GDT: #12 ⋅ VAN @ ANA ⋅ 7:00 PM PST

[Boo Boo]

Well, everyone here who loves the tank thread and wants it open and yadda yadda yadda, here it is, the sowing to your reaping. We are losing, permanently. Hope you're still enjoying it.

To be fair I think theres definitely a reasonable subset of people who want the tank thread open so we can keep the draft pick yapping contained to a sanitary single thread

 

[JAHV]

It isn't disingenuous, it's what people wanted. I don't think they fully appreciated the consequences of doing what they were advocating for. These are the consequences.

This is one potential consequence, but 1) it was no guarantee the Ducks would be this bad this long and 2) there's no guarantee they'll stay this bad. Tanking works, unfortunately. Being run-of-the-mill bad for an extended period doesn't.

 

[dracom]

This is one potential consequence, but 1) it was no guarantee the Ducks would be this bad this long and 2) there's no guarantee they'll stay this bad. Tanking works, unfortunately. Being run-of-the-mill bad for an extended period doesn't.

tanking works for certain teams...the ones that would best benefit the league that is...

 

[Ducks DVM]

This is one potential consequence, but 1) it was no guarantee the Ducks would be this bad this long and 2) there's no guarantee they'll stay this bad. Tanking works, unfortunately. Being run-of-the-mill bad for an extended period doesn't.

There’s absolutely a guarantee that you’re going to be a bottom 5 team 2 seasons after a raze it to the bones tear down.

 

[Frosted Tips]

Goddamn, I didn't know Sherwood was such a clown. Or maybe I'm missing something important that happened but his clowning didn't make any sense or he just tried too hard, or he thinks he's the shit now. Compared to the Ducks squat, he might as well be the shit. But that's just a whole new level of depressing, but we're used to that by now.

 

[HanSolo]

There’s absolutely a guarantee that you’re going to be a bottom 5 team 2 seasons after a raze it to the bones tear down.

Well sure but if the timeframe is just two seasons, that's kind of the point. No team tears it down to get a high draft pick with the expectation thaf one high draft pick is going to turn it around.

 

[Ducks DVM]

Well sure but if the timeframe is just two seasons, that's kind of the point. No team tears it down to get a high draft pick with the expectation thaf one high draft pick is going to turn it around.

I was responding to the statement “it was no guarantee the Ducks would be this bad this long”. There absolutely was, because that’s how long it’s been.

People get confused by what happens when teams that weren’t strip mined get 1st overalls. It’s usually 6-9 years after the tear down for a team to be good again. We are nowhere near that.

 

[HanSolo]

Anyway, I don't agree that the tank teardown here is the reason we're this bad right now.

I don't know how many people remember how bad Manson was playing before we shipped him, but I do. I also remember how this team was pretty signifcantly on the downswing when Verbeek took over. I also remember that Dallas Eakins was this team's coach at the time. To me it's very conceivable that this team would still be well outside the playoff picture if they had kept Manson. Rakell probably would not have re-signed and he probably wouldn't make much of a difference today, maybe we'd have 5-6 more goals which would still be league basement. Then there was Henrique and Carrick who were, uh, spoiler alert, on the team last season when we still sucked ass. Klingberg was and still is atrocious so at least we got something out of him. Kulikov would not have moved the needle and McGinn basically makes that trade a wash. Drysdale, considering when he was moved, would not make this team measurably better right about now.

Lindholm is the only significant Verbeek vet departure that you can look at and say, yeah it would make a measurable positive difference if we still had him. But even then, we're still talking about a hypothetical scenario where if none of these vet departures had happened maybe we don't make a coaching change, in that hypothetical scenario we still have Dallas Eakins as our coach, we still wouldn't be an attractive FA draw as a losing team in a market with a high tax burden.

At best, if we'd kept all these vets and assume that they'd be willing to re-sign we would just be a 7th-12th drafting team rather than a top 5 drafting team today. This team's decline started because we did not have enough players to adequately replace what we were losing from the decline in play from Getzlaf, Perry, and arguably Gibson, and starting with Carlyle we didn't have a head coach that could compensate for the declining roster strength because starting with Carlyle we, to this day, haven't had a coach that has managed to adapt to the modern NHL. We didn't have much of an option to replace what we were losing by way of roster strength through the FA market and certainly not through the trade market.

The fact that the decision was ultimately to rebuild out of the draft is not the reason we still suck and play incompetent hockey. Yes the Verbeek veteran acquisitions haven't been good enough. But the biggest problem here, considering a young team like this still needs time to develop its youth to form a fresh core, is our coach is clearly not getting the most out of his players, not coaching proper systems, winning habits, basic fundamentals or motivating the players to battle hard in games. I don't see how this would have been better if we had kept the veterans Verbeek moved under the very bold assumption that all of them would have re-signed here with the way things were declining.

I mean, the way I see it, the difference between not blowing it up to start a draft rebuild and what actually happened is, at best the difference between ending up a perennially mediocre team like Calgary or having the potential for a successful rebuild out of the draft like Pittsburgh, Colorado, Edmonton, Chicago, etc. with the risk present that we could end up like Buffalo or Arizona/Utah.

Rebuilding out of the draft almost always takes time. If we're tracking how long we've been doing it since Verbeek came on and moved vets out, it's been three drafts. Unless we got very fortunate in the trade/FA markets it was going to be unlikely that such a young team was going to seriously contend for a playoff spot anyway. This season should have been and still needs to be a year where we see our youth take meaningful steps towards developing to their potential, to see the vets start to play more like their peers on teams who have better adapted to the modern NHL, and the team as a whole playing to better systems, habits, and effort to cure the current culture of losing and malaise. None of that is happening right now but it's not because of lack of talent. It's the people behind the bench who can't even figure out how to get this collection of players to pass muster on playing minimally competent hockey in today's NHL.

