18/19 Tank Tracker Part Deux

[obey86]

That's a strawman. Rules are irrelevant to the fact that Cup winners have lottery players. Just because the new rules make it harder doesn't change that fact.

That's a straw man. Changes in scouting are irrelevant to the fact that the Red Wings won the cup without a top 3 pick.

Just because scouting differences make it harder to find the next Zetterberg, doesn't change that fact.

 

[The Zermanator]

One thing to keep in mind is that we're likely drafting higher than anyone else in our division this year... could be a similar story next year (but probably Ottawa still sucks).

Why compare what we have now, when we know the process of rebuilding will result in us getting an injection of a lot of talent? We have a 9th OA pick who is just scratching the surface of becoming an NHLer. We have a 6th OA player who has just played 9 games. We are getting a top 5-6 pick this year. Likely next year too.
Combine that with our non top-10 drafting; Larkin, Mantha, Bertuzzi, Hronek, Cholowski, Veleno, Berggren, McIsaac, Athanasiou.. and you see why I'm not pessimistic about the Wings.
High-end picks + good depth drafting = success.

Yes some other teams in the division have more guys that are "proven" as high-caliber guy.. but they're also not drafting as high, drafting as often, and they don't have as much young talent being developed. Thinking we won't be able to compete would be as foolish as sitting on top as the Wings did in 2008 or 2009 and thinking it will last forever.

Those other teams don't need to draft as high though, they already have their superstar lottery guys. Tampa is perfect as it is, Toronto just needs tweaks. Florida and Buffalo are more works in progress but we will see how both do next season with new coaches, particularly Florida with Quenneville.

As nice as our young players are now, no one is elite outside of Larkin. And the #5-10 picks don't have nearly the success rate for producing elite players that we should be penciling in Rasmussen or Zadina as stars just yet. That's the beauty of a lottery pick and why they have been so transformative to so many teams, you can pencil them in as stars with a high degree of confidence because the odds are very good.

 

[The Zermanator]

That's a straw man. Changes in scouting are irrelevant to the fact that the Red Wings won the cup without a top 3 pick.

Just because scouting differences make it harder to find the next Zetterberg, doesn't change that fact.

Not harder, impossible. I mentioned at some point that the only 5th or later rd stars to be picked since the lockout are Benn and Klingberg. Out of 1000+ players.

Your argument is illogical anyway. Lottery picks being harder to acquire does not mean it won't still be those same lottery players winning Cups for their teams.

 

[obey86]

Not harder, impossible. I mentioned at some point that the only 5th or later rd stars to be picked since the lockout are Benn and Klingberg. Out of 1000+ players.

Your argument is illogical anyway. Lottery picks being harder to acquire does not mean it won't still be those same lottery players winning Cups for their teams.

Your argument is illogical anyways. Zetterberg's being harder to find in the 7th round does not mean it won't still be that same player winning cups for their teams, even if now drafted earlier in the draft.

 

[obey86]

If Larkin was drafted top 3 in his draft instead of 15, does that mean we would meet the arbitrary top 3 draft requirements to potentially be a Stanley Cup winner dow the road?

 

[The Zermanator]

Your argument is illogical anyways. Zetterberg's being harder to find in the 7th round does not mean it won't still be that same player winning cups for their teams, even if now drafted earlier in the draft.

So I decided to be very generous and used the 3rd round as the cutoff rather than the 5th round. By my count there should be approx. 2100 players picked in that range (30 per round X 5 rounds X 13 drafts).

Since the lockout, the 3rd and later rounds have produced Benn, Marchand, Klingberg, Gaudreau, Point. 5 players. Out of 2100. A whopping 0.002% chance of finding our next Zetterberg. And then another 0.002% chance to find our next Datsyuk. Keep chasing them unicorns, kid.

edit: typo

 

[The Zermanator]

If Larkin was drafted top 3 in his draft instead of 15, does that mean we would meet the arbitrary top 3 draft requirements to potentially be a Stanley Cup winner dow the road?

I would argue no. Those Cup winners also had players who exceeded their draft expectations. Washington had Kuznetsov/Carlson, Pittsburgh had Letang, LA had Carter/Williams, Chicago had Hossa/Keith/Sharp/Seabrook, Anaheim had Getzlaf/Perry.

