A few weeks back, I got an email from a reader named Chris W., who’d been working on a project with his son that he thought would make for a fun post. Their question: Which team can make the best six-man starting lineup out of stars who were drafted with picks that they’d traded away?
Sounds good, and the timing is perfect — this is exactly the time of year when teams are getting ready to trade picks for immediate help, probably while muttering about how those future picks probably won’t even amount to anything at all. And they might not. But now and then, a team sends away a pick and then watches it turn into way more than they bargained for.
Which team can build the best roster of regret? That’s going to be today’s post. But first, a few ground rules ™:
• We’re keeping the rosters simple today, with three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie.
• We don’t care when the trade was made – on the draft floor, at the previous deadline, or even years in advance – as long as the pick changed hands before it was used.
• In the (surprisingly common) case of picks traded multiple times, any of the previous teams can claim it.
• For franchises that have moved, we’ll count past iterations as the same team, meaning the Hurricanes can use the Whalers and so on. The exception, as always: The Jets are the Jets.
And finally, let’s state the obvious: Just because you dealt away a pick that turned into a great player doesn’t mean that you made a bad trade, or that you would have drafted that player if you’d kept the pick. We all know this. If you’re going to hit me with a, “But it was a good trade and my team is actually smart” tirade in the comment section, save it for my deadline grades. (Your team is getting a D+, by the way.)
We’re going to 10 teams, and I’ll give you a semi-spoiler before we start: There’s one that emerges as a reasonably clear winner, and I did not see it coming. See if you can figure it out before we get there. But in the meantime, we’ll start with a team you’re probably already thinking about.
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Leafs have practically patented the art of trading away first-round picks that end up in the top five; it happened in 1991, 1997 and 2009. Those picks turned into Scott Niedermayer, Roberto Luongo and Tyler Seguin, so yeah, we’re off to a great start.
That said, the Leafs don’t end up quite as strong as I would have thought, mainly because the other forward spots are good but not great. We can use Kevin Stevens, and you know where I’m at on his career, but the third spot comes down to someone like Rickard Rakell, Mike Cammalleri or Travis Konecny.
We do get Roman Josi thanks to a 2007 Yanic Perreault trade, and he edges out Dougie Hamilton for the last blue line spot. And there’s a ton of depth available, with names like Ville Husso, John Gibson and Darius Kasparaitis. But in the end, the Leafs entry is very good, but not unbeatable.
Forwards: Tyler Seguin, Kevin Stevens, Travis Konecny
Defense: Scott Niedermayer, Roman Josi
Goalie: Roberto Luongo
Let’s try another Original Six team…
Detroit Red Wings
I’m guessing Red Wings fans know who the goalie will be here, and will want to take a moment to thank Kyle Quincey for that. The blue line looks familiar, with a pair of future Red Wings in Larry Murphy (thanks to Dale McCourt) and Mike Green (thanks to Robert Lang), and I’m just going to pause here and point out that this happens a lot – teams seem to love to acquire stars taken with picks they traded away. Maybe it’s a weird coincidence, or maybe GMs feel a need to assuage some sort of cosmic guilt, but you’ll see it a lot. And yes, this means the Red Wings will probably get Brock Faber back someday in the distant future. You heard it here first.
Anyway, despite the solid start on the backend, I don’t think the Wings are strong enough up front to take a run at our title.
Forwards: Brian Bellows, Roope Hintz, Patrick…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .