RE-HABS said:
(Tampa and Ottawa built strong teams through the draft and not every pick was a top 5 that got them where they are today, it's all about the strong scouting and what you get in the later rounds)
Excellent point, and one that I like to bring up at every available opportunity.
The common perception of Ottawa is that we sucked for so long, which gave us high draft picks, which is why we are strong picks now, when really, those picks helped, but have not been the driving factor of our success. These are the top 5 picks we received for being a poor team those early years (note, I don't include Yashin, as getting a top 3 pick is part of the expansion agreement).
Daigle - Absolute bust, with most of the rest of the first round picks being better than him.
Bonk - Turned out to be valuable, but only after years of patience. About 3 years after he was drafted, his value was so low, that Ottawa tried to trade him, but could find no takers.
Berard/Redden - We traded for Berard, who refused to play for us because of poor management. Pierre Gauthier came in, and was able to trade him for Redden, but that took a strong trade to happen, and not just the result of
Phillips - A solid asset from a weak draft year. A valuable contributor to a team, but not a franchise player by any means.
Compare that to all the drafting the Sens have done in later rounds, along with late first rounders:
Alfredsson, Hossa, Havlat, Volchenkov, Salo, Rachunek, Fisher, Dackell, Prusek, Vermette, Meszaros, Emery, etc.
Throw in some very effective trades, like trading the soon to be overpriced Yashin for Spezza and Chara, landing Lalime for next nothing, etc., and it's really hard to pin the success of the franchise on the selection of Daigle, Bonk, Berard and Phillips.