The state of the Habs Rebuild - The Next step

[Lshap]

I've been a big argumentative jerk and will take a step back for the time being but what you say is really what rizzles my butt and makes me fire up my keyboard. I see such definitive statements that imply anyone who disagrees is simply wrong or a bad fan. It drives me nuts.

"Dach will go back to being awesome" -> (1) Dach was never Awesome in the NHL and (2) there is no guarantee he will return to any level. We simply don't know so there's nothing wrong with criticising his play and efforts when talking about the team today. (I'm glad he got the monkey off his back, the game is mental and he needs every advantage he can find and take)

"Hage will be awesome", "Demidov will make us forget all about Michkov", etc. -> Self-explanatory. Sometimes the honest optimism crosses over to emperor's new clothes style groupthink imo.

"Barron/Newhook/etc is still young" -> Implying all players improve all the time. Come on, how many times have we been left holding our peckers with prospects and young(ish) players? Why is it scepticism is so disturbing to some?


Between last year and this year, so far, we have not taken a step forward, much less two steps forward. But it's been difficult to accept for some.

This is what a rebuild looks like? Sure but at least admit that we've not taken any steps forward and critical players like Slafkovsky, Reinbacher, Dach, and Guhle are not where we wanted them to be this season. Simple as. It isn't damning them or the rebuild. But I find it so dishonest to claim everything is rosy and peachy when our critical rebuild players have taken a step back or stagnated and we're last in the division, last in the conference, and bottom5 in the league.

For what it's worth, most of us suck at message-board shorthand. What sounds perfectly reasonable in our head comes across as a pissy manifesto to everyone reading it. It's been like that since the dawn of message boards. No reason for you to take a step back from it, unless this place causes you more stress than pleasure. Or unless you find what I haven't – a life.

As far as the rebuild, I agree with most of what you're saying. We've got some exciting prospects, but I'm not falling for the hype that all of 'em will be upgrades on our current roster. I've seen that story too many times – future players always look brighter than present players. Some, like Demidov, may actually be as good as their hype. Most won't.

And yes, some of our current guys are underperforming or, in Reinbacher's case, on pause. Youth isn't an all-purpose excuse, but it is a mitigating factor. It's too early to write off Dach. Slafkovsky is a 20 year-old who has a lot of runway before hitting his prime. Guhle is developing, just needs experience. To be clear, these players were chosen as cornerstone pieces. We don't know how good they'll become, but we should agree on their importance to our future team. Easy to say we can pivot to Plan-B if they don't work out; much harder to actually find a comparable Plan-B.

 

[dcyhabs]

For what it's worth, most of us suck at message-board shorthand. What sounds perfectly reasonable in our head comes across as a pissy manifesto to everyone reading it. It's been like that since the dawn of message boards. No reason for you to take a step back from it, unless this place causes you more stress than pleasure. Or unless you find what I haven't – a life.

As far as the rebuild, I agree with most of what you're saying. We've got some exciting prospects, but I'm not falling for the hype that all of 'em will be upgrades on our current roster. I've seen that story too many times – future players always look brighter than present players. Some, like Demidov, may actually be as good as their hype. Most won't.

And yes, some of our current guys are underperforming or, in Reinbacher's case, on pause. Youth isn't an all-purpose excuse, but it is a mitigating factor. It's too early to write off Dach. Slafkovsky is a 20 year-old who has a lot of runway before hitting his prime. Guhle is developing, just needs experience. To be clear, these players were chosen as cornerstone pieces. We don't know how good they'll become, but we should agree on their importance to our future team. Easy to say we can pivot to Plan-B if they don't work out; much harder to actually find a comparable Plan-B.

Expecting every prospect to hit his upside leads to disappointment. The habs need enough prospects to succeed with the quarter or so of them that make it. Rebuilds would be quick if all prospects developed well.

 

[HomaridII]

I figure I'd put this here.

Yesterday on the Sick Podcast, McGuire said the consensus in the NHL amongst scouts and GMs is that Fowler is the best goalie prospect since Martin Brodeur.

Thank you again Billy Ryan. Forever.

 

[WeThreeKings]

I figure I'd put this here.

Yesterday on the Sick Podcast, McGuire said the consensus in the NHL amongst scouts and GMs is that Fowler is the best goalie prospect since Martin Brodeur.

Thank you again Billy Ryan. Forever.

He's not a better prospect than Carey Price, come on.

 

[Ozmodiar]

Probably greater probability Laine remains in our top 6 than Hage hits that.

