I think its possible market could push prices up to the point where Henrique and Vatrano could fetch 1st round picks individually, so pass for me.
Yep, that's a very plausible possibility...
The thing is, NHL is a long process league...
It's not like the NFL where most of 1st and 2nd rounders will make it the next year.
In the NHL, drafted players takes way longer to develop and there's a lot more uncertainty when it comes to development.
Where I wanna go with this is in such circumstances, when you have a chance to make it to the end, you go all in.
Furthermore, when you're a contender you're gonna pick late 1st round. And the probability of these picks turning into star players is actually pretty slim.
And you have about 50% probability to draft an NHL player... but an ordinary one.
So no wonder why NHL GMs of contending teams are distributing late 1st rd picks like candies when it comes to TD...
Because at the end of the day, you have to play it "all in" when you're close, in this league.
Here in MTL, we had a GM that p***yfooted when his team was a contender.
He feared spending his late 1st to get the top 6 center he lacked, hoping "to get into playoffs then anything can happen"...
The thing is he never won anything with the team as it was and all of his late 1st turned into flops...
At least if he tried...