Forever rebuilds

[Golden_Jet]

Ottawa and Buffalo are the outliers not the other way around.

Tampa/LA/Chicago/Pittsburgh/Caps/Colorado all show the way.

At least Ottawa hasn’t hit leafs level of futility yet, missing 10/11 playoffs straight, made it in a 48 game season.
Took 19-20 years to win a playoff round, and have never won 3 rounds in their history.
You can add the leafs to your outlier list.

 

[Yepthatsme]

This forum idolizes rebuilds as the solution for any bad/mediocre/old/underperforming team, but they’re getting longer and are often pretty unsuccessful pending on draft luck. A litany of teams just in the salary cap era have struggled through them.

Toronto: First year missing playoffs was 2006. First top 5 pick in 2008. 7 years straight missing playoffs. 11 years until they’re a consistent playoff team. 18 years until their first playoff round win. Cup: 0

Edmonton: First year missing was 2007. First top 5 pick was in 2010. 10 years straight of missing playoffs. 13 years straight before becoming a consistent playoff team. Cups: 0

Florida: went 22 years between making the playoffs in consecutive seasons. No clue how to classify this, however this current team seems to stem from the most recent rebuild kickstarted with drafting top 5 first in 2010. Would be 10 years before making the playoffs consistently and 13 before winning a round.

Colorado: First year missing playoffs in 2009. First year drafting top 5 in 2009. Would make the playoffs twice before making it consistently 10 years later (11 years until their first round win. 14 years later would win a cup.

Arizona: First year missing playoffs 2013. First year drafting top 5 in 2015. 7 years straight missing playoffs. 12 years later still not a consistent playoff team.

Buffalo: First year missing the playoffs 2012. First year drafting top 5 2014. 13 straight years without playoffs and ongoing.

Detroit: First year missing playoffs 2017. First top 5 pick 2020. 8th season of missing playoffs (currently a bubble team looking to end that streak).

Columbus: don’t even know how to classify these guys, it’s been about 3 separate rebuilds since 2001, with their crowning joy an upset playoff round win over Tampa.

Ottawa: first year missing the playoffs 2018. First top 5 pick 2018. 7 years straight without playoffs and ongoing.

San Jose: first year missing the playoffs 2020. First year drafting top 5 in 2023. On their current 5th straight season of missing the playoffs, they’re battling for last place in the league, and have many years to go on the rebuild.

So there we have it. 1/3 of the league, with all that’s guaranteed to come out of it is a pretty dark decade. I’d much rather teams continuously making small tweaks to their roster hoping they hit the lottery with a move instead of blowing it up. There will always be teams that just bottom out naturally like the Sharks and Red Wings of the world, but blowing it up only guarantees being bad, not eventually being good.

 

[b in vancouver]

And yet it's the only way to win:
Pittsburgh tanked to get Malkin, Crosby
Chicago tanked to get Toews, Kane
LA tanked to get Doughty, Kopitar
Washington tanked Ovie, Backstrom
Colorado tanked to get Makar, Mack, Byram

Tanking is no guarantee, but you are guaranteed to never win without it

Boston?
Wasn’t Kopitar 11th OA. That’s ‘missing the playoffs’. Are there any teams aside from The Pens, Caps and Bruins who haven’t ‘earned’ a top 10 pick in the last 15 years?

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

i don't think it is as skewed as you say.

-between 2004 and 2020 13 teams drafted 1oa
-5 won the cup led by the 1oa (caps, pens, tampa, avs and hawks)
-panthers went to the final with plenty of help from ekblad
-matthews made the leafs a contender
-mcdavid made the oilers a contender
-jack hughes has the devils trending contender

it's also difficult to win the cup without a 1oa. since 2007 only the bruins, kings, blues and vegas have managed it, and vegas had a 2oa in eichel who would have been a 1oa most years and kings had doughty at 2oa.

What about Detroit in 2008 and St. Louis in 2019? I'm fairly certain neither of those teams had a 1OA.

 

[krutovsdonut]

What about Detroit in 2008 and St. Louis in 2019? I'm fairly certain neither of those teams had a 1OA.

i missed detroit, but the st louis nhl franchise is known as the blues.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

i missed detroit, but the st louis nhl franchise is known as the blues.

Oops. I missed the Blues in there.

