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This would be a good win for us after the Toronto game. The Flyers are only a decent team, but they play really hard and make it tough to beat them (kinda like the Islanders). If we can beat a high end offensive team in Toronto and then outwork Philly for a win tonight you'd have to think the team would be happy with the progress. You HAVE to be able to beat tough teams to win anything in the NHL.

No, well no intelligent ones.

You're probably right, despite the fact that none of those guys are considerably better than the players we took in those drafts. Personally I think the 1OA pick is worth more as a bargaining chip than the player eventually selected is worth. Waaaaaay back in 2015 I suggested that Edmonton should trade the 1OA for the 2OA and whatever else they wanted to Buffalo. Basically give up the chance to draft McDavid and get Eichel plus (for example) Reinhart instead. Obviously most people think McDavid is the better player, but he's not SO much better that the trade wouldn't have been worth while. You can do this for almost every draft in recent memory. Would you rather have Jack Hughes or Moritz Seider plus whatever else Detroit would have given you to jump up to 1OA. Owen Power or Edvinsson plus something else? Slafkovsky or Logan Cooley plus something else? People tend to think the players taken 1OA are just SO MUCH better than the players selected after them and in most cases (not all cases) they aren't THAT much better. Using the first example, it was clear at the time that Eichel was going to be a franchise 1C, and we knew then (and its been verified) that he's capable of winning a Cup (because he's already done it). So Edmonton COULD have walked away with a franchise 1C AND a top end scorer (Reinhart) without significantly hurting their Stanley Cup aspirations. Silly to me, but I'm a minority of one.