The Toronto Maple Leafs have been an elite, contending team for the better part of the last decade.
Since the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Auston Mattehws in 2016, they have made the playoffs every single year, and are now have the league’s longest active playoff streak.
While this is incredibly impressive (not to mention under-reported and under-appreciated) always making the playoffs does have one major drawback: no high draft picks.
Additionally, when you’re a top team trying to win every year, you tend to trade away a lot of draft picks. Teams always face criticism for this, but it’s stupid criticism by the poorly informed – trading picks to win now is the correct move for any contending team.