There are a lot of examples in recent years where the #1 pick was not the best player in the draft. Given the Leafs situation, they need to explore trading down and acquiring more assets because the cupboard is so bare and the rebuild is right around the corner.
2010: Hall vs Seguin. Seguin won.
2011: Nugent-Hopkins vs. Landeskog. Landeskog won.
2012: Yakupov vs Everybody else. Yakupov sucked.
2013: MacKinnon vs Barkov. MacKinnon has scored more points and goals but Barkov has more Cups (way better two-way player too).
2014: Ekblad vs. Reinhart. They won Cups together eventually. #3 Draisaitl way more goals and points than both. Florida with the #1, #2 and #4 (Bennett) pick. Leafs should do the same.
2015: McDavid vs. Eichel. Best player in the world is McDavid, no doubt, but Eichel has the Cup and chasing a 2nd this year.
2016: Matthews vs. Laine. Matthews has the best regular season stats but Tkachuk went 6th and he’s got a Cup.
2017: Hischier vs Patrick. Makar went 4th. Clearly the best player from the draft. Heiskanen went 3rd.
2018: Dahlin vs Svechnikov. Quinn Hughes went 7th.
The “don’t over think it” idea is exactly what they said about some of these other guys at #1 and we can clearly see which teams got the best players or the “winners”.