Could someone please remind me how many teams in the cap era have won the Cup without at least one top 5 pick on their roster?
I recently dug into this a bit. 13 of the last 16 Cups (81%) were won by teams who had multiple top picks. And 14 out of the 16 who went and lost (88%) also had multiple top picks. And, the 3 teams who did not draft multiple high superstars were...
1. Boston, who built their Cup pre-cap with Chara, Bergeron, Thomas, Krejci, Rask, etc.
2. Vegas, who exploited a flawed expansion draft scenario to expedite high-end depth and star power. Ironically, they didn't win a Cup until they had Eichel (2nd overall) and Pietrangelo (4th overall) as key pieces.
3. St. Louis, who pretty much went on a miracle run that consisted of lights-out goaltending. They did have Pietrangelo (4th overall) as their cornerstone on defense.
Now, look at the Flyers. They had a top 5 pick in Gauthier and traded him after he blossomed into one of the best players in all of college hockey. They drafted Michkov at 7 but I'll consider him the real "2nd overall pick." This past draft, they could have lucked into another top 5 pick based on reports but passed on Buium. And, even though they have a bunch of picks in next year's draft, they have put themselves in a situation to draft outside of the top 5 once again... maybe outside of the top 10.
The Flyers easily could be heading into the season with...
Gauthier, Michkov, Perreault and Buium in the system. Plus multiple additional assets in exchange for Laughton and Konency... plus a heavy favorite to draft top 5 in 2025 and 2026. This scenario was on a silver platter and they effed it up through incompetence.