If Pittsburgh is in 2033 what Detroit is now it will have been a massive failure. Hopefully pens bottom out hard after Crosby/Malkin retire. Heck even this decaying senior citizen pens team is better than the Yzerplan year 6 wings.
Yeah, and what about if they drop in the lottery every year and the drafts are weaker ones? You got lucky last time with Crosby and Malkin, just as the Oilers got lucky with McDrai, great chances are you don't get two really good players super close together like that in the future. Even with the Oilers, they still haven't won a Cup with two of the best in the game, and look at the other rebuild teams, most of them haven't done anything. Heck, even with our long losing run here, we still have more Cups and playoff games in the past 30 years than all the other so called rebuild successes, with the exception of maybe the Pens.
Getting top picks is also harder than the last time the Pens rebuilt, as you are more likely to lose out on 1-2 overall even if you finish down there than you are to win.
Let's say Detroit made the playoffs last season and this season unfolded the way it has, would those running Detroit down consider that good, just because there is no longer x amount of years since playoffs?