The state of the Habs Rebuild - The Next step

[morhilane]

Hughes expressed wanting to be in the mix until April. Whatever that mix means (we can assume he was talking about playoffs), it surely wasn't in the mix for 10th overall pick.

It might have been a PR move motivated by Molson urge to see the team become somewhat competitive again.

Hughes only based his comment on how the team looked at the end of last season. They were like 6 pts out of a wildcard at the start of March last year, so thinking that the team could be a few points from a wildcard until April wasn't that outlandish.

Instead, the players decided they wanted to be in the mix for 1st oa (aka bottom 3).

 

[417]

THIS... is probably the consensus with which we should work going forward. I wouldn't call it infancy, maybe toddlerhood, but it's been c. 3 years (3 TDLs, 3 drafts, and 3 off-seasons) and the roster had a lot of gaps and the hockey ops office had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

It still does have gaps, hence why I don't really consider it as 3 TDLs, 3 drafts and 3 offseasons.

Both TDLs have been focused on trimming, rather than adding (which is how you build UP), they did nothing this offseason except add an opportunity cost player (Laien) who hasn't even played yet.

The 3 drafts have yet to yield much because it's too early.

But again, I don't think it's important to get bogged down in what word we use to define where they're at, the most important factor is it's still VERY early.

Now how about this:

It's 100% fair to believe the 'rebuild' should go on for longer but at some point you cannot hold both of the following positions without at criticising the execution of at least one:

1) the Dach and Newhook buys were worthwhile efforts
2) the rebuild was always going to take 5 or more years

I think our cupboard would've looked much better if we retained the 13OA 2022, 31OA 2023, and 37OA 2023. Dach might've been a worthwhile one-off strike at gold but Newhook makes the pattern look like they were trying for speed up the rebuild.

The cupboard might look better, but barely anyone from those drafts has played any NHL games, so we'd be at this exact same spot.

13OA from 2022 draft (Frank Nazar): 3 NHL games played

31 OA from 2023 draft (Mikhail Guylayev): 0 NHL games played

37 OA from 2023 draft (Ethan Gauthier: 0 NHL games played

This of course, assumes we would have picked the players who were eventually picked there.

But point being our cupboard looking "better" does not necessarily mean that the rebuild would be in a better state.

I totally get where you're going with this though.

 

[417]

As WeThreeKings said, I think they felt they'd end up around 10th OA at the draft, rather than 5th OA. That's fair enough to mean 'In The Mix' for me. I agree, there was no illusions of them being a playoff lock.

Agreed...10pts separated the New Jersey Devils who picked 10th OA and the Washington Capitals who made the playoffs 17th OA.

The margins aren't that big. When I heard "in the mix" this is what I understood.

 

[teamfirst]

the most important factor is it's still VERY early.

But how much early......that is the question, how many years before being able to assess if you hired the right guy.......same thing goes for the coaches, cuz apparently we can't decide if MSL is the right guy cuz you know.....REBUILD

 

[417]

But how much early......that is the question, how many years before being able to assess if you hired the right guy.......same thing goes for the coaches, cuz apparently we can't decide if MSL is the right guy cuz you know.....REBUILD

Well I think at the conclusion of this season will be an important performance indicator.

They stated they wanted to progress, so you can measure how this season went against last year where progress wasn't as important of a factor.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

PR or not, I think it's perfectly reasonable because I also wanted the Habs to play meaningful games past the Trade Deadline. To me, not being functionally eliminated from the playoffs before the New Year and not mathematically eliminated until April are important milestones.


I edited my comment after posting to specifically concede the point. Calma, calma.

You didn't respond to my lengthy reply a few days ago to not so subtly avoid your own concession. We notice.

I didn't read nor answer because it was too damn long and we were going around in circle. Don't pretend to know what a non response is about. You aren't inside my head.