Very sad to hear about the passing of Gann, he was one of the first people I can remember reading Kings news about on the internet.
Nobody wants to be the Buffalo Sabres.
But every contending team and cup winner built their core through the draft (with Vegas as an outlier, but LA won't get a roster construction opportunity).
I think he was saying it in jest, because anytime somebody brings up proper roster construction from the cup winners in a cap world (Chicago, LA, Tampa etc) and trying to emulate that (like Anaheim and SJ are doing) they are met by the usual response from the Axl's and GBH's of the world with the "What about Buffalo?" or "I don't want to be Ottawa" as they defend the Kings ridiculous strategy of trying to construct a black hole roster that has ceiling of one playoff round win.
Nobody argues that doing a traditional rebuild is a recipe for 100% success, just that what the Kings are doing now is indeed a recipe for 100% failure. But ya, unfortunately there are fans (probably ticket holders) who share Axl's sentiment that he'd rather lose in the 1st round than be bad enough to pick in the Top 5.
And to the people posting projected lineups of what could have bee, your rosters now are still not cup contending caliber, but they would be cup contending caliber in a year or two had you gone a little further back than just PLD and Fiala trades and went to the real turning point, the Danault signing, the thing that signaled the end of the rebuild and ushered in the black hole era. Take Danault out of your lineups and replace it with top 10 picks in 2022, 2023 (the real disaster draft to miss out on), and yes, you can certainly see the foundations of a Stanley Cup winner. But doing that wouldn't have gotten Bluc the instant gratification that multiple 1st round exits brought.