it looks like Moore will be shown the door.
What's this team's identity?
We don't have a single shoot-first player on the entire team.
We have a bunch of pass-first playmakers and ZERO finishers. That's why I kept pushing Stamkos if he made it to July 1st.
How do we get faster, younger, AND add some goal scoring?
I'm afraid things may get worse before they get better.
Edge
Kris King's Ghost
Couldn't tell you. But admitedly that's not what I was looking for.
I was looking strictly at teams that won a cup --- not ran as contenders, or middle of the road teams.
I'll venture a guess that if one were to look at teams that played for a Stanley cup in the last 15 years, the vast majority of them had a guy taken in the top 3 who was aged 30 or younger.
That's not to say it's the only factor, or that it's a sure-fire recipe for success, but I certainly believe it has a critical impact on the odds. The level of talent you typically find with those top three picks is pretty significant.
Does Rick Nash count? In your opinion, what kind of organization has a better chance of building a cup winner, one which evaluates prospects and drafts well, or one which evaluates veteran players and manages the cap well?
Edge
Kris King's Ghost
Yeah, I'd count Nash in that. Taking aside all other factors for a minute, the Rangers signing of Gaborik/ trade for Nash was to try and get the type of high end talent that typically exists at the very top of the draft.
As for your question, I'd say it's a 60/40 split.
You need to draft and develop players, it's incredibly difficult to just go out and sign your way into contention.
But you also can't be so in love with your prospects/young players that you refuse to move any of them to take the next step. Inevitably, you're going to have to move some of them to fill in the gaps.
The reason I lean towards drafting/evaluating younger talent is because the NHL is very much a young man's game. Getting those age 23-27 years, while a player is under team control, is very important --- both from a production and cap perspective.
You'll always get value for young talent if you have to move it --- even if it's not quite equal value. Veteran players are a bit more tricky, especially as it becomes more apparent that the shelf life of players is moving back towards the early 30s.
those 2 things aren't mutually exclusive though...evaluating prospects, drafting well and DEVELOPING those players is probably the #1 key to managing the cap.
its so important to have cheap young talent...and guys waiting in the wings when the cap forces you to lose players
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
I always think about the things Neil Smith did with the Rangers in getting them from being a good team to a great one. Dahlen for Gartner. Granato and Sandstrom for Nichols, who he turned into Messier. Turcotte for Larmer. All marks of not being so in love with your young players that you hold onto them just because you drafted and developed them. Granted that Smith went crazy with it from 1993 on.
It's just that when you think about what Sather tried to do, with the added benefit of free agency, there are some similarities in the sense that the team that was drafted and rebuilt didn't quite have enough high end talent, so he went outside the organization to find it.
