Ottawa 67s 2024-25 Season Thread, Part I

[OMG67]

I think in a typical, cyclical junior hockey world, year 1 rebuild, year 2 retool, year 3 compete for home ice playoff, year 4 compete for winning it all. or some version of that. Years 1 and 2 sell off big, year three small sell off/buy, year 4 all in.

Well, not typical in Ottawa, I guess.

Seeing the roster that we have now, I can't see Ottawa competing for home play off in a couple of years, nor competing for winning it all in 3-4 years.

Bad drafting, bad asset management, suspect coaching decisions.

I said back when it was rumoured we would be in on Mintukov and Morrison, that we had the team to go for it, and if they didn't buy big, I would be disappointed. They didn't do enough, in my mind. I could have livid with the rebuild the next year.

I think you are relatively accurate. But, I don’t think they need to sell big.

The big key is drafting. Obviously you need to draft well otherwise you never have a foundation to build on. The ideal situation is to have a go for it year where you do make some significant trades to augment an already really good team. When you do decide to do that, do it with purpose. DO NOT DO IT PETERBOROUGH STYLE. There is no reason to trade away all your draft picks and two complete draft classes. That is just silly. If you have to do that then you shouldn’t do it at all, regardless of the result.

I wouldn’t define it as a four year cycle either. Do a good job, build and develop players and when the time is right to strike, then strike. You aren’t always going to draft perfectly. You could go 7 years without making a big push. So be it. Be disciplined. Sell off the really big ticket graduating players in years that you are really poor and push the assets forward when it makes sense.

To me, that is a better approach. It doesn’t create unrealistic expectations either.