In 1991, the Quebec Nordiques had the privilege of drafting first overall for the third straight year, giving them the chance to draft Eric Lindros, dubbed the next Wayne Gretzky. Lindros, however, had other plans, refusing to play in Quebec and holding out until being traded to Philadelphia the next season. Flash-forward 20 years and the Edmonton Oilers own the first overall pick for the third consecutive year. Like the Nordiques before them, they too might see that pick slip away, albeit for entirely different reasons.

The Oilers are in a unique predicament this year: they have spent the last few years drafting high-end forwards and lack the same quality of talent on the backend. Although Edmonton’s system does possess a good amount of NHL-calibre defenemen, there is not a No. 1 quality blueliner among them. The Oilers have a choice: continue to add up front, which is almost entirely unnecessary, or deal the pick to add much-needed pieces to the blueline.

Although this draft class is full of defencemen, the first few picks will likely be forwards. This means that the Oilers can trade down, possibly as low as five, and still have a chance to take the best defenceman in the draft.

By trading down the Oilers would also be able to grab a young player and/or a handful of picks from a team eager to land Nail Yakupov, the highly skilled Russian winger from the OHL. This is an opportunity for the team to fill their greatest need, and at the same time add more pieces to their growing cupboard.

It isn’t every year that a team is willing to trade away the first overall pick, and the return varies based on the needs of the teams involved. But we can look back at some of the teams that have traded the No. 1 pick to see what type of return the Oilers can expect and whether it is in their best interest to pass on Yakupov.

This season is dead. Officially killed on the March 27 by the Carolina Hurricanes in front of a sparse group of fans with nothing better to do than spend a couple hundred dollars on something that guaranteed no joy. A group with more money than sense. A group that saw itself reflected on the ice in many ways, but none more fitting than in apathy.

We gather here today to say goodbye to the 2011-12 Toronto Maple Leafs, a team that started with so much promise, but one which ends like all the others.

One seventh-round pick was used in the making of this photo.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article comparing the rebuilding efforts in Edmonton and Toronto, with the basis being that there are many ways to build a team, and the traditional tank hard and draft high method isn't always a guarantee for success.

I've thought a lot about how teams go about building a contender, mainly because the Maple Leafs are so routinely whipped for Brian Burke's current rebuild, and that led me to examine the league's top two teams, the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings.

The last time either team had a lottery pick was in 1999, which is the year New York selected Pavel Brendl fourth overall. You have to go all the way back to 1990 for the last time the Red Wings selected in the top-5; that year they took Keith Primeau third overall.

Clearly, neither team has undergone the prototypical rebuilding method, which most fans view as the only true way to create a legitimate Stanley Cup threat.

Today's article at The Good Point looks at just how the Rangers and Red Wings came to sit at the top of the standings.

Burke explaining that the Leafs do, in fact, occasionally draft in the first round.

When Brian Burke traded two first- and one second-round pick for Phil Kessel, the prevailing thought was that Burke was foolish; you don't rebuild a team by trading away your high draft picks.

Burke boldly declared he was too impatient for a traditional rebuild and that under his watch the Leafs would undergo a radical on-the-fly rebuild. The Leafs weren't going to tank year in, year out, slowly building a team with the best young prospects available each June.

People were outwardly skeptical or the brash GM.

The Leafs began their rebuild shortly before Burke was named GM in 2008, as Cliff Fletcher took over for the deposed John Ferguson Jr. Fletcher acquired a few mid to late draft picks at the deadline and then traded up in the draft to take Luke Schenn, before fleecing the Canadiens for Mikhail Grabovski.

But aside from those two players, plus Tomas Kaberle and Nik Antropov, Burke was left with a roster deprived of nearly all talent, and saddled with seemingly unmovable contracts like Jason Blake's, which still had the next three seasons and $12 million on it.

At the same time, the Edmonton Oilers were about to embark on their own rebuild after finishing the 2008-09 season in 11th place in the Western Conference.

Over the next three years the two teams took different strategies to bring respectability back to their once proud franchises. The Oilers ended up adopting the more traditional tank hard and draft high method, while the Leafs managed to hold onto only one of their own first round picks.

