Everyone has their opinion about who got the upper hand in the recent Flames Leafs trade. But I bet if you ask Lou Lamoriello - the New Jersey Devils GM - who won, he'll just shake his head and laugh at GMs Sutter and Burke and their respective attempts to claw their way ahead by block buster trades.

First off, Lamoriello is one of the most successful GMs in NHL history, having built a team that made the playoffs in 18 of 20 seasons, went to the finals four times, and won it all twice. Obviously he's doing something right. So why might Lou be laughing in derision? Look at Lou's current roster and you'll notice a few things. Of the 33 players on the roster, 55% of them (18 players!) were drafted by Devil management. Some 6 Devils drafted in the first round still play for their drafting team. Only one player on the roster was picked up in a trade; Jamie Langenbrunner, and that was all the way back in 2002.

Lou builds his team through the draft, carefully grooming and nurturing his players in the farm system, and finally debuting them in the NHL when they are ready. And he keeps them. For a long time. Plotting headline grabbing trades doesn't seem to be part of his toolbox.

The Flames and Leafs, on the other hand, are made up of a hodge podge of players drafted by other teams and acquired through trades. Take the Leafs. Only 8 of the 26 players on the Leafs roster were originally drafted by Leafs management (Kaberle, Ponikarovsky, Mitchell, Kulemin, Reimer, Stalberg, Gunnarson, and Schnee). Only 1 player drafted by the Leafs in the first round still plays on the team, that being Luke Schenn. Everyone else has arrived via a trade or free agent signing.

As for the Flames, only seven of its 28 player roster were original Flames drafts (Moss, Nystrom, McElhinney, Prust, Boyd, Pardy, & Backlund). Two first-rounders are still around - Eric Nystrom and Mikael Backlund - but the former has evolved into a fourth liner, and the latter is still untried. Whereas only one player on the Devil's roster arrived via trade, almost half the Flame's roster is a product of trades!

Lou is not alone. As the chart below shows, successful teams like Colorado, Dallas, and Detroit all sport a high number of their own drafts on their rosters.

The above comparison sufficiently highlights the vast difference in management styles between the Lamoriellos of the NHL and the Burkes/Sutters. Both the Flames and the Leafs are trying to build teams by acquisition rather than through the draft. Big trades are sexy and attention grabbing, but if New Jersey is any guide to building an effective team, the slow but steady process of drafting a player and nurturing them through the farm team system has been far more successful.

It might be argued that keeping your players during their slumps rather than surprising them and their families with trades demonstrates to the player a degree of respect and commitment, and may get them to better contribute. Teams operating as "profit maximizing" businesses, surprising their players with sudden transactions that they only hear about after in the press, may be the sorts of teams that don't inspire their players. Perhaps GMs Burke and Sutter should get back to the bricks and mortar method of team-building, treating their players as works in progress rather than trading fodder.

One could make the argument that, while the Flames and Leafs have dealt most of their original drafts away, that's not a knock on the actual quality of the Flames/Leafs scouting departments. A well-chosen draft pick, after all, can be exchanged for a proven veteran. Some statistics will put this argument to a quick death. The chart below shows the number of players currently active that have been drafted by each of the 30 NHL team. Scott Gomez, for example, counts in the New Jersey tally, since the Devils drafted him though he now plays for Montreal.

Now Toronto doesn't look so bad in this graph, having drafted 25 active players. Indeed, that's better than Detroit's 24 active drafs! But take a look at the quality of Detroit's drafts: Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom, Knuble, and many more. Those 24 players have combined for a total of 4655 points since being drafted by the Wings. Toronto's best existing draft is the excellent Thomas Kaberle, but the next best in terms of points is... Fred Modin, followed by Nik Antropov. Hardly elite players. Probably the most decent draft in recent times by Leafs management was Brad Boyes, but he was sent to San Jose for veteran Owen Nolan. Sum the point totals of all Toronto drafts and you get a measly 2885, far below Detroit's totals.

As for Lou and the Devils, they have an impressive 34 players drafted still in action. These players have scored an incredible 7707 points! And that doesn't include the amazing goal tending contribution by Marty Brodeur. Lou and his scouts have a fine eye for young talent, and the numbers prove it.

The Flames have been true duds in the draft. Only 17 players drafted by the Flames still play in the NHL, the most significant being Cory Stillman who had his best years after leaving that organization (Iginla was drafted by Dallas, not Calgary). The other notable active Flame draft, Dion Phaneuf, is no longer Flames' property. Point totals for Flames-drafted players sum to a meagre 2485. That's one third of what Lou Lamoriello's Devils management has contributed to the point totals of the current NHL talent pool.

So to conclude this somewhat long winded essay, Lou probably thinks the Flames and Leafs are nuts, since the true way to long term success is not via trades but old fashioned and arduous team building. This doesn't mean trades should never be used. Rather, it means that they are a secondary tool to complement the vital development chain, which includes a good scouting group, a well run farm system, and hard working team-player relationships department. GMs like Sutter waste valuable time plotting huge trades that might be spent improving their teams in these less sexy but more fundamental ways.

Flames management should know this, since the great Flames teams of the 80s and early 90s were populated with amazing Flames drafts: Gary Roberts, Theo Fleury, Hakan Loob, Gary Suter, Joe Nieuwendyk, and Al Macinnis. Leafs, perennial underperformers, would do well to figure this out too. Don't expect these glitzy trades to turn around either team. The New Jerseys, Colorados, and Detroits of the NHL will continue to dominate.