I think it's a bit harsh to say the people who were hoping for high draft picks in lost seasons are "reaping what they sow" given that no one who calls themselves a Ducks fan was "sowing" having an utterly incompetent moron for a coach to see us out of the rebuild.

Three-four years of intentionally building out of the draft without solidifying our long term core and all of a sudden we're rewriting history on what this team looked like before we started and what we would look like if we hadn't shipped vets. Let's be real. None of the vets Verbeek moved out were superstars that would've insulated this team from awful outdated coaches and singlehandedly drag this team to better results. Maybe there's some improvements to faceoffs and offense generated but I seriously doubt they would be substantial enough improvements that we can credible say we were better off before. We're not better off now but we could be better with a competent or-dare I even ask for it-good coaching staff.

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

The build-up parts of rebuilds are hard. Core replacement surgeries. No guarantee your new core is any good, and that’s before you factor in development (coaching) and chemistry/construction (management). Most people can’t do it and we’ll find out firsthand, together, whether it’s a good idea to leave it in the hands of first-time GMs and first-time head coaches.

 

[JAHV]

I was responding to the statement “it was no guarantee the Ducks would be this bad this long”. There absolutely was, because that’s how long it’s been.

People get confused by what happens when teams that weren’t strip mined get 1st overalls. It’s usually 6-9 years after the tear down for a team to be good again. We are nowhere near that.

Fair enough, but we shouldn't have been this bad for this long had Murray initiated the teardown sooner.

 

[70sSanO]

Whether we improve or not, I think the one issue with the team is a lack of basic hockey fundamentals.

Somewhere in all of this is an inability of a coaching staff to build on rookie mistakes.

We look pathetic because we repeat the same mistakes over and over again hoping for a better outcome.

Improvement for this team means identifying those tendencies and actually showing the kids how to move on from them.

I just don’t think the kids know what to do. In so many situations they panic and just move the puck somewhere as long at it is off their stick.

John

 

[Hockey Duckie]

It's disingenuous to say those who thought tanking was the best strategy want to lose forever. The point of tanking is to acquire elite talent so that the team can win again. Sometimes it works (Chicago, Pittsburgh, LA, Toronto to a degree), sometimes it doesn't (Buffalo, Ottawa, Arizona).

No one loves tanking for its own sake. I hate tanking. But it's a strategy that can work if done properly. And with the players we had, the team wasn't going anywhere but down anyway. Re-signing Lindholm and Manson would just ensure we drafted 7th a couple years in a row instead of 3rd.

I find this post odd. First paragraph is about things being disingenuous, but the second paragraph lists a positive extreme for tanking via blowing up the team sans Verbeek as GM and a negative extreme for not tanking with Verbeek as GM. Then citing your biased projection as a concrete conclusion despite Verbeek inheriting a team that was in a playoff spot at the TDL is classless.

There are many different ways to be successful. The determinant is mostly on the GM. At the moment, Verbeek is proving he isn't successful in his campaign.

---

We have two samples of rebuilding: slowly (Murray) and blown up the team (Verbeek). Murray's year 3 had them in a playoff position at all-star break (3rd in Pacific) and still within contention at the TDL by 4 points away from 3rd in the Pacific without any front office meddling b/c Murray resigned in early November. OTOH, Verbeek is collecting a lot of talent via the draft, but his pro organizational production is severely lacking and toothless.

Spoiler: Murray rebuild sample set

In year 3 of the Murray rebuild, the team was 3rd in the Pacific at all-star break in Feb... with Murray resigning in Nov. Youths Terry, Z, and D broke out offensively. Fowler hit an offensive high and Des had developed into a PK guy while being the team's pugilist. Before the TDL, the PP and PK were in the top-10 of the league.

• Murray rebuild (graduated)
  • 2018-19, TDL start of rebuild: 8th worst record
  • 2019-20, Year 1: 5th worst record
  • 2020-21, Year 2: 2nd worst record
  • 2021-22, Year 3:
    • 12-game mark : 5-4-3 (13 pts),
      3-gm win streak (part of the 8-gm win streak and started shortening the bench = no rookies at end of games)
      GF = 38
      GA = 36
    • All-Star break: 3rd in Pacific
    • TDL: 4 points from 3rd in Pacific
    • End of season: 23 pts from 3rd in Pacific
    • 10th worst record.

Spoiler: Verbeek rebuild sample set

In year 3 of the Verbeek reset rebuild, the team is at the bottom-5/3 of the league, most of the youths have stagnated or regressed and our vets are meh to start the season. What makes Verbeek's situation worse is that he already inherited talents from initial Murray rebuild drafts: RW Terry, C Lundy, G Dostal, C Zegras, LD LaCombe, LD Thrun (traded away), RD Drysdale (traded away for 2022 5th rounder Cutter), RW Colangelo, RD Moore, C McTavish, LD Zell, and LD Hinds.

• Verbeek reset rebuild (blown up)
  • 2021-22, TDL start of reset rebuild: 10th worst record
  • 2022-23, Year 1: Worst record
  • 2023-24, Year 2: 2nd worst record
  • 2021-22, Year 3:
    • 12-game mark : 4-6-2 (10 pts)
      3-gm losing streak (0-2-1)
      GF = 25 (32nd best of 32)
      GA = 36 (24th worst of 32)
    • Currently tied for 3rd worst record