We're so far out that pretty much every single team in the league (bad or good) will have high picks that they made themselves on them. It's not really an argument. 'Good teams have good players that came from high picks'
Well, yeah. That doesn't mean that they rebuilt. I don't care if Tampa got Stamkos and Hedman 1st and 2nd overall. They didn't rebuild at all. They kept every single veteran they had. In fact, the only move for futures they ever made IIRC was trading Vinny Prospal one year at the deadline. They re-signed him that summer to a 4-year contract. I was living in Orlando at the time and they were a secondary team to follow.
Even a team like Pittsburgh. Most of the vets that they acquired didn't work out while rebuilding. But one did. Sergei Gonchar. And he was a massive piece to their first cup.
My point is that there are multiple ways to get to a Cup, as shown by how the different winners have been constructed. And that's why I took issue with WTF's post. He pretends there's a real proven formula to this - there isn't. Team-building involves a lot of different parts and a lot of luck, at the draft or otherwise. Just pointing at high picks isn't it.
ALL those teams had sustained high picks. They weren't one offs.
You know who didn't? Us. We had Carey Price. The first top five pick in over 20 years. And that guy made us a first place club. He got a sad sack team to the finals. And we shoudln't have even had him. We got him in a fluke one time lottery.
Then we managed to get another in 2013 and promptly f***ed that up with horrible development. Ditto for 2017. Three top five picks spanned over 12 years is not rebuilding. But if we'd rebuilt properly with Price and Subban, we'd have won a cup. I'll go to my grave believing that.
Anyways, Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago, LA, Tampa... all spent sustained time at the bottom. All but one won mutliple cups. It's a clear path towards success to do it this way.
Doesn't guarantee you a cup. Oilers haven't won yet. Ottawa had a near perfect club and they didn't win (also got totally screwed by the cap coming in when it did.) I won't say it guarantees us one. But I will tell you that I'm far more optimistic about our club than I've been in a long time. We don't have Carey Price but we have a ton of young players who could turn out to be stars. That's the kind of depth we haven't had in eons.
I'm very happy to be included in the group where Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Tampa were back then. Now it's Montreal, Anaheim, San Jose and Chicago. Give it time, those teams will have a leg up on others in the coming years.