But they also all had a lottery pick to lead the team. That was what put them over the top. It's no coincidence that around 50% of the Conn Smythe winners since the lockout have been lottery picks. The only 2 players since the lockout to win a Conn Smythe who weren't either a lottery pick or a goalie, were Justin Williams and Henrik Zetterberg. And you can bet that Doughty was right there in the running when LA won. And had Pittsburgh won it would have been either Crosby or Malkin.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Those other teams don't need to draft as high though, they already have their superstar lottery guys. Tampa is perfect as it is, Toronto just needs tweaks. Florida and Buffalo are more works in progress but we will see how both do next season with new coaches, particularly Florida with Quenneville.

As nice as our young players are now, no one is elite outside of Larkin. And the #5-10 picks don't have nearly the success rate for producing elite players that we should be penciling in Rasmussen or Zadina as stars just yet. That's the beauty of a lottery pick and why they have been so transformative to so many teams, you can pencil them in as stars with a high degree of confidence because the odds are very good.

Yes and a few years ago LA and Chicago were perfect. And if we drafted Zadina at #2 instead of at #6?
Point is we are and will continue to be adding lots of young talent. Other teams such as Tampa and Toronto will experience cap problems and talent drain. It won't mean they disappear, but their window with the most stacked rosters could end. Lottery picks or not, we will add good players.

 

[Invictus12]

Please, enlighten me. What are these other avenues to success?



I'm not cherry-picking anything, I've accounted for every season since the lockout. The Cup has been won by a team with a lottery player (with roughly 50% of Conn Smythes also won by those very players, who are contenders in the years they don't win) every single year with 2 exceptions. And those 2 exceptions are wildly unrealistic in today's NHL. We're not getting another Lidstrom and we're not finding another Datsyuk/Zetterberg in the late rounds. The NHL isn't like that anymore, sorry. You can't buy players (cap) and you can't find superstars in the latest rounds because drafting is just too good these days. The only players chosen in the 5th or later I can think of in the cap era are Benn and Klingberg. If you're so interested in areas with lots of data, tell me the odds on that then.

So ignoring those two wins because they are exceptional circumstances that happen once in a blue moon, every single other Cup has been won by a team with a lottery pick.

And dismissing it because some of those teams have won several Cups makes no sense. 'You can't look at these wins because these lottery players ended up winning their teams multiple Cups...' And that's supposed to invalidate the tank argument??

As far as the bolded: So 80% of the teams had a lottery pick? And ~85% of the Cup winners had lottery picks (2/13)? Hmmm those numbers are similar, wonder if there's a correlation? Something that pushes you over the top...



Takes 4 rounds to win the Stanley Cup, Boston went to 7 games in 3 of those 4 rounds. On the backs of one of the best playoff goaltending performances of all time. In other words, despite having that level of goaltending the Bruins needed 7 games to win 3 rounds. The Canucks sh***ng the bed offensively and defensively in round 4 doesn't change that fact.

The Bruins won 4 games outscoring the Canucks 21-3. The Canucks won 3 games outscoring the Bruins 5-2. The Bruins had a wildly inconsistent offseason in terms of scoring goals, they'd score 0 or they'd score 6. Tim Thomas was a rock the whole way, all the way up to allowing 8 goals in 7 games in the Cup final. The Bruins won the Cup off the back of Thomas and an epic choke by the Canucks.

While yes, he was their MVP, it always take a whole team buddy. Boston was a team, overall, that will wear you down. So even if some team did get passed them in 2011, they would have been pretty battle worn going into the nedt series and perhaps, part of that, made Thomas' job a littlee easier as well. By your logic, quite frankly, we can sign Bobrovsky and perhaps win a cup? Hell, I can always make a selective case for any team.. If Williams doesn't go hot for LA, they don't win the cup. If Talbot doesn't have a great game 7, Pittsburgh don't win the cup. And quite frankly, Wings seemed to be able to dominate them at will...Except the will wasn't there for the first 2 periods of game 6 and 7... There's always ifs or buts, etc...

