A lot happened along the way, not the least of which is a global pandemic.
Last 5 drafts we've drafted 39 players, 7 in the first round, 9 in the second round and we just used a 1st and a 2nd to acquire a young two time 40 goal scorer. I've read countless jokes about Dorion handing out draft picks like candy. That doesn't add up though does it?
We went through a full on tear down rebuild. We're coming out the other side. Even 4 months ago PD said assess where we are based on the team we're icing in September. Well, here we are, the process he went through looks pretty good to me at this point
Picking 16 times in the first 2 rounds over a 5 year span after a major rebuild isn't very impressive. That's only an average of around of a single extra 1st/2nd per year.
It's even more weak when you consider those picks were acquired during a complete tear down that involved elite players being traded like Karlsson, Stone and Duchene, as well as good players like Brassard, Pageau, Dzingel, etc... It would be shocking if we didn't have extra picks after doing a massive rebuild by trading those names.
While the returns on those players were mediocre at best and some picks were foolishly wasted on bad pro acquisitions like Stepan and Murray, the biggest reason why we didn't end up with as many picks as we should have during the rebuild was Dorion's failure to weaponize his cap space by taking advantage of desperate teams looking to dump bad short-term contracts.
Look at the work Bill Armstrong has done in his 2 year tenure as the Yotes GM as a comparison. He hasn't had nearly as much talent to deal away to acquire futures as Dorion did. Best players he had to trade were Garland, Kuemper, OEL (cap dump), Dvorak and Hill, yet under his 2 year reign the Yotes have selected 4 times in the 1st round and 5 times in the 2nd, with another 3 1sts and 8 2nds collected for the next 3 drafts. How is this possible? Well unlike Dorion he has successfully weaponized his cap space.
Most of the picks the Yotes have acquired have been from taking on bad short-term contracts that will expire long before their rebuild is complete. They have taken on Gostisbehere, Stralman, Ladd, Ritchie, Roussel, Beagle, Eriksson, Nemeth and Kassian - all of whom had contracts expiring within 2 years of acquisition - and in exchange they received a top 10 pick and 10 2nd round picks. That's how you take advantage of other teams with cap issues when you have lots of cap space.
Meanwhile Dorion only did that once via the Coburn/Paquette trade. Only a single time did he weaponize his cap space for futures. Rest of the time he was instead wasting tens of millions of dollars on the likes of Murray, Dadonov, Gudbranson, Stepan, Hainsey, Namestnikov, Boedker, Sanford and others - players just as bad overall (if not worse) as the cap dumps AZ acquired but instead of getting assets for taking them on, Dorion actually paid assets to acquire them. It was a terrible waste of both valuable cap space and assets.
While I'm very happy with his work this off-season, there's absolutely no denying that Dorion failed in his ability to weaponize his cap space during the rebuild and the team has far less futures to work with than we should. Should be absolutely loaded with prospects and picks after the massive tear down rebuild, but after some graduations the pool looks pretty weak beyond the top 3 guys.
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