We need Karlsson. NEED him. Our team is quite atrocious without him.
We need to make sure we know if we have him or not before we decide to draft #6 or not. If we play a full season with a D of
Chabot-Ceci
Harpur-Boro
xxx-xxx
We are going to be coming bottom 2 for sure.
If we are keeping him, take the pick all day. If we are not, we NEED to give up anything short of Dahlin/Svech. Take our chances getting Hughes next year, and if we fall into the 2-6 range we have guys like Dach/Newhook/Byram/Lavoie/Turcotte/Kakko/Krebs/Vlasic/Suzuki/Poulin, who are all similar/better prospects than Zadina/Dobson/Hughes/Boqvist/Tkachuk.
This 2019 draft is special, both in top talent in Hughes, and the 2nd wave of guys from #2-~#12. If we are playing a full season without Karlsson, keep the 2019 pick.
That should be the whole mindset. Are we keeping Karlsson?
Yes? Then we will use this high draft pick that we just had named #7 (Of course we keep a pick that wins the lottery).
No? Then we will let Colorado have this #7 selection to select Dobson (loved him since before he went to Europe for a season, pains me that we have to go this route due to the trade, but it's in the best interest of the team at that point).
Seems cut and dry to me. They should know if they are going to be keeping him or not, that's their job. They need to know that before this draft.
This is the right thing for Dorion to say, it should have been said initially rather than dragged out due to season ticket questions.