You might totally be right. But just a couple of factors to consider as well. Smith's contract is back heavy, so he's owed significantly more in real dollars which hurts his value. The 2025 2nd I imagine has less value than a 2023 2nd considering the upcoming draft class, so there's that when comparing the Zaitsev dump.

For sure. 2 years out pick has a good chunk less value than current year pick

Q: Did the Caps give up the play-offs for this season with this trade?

Not necessarily because look where Boston is in the standings. Their 2nd round pick will be no higher than 60th overall this year. The farther out the pick is, the greater chance Boston will fall down in the standings and it'll be a much earlier pick. That said, the fact that Washington will have to wait two additional years to get any benefit from that pick (unless they trade it) is a big negative in my opinion. If I'm a GM trading for picks, I want them as soon as possible, instead of loading up for a distant future I may not be part of.

Yeah so in general the pick is less valuable because of what you said in the latter half. The waiting. But you are correct that Boston being so dominant this year and likely losing their top 2 C's with no obvious replacement in near future is an interesting point re it's value

I think like 3/4. I think they're still happy if they're team makes it, but they recognized it was more likely not, so sold two UFAs. From what I heard they negotiated with Orlov, couldn't come to an agreement and when their playoff hopes dwindled realized they wanted to get value for him.

Honestly it was meant to be a little tounge and cheek, I don't think a bad draft means they don't have any good scouts, but it isn't really up for debate that the Bruins didn't make out very well for having 3 straight picks in a historically deep draft.

Debrusk was their best pick, and he was a very average 1st rounder in that draft. Debrusk is a good player, he has 361 career games played, 111 goals, 100 assists for 211 career points. The average output of the 27 players the Bruins didn't select was 353 games played, 89 goals, 145 assists, for 234 career points. Removing McDavid (as he does skew the averages a bit), still gives you 346 games played, 82 goals, 131 assists, and 213 points.

The Bruins 3 selections in the first round of that draft combined for a total of 446 games played (so far), 113 goals, 114 assists, 227 points.

The average output of the other 27 selections in the first round was 353 games played, 89 goals, 145 assists, for 235 points, but even removing McDavid (which does skew the stats), leads to 346 games played, 82 goals, 131 assists, and 213 points.

When looking at the fact that the Bruins had 3 selections, and their average yield on those was 149 NHL games, 38 goals, 38 assists for 76 points, and we compare that to what the average player from that draft did, it's a really weak return.

Even after removing the entire top 10, the the other 17 first rounder averaged 286 GP, 64G, 93A, 157pts. But where it gets really obvious, is just averaging out the portion of the 1st round the Bruins could have selected (picks 16-30), who averaged 281GP, 64G, 97A, 161Pts. The Bruins made 3 straight picks, and those picks, on average, produced less than the next 15 skaters chosen.

No matter how you slice it, it's a draft the Bruins would like to have back. Saying they should have picked say Barzal, Connor and Chabot next may be a bit of hindsight, but it is fair to say their results were extremely disappointing given the depth of that draft.

It was not a wise move - but Jake was really good pick (proving one 1st rd quality pick or two is enough. Should have picked one or two players or moved up/down using the draft-pick capital; armchair experts we are)

Reality is Carlo was a great find in Rd-2, previous year Pasta was the best pick overall, next to Leon, at #25 and McAvoy was a gem in 2016 @ #14 and here we are, BOS is #1 in the NHL...

Fact of the matter is IF BOS selected Jake-Connor-Barzal they'd have traded one or two by now with COVID/flat cap $$$ issues.

Yes, Boston has done extremely well in drafts. Carlo was decent, but with the depth of the 2015 draft he wasn't enough to sway it into being a good draft for Boston considering their draft capital and the skill available.

However the McAvoy and Pastrnak picks were franchise altering. Basically getting players that are better than the average top 3 pick in most drafts, and likely would both be in contention for 2nd overall if they did redrafts in both years. Pastrnak would actually be my pick for 1st overall in 2014, even over Draisatl. So the Bruins have hit absolute home runs in drafts and it's a big part of the reason why they are still such a good team today, however that drafting record on either side of the 2015 draft is what makes the 2015 draft such a disappointment given the picks they had available.