Then why did we draft a goalie and a projected checking line forward with our 1st round picks in 2006?
Give that management team credit, they built a SC winner around the two franchise players they inherited, but it was because they brought in all the right players from other teams, the trades especially were remarkable, he won almost all of them in his first couple years. They blew it all at the draft table though, outside of Doughty at the #2 spot the Kings drafting for the entire Lombardi era was pretty marginal, a bunch of quantity but very little quality.
I suspect they took guys like Bernier, Tuebert, Hickey and Forbort in the 1st round because they had no clue how to identify skilled forwards.