 

[Invictus12]

I would argue no. Those Cup winners also had players who exceeded their draft expectations. Washington had Kuznetsov/Carlson, Pittsburgh had Letang, LA had Carter/Williams, Chicago had Hossa/Keith/Sharp/Seabrook, Anaheim had Getzlaf/Perry.

But they also all had a lottery pick to lead the team. That was what put them over the top. It's no coincidence that around 50% of the Conn Smythe winners since the lockout have been lottery picks. The only 2 players since the lockout to win a Conn Smythe who weren't either a lottery pick or a goalie, were Justin Williams and Henrik Zetterberg. And you can bet that Doughty was right there in the running when LA won. And had Pittsburgh won it would have been either Crosby or Malkin.

What are you even suggesting here?Sell our young players so we can get the top 3 pick?

 

[obey86]

So I decided to be very generous and used the 3rd round as the cutoff rather than the 5th round. By my count there should be approx. 2100 players picked in that range (30 per round X 5 rounds X 13 drafts).

Since the lockout, the 3rd and later rounds have produced Benn, Marchand, Klingberg, Gaudreau, Point. 5 players. Out of 2100. A whopping 0.002% chance of finding our next Zetterberg. And then another 0.002% chance to find our next Datsyuk. Keep chasing them unicorns, kid.

edit: typo

Can you doublecheck how many Crosbys and Malkins have been produced since Crosby and Malkin?

 

[The Zermanator]

Yes and a few years ago LA and Chicago were perfect. And if we drafted Zadina at #2 instead of at #6?
Point is we are and will continue to be adding lots of young talent. Other teams such as Tampa and Toronto will experience cap problems and talent drain. It won't mean they disappear, but their window with the most stacked rosters could end. Lottery picks or not, we will add good players.

I don't understand what this has to do with anything? Yeah they were perfect and aren't anymore. The result: 5 Stanley Cups. Can't really argue with the path they chose.

We didn't draft Zadina at 2, we drafted him at 6. I'm sure there were plenty of players drafted in the years before him who 'could have' been drafted earlier. But they weren't. And the ones chosen earlier still tend to be better by a good margin, regardless of where people might have thought they would go prior to the draft. The balance of quality between the top 3 vs 4-10 remains.

Those teams will experience cap problems and talent drain because they have the kinds of players that command $10M+ salaries. The types of players who win you Cups. We may add good players, but we may not. You are treating a #6-10 pick as having a similar potential to be a star as a top 3. They just don't. Actual bona fide stars are far less common there.

I'll try to summarize how I view the difference between a lottery pick vs a later top 10 pick as succinctly as I can. Top 10 picks get you a player you can reasonably pencil in as an NHL player before he ever sets foot on an NHL rink. You don't know how good exactly, it can range anywhere from a bottom 6 plug to a bona fide star. Most commonly though, you end up with a good/great but not elite player.

Lottery picks, on the other hand, are players you can reasonably pencil in as a good/great player, with a very good chance at an elite player. Outright busts are very uncommon.

 

[The Zermanator]

While yes, he was their MVP, it always take a whole team buddy. Boston was a team, overall, that will wear you down. So even if some team did get passed them in 2011, they would have been pretty battle worn going into the nedt series and perhaps, part of that, made Thomas' job a littlee easier as well. By your logic, quite frankly, we can sign Bobrovsky and perhaps win a cup? Hell, I can always make a selective case for any team.. If Williams doesn't go hot for LA, they don't win the cup. If Talbot doesn't have a great game 7, Pittsburgh don't win the cup. And quite frankly, Wings seemed to be able to dominate them at will...Except the will wasn't there for the first 2 periods of game 6 and 7... There's always ifs or buts, etc...

Of course it takes a team, no one in the history of hockey has suggested otherwise. Replace Thomas' stats with even above average stats though and that team doesn't win the Cup. No ifs, ands, or buts. Without superhuman performances from Thomas in 2011 (and Rask in 2013) the Bruins finish exactly where they did every other year in that era, with a 1st or 2nd rd exit.

What are you even suggesting here?Sell our young players so we can get the top 3 pick?

I'm not suggesting anything. Merely pointing out what the available evidence has to suggest about the importance of lottery players to winning Cups, ie. vital. For those who think Larkin alone will be competing with the next wave of lottery beneficiaries.

