Randy Randerson
Registered User
One big difference though, Vancouver is not a hockey market, fans will not show up if the team is in full tank mode, we are a very fickle fan base here. Combine that with the price of tickets here and it would be a recipe for disaster, the last time the team was that bad was the late 90's where there was talk of the team moving. Trust me when I say this market would not make it through a rebuild.
The way that Benning is doing it is the best way, people seem to forget that when Linden and Benning were hired they said right away that moves would be made that people would have issue with, which is what has happened, Benning is building from the goalie out, people don't see that, its a route that works for this market and this team.
We all saw what happened last year when we finished 27th over all and still ended up with the worst possible scenario in terms of draft picks, I really don't want to see that happen again.
There are some differences for sure btw Edm/Tor (and Cgy, Wpg, Mtl, Ott) and Vancouver - Weather plays a huge part because you guys can play other sports pretty much year round, but I really think there's a big enough population with enough of an ingrained hockey culture to make it through a rebuild. I agree that the team wouldn't be ravenously supported through the worst of it, but if it were done right I don't think you'd have any issue getting the casual portion of the fanbase back
The retool approach is fine if you can find core players without top 5 picks, but those top picks are super helpful to find the guys to build around. Juolevi and Boeser look like a good start so who knows, maybe they'll get by without bottoming out. It just never worked for the leafs, but our drafting was awful