If Dach plays himself out of our top 6...why is it a foregone conclusion he is traded? he doesn't cost much. the only risk is he sees opportunity elsewhere. otherwise why not resign him to play third line?

The thing about Dach’s next contract is that it has to be performance based. No premium for potential.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

He's not a better prospect than Carey Price, come on.

Well, lshap thinks Primeau was as good a prospect as Fowler, so extremes abound.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Well, lshap thinks Primeau was as good a prospect as Fowler, so extremes abound.

If you looked at stats only, I'm sure you could come to that conclusion.

 

[Ozmodiar]

1st, 5th, 5th OA -> 2nd line winger, 1st line winger, 2D. Demidov seems to be the only one of the 3 who is transformative. Fingers crossed.

Plenty of assets expended on Dach, Newhook, Mesar. (3 first rounders +)

Hopes pinned on Hage, Demidov and a high 2025 pick. Various degrees of unknowns.

Biggest knock is that they were trying to accelerate the rebuild but instead have veered off onto the winding road.

 

[Sorinth]

1st, 5th, 5th OA -> 2nd line winger, 1st line winger, 2D. Demidov seems to be the only one of the 3 who is transformative. Fingers crossed.

Plenty of assets expended on Dach, Newhook, Mesar. (3 first rounders +)

Hopes pinned on Hage, Demidov and a high 2025 pick. Various degrees of unknowns.

Biggest knock is that they were trying to accelerate the rebuild but instead have veered off onto the winding road.

With a 1st and two 5th overall the odds would say that one "bust" is to be expected. Anecdotally people remember Kane and Toews but forget about Cam Barker also at 3, and Jack Skille at 7.

It's why you can't solely rely on building through the draft and will need to suplement the draft by getting important players via trade and/or FA.

 

[waitin425]

The thing about Dach’s next contract is that it has to be performance based. No premium for potential.

Agreed. We have him until the end of next year and he will still be RFA at that time. If he plays like a solid 3rd line centre, then lets try to resign him as a third line centre. We will know by age 25 what his ceiling is. If he decides he wants a short term contract to get him to UFA then we can assess all the variables at that time.

If Dach never elevates beyond say a 5 mil per year player, then he would be a perfect 3rd line centre.

We just need someone to take his place in the top 6.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

He's not a better prospect than Carey Price, come on.

You only look to see where they were drafted to know this.

Obviously that doesn’t mean Wolf can’t be better in the future but he’s nowhere close to the prospect that Price was.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

With a 1st and two 5th overall the odds would say that one "bust" is to be expected. Anecdotally people remember Kane and Toews but forget about Cam Barker also at 3, and Jack Skille at 7.

It's why you can solely rely on building through the draft and will need to suplement the draft by getting important players via trade and/or FA.

FA is gonna be tough as it always is for us and we can't start trading before we actually stack more value. We're barely there yet asset/value-wise.

 

[Ozmodiar]

With a 1st and two 5th overall the odds would say that one "bust" is to be expected. Anecdotally people remember Kane and Toews but forget about Cam Barker also at 3, and Jack Skille at 7.

It's why you can solely rely on building through the draft and will need to suplement the draft by getting important players via trade and/or FA.

If you look at the 1st rd picks and the players added using 1sts, they’re batting around .500.

I know there’s still room for growth, rehab, and development …. BUT, if I had a magic do-over button right now, I undo these:

- draft Reinbacher
- trade for Dach
- trade for Newhook
- draft Mesar

Future still bright, but they are whiffs that are drawing things out a little longer than expected.

 

[Sorinth]

FA is gonna be tough as it always is for us and we can't start trading before we actually stack more value. We're barely there yet asset/value-wise.

Not so sure that's true, both Gainey and Gauthier were able to sign FAs. It's only Bergevin who really struggled to get FAs and I'd very much argue that's his problem and not something inherent to MTL.

We aren't a premiere destination like LA or NYR, but we aren't the bottom of barrel either.

As for the discussion of when? I don't think it's ever smart to wait when talking true top level players. If a 1st line F or top-pairing D was willing to sign with us then we should sign them because those players aren't always available and there's always fierce competition when they are.

The 2nd-3rd line F, or second pairing D, I can maybe see the argument for waiting, but when is enough actually enough? It's easy to say we need more but can you actually give me a number and quality of the draft picks we need to stack before it becomes enough?

 

[Sorinth]

If you look at the 1st rd picks and the players added using 1sts, they’re batting around .500.

I know there’s still room for growth, rehab, and development …. BUT, if I had a magic do-over button right now, I undo these:

- draft Reinbacher
- trade for Dach
- trade for Newhook
- draft Mesar

Future still bright, but they are whiffs that are drawing things out a little longer than expected.

