After the top 5 it is an utter crap shoot. Teams trade up not because 13th is just better to have than 15, they trade up because everyone's list is different. That seems to be NHL fandom's dearly-held myth, so when their team wins a game, people go, "there goes our good draft position."
Nope. Sorry. There's 0% chance of making it. They should be losing out so they can draft Shamov. I really like him. Don't want to get stuck drafting someone like McGriff
Waa waa waaa the TB, Col, Pitt argument yet again. I don't know if you're willfully forgetting the Flames took Monahan, Bennett, and Tkachuk 6,4,6 respectively. They haven't cratered again since that little rebuild occurred. This is a mature team and they likely aren't going to be bad enough to get into the top 5 soon. Do you understand how bad Colorado was first for their mini rebuild with Duchene and Landeskog and then how historically awful they became to then draft Mackinnon and Makar? Tampa drafted Stamkos in 2008, and Hedman in 2009. When did Stamkos get his cup? 12 years after being drafted. The Bruins are having an all-time season this year. Where were their core players drafted? Marchand, Bergeron, were second round picks. Pasta, top 5 player in the league, was 26th. Hampus Lindholm and Zacha are former high picks who busted relatively speaking and were acquired via trade.
But if we don’t bottom out and perennially get top picks, how are we ever going to become as good as noted juggernauts like Columbus (five top 10 picks since 2012), Arizona (five top 10 picks, 3 top 5 picks since 2015), Buffalo (ten top 10 picks over the last 10 years which is crazy to type). Maybe if we get lucky, it’ll only take us eleven top 10 picks since 2007 like Edmonton to become… a wildcard team. Or even like Toronto, who just had to be bad from 2006 on until they could finally almost win a round last year. 14 years after our first top 3 pick, we might even win it all like the Colorado Avalanche did. Wouldn’t want to be stuck in mediocrity like the Bruins, Dallas Stars, that Minnesota team going on a run, or that Rangers team who used their high picks to get… 20ish goals this year.
Holy shit what a revelation!!
they aren't mediocre but they are not players you build around both were drafted as cornerstone pieces but never developed into those cornerstones otherwise they would still be with the Leafs and Panthers.
“Mediocre teams don’t win in cups” is an asinine statement, but plenty of teams go from mediocre to considered good the moment they start winning, people have a tendency to rewrite history. LA lost more games than they won the season they won the cup, St Louis was obviously was one of the worst teams in the league before winning. Anaheim won 29 games total the season prior before making the conference finals in 3 of 4 years. Do you think there is only good teams and bad teams just constantly switching places?
