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How long should a rebuild take??

How long should it take for a team to successfully rebuild??

  • Less than 3 years

    Votes: 2 1.9%

  • 3 years

    Votes: 10 9.6%

  • 4 years

    Votes: 23 22.1%

  • 5 years

    Votes: 39 37.5%

  • More than 5 years

    Votes: 30 28.8%
  • Total voters
    104
This is a bit of a weird question as I would say at any given time, about 2/3 of the NHL (about 21/32 teams) are both "rebuilding" and trying to "compete" simultaneously while perhaps leaning a bit more one way or the other. Then at the very extremes (1/6 each) are the "very much rebuilding, let's tank the present" and the "very much competing, screw the future" teams.

No team (other than expansion which starts with expansion draft) is ever really "starting from the scratch" as even if a team says "ok, we're officially rebuilding, our goal is to finish dead last this season" they will likely have some leftover vets/younger roster players with some trade value and some prospects drafted in the few prior drafts from which to "get started" on "Day 1" so to speak. So what the team has in place on that so-called "Day 1" will make a difference.
 
It's going to take longer the more teams there are in the league. Some teams will get out of it quicker if you're gifted that generational 1st overall pick. But for the average team with no lottery luck it's going to take 5-7 years minimum. Now with a rising cap and 32 teams, free agents are going to have more options and teams exciting a rebuild probably won't be the most attractive teams. There's also more spots for competent coaches/GM's to go.
 
All rebuilds aren't created equal. Some rebuilds you have a great base of assets to start with that you can sell off and get a lot back. Other rebuilds you have a bad old team with nothing of value to sell
 
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I think the Rangers and Leafs did it in about as fast as you can with "success" defined as consistently making the playoffs. Both teams had good fortune in either players making their way there to New York willingly or in the draft in Toronto's case. Might be adding Montreal to that list too though as they were really bad for only three years and are now looking very promising.
 
It absolutely depends on several variables... For example, Ottawa

Ottawa reached the 2017 ECF Game 7 doubt OT vs the future champs (Pens) but the following season, everything fell apart and the owner (Melnyk) decided to go for a full scorched earth rebuild. In less than 2 years, 100% of the players on that playoffs roster were gone, so that would probably mean a long rebuild.

HOWEVER, they had this for trade to kickstart their rebuild :

Erik Karlsson (27)
Matt Duchene (27)
Mark Stone (25)
Mike Hoffman (28)
Jean-Gabriel Pageau (25)
Derick Brassard (30)
Ryan Dzingel (25)
Cody Ceci (24)

And also Thomas Chabot, Drake Batherson, Alex Formenton, Nick Paul, Joey Daccord, Colin White, etc, as prospects. They also had the 4th OA pick in 2018 where they drafted Brady Tkachuk who was 19 y/o when the season started and NHL ready.

I mean... how long should the team have started to make the playoffs? It took a team sale and a GM change to make a coaching change and several roster tweaks. I estimate that based on the context, they should have started to make the playoffs in 2022-23, maybe even 2021-22 if they had a decent GM but it was unfortunately not the case, more like the worst of all-time instead.
 
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Hisch13r said:
All rebuilds aren't created equal. Some rebuilds you have a great base of assets to start with that you can sell off and get a lot back. Other rebuilds you have a bad old team with nothing of value to sell
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Absolutely. Whether the team decides to "sell off" some of those still valuable assets, or ends up keeping some some of them to support all the rookies and young players coming it by helping to shelter and mentor them...it makes a huge difference, what that "starting point" looks like in terms of in house assets that are still valuable contributors. Compared to those rebuilds where a team is just stuck with a bunch of bad, broken old players on terrible unmovable contracts that they have to wait on to run out before the team can even fully "move on"...or even just the situations where they're left completely rudderless, trying to import quality leadership and veteran supporting talent.
 
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gary559 said:
Thank you for your honesty but I find that absolutely insane considering most NHL careers are less than 5 years long.
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This is true, but the reality is, if all you are able to put on the roster is those average players, you aren't going to be successful. So, in the building phase, you hope to bring in star players, who will take time to develop and some of those other players come and go along the way.
 
4-6 for a complete teardown. 2-3 for retool. Anything longer and you've either massively f***ed up along the way, or picks/players just simply don't work out.
 
Jared Grayden said:
I think the Rangers and Leafs did it in about as fast as you can with "success" defined as consistently making the playoffs. Both teams had good fortune in either players making their way there to New York willingly or in the draft in Toronto's case. Might be adding Montreal to that list too though as they were really bad for only three years and are now looking very promising.
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Leafs missed the playoffs 11 out of 12 years after lockout, snuck in, on the next lockout year, had a 48 game season.
 
