From Purgatory to A Cup: Teams that should've rebuilt/retooled, but didn't, then ended up winning it all

[blundluntman]

We've all seen the team that is good enough to make the playoffs, but mediocre enough to not be a real contender. This is fine when a team's developing but can feel like purgatory for fans when they know their team would be better off rebuilding/retooling sooner than later. Are there any teams you can think of that refused to do so, then somehow ended up winning a Cup?

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[frisco]

Actually, no. I can't think of any.

My Best-Carey

 

[MadLuke]

I imagine lot of talks around the Pens before they started winning cups again in 2016-2017.

But I guess they were always in reality real contender (there was competing talk the if Malkin-Crosby are both healthy they are a contender versus the window is closed and it is a mirage), it was just fans exaggerating negatively like the pre-2018 caps.

In this era it is hard to be always be playoff bound without being a real contender, making the playoffs comfortably is quite hard, if we made a list of teams last summer certain of making the playoff in 2025, how many in that list would have been not real contender... Not a lot of space between a will make the playoff comfortably but will not compete for the cup in modern NHL hockey.

 

[Wee Baby Seamus]

2019 St. Louis?

Miss the playoffs for the first time in 7 years in 2018, with a sense that they had stagnated and needed overhauling.

Instead they make one trade, for O’Reilly, start the season calamitously, and end up winning the cup with almost the exact same roster as missed the year prior.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

I imagine lot of talks around the Pens before they started winning cups again in 2016-2017.

But I guess they were always in reality real contender, it was just fans exagerating like the pre 2018 caps.

In this era it is hard to be always be playoff bound without being a real contender, making the playoffs comfortably is quite hard, if we made a list of teams last summer certain of making the playoff in 2025, how many in that list would have been not real contender... Not a lot of space between a will make the playoff comfortably but will not compete for the cup in modern NHL hockey.

Yeah, this is the one for me. They looked to be firmly in the "make the playoffs, maybe in a round" each year purgatory

 

[MadLuke]

the blues win felt like such a special case that could be an exception that confirm the rules a bit like the 2012 8th place Kings winning it all.

That said not so easy coming up with teams that did that without winning the cup either, constant playoff tend to have contender windows or will make a big move at some point (a la Weber leaving the Preds)

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

I mean the Pens I guess are the poster boy for this. The talks got much louder as the years went on. You can probably discount the cup hangover in 10 and injuries in 11. But after getting manhandled in 12, and blowing it in 13 and 14 after stacking the team the bottom fell out in 15, they barely made the playoffs and were beaten pretty easily by the Rangers. Myself and many others thought at that point that they got the 1 cup time to tear it down and well we all know what happened.

The only other 1 I could think of is maybe Detroit in the early 00s. They lost to the Avs 2 straight years and then lost to a much lesser La team in 01. Many people were screaming rebuild after that but they went shopping and it all worked out.

The obvious 1 would have been the Bruins had they won in 19 or 23. Maybe more so 19.

 

[MadLuke]

The only other 1 I could think of is maybe Detroit in the early 00s. They lost to the Avs 2 straight years and then lost to a much lesser La team in 01. Many people were screaming rebuild after that but they went shopping and it all worked out.

But they were without a real and serious contender before 2002.

In the 2000 and 2001 season they had the more points in the nhl, a team filled with recent multiple cup winners, not really a good enough to make the playoff but not much more affair.

 

[NyQuil]

I think people were starting to feel that way about the Caps right before they won the Cup.

 

[Johnny Engine]

The teams that come to mind for non-rebuilding cup winners, right or wrong, are the 1999 Stars, the 2007 Ducks, and the 2019 Blues, but I wanted to check that thought and look at their most recent run of finishing low. I think there are three reasons you'd associate rebuilding with an eventual cup: There are some assets that are very hard to get without a high draft pick, you don't want to let assets that aren't helping you win die on the vine, and you want an environment where players can step in and develop.

Did the Blues post lockout crash directly lead to a cup?

Did they get their hard-to-find talent by finishing low? Not O'Reilly. Not Binnington either but that's fine because goalies are delivered by storks. Obviously a yes on Pietrangelo. Tarasenko came from a lower pick, but still from a playoff miss. They had one other top pick from that era, and while he underwhelmed, he was part of a trade for Shattenkirk, who was parlayed into a draft pick and then Brayden Schenn. A bit of a stretch maybe but you'd rather have those assets than not.

Did their old assets turn into anything useful? They traded Keith Tkachuk and down the road turned that into Robert Bortuzzo. They traded Doug Weight and drafted Berglund who was in the ROR trade. Lee Stempniak is a textbook bad team scorer who raises his value on rebuilding teams and they turned him into Alex Steen.