 

[BackWithaVengeance]

Buffalo has Quinn, Peterka, Skinner, Mittlestadt, Cozens, Olofsson on the roster and Savoie, Kulich, Benson, Ostlund, Rosen, etc. they don’t want to move any because they’re all such great prospects. Including the roster guys, maybe 2 are above 6 foot and the entire group might combine for 150 hits if they were all in the NHL? I mean that’s 11 forwards right there without Tuch, Thompson, etc. Continuing to collect “talent” while not adding any grit, leadership, experience, etc. isn’t ever going to be a winning recipe. They probably need to identify 5 current forwards and 2-3 prospects tops that are going to be the future and start moving the rest for quality depth.

I see what you did there .

Seriously, good post.

 

[lawrence]

i heard an interview from the Dallas stars owner. Burnaby based Galardi was asked what do owners really feel about “rebuilds” and from his words he says that owners don’t like rebuilds or prolonged rebuilds etc etc of course galardi does not speak for all owners.

In the case of Ottawa , in their perspective is 2018 -2021 are their rebuild years and now it’s time to win years.

 

[Thallis]

Boston? Vegas? St. Louis?

Tampa is an interesting case, as while they had 2 #1OV (Stamkos and LeCavallier), and both were VERY important players for their franchise, by the time they won a cup, neither of them was really the best, or probably even a second best player on the team.

Oh, and Kopitar was #11th overall... Don't think anobody tanked for a mid-pick.

St. Louis was built around Pietrangelo, who was drafted during a 3 year rebuild (5 if you include the year they made the playoffs and got swept).

What about Detroit in 2008 and St. Louis in 2019? I'm fairly certain neither of those teams had a 1OA.

Blues picked Eric Johnson 1st OA, then Pietrangelo at 4th overall. Johnson never lived up to expectations, but Pietrangelo was the foundation of the franchise for a decade and captained the team to the cup win (and probably should have won the Smythe).

 

[RRhoads]

Ottawas been rebuilding since what, 2018? Thats 6 years, thats as long as the Habs, shorter than Detroit...

Detroit didn't really start the rebuild until Yzerman got there. He traded away players for draft picks and bought out. Ken Holland never tried to rebuild.

 

[NVious]

Boston?
Wasn’t Kopitar 11th OA. That’s ‘missing the playoffs’. Are there any teams aside from The Pens, Caps and Bruins who haven’t ‘earned’ a top 10 pick in the last 15 years?

Boston model is;
1.Draft 2 hall of famers in the 2nd/3rd round
2.Sign a top 5 in prime defenseman as a free agent
3.Find the greatest undrafted player arguably ever (Tim Thomas) and sign him

 

[NVious]

This forum idolizes rebuilds as the solution for any bad/mediocre/old/underperforming team, but they’re getting longer and are often pretty unsuccessful pending on draft luck. A litany of teams just in the salary cap era have struggled through them.

Toronto: First year missing playoffs was 2006. First top 5 pick in 2008. 7 years straight missing playoffs. 11 years until they’re a consistent playoff team. 18 years until their first playoff round win. Cup: 0

Edmonton: First year missing was 2007. First top 5 pick was in 2010. 10 years straight of missing playoffs. 13 years straight before becoming a consistent playoff team. Cups: 0

Florida: went 22 years between making the playoffs in consecutive seasons. No clue how to classify this, however this current team seems to stem from the most recent rebuild kickstarted with drafting top 5 first in 2010. Would be 10 years before making the playoffs consistently and 13 before winning a round.

Colorado: First year missing playoffs in 2009. First year drafting top 5 in 2009. Would make the playoffs twice before making it consistently 10 years later (11 years until their first round win. 14 years later would win a cup.

Arizona: First year missing playoffs 2013. First year drafting top 5 in 2015. 7 years straight missing playoffs. 12 years later still not a consistent playoff team.

Buffalo: First year missing the playoffs 2012. First year drafting top 5 2014. 13 straight years without playoffs and ongoing.

Detroit: First year missing playoffs 2017. First top 5 pick 2020. 8th season of missing playoffs (currently a bubble team looking to end that streak).

Columbus: don’t even know how to classify these guys, it’s been about 3 separate rebuilds since 2001, with their crowning joy an upset playoff round win over Tampa.

Ottawa: first year missing the playoffs 2018. First top 5 pick 2018. 7 years straight without playoffs and ongoing.

San Jose: first year missing the playoffs 2020. First year drafting top 5 in 2023. On their current 5th straight season of missing the playoffs, they’re battling for last place in the league, and have many years to go on the rebuild.

