I don't see staal coming back if we trade him.
I think if RF can't seriously upgrade the d next year (how?) then we're unlikely to make the playoffs. We'll probably be in the 5-14 range.
Some examples of guys taken in the 5-14 range:
5th pick
Morgan Rielly
Nino Niederreiter
Phil Kessel
Carey Price
Thomas Vanek
6th pick
Sean Monaham
OEL
Derick Brassard
Mikko Koivu
Scott Hartnell
7th pick
Matthew Dumba
Jeff Skinner
Jakub Voracek
Ryan Suter
Joffery Lupul
8th pick
Rasmus Ristolainen
Sean Couterier
Devin Setoguchi
Braydon Coburn
Sergei Samsonov (couldn't resist)
9th pick
Jacob Trouba
Dougie Hamilton
Mikael Granlund
Josh Bailey
Logan Couture
Dion Phaneuf
Rod Brind 'Amour
10th pick
Valeri Nichushkin
Jonas Brodin
Michael Frolik
Bobby Holick
Teemu Selanne
11th pick
Filip Forsberg
Ryan Ellis
Brandon Sutter
Anze Kopitar
Jeff Carter
12th pick
Cam Fowler
Tyler Myers
Ryan McDonagh
Marc Staal
Marian Hossa
13th pick
Brandon Gormley
Lars Eller
Jiri Tlusty
Dustin Brown
Alex Semin
Ales Hemsky
14th pick
Alexander Wennberg
Jaden Schwartz
Kevin Shattenkirk
Devan Dubnyck
Brent Seabrook
The point being is that there were plent of guys that didn't make it, under-performed, or were otherwise disappointments. But there are some seriously good NHLers taken with these picks. To me it has much less to do with draft position and more to do with effective scouting and player personnel analysis.
EDIT: I'm not saying that all of these guys are "seriously good NHLers"; I'm saying that many of them are and the rest are at worst pretty good.
