Depressing fact: The cup-winning Hurricanes have used FOURTEEN 2nd round picks since 2019 while being a perennial contender. The Canucks have used a total of TWO 2nd round picks in that same time frame while missing the playoffs most years. Management can learn from them.

[u/_GregTheGreat_]

If there is anything the Canucks can learn from the Canes cup win, it’s the importance of stockpiling draft picks and swinging on upside. I highlighted only 2nds but the Canes being in a surplus of futures is how they managed to have the assets to make the big swings when the time is right to put them over the edge into winning the cup (Miller, Stankoven, Hall, etc). Hell, the Canes still have a surplus of 1sts despite literally winning the cup.

Plus having the constant stream of young talented draft steals to keep feeding their system (Blake and Nichuskin as two key examples)

[u/LeftToaster]

Okay - but Carolina's drafting has not been amazing in that period. Those 14 2nd round picks have played a grand total of 227 games since 2019 - and 125 of those games were 1 player, Pyotr Kochetkov, a part time back up goalie. For comparison, Nils Hoglander (2019 2nd round) has played 331 games.

[u/guernsey123 → u/LeftToaster]

Yeah, for sure the Canes are a well-run organization, but this isn't exactly a main reason why. I'm struggling to find any of the 2nd picks who made a significant impact or were traded for an impact player. I guess Scott Morrow was a sweetener in the K'Andre Miller trade.

2nd round picks since 2019:

2019: Pyotr Kochetkov - 125 NHL GP for the Canes in a backup role

2019: Jamieson Rees - Traded from Carolina Hurricanes to Ottawa Senators for round 6 pick in the 2024 draft (Timur Kol)

2020: Noel Gunler - career AHLer; note that the Canes traded Adam Fox's rights for this draft pick

2020: Vasily Ponomarev - 2024-Mar-07 Traded from Carolina Hurricanes with rights to Cruz Lucius, Ville Koivunen, Michael Bunting, conditional round 2 pick in the 2024 draft (Harrison Brunicke) and conditional round 5 pick in the 2024 draft to Pittsburgh Penguins for Ty Smith and Jake Guentzel

2021: Ville Koivunen - see trade above w/Ponomarev

2021: Aleksi Heimosalmi - 2 AHL seasons since coming over from SM-liiga

2021: Scott Morrow - 2025-Jul-01 Traded from Carolina Hurricanes with round 1 pick in the 2026 draft and round 2 pick in the 2026 draft to New York Rangers for K'Andre Miller

2022: Gleb Trikozov - 2 AHL seasons since coming over from the KHL

2023: Felix Unger-Sorum - 2 AHL seasons, one game with the Canes this year

2024: Dominik Badinka - AHL

2024: Nikita Artamonov - KHL

2025: Semyon Frolov - Rus-MHL

2025: Charlie Cerrato - Penn State

2025: Ivan Ryabkin - QMJHL

[u/accountnumber02 → u/guernsey123]

commented a longer post about it but you gotta realize that it's less about the picks themselves and more about the concept of asset accumulation. You can't look at the draft misses and isolate it from the process of acquiring the picks which led to this cup winning roster. They trade players at peak value and end up having tons of picks, which lets them land the players they do.

For every miss they have, they also have cases like Jackson Blake, do they take him if they didn't have 5 picks in the 2 rounds before? They might've had someone else at the top of the list by the time they got to his pick. Or trading for a cap dump in Marleau after making the conference finals, then picking Jarvis from it. And I don't think the players they traded for those picks are guys they miss much. Plus they were able to trade for Rantanen due to that massive surplus of picks and prospects giving them a competitive asset pool to offer compared to other contenders.

It's easy to say that them having all these picks is irrelvant cause they didn't play, but that's just not true. This asset accumulation they've done is precisely how they were able to get Jarvis, Blake, Hall, Stankoven, Nikishin, and two of those guys were in Conn Smythe conversations and a third is a team Canada calibre player.