Cool post. I would say that Pettersson = Gillies, and if we were to magically get the 1st OA and draft Dahlin, well there's our very own Potvin. I like how you've included all of the draft positions here. It's not a coincidence that the core of the team was drafted mostly in the top 4 of the draft. We need that #1 OA this draft and by getting Dahlin we would drastically fast-forward this rebuild. The cool thing is we have some of this supporting players coming up, Lind, Gaudette, Juolevi, Dahlen and even Virtanen, but a core group of Horvat, Boeser, Pettersson, Demko, and Dahlin would be incredibly solid. I'm afraid without that #1 dman though that has eluded us since our very existence we prob won't ever win a cup.
That's why I'm on team tank rn and praying for Dahlin. Even if we don't get RD there are still some really good dmen in this draft so we can continue to build. You've just illustrated how important it is to build through the draft by acquiring high picks and even low picks for that matter. Tanking rn gets you those high picks. By building a strong core through the draft the team can be highend for a long time and win multiple cups, but If we just make it into the playoffs or just miss them we'll always be a mediocre team that will never win anything. I should also point out that all of this means nothing if the organizations management sucks as they will mess up the progress of the team moving forward and set it back even. High draft picks, good coaching and strong, competent management = success = Stanley cups.