The flip side to bad teams trying to rebuild is to look at the good teams. Most of the teams that are doing well league wide didn’t get there through what fans think of as rebuilding. Winnipeg, Washington, Dallas, Florida, Vegas, Carolina, Minnesota have been making hockey trades and drafting well during periods where their teams had down years. Toronto, Tampa, Colorado, and Edmonton bottomed out years ago and got repeatedly lucky at the draft while they were bad, but it wasn’t stockpiling more picks and prospects that made the difference for them.