Victims of "bad" tanks and rebuilds: How soon did you know something was going wrong?

[Bank Shot]

I genuinely think that a lot of people don't understand how important intent is in situations like this.

Like the Penguins, Blackhawks, Kings, and Lightning cores were built, in part, with high picks, yes. But mostly these were teams going through serious ownership adversity, or other kinds of limiting factors while trying their darndest.

One can overcome adversity if one maintains their integrity and pride. This is especially true of interdependent groups. Overcoming a big hurdle is possible.

But intentionally quitting, throwing in the towel. I firmly believe that this creates a stink that is very, very hard to shake.

The Sabres did it and haven't looked like a top half team in the league for more than half a season at a time since.

Your narrative isn't true for the Kings.

They finished with 89 points in 05/06. They announced a rebuild that offseason and immediately traded away their best vets.

They dropped to 28th the next season. They finished last the year after that.

They intentionally quit, announced it to the world, and then rolled over and died.

Hell, they even signed Dan Cloutier.

If the sports physcology/culture theory is a sound theory, then the LA Kings should have never been able to pull off an amazing rebuild so quickly after smashing their winning culture to smithereens.

 

[AD1066]

I had a bad feeling about the Wings rebuild when they started overpaying for guys like Holl, Chiarot, Copp. It's how you end up drafting 15th overall instead of 5th-10th, while building a middling team that if all goes right, might be a bubble team. And this season, not even that.

 

[Coffey]

When Lowe called me a tier 7 fan and said he knew a little something about winning cause of his rings.

 

[theVladiator]

Your narrative isn't true for the Kings.

They finished with 89 points in 05/06. They announced a rebuild that offseason and immediately traded away their best vets.

They dropped to 28th the next season. They finished last the year after that.

They intentionally quit, announced it to the world, and then rolled over and died.

Hell, they even signed Dan Cloutier.

If the sports physcology/culture theory is a sound theory, then the LA Kings should have never been able to pull off an amazing rebuild so quickly after smashing their winning culture to smithereens.

Your Kings story is inaccurate.

- Cloutier was acquired/signed to help with goaltending issues, not to tank. While not a messiah, he was supposed to be better than the guy LA had in net at the time - Garon.
- Cloutier suffered pretty much career ending injury during the season, with the Kings backup - Garon, also injured during the season
- Kings traded a few vets (and certainly not the "best"), but that was not immediate. It was at TDL with the season shot due to injuries to their goalies
- Kings traded a few more vets (again, not the best) in the coming seasons, but always brought other vets in. From the trade standpoint LA moves look more like a retool than a teardown.
- after a couple of years, the Kings finally solved their goaltending issues, after going with Quick. That was the end of the "rebuild".

BTW, Lombardi gives significant credit for teams success to bringing in vets Stoll and Greene in 2008, citing their character. Just to show that it looks like Lombardi was actively trying to create winning culture, he just wasn't immediately successful at it, and got unlucky with Cloutier injury.