Can you doublecheck how many Crosbys and Malkins have been produced since Crosby and Malkin?

Oh I don't have to double check at all, it's 0. And this has to do with what exactly? What are you refuting?

 

[obey86]

We didn't draft Zadina at 2, we drafted him at 6. I'm sure there were plenty of players drafted in the years before him who 'could have' been drafted earlier. But they weren't. And the ones chosen earlier still tend to be better by a good margin, regardless of where people might have thought they would go prior to the draft. The balance of quality between the top 3 vs 4-10 remains.

Don't you see that there is a difference between looking at draft pick averages, and looking at one, specific individual player?

Like, i'm sure the average #15 pick isn't as good as Larkin, but when comparing him to another player or a higher draft pick we don't use the average draft pick at #15...we look at specifically him, and his individual play and skill set.

The #6 pick from the 2018 draft for the Wings isn't some hypothetical unknown anymore based on draft averages. It's Filip Zadina. Critique him and his skill set, not the average #6 pick. If he's going to bust it's not because he was the #6 pick and not the #3 pick...it's because he doesn't work hard enough or skate well enough or whatever.

 

[The Zermanator]

Don't you see that there is a difference between looking at draft pick averages, and looking at one, specific individual player?

Like, i'm sure the average #15 pick isn't as good as Larkin, but when comparing him to another player or a higher draft pick we don't use the average draft pick at #15...we look at specifically him, and his individual play and skill set.

The #6 pick from the 2018 draft for the Wings isn't a hypothetical anymore based on draft averages. It's Zadina. Critique him and his skill set, not the average #6 pick.

Of course we look at the individual. And what has Zadina done so far to make you think he's more than his draft position? How has he set himself apart from the players picked at 2-5?

Saying that Zadina is like a #2 or 3 is completely baseless. He's a #6, that's where he was picked so at this point in time all we can do is look at the success rate of a #6 pick. The fact that Larkin exceeded his draft position doesn't mean Zadina will.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I don't understand what this has to do with anything? Yeah they were perfect and aren't anymore. The result: 5 Stanley Cups. Can't really argue with the path they chose.

We didn't draft Zadina at 2, we drafted him at 6. I'm sure there were plenty of players drafted in the years before him who 'could have' been drafted earlier. But they weren't. And the ones chosen earlier still tend to be better by a good margin, regardless of where people might have thought they would go prior to the draft. The balance of quality between the top 3 vs 4-10 remains.

Those teams will experience cap problems and talent drain because they have the kinds of players that command $10M+ salaries. The types of players who win you Cups. We may add good players, but we may not. You are treating a #6-10 pick as having a similar potential to be a star as a top 3. They just don't. Actual bona fide stars are far less common there.

I'll try to summarize how I view the difference between a lottery pick vs a later top 10 pick as succinctly as I can. Top 10 picks get you a player you can reasonably pencil in as an NHL player before he ever sets foot on an NHL rink. You don't know how good exactly, it can range anywhere from a bottom 6 plug to a bona fide star. Most commonly though, you end up with a good/great but not elite player.

Lottery picks, on the other hand, are players you can reasonably pencil in as a good/great player, with a very good chance at an elite player. Outright busts are very uncommon.

It shows that teams that look awesome and set up for a long time can quickly decline... a bit of cap problem, and 1-2 key players declining is all it takes. We should look ~5 years forward for when we might contend (at earliest), and a lot can happen in that time. Whether or not Tampa wins 4 cups in a row starting this year is meaningless for their impact in stopping the Wings for when our kids hit their prime.

I personally think you overrated the lottery picks. There are years like 2012 when the top 3 sucks. In 2014 the top 2 have been surpassed by a lot of players in a re-draft. 2011 was solid but not far ahead of the rest of the top 10. In 2017 the #5OA looks way better than the top 2. Etc.etc.

They are important but not all drafts are created equal. And most of all; what the heck can we do? If the ping-pong balls don't favor us, they don't favor us. It's the reality of today's NHL. If you don't get lottery picks, you gotta trust in your ability to get the most out of the picks you do have. I believe we can do that. Other teams have found plenty of players at #4-10 that we drool over, now suddenly that we're drafting there everyone talks as if those picks are garbage.

