Cyclones Rock
Registered User
- Jun 12, 2008
- 10,519
- 7,501
Say what you will about the rules for Vegas, but they've been an ultra competitive team from the start and it looks like they will continue to be for the foreseeable future. They hit a home run with their expansion conditions. Most would not have.
McCrimmon, McPhee and Foley are/were simply top notch. They eschewed the traditional thinking that a team will perform at a peak level for 7-8 years or so and then "rebuild". Rebuild is simply a euphemism organizations use to justify having had an awful core long term strategy.
These guys learned from Chicago and LA who gave aging core players long term "reward" contracts when the reasonably expected performance of these core players would have been to decline from their peak levels. Pittsburgh evidently had blinders on as they've followed the same sorry path.
If I were to run an NHL franchise, I'd heavily borrow from the Vegas and Tampa models. Any model which sustains high performance for a decade in a cap environment should be applauded and not dismissed as a fluke of expansion rules.
Give credit where credit is due.
McCrimmon, McPhee and Foley are/were simply top notch. They eschewed the traditional thinking that a team will perform at a peak level for 7-8 years or so and then "rebuild". Rebuild is simply a euphemism organizations use to justify having had an awful core long term strategy.
These guys learned from Chicago and LA who gave aging core players long term "reward" contracts when the reasonably expected performance of these core players would have been to decline from their peak levels. Pittsburgh evidently had blinders on as they've followed the same sorry path.
If I were to run an NHL franchise, I'd heavily borrow from the Vegas and Tampa models. Any model which sustains high performance for a decade in a cap environment should be applauded and not dismissed as a fluke of expansion rules.
Give credit where credit is due.
Last edited: