Outside of MacKinnon, Rantanen was 10th Overall... Makar was 4th Overall lol... Kucherov 2nd Round, Point 3rd... come on man
Didn't we draft, Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson, Kasper, etc in the top 10?... Just chill
Agreed. People should relax.
Like you said, we have a core of potential star players. But don't forget Cossa. What will Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson, Kasper, and Cossa look like in 5 years? Probably at least a couple real stars in that group. Larkin and others will be the solid veterans. Berggren, Soderbloom, Wallinder, Mazur, and so many others have a real chance to become above-average complementary players. Who knows? Maybe Zadina, Veleno, or Lindstrom take the challenge and really thrive now that they have stiff competition for their positions. We're on the right track.
We also added player capital throughout the lineup. If we're not a playoff team in any of the next couple years, we'll pick up more picks, as the contracts of UFAs we added yesterday expire. Picks we otherwise wouldn't have had. We added six NHL players (including Pysyk) without subtracting any players. We have more trade capital than we did 48 hours ago which will lead to more picks and help us upgrade our roster through future trades. When it makes sense, we can use our increased capital and prospect pipeline to grab potential stars, who we can re-sign at the next few tradelines. The truth is, because of the past couple of days the Wings have more options to improve our team through future trades and UFA signings than we did when the week began.
The last couple days are a turning point in the rebuild. Now we're a competitive team that will be difficult to play against. It's the beginning phase of developing a culture of winning. By the time our top prospects reach 24, 25, 26 years old, it's easy to imagine us being a perennial contender without having to find more elite players only through the top of the draft. It all comes back to what will Sieder, Raymond, Cossa, Edvinsson, Kasper, or a surprise from rounds 2-7 (Wallinder?) look like in five years. Are they stars? And... whether we can further upgrade select positions through trades now that we have more player capital. I like our chances.