Sure, if it's the right player at the right price. But that's not likely. Grabbing a <=25YO defenceman who is good offensively and defensively is not something that comes along easily or cheaply.
And yes, the Juolevi and Virtanen picks were weak but Pettersson was an excellent pick (look at the next five guys taken; Pettersson was generally rated in the 5 - 10 range) and Hughes was a good pick at #7. Can't just look at the busts and ignore the booms.
Absolutely, cannot just look at the busts, but even Hughes has a huge hole in his game and not likely to become much better, size counts. He will be exciting to watch in the regular season no doubt but I wonder about playoffs and the grind, he is really small so I am not sure he is as good as advertised, points sure, maybe he should be a forward instead where size isn't as important.
There will be teams that are like the Canucks, half way through a rebuild or retooling that might be leveraged into a trade. Columbus, Tampa, Arizona, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh no doubt there would be many team interested in a #9 pick if for nothing else but for marketing and future cap management.
Some teams are just in financial need.
The team should consider a Colorado type rebuild, they had some good players and turned them into more good players by trading away, essentially time.
Since Sakic took over they have gone from playoffs to the bottom and now cup favourites.
Next two years are loaded with highly skilled and deep as well.
Benning stated two years to get the cap corrected, that should mean two years of building real hard. Is finishing 29 to 32 that much worse than 25th to 27th? Especially with Wright and Beddard coming up in the next two drafts after this year?
An exchange of 1rsts with say the Pens? In 2 years Malkin and Crosby might be close to being done and the Pens are bottom 5, with an extra chance for a top pick ight be a good deal.
