Two of those high picks, Spezza and Michalek, are both injury riddled and no longer seem to be playing at an "elite"level. Yeah Spezza is still near a point-per-game pace but can anyone really say it looks like he is controlling games this year? Phillips is thirty-six years old and no longer counts as a high pick that should be contributing to a team's success. In fact all three of those players are part the old "Ottawa Senators" and can't really be seen as part of the "rebuild".
Zibanejad is a clear example of why the rebuild wasn't actually a rebuild. Don't get me wrong he is a decent player, but he is not a game changing talent, and doesn't look like he is trending in that direction. Think of how much more of a difference a guy like Landeskog would have made during the past two years. As a retooling team Zibanejad is a nice piece. He just isn't the type of player you add to your team to lead them offensively into the future. (See Kane, Toews, Malkin, Crosby, Stamkos, Tavares, Matt Duchene)
Unfortunately you stopped reading my post before getting to the point where I said Ottawa failed to suck enough to get the shot at picking up elite talent in the 1-3 area of the draft. Ottawa does not lack talent at the prospect level. They've got plenty of prospects with NHL potential. They just don't have a lot of potential top 3/6 talent at the prospect level and that is a clear need for the team right now.
Just tired of hearing of Ottawa's supposed "rebuild" when in all reality they had one crappy year where they didn't even pick in the top 5 before making the playoffs for two years straight. The team lacks game changing forwards and that is only going to become more obvious as guys like Michalek and Spezza regress due to age/injuries and Ryan possibly walks as a FA.
