Top to bottom and over the full span of the last 20 years, we’d submit the NHL’s two best drafting teams have been the San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators. Both organizations have found productive players all over the draft. Both have been competitive on a year-in, year-out basis, although it took the Preds five seasons to make the playoffs after entering the league in ’98. Neither team has suffered prolonged dry spells that set back the team’s development.
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If NHL history has taught us anything, it’s taught us assembling a championship team isn’t the product of drafting consistently well, but rather putting together an elite core group over a handful of drafts.