So there we have it. 1/3 of the league, with all that’s guaranteed to come out of it is a pretty dark decade. I’d much rather teams continuously making small tweaks to their roster hoping they hit the lottery with a move instead of blowing it up. There will always be teams that just bottom out naturally like the Sharks and Red Wings of the world, but blowing it up only guarantees being bad, not eventually being good.

The 3 teams that have sucked pretty bad for a long time are Columbus, Buffalo and Arizona. Although Columbus might literally have the greatest upset in NHL history, so I don't know about including them. Toronto is nearing a decade of being good and yet Arizona has gone further than them in recent times, so yeah. Buffalo just refuses to make any moves to upgrade the team.

A true tank and rebuild is a direction, what's worse is directionless teams that have wandered around doing nothing in the same time period, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Calgary and Detroit come to mind.

 

[Mrb1p]

Detroit didn't really start the rebuild until Yzerman got there. He traded away players for draft picks and bought out. Ken Holland never tried to rebuild.

Not true. Your rebuild started in 2017. Ottawa in 2018.

 

[Discipline Daddy]

Two things.

1) A winning culture is everything. You need your players, coach, GM, basically the whole organization to be doing everything to win. If there's a whiff of tanking or being complacent with missing the playoffs, the stink can fill the room. Players don't go for it as hard in board battles, players don't backcheck as hard, players don't believe they can come back when down in the 3rd period.

2) Defense. I come across this time and time again on these boards, and I believe defense is extremely underrated, and offense is therefore overrated. There are players who can score 30 and still be a net negative because they are so bad defensively. If a player scores 5 goals and gives up 4 goals, that player is more valuable than one who scores 30 goals and gives up 35. No comparison is that simple, but you get the idea.

A player's value around the league and also their contract cap hit is generally determined 80% or more from their offense alone. High scorers get paid more, obviously. And it should be that way as goal scoring is harder to find than defense. However, a lot of teams are built from offensive pieces that don't offer much defensively.

As an example, I'd much rather have Steve Yzerman who plays defense and scores 70 points than the Yzerman who gets 100 and doesn't backcheck.

Vegas is full of players who score decently well but also play a committed two-way game. The Panthers have a number of them as well. Boston is maybe the best example.

 

[ottawah]

Ottawa has been in a long rebuild largely due to trades.

Notable players traded in the last 5 years:

Debrincat, Gustavsson, Paul, Stone, duchesnse

Notable players received :

Chycrun, Picks outside of the top 25

Granted of course 4 of those players traded were more due to impending FA status, but its a big outflow of talent.

Which largely brings me up to my point. There are preferred destinations in the NHL (Sunny, low taxes, class A organizations), and then there are some with crappy weather, higher taxes, and relative tire fire organizations. No surprise to me that the organizations taking the forever rebuilds are often in the second list, not the first. Quite simply its not easy for some organizations to hold onto FA's, and unless your trading of these is very astute (ottawas has not been in the least) its very very hard to keep up.

 

[613Leafer]

Ottawa feels like they're a few tweaks away from potentially being really good.

A solid top 4 defensive dman.
A quality 3rd liner.
A coach that actually preaches accountability and team defence.

If they do that, and assuming Korpisalo would look better with a stronger defensive team in front of him, then I think they could take some big leaps forward.

And it's still a number of changes, but ultimately a lot easier to do than trying to add a franchise player (or two) to your core.

 

[BFLO]

If you took all of the current players that are former Sabres during the drought and made a team out of them they’d be cup contenders.

 

[Fatass]

Ottawa feels like they're a few tweaks away from potentially being really good.

A solid top 4 defensive dman.
A quality 3rd liner.
A coach that actually preaches accountability and team defence.

If they do that, and assuming Korpisalo would look better with a stronger defensive team in front of him, then I think they could take some big leaps forward.

And it's still a number of changes, but ultimately a lot easier to do than trying to add a franchise player (or two) to your core.

Maybe the Sens have too many alike players, especially on D? To me it’s like they are missing the hard to play against guys who eat pucks and crap rubber.

 

[Tofveve]

I'm baffled at Buffalo this year. Total regression IMO. Like why did Thompson disappear for the final 3rd of last season after looking like a superstar during the first 2/3? And this year's he's mostly so-so, not exactly flashing what he did last year either.

Teams I'm always wondering what is going with: Nashville and Wild. Might as well throw Columbus in too.

 

[Byron Bitz]

, you would think that accumulating top draft picks over a period of years would eventually equate to some success,

Ottawa actually hasn’t accumulated that many high draft picks.