Confirmed with Link: Boqvist waived for buyout purposes

[squashmaple]

There are multiple ways to get there. Tampa (Stamkos, Hedman, Kucherov, Point, Vasilevskiy, Palat, Killorn, Cirelli… you can kinda throw Gourde in there too since he was undrafted and his first NHL contract was Tampa) was primarily draft-driven. Florida and (especially) Vegas were not. Colorado was a bit of a mix (a lot of key contributors were not Avs draftees, but arguably the 4 best/most important on the championship team were).

I will say a franchise like ours should probably try more closely for the Tampa/Colorado route, but definitely need to be good at both. Our 2019 team had a nice mix of draftees (Atkinson, PLD, Jenner, Savard, Anderson, Werenski, Bjorkstrand) and trades (Panarin, Bob, Foligno, Dubinsky, Jones, Duchene).

The one thing you’ll notice is lack of UFAs: our best in 2019 was probably Riley Nash? It’s more often than not gonna be difficult for us to build that way. Certainly a key move in free agency here or there is important, but the draft followed by wise trades is probably the best path to success for us. And obviously if you can get a guy cheap off waivers/that’s unsigned that turns into a key piece, great, but that’s often very, very hard to predict.

It's interesting you should bring up Colorado, because they absolutely did not build via the draft. They've only produced six total players with more than 200 NHL games played since 2012 (Nathan MacKinnon, Will Butcher, Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost, Cale Makar, Alex Newhook) but three of them are their most critical guys. In the same time frame, Columbus has produced 17 but none have been anywhere near MacKinnon/Makar/Rantanen level. Some is luck, some is draft, some is clever trades, some is FA.

 

[Long Live Lyle]

It's interesting you should bring up Colorado, because they absolutely did not build via the draft. They've only produced six total players with more than 200 NHL games played since 2012 (Nathan MacKinnon, Will Butcher, Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost, Cale Makar, Alex Newhook) but three of them are their most critical guys. In the same time frame, Columbus has produced 17 but none have been anywhere near MacKinnon/Makar/Rantanen level. Some is luck, some is draft, some is clever trades, some is FA.

Well that’s basically what I said, but obviously Landeskog was also a draftee (pre-2012) and Bryan, who were both key contributors.

 

[squashmaple]

Well that’s basically what I said, but obviously Landeskog was also a draftee (pre-2012) and Bryan, who were both key contributors.

I picked 2012 because it was 10 years before their Cup. But I don't think you can claim they built via the draft when only four players they drafted contributed toward that cup, even if those four were absolute superstars. Especially not in the same breath as Tampa.

 

[majormajor]

this is also why we need to re-frame the 'build through the draft' conversation.

you really just need a couple of cornerstone guys through the draft. the rest of the roster can (and should) be built elsewhere. the jackets roster is in an uncomfortable position where they have a dozen or so young guys who are ready to play in the NHL but not ready to be net positives in contributing roles.

young players take time to develop; florida's whole roster is built on the principle that you can just skip that step entirely by deprioritizing the draft. instead of waiting for guys like tippett and denisenko, florida went out and got verhaeghe and duclair off the scrap heap.

Yes and this is why I love the Colorado example as well.

We still have all of these conversations about who the Jackets should draft and the debate is about - well we only have one top six center prospect. Stop trying to draft your whole team! Take big swings to get top talent and then use pro scouting to fill out the roster.

And that brings me to a topic we homed in on earlier - the Jackets haven't had the roster space to add pro scouting gems, because the roster is so full of RFAs.

 

[VT]

If he stays health, one will have more points than every our d-man, maybe except Werenski (I count his healt).