That's the thing though batting .500 is probably actually on the high end of what should be expected out of a rebuild focused on building through the draft where we including both the top picks and the late 1sts. When strictly speaking top-10 or top-5 picks then expectations should probably be closer to .666.

Look at the average ppg numbers of forwards for the draft picks shown here. It drops off very quickly. Now because it's the average it can be a bit misleading since busts will really drag an average down, but even when something similar was done with the odds of getting 1st/2nd line players it was a very similar story even though the picks 3-10 get massive hype, the odds are actually against them becoming stars.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Not so sure that's true, both Gainey and Gauthier were able to sign FAs. It's only Bergevin who really struggled to get FAs and I'd very much argue that's his problem and not something inherent to MTL.

We aren't a premiere destination like LA or NYR, but we aren't the bottom of barrel either.

As for the discussion of when? I don't think it's ever smart to wait when talking true top level players. If a 1st line F or top-pairing D was willing to sign with us then we should sign them because those players aren't always available and there's always fierce competition when they are.

The 2nd-3rd line F, or second pairing D, I can maybe see the argument for waiting, but when is enough actually enough? It's easy to say we need more but can you actually give me a number and quality of the draft picks we need to stack before it becomes enough?

You know, when there's enough talent on the team and very good value still remaining in the pipeline. We have the latter, but need to transition to having both. The number of years for this to happen is unknown, because it's draft luck/proper choice -dependant, but considering each draft usually brings in 1 to 2 bonafide NHL players of varying quality, the sorry state of our asset base when the rebuild started, and the number of years it takes, post-draft, for players to develop to make an impact, we are not there yet.

Yeah sure, sign the miracle UFA if there's one available and willing to sign here without f***ing-up our future cap structure, go for it, but I'd rather rebuild properly than hoping for the miracle signing.

 

[Lshap]

Well, lshap thinks Primeau was as good a prospect as Fowler, so extremes abound.

Try reading more carefully:

Yeah, finding a good 1A or 1B goalie alongside Montembeault is crucial. Fowler or Dobes are the current frontrunners. Thing is, there's no way to predict goalies.

A few short years ago, many of us thought Price's future replacement would be Cayden Primeau.

FYI - I never commented on Primeau back then. However, many others did:

Primeau signs ELC with Habs

Primeau's Trade Value

 

[Sorinth]

You know, when there's enough talent on the team and very good value still remaining in the pipeline. We have the latter, but need to transition to having both. The number of years for this to happen is unknown, because it's draft luck/proper choice -dependant, but considering each draft usually brings in 1 to 2 bonafide NHL players of varying quality, the sorry state of our asset base when the rebuild started, and the number of years it takes, post-draft, for players to develop to make an impact, we are not there yet.

Yeah sure, sign the miracle UFA if there's one available and willing to sign here without f***ing-up our future cap structure, go for it, but I'd rather rebuild properly than hoping for the miracle signing.

But how do you know there's enough talent, what benchmarks are you using?

And I very much disagree that rebuilding properly means getting every important asset through the draft. That's a recipe that's bound to fail and turn into a never-ending rebuild.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

But how do you know there's enough talent, what benchmarks are you using?

And I very much disagree that rebuilding properly means getting every important asset through the draft. That's a recipe that's bound to fail and turn into a never-ending rebuild.

That's not what I said. That's a recipe you created to strawman. You know when there's enough talent to compete (not contend, please don't create another strawman). We aren't there yet. Once you can actually compete, you trade pieces to transform that into contention. If you don't stack enough talent, you'll be left short once it's time to trade to complete the team. The actual never-ending rebuilds happen when teams try to compete too early and don't have the pieces to trade to complete the team.

 

[WeThreeKings]

That's not what I said. That's a recipe you created to strawman. You know when there's enough talent to compete (not contend, please don't create another strawman). We aren't there yet. Once you can actually compete, you trade pieces to transform that into contention. If you don't stack enough talent, you'll be left short once it's time to trade to complete the team. The actual never-ending rebuilds happen when teams try to compete too early and don't have the pieces to trade to complete the team.

Senators used their pieces to acquire Chychrun and Debrincat, both play infinitely better outside of that team. So I don't think its always that which creates the never ending rebuilds.

 

[Sorinth]

That's not what I said. That's a recipe you created to strawman. You know when there's enough talent to compete (not contend, please don't create another strawman). We aren't there yet. Once you can actually compete, you trade pieces to transform that into contention. If you don't stack enough talent, you'll be left short once it's time to trade to complete the team. The actual never-ending rebuilds happen when teams try to compete too early and don't have the pieces to trade to complete the team.

