I have a hard time with this Blake hasn't done anything yet take. If you're a GM, holding on to your picks and trading players for a grand total of one extra 1st round draft pick does not guarantee your team going from the basement in terms of prospect depth to the consensus top prospect pool in 2-3 years. It's a hell of an accomplishment. Blake may not be the drafting mastermind, but it's under his leadership and he's given his front office team the tools they needed.
DL never had that type of success.
I just posted yesterday that HF had the Kings rated as having the #1 ranked prospect pool in the Spring of 2017 based upon Lombardi acquisitions and Bernier. Boyle and Tukonen were #'s 4 and 5 on the list. Fall of 2018 had them ranked #2 led by Doughty and followed by Bernier and Hickey and Teubert. All 1st round picks with only one of these being traded for which, c'mon Lombardi, was bad asset management with Cammalleri. Anyways, all of these guys were 1st round picks except O'Sullivan on the 2017 list (1st round talent but 2nd Round faller because of his issues) and Purcell at #5 on the 2018 list. Post Schenn draft had them ranked #5 with Hickey/Bernier/Schenn/Moller/Voynov. All 1st round picks at the top with 2nd round picks rounding it out.
Blake has had four first round picks, including 5OA with this pick currently ranked as the Kings #1 prospect until October when he'll slide to #2. Wheeler has the Top 5 as Turcotte/Kaliyev/Fagemo/Vilardi/Kupari. Three of his four first round picks--not even the one he traded for--along with a guy right at the top of the 2nd that fell because of "issues". None of us would blink if Kaliyev went at #22 instead of Bjornfot. Now, this list is prior to Madden being added and Wheeler has him in the Top 50 drafted players so he would slot ahead of Kupari but, again, this speaks to how you can build an impressive prospect pool by trading established talent for picks and prospects such as Madden. Having acquired so many picks and using all of your picks in the prior two drafts allows you to package an additional pick to target someone you want, i.e. Fagemo.
Anyways, the Kings were ranked #1 with Johnson/O'Sullivan/Bernier/Boyle/Tukonen. I think that Boyle made an all-star game somehow but none of the other guys even did that. Wheeler has three 2019 draft picks as the Kings Top 3 prospects. He's not a huge Bjornfot fan but he looks like a sure thing NHL player so Wheeler is living in a world here the Kings pull NHL'ers out of all of their first four picks in the 2019 draft. That's pretty insane and would be surprising to see actually happen.
If this 2019 draft plays out like some believe, then I'll agree that DL never had a draft like this. You are, however, believing that Blake's drafting is "night and day" better based on having the results of Lombardi's picks (let's just point out that "best defenseman on the team" last season in Roy is a DL pick) v. the tasty potential of Blake's. I sure as shit hope it all pans out but that tasty potential put Lombardi's pool at the top of the league as well--in one year on the job--and nobody in that Top 5 wound up being a difference maker. The Kings prospect with the greatest career in a Kings sweater at the time of that ranking is Trevor Lewis, unless you want to count Johnson for being used to get Carter.
While they weren't ranked last or next to it in 2017, Ottawa was generally in the mid-20s. In Wheeler's recent rankings, they are #7 and that is with losing the 4th overall last season in the horrible trade with Colorado. If they don't move that pick and simply hold it, they possibly have Byram right now and would legitimately be pushing LA for #1 seeing how Wheeler has Byram ranked ahead of Turcotte and Kaliyev. So there is another team that moved up considerably from 2017 and is probably #1 or 2 if they didn't blow things with the Duchene trade. If you hold on to your picks and then add additional picks/prospects by selling legit NHL talent, you should move up the rankings considerably after three drafts: especially if you mix in a Top 5 pick.