Since the NHL introduced a salary cap almost 20 years ago, the draft has became more important than ever. When you examine each and every Stanley Cup winner over the last 15 years? Virtually all of them were constructed around a group of players that they drafted, developed, and then rode to victory.
Crosby, Malkin and Letang; Toews, Kane and Keith; Kopitar, Doughty and Quick; Bergeron, Krejci and Marchand; Ovechkin, Bäckström and Carlson; Kucherov, Hedman and Vasilevskiy; MacKinnon, Rantanen and Makar… you get the idea. All stars, all drafted highly or at very least in the first few rounds.
However, what many of those winners also have in common is snagging valuable players later on in the ...