Did they develop their players on a clean slate? They missed the chance to have Pronger mentor Johnson and Pietrangelo, but they basically kept around two decent vets (Jackman and Brewer) and other than that had miles of space for their youngsters to grow in. Johnson didn't grow so much but it wasn't because they had too many vets on the roster. I think the roster looks the same by the time Tarasenko arrives whether or not Tkachuk and Weight get traded, but I think Steen came into a roster with less clutter than Toronto had, and flourished.

Did the Ducks pre lockout seasons lead to a cup?

Did they get their hard-to-find talent by finishing low?
Lupul and Smid were top ten picks who turned into Chris Pronger. However, Chistov did nothing for them, and Bobby Ryan was still being shipped when they won. Selanne and Niedermayer were signed right off the rack, and Giguere was bought low and by this point was a fixture on the team. Getzlaf and Perry were mid to late first round picks and the Ducks were very lucky to get them for reasons below.

Did their old assets turn into anything useful? Kariya bounced, but Selanne was traded for a package that eventually turned over Rob Niedermayer which turned out to be immeasurably important. Fedorov was sold and they accidentally found a 30 minute defenseman.

Did they develop their players on a clean slate? Perry and Getzlaf reached a crucial development stage on the cleanest slate of all, the lockout, and then came into a fast league where a lot of old players were getting weeded out fast. The Ducks had little to do with that. They also signed a bunch of young-ish free wallets, but they gave them, along with Beauchemin, space to grab on.

Did the Stars late 80s struggles lead to a cup?

Did they get their hard-to-find talent by finishing low? Modano first overall and Hatcher and Matvichuk in the top 10. They were already climbing out of the hole when they stole Iginla at 11 and turned him into Nieuwendyk. Belfour and Hull were simply signed. Harvey got them 2 thirds of a checking line.

Did their old assets turn into anything useful?
Most of the good players from the 80s North Stars died on the vine (Hartsburg) or got shuffled around in meandering asset chains that did not effect the 99 cup (Ciccarelli), but you can draw a line from Brian Lawton to Sergei Zubov which is pretty cool.

Did they develop their players on a clean slate? All kinds of weirdness here, with Harvey not really panning out, guys like Zmolek and Irbe lost in the dispersal draft, etc. But the first three guys I mentioned found their role promptly enough.

I think the answer for all three is, yes, but not as directly as a textbook case like Crosby's Penguins.

 

[WarriorofTime]

The answer is always the Blues. The ultimate “mess around and get lucky” fluke Cup winner of the salary cap era. Inspiring hope for fans of every middling/decent team that maybe it’ll all come together for a few months at the right time and they’ll get a cup out of it.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Yeah ducks are an interesting case. Drafted two franchise cornerstone forwards in the same draft in a year they also made the cup finals in large part because that just so happened to be the very year you could realistically draft franchise cornerstone forwards in the mid to late first round. Then got pretty lucky again back to back with Niedermayer signing as a UFA to play with his brother and Pronger seemingly randomly demanding out of Edmonton after just one year. So now they had two franchise forwards they shouldn’t have been able to draft in normal years and two franchise defensemen they shouldn’t have been able to just plop onto their team like normally as well. And still had the goalie that almost stole them the cup a few years prior. Plus a good chunk of the forward depth from that team. Plus a “coming home” from a former star that was old and washed until the lockout gave him a second life and he aged amazingly from there. They weren’t a fluke because they were an awesome team. But the circumstances of their roster assembly were pretty much a fluke. The aforementioned Blues were a much more normally built team “pretty good team” that got red hot.

 

[carjackmalone]

Montreal 86

 

[wintersej]

The answer is always the Blues. The ultimate “mess around and get lucky” fluke Cup winner of the salary cap era. Inspiring hope for fans of every middling/decent team that maybe it’ll all come together for a few months at the right time and they’ll get a cup out of it.

I would argue that if the Bruins won game 7 they would have been the answer. So many thought they should bottom out in 2015/16/etc as Bergeron, Krejci, Chara were getting up there and then they got lucky with Pasta and McAvoy and some friendly aging curves and made a Cup final, got a couple of Presidents Trophys and an all time great regular season team out of it.

But, alas, no Cup.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I would argue that if the Bruins won game 7 they would have been the answer. So many thought they should bottom out in 2015/16/etc as Bergeron, Krejci, Chara were getting up there and then they got lucky with Pasta and McAvoy and some friendly aging curves and made a Cup final, got a couple of Presidents Trophys and an all time great regular season team out of it.

But, alas, no Cup.

Yes bruins are a great “window is closed… oh j/k it’s not” team. I feel like Blues are good “purgatory… oh wait they won a cup” team.