I don't understand how everyone want a forward no matter what with the history we have. The best pick we have make is Carey Price and the worst was Jesperi Kotkaniemi. The first one was the BPA no matter what and the second one was to fill a need.
Even if you don't need Hughes or Tkachuk, you do with it, because it's the guy to pick and in the long run everyone wins, more valuable assets/impact player you just need to be creative with it.
You don't build your team at the draft table it's a crapshoot even with a top pick if you want to build your team at the draft table you trade the pick for immediate help on a more mature players and not the potential of a young prospect; if you want something concrete you will reach your goal way faster with that.
People seem to have forget the last ERA of your next Big 3 with Hollywood Hainsey and Mike"I handle the puck like a grenade" Komisarek. We have a lot of d-man prospects but quantity doesn't mean quality we have 3 young guy with a special talent, Guhle can become a shutdown pair, Xhekaj a true heavyweight and Hutson a offensive dynamo. The first two are injury prone and the third one has size issue. After that, you have Reinbacher, Engstrom, Kornyushkov, Mailloux has potential top 4, maybe top 2 for the first one! We have 2 complete d-man in Guhle and Reinbacher, all the others have some flaws somewhere! Mailloux has all the tools in the world but how we will use him in the long run if Hutson and Matheson is here; I can't see Matheson stay if Hutson is ready in short term, I would have no use for an other offensive d-man like Barron or Mailloux knowing they will never touch the PP or close and how they respond at even strenght and their toolbox.
We need to stop thinking we are set at D, we are not even close yet. We can't keep a lead, we give 25 scoring chances each games and goalie need to do 5 miracle each games to be competitive and we can't keep the puck outside of the net in the PK! I know the young D-man will progress and become better, now it's like a jungle with the roster we have, but to believe the same pieces would become a shutdown D at maturity who will be able to contend year after year in the good window is to dream awaken! The team will change a lot in the next years and the "final" roster would not include 6 d-man coming from your prospects! When we will compete we will do like Colorado, Vegas and Tampa Bay looking for the best assets we can with what we have!
If the staff don't believe in the forward at your draft rank be creative and try to trade him for something you believe. I don't want to take a shortcut, we do the rebuild the right way, but because of their situation, I would make a call to Ottawa with a giant offer for Brady Tkachuk!
Your first + Mailloux or your first + Newhook has base to work on! Paid the big price for the guy you think who can help you to bring the next Stanley Cup and I think Tkachuk is a player like that; I would be ready to give one of my nuts to have him! With Tkachuk, everyone would be in the right chair in PP, Tkachuk-Slaf-Suzuki-Caufield on the 1st unit and Dach-Roy, 2 players who can drive the pp, on the second unit; it would be awesome and the best PP we have since 1995; HM to 2009!
I'm not sold on Newhook, not a bad player at all, but if everything goes well in 2 years it will be Newhook-Beck-Roy on the third line and if he not evolve his game to something else, became a PK guys or becoming a beast on 200 hundreds feets like Andrew Cogliano have do after understanding he was not good enough to be an offensive player, he would be a guy we need to replace for a guy like Lekhonen, a young Maroon, Paul or a young Perry because they add something valuable for a contender team more than a speedy player who can put some points on the sheets. Colorado have no use for him in their window, it will be the same case here if he don't improve and stop pencil this guy on the second line at least for the future, we are not losing since 3 years to contend with Newhook on the second line, be real for a second! I know we have lower your standard since 30 years because of the team we have over the time but it's not a reason to do the same mistake again and again!
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