Critics of Brian Burke and the Leafs pointed to Edmonton, proclaiming that the Oilers, on account of their proper rebuild, would become a better team sooner than the Leafs. Eventually, the armchair GMs said, the Leafs too would have to follow Edmonton as Burke's method was doomed to failure.

Well, three years have passed, and it is Toronto who has taken the first major step forward, sitting 7th in the Eastern Conference. In comparison, the Oilers once again sit in their customary lottery position, and can only console themselves by fact that drafting high will pay off eventually... or so they hope.

After 33 games, the Leafs are who we thought they were. They are in a dog fight for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, sitting tied with Ottawa (Ottawa!) for 7th place with 36 points. That puts them one point behind New Jersey for 6th, but only one point ahead of Washington, Buffalo, and Winnipeg. It’s a log jam that will likely continue for the rest of the season.

Toronto’s fast start fooled fans into thinking the rebuild was a little ahead of schedule, but a mediocre November (7-6-1) and an awful start to December (2-4-2) has dropped the Leafs from their once lofty perch among the Eastern Conference élite.

Last night I went to my first non-NHL game in years. I once saw a Junior-A game as a kid where there was a few fights and as the opposing player was being thrown out the crowd began to chant ‘hey, hey, hey, goodbye’. I was already hooked on hockey by that point, but that certainly made both hockey and fighting infinitely cooler. After that I’ve caught a few random non-NHL games here and there, but I can’t pretend to be an avid follower.

It’s not that I think poorly of any sort of hockey below the NHL, it’s just that I prefer to pay money to see the best players play. But with a top Leafs prospect poised to make a deep run in the OHL playoffs I thought it was time to dust off the ol’ scouting cap and watch the Leafs’ next 100 point scorer cut his teeth (a guy can dream!).

The whole point of this little adventure was to watch Kadri live. This was actually the second time I’ve seen him play, since I was lucky enough to randomly catch his brief one game emergency call-up to the Leafs (February 8th against the Sharks). He held his own during that game, but I wanted to see him play against his peers. I wanted to see him dominate. Yes, that’s how far this season has fallen for me as a Leafs fan. I’ve resorted to travelling across Southern Ontario to watch the future of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Since the lockout the Leafs have made a yearly habit of turning it on over the last few months of the season, which is usually when they’re almost assured to miss the playoffs. Over the past five years the Leafs record is 54-38-8 after February. If they played at the same pace over the course of a full season they would record around 95 points. That’s good enough to secure a low playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.

Unfortunately, these brief moments of success are responsible for a modest climb in the standings, which result in worse draft positions, something dreaded by the former Tank Nation.

This year the Leafs are 9-6-1 since February. They’ve won 3 in a row and 6 of their last 7. They are still in last place in the Eastern Conference, but not by much. Technically, they’re still alive for the playoffs, although, realistically they certainly aren’t. But it’s pretty amazing that a team that’s played as poorly as the Leafs have are only 12 points behind the eighth placed team. Is nobody else winning games in the Eastern Conference?

Their recent success also means they are slowly closing in on some of the other bad teams in the East. They are only four points behind the Lightning, the Hurricanes, and the Islanders; five points behind the Panthers; seven points behind the Rangers; and nine points behind the Thrashers. Gaining the points to surpass the Rangers and Thrashers is doubtful, but the Leafs play both teams twice before the end of the season, so it isn’t totally outlandish.

The end of the decade has everyone trying to wrap up the previous 10 years in convenient top-10 lists.

The NHL’s previous ten years were tumultuous. The first half of the decade may well be the league’s nadir, while the latter portion of the decade saw the NHL slowly rise from its ashes (unfortunately that doesn’t include the Hamilton Coyotes rising from the ashes of the Phoenix Coyotes). Hopefully, the last five years in the NHL are a harbinger for a successful 2010s. Remember, this is a league that less than 15 years ago was infinitely cooler than the NBA. Gary Bettman ruined it and, unfortunately, that’s reflected in a lot of this list.

Here are the top moments that defined the decade.