CalBuckeyeRob
Registered User
- Feb 25, 2012
- 573
- 310
It's really hard to break out from 11th-18th best team in the league to consistently in the top 10. It usually takes multiple generational talents (TB - Point, Kucherov, Hedman / Chicago - Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Hossa / Pittsburgh - Crosby, Malkin). Maybe you catch lightning (no pun intended) in a bottle - St. Louis with ROR and Binnington. Those instances are pretty rare.
I'm stuck on how this team gets into a perennial top 10 team. They're not projected to have multiple top 5 picks. I'm not sure they have generational type talents outside of the top pair. I also don't think the pipeline is all that good, either. So...what can they do? They acquired Panarin for two seasons and squeaked into the playoffs both years. I'm not sure there's a way out of this "bubble team" area where they probably just rack up a bunch of 1st round losses in the playoffs over and over.
I think a big step to getting there is figuring out how to keep PLD, Seth and Werenski well into their UFA years. It will also probably take some luck in the draft but if you need that luck to just replace the legit high end players you did have, then you are just trying to stay a borderline playoff team and not building from that position.