Winnipeg sucked for more than a decade before they became Winnipeg.
So will we if we stay on the path we're on.
Yep. Aging vets + no elite talent in pipeline + poor roster roster management = 5 - 10 years of sucking. Honesty, we need a few years of sucking to get the elite talent we need. It will be hard to watch and there will be no guarantees.
It seems like you're talking through your hat here. Under Maurice, the Jets were an excellent team. When we were at our all-time peek, they were right there with us. And look at where the two franchises are now.
What is Taylor doing so terribly in Milwaukee? Serious question.
San jose in my opinion are rebuilding the correct way. Mike Grier is doing an excellent job stock piling young stars. They already have their top 2 centers with Celebrini and Smith. They are about to get a top defenseman if they stay at 1 to go along with another potential great defenseman in Dickinson. They plucked askarov from us and their wingers look solid as well with eklund musty. I think San jose will start their upward swing next year. I think grier will start bringing in some good leadership veterans soon.
True Dallas is another who didnt full tear down. BUT this front office has already proved they can't hit on mid first rounders like dallas or the development sucks ass. If we don't want to do a full rebuild then this ownership group has to fire this front office and bring in another group. Janko as gm and Peverley for player personnel would be on my radar
Grier has done a good job with the terrible hand Wilson left him. (Not that he really had much choice.) To be clear, I meant that I don't think the Sharks will be in the SCF next season or the season after. They should start inching their way up the standings, I agree. A lot depends on what sort of FAs Grier can attract, obviously. And that will be the bigger test: who does Grier sign and how do they mesh with the obvious youth movement that's already underway. Assuming he does well there and everything else works out (Celebrini, Smith, Askarov become dominant NHLers, etc.), the Sharks could be legit contenders in 4 or 5 seasons. I guess I am just discounting the near term a bit more than you, since I do think young guys have to pay their dues at the NHL level and their progress is simply nonlinear.
Next year? I want to be extremely bad.
Couldn't agree more. Would love to see this come to fruition. Now that would be fun to watch.
We sit and wonder why we can't develop talent and have a former 4th line plug as our director of development, hmmmmmm.
Not referencing Taylor, I meant the hockey ops, scouting and at this point the management side, game ops have been terrible the last few seasons.
They're scary even if we don't deal him. Having RoR as your 1C isn't a good thing
Well technically san jose didn't commit to a rebuild until grier got there in 22. So 3 years into a rebuild and I think there right on pace to start moving up the standings next year or the year after. If I'm grier I would be looking to sign some player this year. Marner could look really nice along side Celebrini or Smith and poink or ekbald would solidify the right side. Maybe a year to soon for that though.
To tie this back to the Preds ... the last few years of Wilson count as a rebuild in my interpretation in the same way the Preds are rebuilding right now. Wilson was alone on the island of denial. He thought he could keep a group and swap out other pieces and everything would come together with some pixie dust even when it was clear to everyone it wasn't going to happen. Trotz is repeating similar chapter and verse. Just needs players to play better, good puck luck, and maybe add a piece or two in free agency. The only difference is that the Sharks were a mushy middle team at that point while the Preds are in Sucksville.
I don't necessarily believe you have to rebuild in the sense of being the worse team in hockey either. It's one way to become a contender but not the only. Look at teams in our division alone dallas, st louis and Winnipeg. Conner, Johnston, Robertson, Thomas and kyrou, just to name a few, were all lower picks but were developed into really good players. We just don't have that kind of staff right now. Nichol is terrible with developing, scouts are under par and our gm quite frankly has no idea what he's doing. The best way to turn this franchise around would be to fire the entire front office and bring in someone who has no ties to the preds. The "predator way" isn't the way anymore.
The way to avoid the 10 year rebuild is to NOT strip it down to the studs. What has happened to Detroit is what could easily happen to us. Detroit blew it up completely but due to not getting at least two franchise players in the draft(one isn't enough) they are now seeing the prospects they thought would be the cornerstone of their rebuilt teams turning 27 and 28 and leaving or not having become good enough to be worth keeping.
The Wings never blew their team up though. They basically just let all their guys age into retirement while being completely unable to draft and develop any young players with the mid to later first round picks they had. Which actually sounds a lot like our current predicament. I do think Detroit is a good example that with the draft lottery that being consistently terrible doesn’t guarantee you ever actually get a franchise level player though.