Golden_Jet said:
Leafs missed the playoffs 11 out of 12 years after lockout, snuck in, on the next lockout year, had a 48 game season.
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That's not really relevant if they weren't committing to a rebuild in that time. Chicago, San Jose, and Detroit prolonged their years of irrelevance too by not committing to a rebuild faster. Same thing is happening to Pittsburgh now. Shanahan started it in 2014-15 which lasted until 2018 when they made the playoffs and have been a playoff team since.
 
It's hard to say - because a rebuild is always ongoing.

But the "sucking" portion of a rebuild should never last beyond 5 years, and 3 years max is ideal imo.

Toronto did it right. They sucked for a couple of years, and by 2017 (Matthews' rookie year) they made playoffs as a wildcard and haven't looked back. Obviously they lack actual playoff success, but that's a different topic.

Montreal today is doing a good job. Finals in 2021....sucked in 2022 (last place), 23 and 24 (started to show signs of promise) - and today are in playoffs as a wildcard, with a bright future.

Teams like Detroit, Ottawa, Buffalo....to stick to just the atlantic - have a major problem. You have to eventually compete and qualify for playoffs, and win important games. Good for Ottawa for finally making it, but it's later then it should have been,

Luck does come into account - Toronto lucking out with Matthews for example - but it's only one component. Teams like Edmonton (McDavid) took way too long to rebuild, despite lucking out too. And Buffalo had some fantastic high end draft picks and still didn't manage to succeed yet.
 
Jared Grayden said:
That's not really relevant if they weren't committing to a rebuild in that time. Chicago, San Jose, and Detroit prolonged their years of irrelevance too by not committing to a rebuild faster. Same thing is happening to Pittsburgh now. Shanahan started it in 2014-15 which lasted until 2018 when they made the playoffs and have been a playoff team since.
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That’s silly. Leafs were basically rebuilding since 2007-08. When Burke traded picks for Kessel thought wasn’t “rebuild over” but “we’re just speeding it up by getting a first line forward who is 21”, similar with trading for Phaneuf who was still pretty young. Of course those moves mostly delay the inevitable longer than truly speed it up but they were pretty regularly doing rebuild stuff ever since drafting Luke Schenn fifth overall who later turned into JVR in a similar aged forward for d one for one. Kadri drafted in 09 with a top ten pick was similarly a consistent piece in the rebuild phase. This is kinda my point early about semantic stuff as majority of teams are really doing both rebuild and win now stuff simultaneously to a certain degree.
 
WarriorofTime said:
That’s silly. Leafs were basically rebuilding since 2007-08. When Burke traded picks for Kessel thought wasn’t “rebuild over” but “we’re just speeding it up by getting a first line forward who is 21”, similar with trading for Phaneuf who was still pretty young. Of course those moves mostly delay the inevitable longer than truly speed it up but they were pretty regularly doing rebuild stuff ever since drafting Luke Schenn fifth overall who later turned into JVR in a similar aged forward for d one for one. Kadri drafted in 09 with a top ten pick was similarly a consistent piece in the rebuild phase. This is kinda my point early about semantic stuff as majority of teams are really doing both rebuild and win now stuff simultaneously to a certain degree.
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All it does is delay the inevitable. Which is what Pittsburgh is doing now.
 
A successful rebuild takes as long as is needed to get an elite centre, an elite d, and a surrounding core of very good players. Usually these elite guys come through the draft and take time to develop. But there’s no guarantee even a top pick will be an elite player.
 
Gil Gunderson said:
Depends how lucky you get in the draft lottery and if there’s a generational player or not in that draft
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This is key and I don’t think a lot of people take this into consideration.

Detroit gets a lot of flak on here for how long it’s taking for theirs, yet they’ve not had a #1.

AZ/Utah same thing.

Columbus same thing.

Anaheim same thing.

Getting top ten picks sounds great, but not getting a franchise altering player hurts the rebuild.
 
It always comes down to luck. 3 years, 5 years, 10 years... Teams are fortunate to even come out the other way in a rebuild without having to start over again with 32+ teams in the league.

These days there's almost as much competition between tanking teams as there is between contenders.
 
Pavels Dog said:
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.
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Ehhhh... Carolina never had a rebuild. They were just a middling to below average team for a long time. They didn't take any meaningful steps in the 9 year drought to actually try and rebuild. New ownership and management came in and made a whole bunch of big moves and they happened to work after half a season. They've been good since then. I don't think this a blueprint of any kind that you can take much away from or replicate, except for get rid of shitty management and coaching.
 
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