The value of the multi-year tank is on display this SCF

[Schennanigans]

I’m not sure I understand the point of this take. If you look back at the champions the past 30 years the majority of them are because of teams with top 5 picks in the draft.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

You need to accrue elite talent.

The best odds for that is top of the draft.

 

[zar]

Saying they got there tanking is not downplaying the Oilers. It's a statement that it's the best way to build a winner and using them as an example. Which you also provided 3 more examples of.

I took the timing of the thread as a way of knocking down the Oilers. It’s natural for me to think that way with this forum.

Should have shown the picks of past Stanley Cup winners who also built off high draft picks like the Penguins and Blackhawks.

If that wasn’t the intent, then I’m off base and apologize to @WarriorofTime … just seemed like odd timing.

 

[Hoek]

Colorado and Tampa both followed this model. Pittsburgh and Chicago before them as well.

It's the way to win in the salary cap era, outside of a couple exceptions or getting really lucky.

Tampa didn't purposely tank. They held on to Lecavalier and St. Louis and kept trying different goaltenders, defense, and coaches around them. They just sucked in spite of attempts to be good and were run by inept owners and GMs in that period.

 

[McShogun99]

Contemporary Top 3 Picks for Each Team in the Finals:

Florida Panthers:

2010 - 3rd overall
2011 - 3rd overall
2013 - 2nd overall
2014 - 1st overall

4 Top Three picks in a five-year span

Edmonton Oilers:

2010 - 1st overall
2011 - 1st overall
2012 - 1st overall
2014 - 3rd overall
2015 - 1st overall

5 Top Three picks in a six-year span

The whole "tanking doesn't work!" argument always focuses on the unsuccessful rebuilds, but once again we see the familiar pattern in the Salary Cap era that this is the most reliable way to build a team with Stanley Cup aspirations.

Long-story short: if your team is no good, tank and tank hard, and don't be afraid to just keep on tanking if you don't have immediate results until you eventually do.

Let’s not forget the gifts that Florida received from Buffalo and Calgary’s tank.

 

[Iggys Dome]

That is INSANE.

It actually is lol. I keep forgetting they had three in a row before McD.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Panthers had an entire failed rebuild that led to that lottery run. Also 2010 for the Panthers was on Erik Gudbranson, who was traded 8 years ago and whose trade tree doesn't have any direct impact on the current roster

 

[jimmysheva]

It's true. Terrible teams are more likely to win future Stanley Cups than middle of the road teams who lose in the first/second round every year.

 

[Gorskyontario]

Contemporary Top 3 Picks for Each Team in the Finals:

Florida Panthers:

2010 - 3rd overall
2011 - 3rd overall
2013 - 2nd overall
2014 - 1st overall

4 Top Three picks in a five-year span

Edmonton Oilers:

2010 - 1st overall
2011 - 1st overall
2012 - 1st overall
2014 - 3rd overall
2015 - 1st overall

This post makes less than zero sense. The Hawks are the best example of 'tanking to win'. Several oilers picks aren't even with the team anymore. As if Erik Gudbranson had any effect on the panthers making two finals.

Lol.

 

[North Cole]

The only two of those 'tank' guys left for the Panthers are Barkov and Ekblad. And Ekblad is, uh, well, not great.

Also, to be fair, the Panthers weren't intentionally tanking to rebuild. They just sucked and were run by morons.

Neither was Edmonton, but no one cares. They just see 4 1OA and get mad, even though the McDavid lottery was won because the NHL were morons and changed the rules. Funnily enough it blocked the actual tankers of Buffalo from winning.

 

[NOTENOUGHRYJOTHINGS]

Conventional wisdom amongst learned people who understand how to build a winner (so not you dunces on HFBoards) the past five years has been simple.

To build a winner you need to trade with the Sabres.

But the rise of an Edmonton dynasty could refute this team building philosophy.

 

[Anglesmith]

Every team, if you go back through the annals of time, will have had a rebuild at some point that you can point to.

It's what has happened since that gets teams to the Cup.

Pittsburgh and Chicago had the cleanest rebuild-to-trophy journeys, because at the same time they were tanking they were also making a whole lot of very good picks to build the team around the top guys. They all came up together and turned into champions. And then teams like Edmonton looked at that and said, "alright let's be bad!" ignoring all of the other work that goes into it.

