The Penguins have had one 1st round selection since 2015, and they don’t have any 1sts this year and next year.
Rutherford is going to set up his successor with a very barren cupboard.
It's like players tanking during the season. They don't care about the next 18 year old that will come into the organization, even if he was picked #1, so they're not playing for that. How many GMs care about their successor? Even if you have a 5 year plan, you're not implementing it for someone who isn't you.
I think the Kings should go for it while Kopitar and Doughty are still good players much like Pittsburgh is doing.
They tried. While the Penguins have hit a bad streak in the playoffs, they're still at the top of their division every year. Something the Kings could never do consistently, even in their best days.
However, should the new group, Turcotte, Vilardi, Kaliyev, Bjornfot, the #2 pick, etc, show something, they would have a bunch of ELC talent for 1 or 2 years. The may have no choice but to add to try and win.
He certainly doesn’t care, but giving up that much for Kasperi Kapanen seems foolish to me when he could sign a UFA who can produce similar numbers without giving up assets.
But you're not going to get a 24 year old on a short term deal in the free agent market.
The UFA guys that have at least the same points per game over the last 2 years as Kapanen include Hall(28, going to get a big deal), Hoffman(will be 31 in Nov), Dadonov(31), Williams(will be 39, won't leave Carolina if he plays again), Granlund(28, and a huge letdown of a season), Thornton(41, probably won't leave SJ), Soderberg(will be 35 in Oct), and Kovalchuk(37, might go back to Montreal).
A couple options there, but everyone knows that guys like Hoffman and Dadonov are probably going to get contracts that are immediately regretted, outside of hopefully the first year or two. Maybe they can still add Granlund on a cheap contract, since he did absolutely nothing for his value in Nashville?
Kinda my thing, it's not so much that Pittsburgh chose to keep swinging with Crosby and Malkin, you kinda have to, it's that they did all that for Kapanen and rescued TO in the process. Even if you had always planned on flushing the 1st down the toilet if it weren't Lafreniere, spending a mid first on a guy who's a 40-pointer middle-sixer JAG is like...meh. Slap him with Crosby/Malkin and maybe that becomes 50 points but they must be high on his upside as well as placing this as a puzzle piece in a series of additional moves.
It all depends on what a 15th overall pick is. Are you likely to get a better player than a 40 point mid-top 6 guy with the pick? When will he help you if you get a good one? How much better of a player can you acquire for a mid 1st round pick? Should you keep the pick, and sign an older UFA?