How long should a rebuild take??

[Hunter368]

Depends on a lot of factors

- Small vs large market (FA signings, taxes, weather, etc)
- USA team vs Canadian team (FA signings, taxes, weather, etc)
- Drafting & development ability of the team
- Team budget to eat bad contracts to get more picks and sign FA’s
- How do you define rebuild, meaning a playoff bubble team or a serious cup contender bc once you have core assembled it still takes a few years for them to gain the required experience to be a serious contender vs a playoff bubble team is much easier/faster.

Playoff bubble team - 3-4 years
Serious cup contender- 5-10 years.

Building a serious contender takes a long time and is very expensive even for big market teams with advantageous tax & weather destinations……..and it’s only tougher for small market teams in destinations with poor weather and tax destinations.

 

[majormajor]

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?

I'd say average time to return to the playoffs after a complete sell-off (which we don't see very often) would be between 5 and 10 years. Maybe something around 7 years, but it would be hard to come up with a good sample of teams taking that approach. And that would just be an average, there is a definite possibility of it taking significantly longer. Even making the assumption of very good management, the expected timetable would vary widely, perhaps between 4-7 years.

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.

After that 5th year most of your ELC talent is still like 20 years old and you have to learn how to win. So perhaps after 5 years you have the personnel in place but you still need to add a year or more to that to come up with realistic expectations for making the playoffs. It's a long slog.

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

So how long are the rebuilds that work well? Is that what you're asking? So ignoring the majority of rebuilds, the ones that don't have the combination of good luck and good management?

 

[Big Trout]

It's different for every team, depending on their assets when they sell.

But anything more than 5 years to get back inthe playoffs should be a failure

 

[NVious]

I think you need 4 years of being bottom 5 bad, the next 4 years should be an upward trajectory.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I'd say average time to return to the playoffs after a complete sell-off (which we don't see very often) would be between 5 and 10 years. Maybe something around 7 years, but it would be hard to come up with a good sample of teams taking that approach. And that would just be an average, there is a definite possibility of it taking significantly longer. Even making the assumption of very good management, the expected timetable would vary widely, perhaps between 4-7 years.



After that 5th year most of your ELC talent is still like 20 years old and you have to learn how to win. So perhaps after 5 years you have the personnel in place but you still need to add a year or more to that to come up with realistic expectations for making the playoffs. It's a long slog.



So how long are the rebuilds that work well? Is that what you're asking? So ignoring the majority of rebuilds, the ones that don't have the combination of good luck and good management?

Yes all a bit vague. If you pick top 5 in five straight seasons yeah you have a collection of high picks but they’re 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 that “sixth” season. Unless you have some other good but experienced players who rode through the tank years, go crazy that particular offseason with good moves or your first year of tank drafted other really good players with excess picks, it probably will take a bit longer than they even. Thing is nobody truly starts with “nothing” so how you managed to make the most out of the “something” will matter a lot in addition to what the “something” was. If a team really started with nothing (expansion group with spares/AHL guys) they could probably make playoffs one year if they got really aggressive since everyone has same hard cap but if they were really committed to “doing it right” to maximize a particular timeline to build up a big base from, probably looking at more like 7 years to make playoffs and another 3 to possibly have a team good enough to win it all if it goes right from there.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

Damn... crazy to me that people think 5-10 years, with many saying 7-8 is a reasonable timeline. Like bottom our for 5 years (!?!) to get a collection of top 3-5 picks and then after that you start building on it? That's incentivizing ineptitude. 3 years as a bottom 5 team at the absolute most and that should be scorched earth, cap hell, worst case scenario.

I still stand by you should not be missing the playoffs 5 years in a row. That 5th year you should at least be a competitive bubble team.