Edmonton, Carolina, Arizona, Florida. No, what is ridiculous is the pro-tankers inability or unwillingness to count and reason.
Here are the Cup winners of the last few years and their top picks 12 years previous to their cup wins.
Washington: Forsberg, Vrana, Alzner - Forsberg and Alzner were not there for the win and they got nothing in return for them. I'll even throw in Ovechkin.
Chicago: Kane, Toews, Skille, Baker, Seabrooke - only three of those players contributed
L.A. Schenn, Doughty, Hickey, Kopitar, Bernier - two players were there for the cup wins -two got them spare parts in trades - Schenn was part of a big trade
Pittsburg: Pouliot, Staal, Crosby, Malkin
Presently top picks in the organization we have Drouin, Kotkaniemi, Price, Suzuki, Domi and Alzner lol(the joker of the group). Without counting the joker we have 5 top picks in the organization more than any of the previous cup winners of the past 10 years. How many top picks would you like to have? 10? 20?
So take your freaking condescending attitude and shove it in your pipe and smoke it. Before you insult people you better make sure you know what the phuck you're talking about. We've tanked 2 of the last 3 years, 3 of the last 6 and we got 4 top picks in the last 13 years. It's time to start building through trades and UFAs like ALL the cup winners of the past 10 years (which would include Boston). They didn't play like losers for 12 years and just reaped top picks after top picks. But if you listen to the pro-tankers that's the best way to build a team. To be a perennial loser.
Your arguments are so convulated and all over the place.
You take series of examples that exclude other contenders, as if by definition, only cup winners are contenders. All four of those teams had many top 5 and top 10 picks notwithstanding an arbitrary number of years for their picks (which excludes Ovy and Backstrom in Washington's case).
The point is not to be a perrenial loser. The point is having holes in our asset pool for the time being until our last few drafts come to fruition. You WON'T be able to fill this lack of assets by trading as this only scales up your asset pool by small increments and there are only so few trades you can make, and forget about the UFA market. Bergevin is quoted as saying he doesn't believe in it AND hasn't had much success in it except for one signing in 6 years.
The only way to add premium assets is through draft picks, whether you trade them or bank them.
Now that's where the choice lies. Either you want to compete and trade futures to forgo development years, or you become consequent with the lack of assets to compete in the present moment and need to develop a young asset base. The choice also lies in knowing whether your present youth base is strong enough going further or do we need to add to it. I think most will agree that despite having a few really good prospects, if the actual goal is to build a contender then you need to keep filling until you feel you have enough. I don't see us competing at the moment, and I don't think our asset pool is strong enough for the future, although it's a lot closer now, which means we won't have to do this excercise for that many years. You need to this excercise yearly. You can't be in between telling yourself "Oh you want 7 years of tanking". It's just ridiculous. I feel that considering the age of some of our better prospects, we are right now at a minimum of 2 years before really competing.
The point is about where we are RIGHT NOW. WE. Not Buffalo. Not Chicago. Not in 2 years, not 2 years ago, not 5 years from now.
The point is that we don't have the assets to compete in the present, even with Weber back, it is obvious this defense won't take us anywhere further than top 15-20 limbo. The other part of where we are is where are our best prospects? Almost all between 18 and 21 and they are the bigger part of our asset pool. Our best prospects all need seasoning before they'll have an impact. For this year, for this season, the logical thing would be to sell some of the older pieces that you might not keep by the time those prospects will be seasoned enough. What will be Weber's worth when all of Kotka, Suzuki, Poehling, Brook, ect will be ready to make us contenders?
All the teams you named as cup winners had gone through these type of decisions and sometimes went with one, selling, sometimes with the other, competing, but it's obvious that their best players, the ones who were central to their cups, were mostly all top draftees. And it's not a matter of how many top picks you get, or how many are on your team, but to play this random game of the draft and put the odds in your favor to get premium talent.
And you puff up and feel insulted, but you were the one condescending tankers in the first place. Keep on playing the victim.