 

[obey86]

Of course we look at the individual. And what has Zadina done so far to make you think he's more than his draft position? How has he set himself apart from the players picked at 2-5?

Saying that Zadina is like a #2 or 3 is completely baseless. He's a #6, that's where he was picked so at this point in time all we can do is look at the success rate of a #6 pick. The fact that Larkin exceeded his draft position doesn't mean Zadina will.

Sentence #1: Absolutely, 100%, incorrect. At this point we know who the draft pick is. It's Zadina. He is no longer an average of players drafted #6, like he was pre-draft. He is a unique player with a unique skill set who we can now evaluate based on his stats and watching him play and develop. If you think he has a 50% chance to bust based on that, that's one thing. If you think he has a 50% chance to bust based on simply where he was drafted, that's just silly. We can evaluate the individual player at this point, there is no reason to resort to hypothetical, averages from unknown players any more.

Sentence #2: Never said it did. And the fact that the Red Wings won the #6 pick and took Zadina at #6 instead of winning the #3 pick and taking Zadina at #3 doesn't mean he has a higher chance of busting which is what you seem to be implying.

 

[RedHawkDown]

It shows that teams that look awesome and set up for a long time can quickly decline... a bit of cap problem, and 1-2 key players declining is all it takes. We should look ~5 years forward for when we might contend (at earliest), and a lot can happen in that time. Whether or not Tampa wins 4 cups in a row starting this year is meaningless for their impact in stopping the Wings for when our kids hit their prime.

I personally think you overrated the lottery picks. There are years like 2012 when the top 3 sucks. In 2014 the top 2 have been surpassed by a lot of players in a re-draft. 2011 was solid but not far ahead of the rest of the top 10. In 2017 the #5OA looks way better than the top 2. Etc.etc.

They are important but not all drafts are created equal. And most of all; what the heck can we do? If the ping-pong balls don't favor us, they don't favor us. It's the reality of today's NHL. If you don't get lottery picks, you gotta trust in your ability to get the most out of the picks you do have. I believe we can do that. Other teams have found plenty of players at #4-10 that we drool over, now suddenly that we're drafting there everyone talks as if those picks are garbage.

This summarizes my feelings quite well. Couldn't have said it better.

 

[The Zermanator]

It shows that teams that look awesome and set up for a long time can quickly decline... a bit of cap problem, and 1-2 key players declining is all it takes. We should look ~5 years forward for when we might contend (at earliest), and a lot can happen in that time. Whether or not Tampa wins 4 cups in a row starting this year is meaningless for their impact in stopping the Wings for when our kids hit their prime.

I personally think you overrated the lottery picks. There are years like 2012 when the top 3 sucks. In 2014 the top 2 have been surpassed by a lot of players in a re-draft. 2011 was solid but not far ahead of the rest of the top 10. In 2017 the #5OA looks way better than the top 2. Etc.etc.

They are important but not all drafts are created equal. And most of all; what the heck can we do? If the ping-pong balls don't favor us, they don't favor us. It's the reality of today's NHL. If you don't get lottery picks, you gotta trust in your ability to get the most out of the picks you do have. I believe we can do that. Other teams have found plenty of players at #4-10 that we drool over, now suddenly that we're drafting there everyone talks as if those picks are garbage.

As for your first paragraph, none of that refutes the contention that lottery players are what it takes to truly contend for a Cup.

Sure there are 'down' draft years, but it's still all relative. Even in those drafts, the top end still tends to look better than the players chosen later, the balance remains largely the same. I disagree about 2014, Larkin and Pastrnak have broken out as stars but otherwise you have 50-goal, 100pt Draisatl, 60pt Reinhart, and #1 dman Ekblad. Still a respectable top 3 and all better players than the rest of the top 10. I'm not going to do a deep dive into the specifics of each draft but the odds are still heavily balanced towards the top 3.

