Really more to the point--shitty drafting and development is what killed the Avs. Just think if Jost had panned out as a good two-way 2C or even halfway decent 3C how that would have affected the last 2 years at least. Would've allowed them to spend the assets they used on trying to upgrade the center corps on other areas.
Correction: They DEFINITELY would not have traded Toews, certainly not for the super-cheap price the Avs got for him.
The flat cap killed a lot of teams. Frankly it didn't hurt the Avs nearly as much as it hurt others.
This is about as old and repeated a phrase as "Zadorov is only __!"
Yeah, 2C, and drafting outside of the top 10 are big factors.
I'm not looking forward to this strategy of keeping 1st rounders at all.