If there’s a downside to spending a decade-and-a-half as one of the League’s winningest teams, it’s that the opportunities to restock high-end talent through the draft are more difficult. Drafting a generational winger and franchise center with top-five picks isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s certainly going to have a better hit rate than drafting their successors with late-round selections.
To wit, the Caps only drafted higher than 20th three times from 2008 through 2022 (11th and 16th in 2012 and 13th in 2014), and they made the most out of those picks, selecting Filip Forsberg, Tom Wilson and Jakub Vrana, respectively.