LaCombe, Colangelo, Zellweger, Luneau, Clara, and Pettersson have been 2nd round picks for us the last 6 years.
I mean the jury is still out on all of those guys, barring
maybe LaCombe at this point. But I will concede that the Ducks hit on dmen seemingly much more consistently than other teams, so maybe in that context if we used it on a defender it would have more value to us.
I guess I meant more of the timeline involved. We've had a decent amount of "darts" used on 2nd/3rd rounders over the past few drafts that we're hoping will start coming to fruition in the next couple years. Losing a dart in the 2025 draft that at best will probably become an okay NHL player in 2028-2029 is worth it (IMO) for the upside of pushing the Gauthier deal over the edge.
I'm also guessing there's going to be more TDL deals and picks to be had this season once we're out of contention, with Vatrano being the biggest one.