Disagree. It's always a _weighted_sum_ of needs and talent available. The weighting factor varies. The team right now has an egregious need of scoring forward talent or a combination of scoring and grit at forward, especially at center, and given the surplus of NHL d-corps talent, other GMs can smell the asymmetry of the trade, when HuGo tries to trade excess Ds for Fs. In a perfect market, sure, you take the best player and then trade your excess for positions of need, but the NHL market is not perfect. GMs play games based on relative strength; they hoard their top scoring talent. Moreover, there is no thermometer or barometer equivalent that gives the NHL an actual number corresponding to the player's value, so the B in BPA then becomes very subjective and uncertain.
Given the later consideration, it would be foolish to set the weighting factor for need to a zero-value. Downright silly, if you consider that that estimates of player values just that: estimates, which can vary as information becomes available over time and as players develop.
Afterward, if year after year, HuGo is confronted with a uniforn defenseman at the draft, a bargain by 5-10 drafting positions... Do they keep drafting D year after year? This year, 2025, 2026, 2027? Of course not (that would be the definition of insanity, to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome - namely an explosive offense). I don't accept the notion that any excess D can be traded for a comparable talent at forward whom we would have drafted otherwise, once the counterpart team realizes that they have in their talent pool.
