Hidden away on my laptop is a list that’s simply labeled “ideas.” It’s where I keep all those potential columns that I haven’t got around to yet, or in some cases haven’t worked up the courage to try. A lot of them are weird. Some are probably just flat-out dumb. In some cases I’m waiting for some sort of news hook; in others I’m just holding off until Slow News Summer hits its peak. A lot of them just aren’t there yet in terms of supporting a whole piece, but might be some day if I get desperate enough circumstances change.The point is, sometimes it just makes sense to wait on an idea. And yes, I’ll pause here so you can think about the stuff I have published and then wonder what isn’t making the cut.But there’s a downside to this approach: It turns out that if you wait too long on a given idea, the NHL might just decide to make it moot.That’s happened to me with an idea I’d always kind of liked but never got around to. It’s not even that weird. The concept was to see which year can make the best six-man lineup of players who were traded for first-round picks in that year’s draft.NHL offer sheets are just businessSean Gentille and Sean McIndoeFor example, if you went back to the 1994 draft, you could build a team that featured Eric Lindros, Mats Sundin and Wendel Clark, with Dave Manson and Uwe Krupp on the back end. Not bad, except for the lack of a goalie, but certainly beatable. It would be challenging, since first-round picks aren’t traded for players all that often, but far from impossible. And I had no idea which year would “win,” so it would be an excuse to Remember Some Trades.And then 2026 showed up, said “hold my beer,” and then dropped a keg on my head.I realized that while reading Harman’s excellent piece, which flags just how many first-round picks are being traded these days. It turns out that over half of this year’s first-rounders were traded at least once, with nine of them being traded multiple times. And a lot of those moves involved big names.You want a six-man starting lineup? The first round of the 2026 draft can almost give us an entire roster.