Ok fine that's not what you meant, but it's still unclear to me what you do mean.

Saying you know there's enough talent and we aren't there yet doesn't tell me anything. Ottawa and Chicago have both thought they had enough talent when they declared their rebuilds over and were clearly wrong. So it's not something everyone just knows. So again the question is how are you measuring whether you have enough talent? Saying you just know isn't a real answer.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Ok fine that's not what you meant, but it's still unclear to me what you do mean.

Saying you know there's enough talent and we aren't there yet doesn't tell me anything. Ottawa and Chicago have both thought they had enough talent when they declared their rebuilds over and were clearly wrong. So it's not something everyone just knows. So again the question is how are you measuring whether you have enough talent? Saying you just know isn't a real answer.

Consistency of performance and effectiveness, ability to still perform despite injuries, positional depth on both the team and prospect pool.

There's no number to tell because it has more to do with seeing how the team does. There's not enough performance and consistency, neither are we able to overcome injuries, nor do we have sufficient depth on the team, and how the team has done is an expression of that. Luckily, we have the prospect depth.

We'll be adding some of those prospects to the team in the next couple years, like we did with Hutson and Heineman this year. The additions and growth will eventually coalesce into more consistency, more depth and better overall team performance. If we do this WHILE still adding to the prospect depth, we'll come to a point where the team starts outperforming its opponents on more nights than not.

In essence, it's not about reaching certain numbers, but about which answer you get from posing questions for making a possible trade. Does that trade make the team competitive to reach the playoffs, or more competitive to go further in the playoffs or will it make it a contender?

However you can answer that question tells you where you are at. If it's the first one, maybe you should wait to stack more talent, because ideally you want to trade pieces to fill holes to make you a contender, rather than the two other options. The toughest place to figure this out is the answer in the middle, but we're not there yet.

 

[Sorinth]

Consistency of performance and effectiveness, ability to still perform despite injuries, positional depth on both the team and prospect pool.

There's no number to tell because it has more to do with seeing how the team does. There's not enough performance and consistency, neither are we able to overcome injuries, nor do we have sufficient depth on the team, and how the team has done is an expression of that. Luckily, we have the prospect depth.

We'll be adding some of those prospects to the team in the next couple years, like we did with Hutson and Heineman this year. The additions and growth will eventually coalesce into more consistency, more depth and better overall team performance. If we do this WHILE still adding to the prospect depth, we'll come to a point where the team starts outperforming its opponents on more nights than not.

In essence, it's not about reaching certain numbers, but about which answer you get from posing questions for making a possible trade. Does that trade make the team competitive to reach the playoffs, or more competitive to go further in the playoffs or will it make it a contender?

However you can answer that question tells you where you are at. If it's the first one, maybe you should wait to stack more talent, because ideally you want to trade pieces to fill holes to make you a contender, rather than the two other options. The toughest place to figure this out is the answer in the middle, but we're not there yet.

So is it fair to say the benchmark you have is that the team should be able to make the playoffs before you start adding players through FA/trade?

 

[ReHabs]

With a 1st and two 5th overall the odds would say that one "bust" is to be expected. Anecdotally people remember Kane and Toews but forget about Cam Barker also at 3, and Jack Skille at 7.

Very good point -- big time Hughes fans should be told to temper their expectations of these players. On the whole we can't expect them all to hit. It would be nice if Reinbacher becomes at least a 3D though.

It's why you can solely rely on building through the draft and will need to suplement the draft by getting important players via trade and/or FA.

(Assuming Dach doesn't have noteworthy motivation issues) Dach was a worthwhile gamble for this reason. Newhook was not.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

So is it fair to say the benchmark you have is that the team should be able to make the playoffs before you start adding players through FA/trade?

Trades with important pieces going the other way, no (unless it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, a miracle). That's what my whole reply was about. Go back a few replies in our conversation and you already have my answer for FA. I even answered "sure you do it", so you can forgoe trying to corner me with a ridiculous reduction. I already answered for FA and despite that, you try this.

I bit of continuity in logic here. I'm talking about staking talent, herego I'm concentrating mainly on growing our asset base. Do FA add to an asset base? Yes. Do trades like Monahan and Laine add to an asset base? They sure do.

I'm precisely talking about not TRADING important pieces TOO EARLY, and making sure to have a strong enough asset base so that when we do trade important pieces, it will be to make us contenders.

Trading away important pieces to reach the playoffs is exactly how you end-up either a perpetual rebuild or perpetual bubble team.