Rebuild is a tough word because I think it captures allot of geography.
Just so I seek to understand what do you think the Jets best current path forward would be and why? You have probably stated it somewhere in the posts but a quick recap would be appreciated by me.
I'm not totally sure, to be honest. I try to look at it through looking at recent history, the market here, etc. I'm probably just going to ramble a bit but there should be some coherent thoughts in it.
I think rebuilding solely through the draft is difficult. There are so many factors involved and you're not going to fill in gaps with FAs or impact players with some experience due to NTCs. Also, with a market like Winnipeg, you also have the increased risk factor of a prospect you've developed saying he doesn't want to stay long term. That can throw a wrench into things.
One could argue that the team as constructed now was largely built through the draft and you'd have a partial point. The D is all trades except Samberg and Morrissey. The team has had some partial success being competitive but I'd argue if it weren't for Hellebuyck the team as constructed with even an average goalie would not have had the success it did.
You could argue that you could make trades for younger players without NTCs that could step in right away and help, and again, partially true, but teams lately seem very reluctant to ship out players like that where the team has control for 3+ years. I think getting what they got for Dubois was a minor miracle.
There's also the business side. I don't care how many people on here say it, until I see evidence otherwise, I'm not convinced in the slightest that a rebuild is actually better for ticket sales. Bad teams don't sell, whether the team has been up front with saying "We're rebuilding" or not. Chicago blatantly tanked and their nightly average attendance was the worst it had been since 2007-08. Attendance in Buffalo was under 10k for 2021-22. The team was decent last year and suddenly that jumps 6k a night. Winnipeg is already seen as a small outlier market in the league, just the optics alone are bad if attendance drips thanks to Bettman's "it has to sell out each night" stuff when the team came back, even if that's not totally true.
I bring up rebuild as tanking because I think the successful teams are more often than not built on the back of a superstar player. Crosby/Malkin/Letang/Fleury. Kopitar/Doughty. Ovechkin. Stamkos/Kucherov/Hedman/Vasilevsky. McDavid/Draisaitl. Matthews/Marner/Reilly. MacKinnon. These teams that have had strong levels of success, be it regular season dominance or playoff success, have had one or more very high draft pick lead the charge. There are some exceptions of course but I don't think Winnipeg fits that mold (eg Vegas, Boston). I think we'll see Chicago have that with Bedard. Players will line up to play with top end talent. Winnipeg has a superstar but unfortunately it's in a position where there's no offensive impact at all.
I think the team will be forced into a rebuild eventually but because I think it's going to be long and ultimately have a small chance of actual success in my view, the team should avoid doing that as much as they possibly can until they absolutely cannot avoid it. I think a small market team voluntarily going into that kind of tank job is suicide. I think trying to get NHL ready players for assets that aren't wanting to stay is going to make your team worse, or at best, stay at a similar level.
