I've given multiple examples of rebuilds that took five years or less. It's Detroit fans rejecting the examples whole cloth, not me.
There's also a ton of survivorship bias here. Technically, I would say that had Jim Nill been GM of the Red Wings over Yzerman's tenure, we'd probably be in a better position. He and his scouts have managed to find a lot of diamonds in the rough, and developed them very well.
From his time as our AGM, I'm not sure that I'd trust him to do that again though. Can Nill guarantee that he'll find the next Wyatt Johnston in the late first, the next Jason Roberson and Roope Hintz in the second, etc? No more than Yzerman has been able to replicate finding Kucherov and Point. No more than Holland could find another Zetterberg and Datsyuk in the 6th/7th rounds. Good scouting and development give you the opportunity to find those guys, but no one can quickly replicate that. So yes, these GMs deserve credit for putting together scouting/development departments capable of that, but it also requires a ton of luck, and no one can plan to do that. You put yourself in a position to succeed and hope. That's life.
If given control of Utah do we think Sakic has them looking like the Avs in 5 years? It's possible, but I'd be really surprised. Is anyone hiring Craig Patrick to recreate the Penguins? Nope. No one can guarantee you generational lottery talent.
Most Red Wings fans still think that Yzerman has approached the rebuild in a logical way, and generally made moves that make sense. We can gripe about a lot of small stuff, and frankly, I really don't like the type of team we'll be if this is all successful (a defense first, bully team), but when it's all said and done, he makes reasonable decisions that overall seem likely to lead to success. So we're okay with the idea that this hasn't turned into an "as fast as possible" rebuild.
It's possible to rebuild in one off season. That doesn't mean someone planning a rebuild and making logical choices should expect to do that. In fact if you try to, you're likely to doom the future of your team. Rebuilding from scratch- more or less- usually takes 5-10 years. Based upon our current roster construction and prospect pool, we're looking like a 7-8 year timeline, so that's when things will either come together or fall apart. That's when you'll see the pitch forks come out. Until then, we're just waiting on prospect and biding time.
