from Pat Caputo of 97.1,

Think of :

- Toronto adding Lafreniere to Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander.

- Pittsburgh with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Lafreniere

- Chicago with Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Lafreniere.

- The Rangers with Lafreniere and the second overall selection from last year, Kaapo Kakko....

The twist of the knife to the Red Wings’ back is they did anything but tank. The Red Wings waited far too long to go into total rebuilding mode and continually overspent on veteran players.

Everything about this process goes against the spirit of the draft, which is to provide competitive balance.

The adding of the losing qualifying round teams to the lottery mix because of the pandemic was absurd, For one of those teams to get Lafreniere - especially if it is one of the Red Wings’ rivals - because of sheer chance adds salt to the wound.

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