How long should a rebuild take??

[gary559]

Just trying to figure out what people think on this.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Tear it completely down, 5+ years, on average. Also define successful, does that mean make the playoffs for first time?

 

[gary559]

Tear it completely down, 5+ years, on average.

Thank you for your honesty but I find that absolutely insane considering most NHL careers are less than 5 years long.

 

[Pass the Saitl Sauce]

A team might miss the playoffs drafting 10-14 the first year, bottom out for 2 years picking top 5 and a year still down in the top 10 and then year 5 you should be making a push for playoffs if not just missing.

5 years is a good time line to base a rebuild on but there’s so many variables that can throw a wrench in the plans

 

[robertmac43]

Really depends on what you are starting with. Has the tear down happened or is that being included in the process?

 

[Golden_Jet]

Thank you for your honesty but I find that absolutely insane considering most NHL careers are less than 5 years long.

Also define successful, does that mean make the playoffs for first time?
You need to define the parameters of successful.

 

[John Mandalorian]

It depends on how long it takes to get a high level 1C and #1D. If you get those, the wind is at your back more than otherwise. If you're on the outside looking in with those, it takes longer.

 

[gary559]

Also define successful, does that mean make the playoffs for first time?
You need to define the parameters of successful.

I'm talking sell off everything and throw away any hopes of winning in the present to making the playoffs in the future. What does that look like in regards to time?

 

[Realgud]

Thank you for your honesty but I find that absolutely insane considering most NHL careers are less than 5 years long.

Not sure why that matters? The fact that only 50% of the teams make the playoffs should make it obvious why it takes such a long time.

 

[Baksfamous112]

It depends if you have a few high end assets to kickstart the rebuild and how deep is your prospect pool at the time of the rebuild.

You need 2 high end pieces at F and 2 high end pieces at D. The rest can be filled through trades, FA and drafting.

In a perfect world, year 4 or 5 is when you should start being in the mix and/or making the playoff.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I'm talking sell off everything and throw away any hopes of winning in the present to making the playoffs in the future. What does that look like in regards to time?

Expand on that, when does the team reach successful in your eyes. Would that mean playoffs in your eyes?

 

[Pavels Dog]

”should” is a super weird way to look at it.

Less than 5 years is almost impossible though if you count from the first core piece being drafted.

 

[HabsMD97]

Anywhere between 3-8 years. Depends on lottery luck and which years you're tanking. Any shorter and risking not having the elite talent necessary to build a long term contender and any longer than that you risk becoming the Sabres.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

5 years seems right.

2 years to tear it all down.
2 more years to draft a young core.
1 year to acquire veteran depth around that young core.

So your young core players are either still on their ELCs or just at the beginning of their second contracts.

Of course a lot has to go right for this to happen. No guarantees.

 

[Sting]

”should” is a super weird way to look at it.

Less than 5 years is almost impossible though if you count from the first core piece being drafted.

The successful rebuilds around the league were all dependent on drafting a world class talent through sheer luck.

I would say Dallas is the cream of the crop when it comes to drafting impact players without consistently drafting in the top 5. Winnipeg has also gotten good results through draft/trade.

Most, if not all current contenders were given a 1st overall mega talent or multiple years in the top 5 with strong drafts.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Here’s what OP thought a few months ago, but voted 3 years in this poll.

What does it tell you when half the teams in the league need a full tear down? You are looking at 5 years minimum of sucking hopefully to make it back to being a boarderline team. This place is crazy sometimes.

I said 5+ in my post, and OP poster replied with …

I find that absolutely insane considering most NHL careers are less than 5 years long.

lol at the contradiction.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Is this a lowkey sleeper yzerplan thread ? Or did I just make it one

 

[gary559]

Here’s what OP thought a few months ago, but voted 3 years in this poll.

What does it tell you when half the teams in the league need a full tear down? You are looking at 5 years minimum of sucking hopefully to make it back to being a boarderline team. This place is crazy sometimes.

I said 5+ in my post, and OP poster replied with …

I find that absolutely insane considering most NHL careers are less than 5 years long.

lol at the contradiction.

I have changed my opinion on the matter, and I'm talking about rebuilds that work.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I have changed my opinion on the matter, and I'm talking about rebuild that work.

Well after all your threads today, and not getting much agreement, I assume you’ll be changing your mind again then.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I would say Dallas is the cream of the crop when it comes to drafting impact players without consistently drafting in the top 5. Winnipeg has also gotten good results through draft/trade.

Agreed. Still both franchises had ~6-10 years of struggle before becoming consistent playoff teams.

Atlanta/Winnipeg missed the playoffs 9 out of 10 seasons before 2018.
Dallas missed the playoffs 7 out of 9 years before 2019.

Additionally, Carolina had a 9 year playoff drought during their rebuild. New Jersey missed 10 of the last 12 years. Florida was irrelevant for ~15-20 years.
The idea of a 3-5 year rebuild is essentially a pipe dream.

 

[Mrb1p]

5 Years from day one shovel strike to competitive window opening.

Ottawa, Habs are both "succesful" rebuilds and they both took about that long. (Without considering the Carey Price anomaly).

Habs traded away Pac and Plek in 2018 and their competitive window opened this year. (-1 year for the Price anomaly.)

Sens traded away Karlsson and Stone in 18 and 19 and their window opened this year.

It also depends if you get lucky in the lottert, in this case both of these teams had "normal" luck. They didnt get a generational talent and mostly picked along what the tales would have you believe.

Colorado took 8 years after Sakic left, but the rebuild was sidetracked a bit.

Tampa took ~6 seasons.

Florida is tough to pint point because they dont have a regular competitive-non competitive cycle.

Dallas retooled, Vegas is an exception.

The conclusion is that theres 3 (4) path to competitiveness.

1. Proper rebuild (Habs, Ottawa) this requires a competitibe window closing, meaning a team that had assets to move away. In this case ~5 years.
2. Getting lucky. Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Washington, Tampa.
3. Retool (Dallas)
4. Vegas getting gifted the best team in the league.

 

[BLNY]

Depends entirely on what you're starting with.

 

[biturbo19]

It really depends on how you define the rebuild as "starting". In a lot of cases, it's hard to really pin down an exact starting point. Teams tend to kind of fizzle and flounder for a while, just organically sucking and drafting fairly high...before they really commit fully to "tanking" and really kicking off the rebuild in earnest. There are often limitations and holdover contracts on aging players that can be difficult or impossible to actually even move and truly "clear the decks". And in those sort of cases, it's realistically going to add at least a couple years to the total rebuild process. At that rate, it's pretty hard to substantially gain much traction on a dramatic turnaround in less than about half a dozen years. Though luck in the draft still plays a massive role in setting the timeline.

A lot of the pieces you need to put in place aren't just going to step right in at 18 or 19 and immediately turn the ship around. Especially defencemen, where you're taking them at 18 and tends to take at least 3-5 years before they start to really fully hit their stride. Getting solid goaltending also tends to take significant time with their typically longer development curves. So unless you're fortunate and grabbing those pieces very early in the process...that tends to be a big factor in establishing your timeline. It's also important to not just be dumping a whole bunch of rookies out there to sink or swim together. That's where you get a lot of failed "forever rebuilds" that just sputter away perpetually with all sorts of good prospects failing to live up to expectations. So the whole process really takes 5-6 years just in order to get enough stratification in introducing new players a few at a time. So even if you're getting lucky with home run hits in the draft and everything lining up nicely in that sense, you can't really rush the process along too much more than that.

 

[Mrfenn92]

One year is too long for some posters

 

[Bileur]

Highly dependent on luck. Notably lottery outcomes and relative draft strength.