I agree that with the lottery the way it's structured you need luck. There's not much you can do apart from cross your fingers. But I disagree that there are 'plenty' of players we drool over in the top 10. Or at least I don't so much disagree as much as I would amend the statement. There are plenty of players we would drool over, and there are just as many players that we would be livid if that's what our picks turn into. For every Monahan there is a Virtanen. There are twice as many kicks at the can from #5-10 as there are from #1-3, with half as many stars to show for it. I'm not really suggesting anything other than how important lottery picks are.

Sentence #1: Absolutely, 100%, incorrect. At this point we know who the draft pick is. It's Zadina. He is no longer an average of players drafted #6, like he was pre-draft. He is a unique player with a unique skill set who we can now evaluate based on his stats and watching him play and develop. If you think he has a 50% chance to bust based on that, that's one thing. If you think he has a 50% chance to bust based on simply where he was drafted, that's just silly. We can evaluate the individual player at this point, there is no reason to resort to hypothetical, averages from unknown players any more.

Sentence #2: Never said it did. And the fact that the Red Wings won the #6 pick and took Zadina at #6 instead of winning the #3 pick and taking Zadina at #3 doesn't mean he has a higher chance of busting which is what you seem to be implying.

The first sentence is not incorrect at all. Yeah we know it's Zadina specifically, just like every other team who ever picked at 6th knew who their player was. Some made it, others didn't. Some became stars, most didn't. Now that we know it's Zadina, what has he done that has you so confident that he will surpass the average of his draft position?

But again, why are you talking about Zadina in a hypothetical scenario where he was picked 3rd? He wasn't picked 3rd he was picked 6th. Who says they would have picked Zadina had they gotten the 3rd OA? The fact is the teams that picked 3rd-5th chose other players because they thought those players were better.

 

[plymouthmi]

So I decided to be very generous and used the 3rd round as the cutoff rather than the 5th round. By my count there should be approx. 2100 players picked in that range (30 per round X 5 rounds X 13 drafts).

Since the lockout, the 3rd and later rounds have produced Benn, Marchand, Klingberg, Gaudreau, Point. 5 players. Out of 2100. A whopping 0.002% chance of finding our next Zetterberg. And then another 0.002% chance to find our next Datsyuk. Keep chasing them unicorns, kid.

It seems like you are responding to an argument that no one ever made. I think the argument is that we don't need a lottery pick because we can find an elite player at pick #6 (or wherever we wind up in the first round), not that we don't need a lottery pick because we can find our elite player in rounds 3-7. I haven't noticed a bunch of people saying the latter.

 

[The Zermanator]

It seems like you are responding to an argument that no one ever made. I think the argument is that we don't need a lottery pick because we can find an elite player at pick #6 (or wherever we wind up in the first round), not that we don't need a lottery pick because we can find our elite player in rounds 3-7. I haven't noticed a bunch of people saying the latter.

That was in response to someone suggesting finding a Datsyuk/Zetterberg in the late rounds was a possibility.

I've never argued that you can't find an elite player beyond the lottery. Merely pointing out objective facts about who won Stanley Cups since the lockout and how, and some people have a hard time facing facts.

 

[Invictus12]

Of course it takes a team, no one in the history of hockey has suggested otherwise. Replace Thomas' stats with even above average stats though and that team doesn't win the Cup. No ifs, ands, or buts. Without superhuman performances from Thomas in 2011 (and Rask in 2013) the Bruins finish exactly where they did every other year in that era, with a 1st or 2nd rd exit.



I'm not suggesting anything. Merely pointing out what the available evidence has to suggest about the importance of lottery players to winning Cups, ie. vital. For those who think Larkin alone will be competing with the next wave of lottery beneficiaries.



Oh I don't have to double check at all, it's 0. And this has to do with what exactly? What are you refuting?

Well, I'm pretty sure Thomas wasn't a lottery pick... What you are actually saying is that it's the impact players that are so important to compete for a cup. Both Sedins made the finals and they weren't lotto picks but they were impact players. Larkin, I think, is an impact player. It really doesn't matter to me if he was picked 3rd or a 103rd... It still remains to be seen what Zadina is and he was projected 3rd by many. Veleno is certainly making a case for himself. I would love it if we win the lotto but I also think we have a guy or two with a real shot at being the type of player you speak of.

 

[The Zermanator]

Well, I'm pretty sure Thomas wasn't a lottery pick... What you are actually saying is that it's the impact players that are so important to compete for a cup. Both Sedins made the finals and they weren't lotto picks but they were impact players. Larkin, I think, is an impact player. It really doesn't matter to me if he was picked 3rd or a 103rd... It still remains to be seen what Zadina is and he was projected 3rd by many. Veleno is certainly making a case for himself. I would love it if we win the lotto but I also think we have a guy or two with a real shot at being the type of player you speak of.

Well you'll have to read the whole thread to get the full picture as I've already gone over this. I have said there are 2 exceptions for Cup winners needing lottery players in the cap era, and have explained why both are unrealistic expectations. In Boston's case, it was Thomas having a superhuman breakout in his mid 30s. Not a lottery pick true, but not something you can really plan for either. Thus making it irrelevant to discussing this or any other team's future.

There was no lottery at the time but the Sedins were picked 2 and 3 respectively. Those are lottery positions.

Yes Larkin is an impact player, no argument there. But to that I say what I've already said several times. How does Larkin by himself compete with teams with elite lottery picks? Those teams all have their AAs and Manthas, and in addition they have several elite players. We have one elite player with several complementary pieces. The players chosen in the latter half of the top 10 are more likely to be complementary pieces like AA and Mantha than they are elite players.

 

[jkutswings]

That's a straw man. Changes in scouting are irrelevant to the fact that the Red Wings won the cup without a top 3 pick.

Just because scouting differences make it harder to find the next Zetterberg, doesn't change that fact.

For the sake of discussion, let's throw some arbitrary numbers out there:

Say, over a large sample size, 80% of Cup winning teams have one or more top 3 picks. Meaning, it's possible to win without them, but winning with one or more happens roughly 4 times more frequently.

Going forward, I don't have faith that the current staff is good enough and lucky enough to be in that 20 percent.

I love many of the moves they've made since they embraced the rebuild. I think Larkin has been a borderline revelation. I think Bertuzzi has already done more than I thought he ever would. I think Hronek and Veleno are well ahead of my expected development.

But I also think that The Detroit Red Wings, barring either:

A) a top 3 pick or
B) significant turnover in the front office and scouting staff,

won't ever land a #1 defenseman or a center better than Larkin. Which means they'll build a playoff team, but one that I think will top out as a second round exit type of roster.

I don't say this to imply that I've already labeled this rebuild a failure. I say this hoping that A and/or B happens in the near future, and the good results accumulated thus far get kicked up another notch, and down the road there's a real shot to be in the top half dozen teams, with a solid chance to go on one or more deep deep playoff runs.

It's asking for a tail wind, to help some very good efforts reach another level of potential.

 

[Invictus12]

Okay, Sedins were a bad example... For some reason I was under the impression they were taken later on, mid-picks. But again, you're mostly looking at that one guy that was a lotto pick thats an impact player and ignore the rest of the impact players. Take Flyers in 2010... Richards, Carter, Giroux... Pronger was a top pick but he was traded for... Chicago in 2010, Hossa, Seabrook, Keith. Take just about all the teams in cup finals and there's a several impact players that weren't lotto picks. Or were lotto picks but were traded for by the team. And thats just at the very top. You take teams from conference finals and you get the same picture. On the other hand, you have Edmonton and Buffalo winning the lotto year after year and well, we all know the story. Toronto looks well but still has ways to go. The only team that really built entirely on the lotto so far has been Pittsburgh and even then, it took the right kind of supporting cast around Crosby and Malkin. If we land Karlsson for instance and I don't know where he was drafted but, he's an impact player... Will it matter where he was picked. Hell, if we get really lucky and get Panarin as well, I'llbe shocked if we're not playoff bound unless some serious injuries plague hits... Overall, there are many ways to obtain a really good player and if we don't hit on a top 3 this year, (or even if we do) there are plenty of options that can and should be explored that will give us just as much of a shot at competing.

Ultimately, I don't see the recipe here, more like a statistical coincidence. In a 15 year period, you get 45 potential players and very few will remain with their teams for the entire career. So teams like NJ and Philadelphia went to finals without drafting at the top. When was the last time SJ or St Louis that high?