So it's really just piss poor management and ownership combined with some really bad luck. No team with this many top picks should be as bad as we are.
EDM says "hold my beer"
10 of their last 11 1st round picks have been 10th or better and of those 10 picks, 4 of them 1st overall.
a 3rd, 4th and 6th OV in there as well.
FLA drafts: (Tallon era)
2010 was the worst for amount of picks we had to not find a longterm cornerstone piece. Guds, Bjugstad, Petrovic, Howden, McFarland, Brickley, Brittain, Gallacher. Funny that Donskoi in the 4th and Hyman in the 5th are two of the better players out of that draft. Guds and Bjugstad have now played over 400 games each but I'd say Guds was the bigger disappointment between the two.
2011 was Huberdeau and Trocheck but the rest was meh
2012 was Matheson, other 4 have disappeared. (only had 5 picks, no 2nd round pick)
2013 was Barkov, McCoshen who may be a #5/6 for a couple years, Brown in the 6th, Weegar in the 7th round
2014 was Ekblad, Hawryluk, Lammikko and the other 3 are gone I'm pretty sure.
2015 was Crouse, Montembeault in 3rd, Schemitsch in 3rd (2nd AHL year), Malgin in the 4th and Bednard in 7th
2016 was Borgstrom, Mascherin (15g/29pts in 48 AHL games), Ang, Stillman, Mamin
2017 was Tippett, Heponiemi, Gildon, Inamoto and Repo (only had 5 picks)
And 2018 we already have Denisenko and Noel.
I think that 2017 draft group is going to be really good. Got a good chance of 3-4 NHL players there
The early drafts were pretty shaky but we found 3-4 cornerstone pieces in those first 4 years. Outside the 2015 Crouse blunder, we've been pretty good, they just haven't fully developed yet. I know it's been nearly a decade but we had to basically build up the entire core through being horrible for a long time. COL is just getting going, CGY as well. EDM and WPG have been slow builds. TOR, the richest franchise in the league are just now starting to see playoff hockey in nearly a decade.