It's difficult to sleep at night, then I remember the 4 cups. But seriously this is a team that refuses to toss the towel for a season and finishes in mid draft position. They really need to clean house and become the 'dead things' again for a few seasons. I'm not sure they can return to form with the current path. More and more difficult to luck into players like Lidstrom, Fedorov and low draft picks these days.
This is my thinking too. I agree with leaf fan earlier as well.
Sens fan here, and if the sens don't make the playoffs again this year, I'd rather blow it up and try again. I'm willing to be patient with my team for this year as they are playing good hockey so let's see where it goes.
But this isn't about the sens but rather that strategy.
The worst thing you can do is be good enough to not be in the basement but not good enough for the playoffs. Obviously you might be there for a year on an upswing or downswing, but you absolutely do not want to be there several seasons in a row.
You need to figure out "does this young core have the potential to win a championship one day?" And if the answer is no, it's better not to waste everyone's time being mid for 5 years before you decide to do the rebuild. Do it right away and do it right.
The wings did like the sens where they tried to improve too quickly. They got bad luck when tanking and ended up with not so great picks...what they should have done is kept tanking until they got those picks...not go after vets and kane and debrincat and Perron and Tarasenko etc. these guys will make it so Detroit is out of the basement but not ever good enough to win a cup down the road. Just ensures they stay middling... exactly like I'm scared of my own team.
You should want to either suck or be good. No in between. It's important to recognize when you're in between, you're in no man's land and you need to get out ASAP. If you can't get out by improving, get out by trading away your assets for picks and going for that superstar draft pick because once you get them, you're likely a decent team for like 15 years