jbeck5
Registered User
- Jan 26, 2009
- 16,510
- 3,437
Ottawa has drafted very well compared to the rest of the league. When have they been in a position to grab these "high-impact" players? They haven't had a top 5 pick since the Yashin trade nabbed Spezza.
Since 2008 with Murray at the helm, he has been building from the back end out and that takes longer than picking up defensemen via trades/free agency, then scooping up young forwards in the draft. There's a strong nucleus that's still young with Lehner in goal, and Karlsson, Cowen, and Ceci on D. They've found some hidden gems in Stone and Hoffman up front, and Lazar and Zibanejad are good NHL players already with much more potential.
I don't know what else could make people happy as far as the draft goes. You look at the teams that have the high-impact players and 95% of those guys were gone before we stepped up to the podium to call out our first pick. The Islanders have had a top 5 pick for what seems like every year. Same with Florida and Edmonton. Then there's Teams like Tampa and Colorado who were fortunate enough to pick top 3 three times during that span. Hell, I think the only impact player that Ottawa missed out on that didn't get passed over by every other team after the fact for at least a round was Tarasenko. And he ended up becoming Turris. I don't even think this team is better with Tarasenko over Turris even though Tarasenko is far more dangerous.
The drafting has been amongst the best in the league during Murray's tenure.
Murray has drafted one impact defenseman (karlsson), and zero impact forwards in what, 8 years? How is that among the best?