Edmonton here has taken a decade to put things together on their third of three back-to-back rebuilds. And if not for the McDavid lottery ball, are they here given where they were in 2015?

Florida's rebuild didn't work. They retooled, and now they are here. If not for Tkachuk, Reinhart and Montour was this core viable? Didn't look like it.

This is a silly thread for two reasons: firstly, you could make this post about almost any team, because every team gets bad at some point, and most teams in the NHL have been in that situation at some point in the last decade forming some of their current players. Secondly, because it ignores the much more relevant question of why these two teams are in the finals where all the other teams who also went through rebuilds are not.

That said, I won't spare the opportunity to say that Edmonton winning would send a horrible message outward, because of all the teams' stories in terms of how they put together the nucleus of their team, Edmonton was by far the least intentional.

 

[Jumptheshark]

During the time of the oiler tank they were still nearly at the cap. No matter what they did they just sucked

 

[Coffey]

This post makes less than zero sense. The Hawks are the best example of 'tanking to win'. Several oilers picks aren't even with the team anymore. As if Erik Gudbranson had any effect on the panthers making two finals.

Lol.

Yes just like Hall and Yakupov had any effect on the Oilers.

 

[rea]

While it's great to have homegrown talent, in both these teams, almost half of the players aren't even on the team anymore. It helps but its still a crapshoot.

It's a team game. Building said team to fight through an 81 game season to get a chance at trying to win another 16 games is such a clusterf*** of so many things, health, style of play vs opponent in playoffs, luck, etc.

Picking this scenario out of high draft picks and saying it's the obvious route to go down for high probability success, well without pointing out any teams, there are many teams that prove otherwise

 

[Hamilton Bulldogs]

Erik Gudbranson has been fantastic these playoffs. Yakupov is goin to dangle the hell outta him though.

 

[Rschmitz]

Colorado and Tampa both followed this model. Pittsburgh and Chicago before them as well.

It's the way to win in the salary cap era, outside of a couple exceptions or getting really lucky.

Eh, Lightning sucked for two years because of bad ownership and a strict internal cap and was lucky to get Stamkos and Hedman. We didn't "tank"

 

[Pavels Dog]

Correlation =! causation.

If you go back ~15 years how many teams have never drafted top 3?

Even Dallas would technically fit the mold, with Seguin at #2OA and Heiskanen at #3OA, even though I don't think anyone would really view them as a tank-constructed team.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

That is INSANE.

Almost as crazy as Pittsburgh's run of 5-1-2-1-2 getting them MAF, Crosby and Malkin

 

[5Hollywood5]

there is no team that is more elite at tanking than Edmonton. to think that we had three straight from 2010-2012 and were still so bad that we nailed 2015 is unmatched prowess of the suck. it’s been an absolute pleasure to watch Connor McDavid play for my hockey club, and as the best hockey fans in the NHL as displayed by our checkbooks, we more than deserve it.

 

[Fishy McScales]

The Oilers timed their "tank" poorly in fact. Few game breakers around to be taken in the early 2010's, but instead an outright flop.

People were up in arms about the Oilers winning the lottery three years in a row, but the first of those two were coin flips.

But I mean, if they pick second and get Seguin, Landeskog and Murray instead, I don't think the needle moves a hell of a whole lot since their management DIDN'T execute that rebuild well.

And by the time they got Draisaitl and McDavid they were actually trying to win, as sad as it sounds. And even with them around, success had to wait because Chiarelli had the tealeaves upside down trying to gauge how to build a winning roster (heavy hockey over speed and skill after Connor McDavid landed on your lap, nice job Pete).

 

[BB88]

If a team tanked in the 90’s does that still get creditet for their future success?

Tanking has nothing to do with Panthers success.
It’s on fixing the management, finding game changing steals in Forlsing, Reinhart, Verhaeghe, Bennett etc..

 

[MOGlLNY]

Don’t do it.

 

[WarriorofTime]

This post makes less than zero sense. The Hawks are the best example of 'tanking to win'. Several oilers picks aren't even with the team anymore. As if Erik Gudbranson had any effect on the panthers making two finals.

Lol.

Good to know McDavid and Barkov aren’t considered important players…

 

[Perfect_Drug]

Eh, Lightning sucked for two years because of bad ownership and a strict internal cap and was lucky to get Stamkos and Hedman. We didn't "tank"

Oilers were a max cap team when they were in the basement.

They were trying to win too. They just sucked.