Rebuilds on the fly aren't easy; I'd rather just blow the bleeping thing up, but I know that won't happen. Getitng the extra 1st this year is a good start; hopefully Andersson and Chytl pan out; wait and see. Would like to add a couple more first rounders in the next year or two. With the next 2 NHL Drafts supposedly being very good, that won't be easy. Catch a team in a go for it or bust situation, i.e. desperate to make the playoffs/make a long Cup run. Still move Nash at the deadline if team doesn't look like its long for a playoff run. Losing Klein as an asset stings a little.
Yeah I agree in principle for sure, but I don't think you can blow it apart right now, we just aren't there yet. How would that work?
But a few things, the maturity period from when you get a kid to when he starts to pay off is much shorter right now than it ever has been before. Marner drafted in 15' and Nylander drafted in 14' was very important for TML last season, starting 1 and 2 years respectively after getting drafted, just for example. Zaitsev came right out of Russia for them last season.
The systematic changes are rarely talked about in the game, but just the last couple of years there has been a very big change to how the game is played in the NHL. Teams that really overload of the rush has just benefited a lot more from it than what they give up in terms of counter attacks against and lost possession. I watched NHL games from early 90's until say 2015 or 2016 and saw maybe say both Ds join the rush about 20-25 times. Once per year? Last season we easily saw it 100 times from our team alone. To different degrees, many other teams are doing the same.
Quenneville commented on it last season:
"Our possession zone time has been way more effective and more dangerous with chances made off the rush. We've been trying to find that part of our game, whether it's the defensemen incorporating into the rush, jumping off points."
In short, its real simple. The forwards do just not dump the puck into the corners, put pressure on it, slow the other team down, nail them in their own end and send rubber on the net like LAK, Boston, Anaheim and the likes did for so long with great success. Instead they challenge the Ds, skate into them trying to beat them one on one. A D, sometimes even two, joins the rush, when the D engages the forward he has plenty of relief options to move the puck to. The defensemen that basically has to step up and hit someone is taken out of the play along with the forward, but with a total of 4 or even 5 players attacking, you so often lose someone and you get those great scoring chances. You get a higher shooting percentage.
Whenever there is a fundamental change to the game like this -- younger players benefit from it. They are creating their game as we speak, and its of course created to fit what works today, not yesterday. We saw the same things in the early 90's when Euros came into the league, in the later 90's when the trap emerged, after the 05' lockout when the redline offside was removed, and now again with teams completely throwing out rules like "never stick handle on the offensive blueline" and "both Ds cannot join the rush" thing, not to mention "always having three man back" stuff.
So when you get younger players into the roster today, you get forwards for whom it is perfectly natural to skate up to the blueline and then try to deke the D, and when the Ds engage and if they can't beat them, these guys are great at quickly just moving the puck to a supporting teammate with speed. In these situation, even a skilled vet like Zucc for example will chip it past the D and go into the corner more often, that is what he has been thought. You get Ds who are really good at joining the rush with speed, quickly moving the puck up to the forwards and so forth.
I firmly think we ran into a wall with the former group we had. Changes just needed to be made. There were no quick-fix option. No way we just could have added like Shatty and be right back at it getting out of the East and winning a final with the exact same crew up front, they were just not dangerous enough offensively led by Stepan. So doing nothing wasn't an option. Is it an option to take a step back to take two forward? The odds for succeeding is of course never high in this league with any option, but it doesn't have to be 5-10 years between taking a step back and taking two forward in the game today. We shouldn't overrate how fast Lias Andersson and Chytl and DeAngelo and co can come in and make an impact, but I would definitely not rule out that it could happen in during the timeframe 2018-2020.
In this perspective I don't think the proper question is, will it be enough? Because there is never any option where you can say that it will be enough, that you will win a cup. But it could be, and in a 31 team cap league that is what you have to satisfy for.
)
