Whats the benefit of being a top NHL Draft pick lately?

So I may be wrong here, but I have a feeling that I will have a vast majority actually agree with me on this one. What is the point of being a number one draft pick at the nhl level if the team that is picking you is ultimately a garbage team? No offense to the teams that always end up in the basement at the end of each season, but you know you can do better with a little bit of wheeling and dealing. I learned tonight that the Edmonton Oilers won the draft lottery (yes, again), and will receive number one pick. Let's look back at some of the picks that they have gotten in the last five years.

1. Leon Draisaitl, #3 overall in 2014
2. Darnell Nurse, #7 overall in 2013
3. Nail Yakupov, #1 overall in 2012
4. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, #1 overall in 2011
5. Taylor Hall, #1 overall in 2010

They have received a number one pick three times out of the last five years. For a team that is getting the best young talent to come to the NHL level, they are consistantly putting up sub-par numbers and getting a top 10 pick almost every year. A huge problem that I am seeing is within their development. A lot of these young talents that come into the league as a top pick are being put straight into NHL play and expected to make an immediate impact. In rare cases, things like this work to their advantage, but in about 90% of the cases, it can crash and burn. I'm not calling these past five picks a complete fluke, but what I am saying is that these players would have a higher chance at reaching full potential if they played with a team that had a better development program and then put them into the big show with more experienced players. The one case where we have seen an immediate impact in a true all-star player was Wayne Gretzky. To be honest with you, I find that this is what the front office in Edmonton is going off of. Not every top draft pick is going to go on and put up next-to-impossible numbers like Gretzky did. Like I said, he is a rare case. I believe that Edmonton should let their crop grow before they harvest it. Yes, these picks have put up great numbers, but are they really playing to full NHL potential? Who knows?

So what is the benefit of being a top NHL Draft pick lately? The real question is, do you really want to go to a team that seems like they want to tank to get a top pick? What is the real benefit of having a team full of recent top picks? To be brutally honest, there is absolutely zero benefit. Yes, you have the talent in these young stars, but you are lacking two more important keys to building a highly competitive and contending team; experience and ambition. Experience, ambition, and talent are the three keys to winning championships. So back to the question of what the real benefit is, you are joining the big show (fresh out of the juniors where you put up monsterous numbers), with a group of young players that were in the same boat you were a few years ago. While these previous picks have showed a lot of get up and have a few years of experience under their belt, they aren't the kind of players that you need to be around to get the experience that you deserve.

So to the NHL, let's shake things up a little bit, eh? Instead of doing a draft lottery for the teams that didn't make the playoffs and then order them based on their records, lets do a completely random picking system. "The luck of the draw," as I would put it. That way, teams will play to their absolute potential instead of playing for a top pick.

So as this was my first blog, I will say I have more to come. I haven't come up with a catchy catch phrase for this kind of thing yet, but maybe in time I will.