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Originally Posted by TownGuy
I realize the Leafs had the luxury of the 1st overall but many people believe that if Matthews were in the draft a year earlier (he missed it by a couple days) he would have gone 3rd overall behind McDavid and Eichel.
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He probably could have gone second ahead of Eichel. Playing in Europe would have definitely relegated him to the third spot, I think, but we'll never really know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TownGuy
Anyways it's not so easy as tank = be good in a couple years. Some franchises get stuck in tank mode for a decade.
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There's a difference between tanking and rebuilding, though. Lots of teams get stuck in rebuilding mode simply because they're either not doing it right or don't have the right pieces. Detroit, right now, are somewhere in between because they don't have the ability to shed their old contracts and thus are too good to be a proper tank. They've injected younger players but aren't bad enough yet to get a high draft selection.
Teams like Buffalo and Arizona routinely underachieve despite the rosters they have. They're done tanking, per se, and are trying to rebuild but can't.
Then there are teams like the Canucks that refuse to tank and try to rebuild on the fly. What you're left with is what the Canucks have been for the past three seasons. Teams like the Rangers and Canadiens are at the end of their upswings and are now entering their downswings. Give them a few years and they'll be rebuilding, too. Rangers are already trying to do so right now on the fly.