Honour Over Glory
Blomqvist for Vezina + ROTY
- Jan 30, 2012
- 80,883
- 45,416
Ekblad was their number 2 dman at 5v5 and played next to no PP time. I'm not saying that's nothing but that's pretty far from being a guy they needed to pick at the top of the draft. He wasn't their most important dman or maybe even their second most.
For St Louis' cup win, was Thomas a second rounder who played 13 minutes a night and Kyrou didn't play. They didn't have Buchnevich then.
Is it hard to go around getting great talent in in the late 1st/2nd/later or through trade? Yeah. Very. But it seems to be getting more doable. It's also kinda of noticeable that a lot of the more recent built through the draft teams aren't having a bunch of fun. The Buffalos/Edmontons/Torontos that should have taken over from the Pittsburghs/Chicagos/Washingtons haven't. That narrative looks a bit different if Edmonton win for sure, but I think it's enough to say the way to team build in the NHL is maybe changing.
That doesn't make it applicable for every team and I make the point as a generality.
That Blues squad that won the Cup had a lot of home grown (developed talent) on their team, interesting to look back on. Re: Thomas I think was hurt in that playoffs near the end vs Boston, had wrist surgery after, but they had a decent amount of top picks that they drafted on their Roster.
Rob Thomas - 1st round, 20th OVA
Robby Fabri - 1st round, 21st OVA
Jordan Schmaltz - 1st round, 25th OVA
Jaden Schwartz & Vladimir Tarasenko - 1st round, 14th and 16th OVA
Then you had Pietrangelo, Parayko, Edmundson, Dunn, Allen, Blais, Binnington, Barbashev, Kyrou, etc all playing that season as well and some in the playoffs (Schmaltz, Kyrou, and MacEachern didn't).