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

[pezpunk]

rebuilding, step 1: buy CapFriendly

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

That any of these goofs are still with the org is such a slap in the face. Does any management in the league embarrass itself better than Oilers' management?

 

[QuizGuy66]

rebuilding, step 1: buy CapFriendly

Based on preliminary results that rebuild strategy seems to have worked so far.

 

[Cup or Bust]

This is the greatest press conference in NHL history

 

[Bandit]

When Rob Blake is your GM and Marc Bergevin is the heir apparent.

 

[Montag DP]

For many years after tanking for Eichel and having decently talented teams that always failed, I blamed coaching. And we did have some terrible coaches. But after a few more years and a few more coaches of all sorts of different backgrounds, I had to admit that something much deeper is wrong with the Sabres organization. It's just rotten from the top down.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

So Keefe isn’t a real coach yet they are 4 pts ahead of the leafs?

#1 the Leafs have 2, and after tomorrow it will be 3 games in hand.

#2 the Leafs have beaten the Devils twice this year, the first time with their 5th string goalie.

#3 what Keefe does in the regular season is irrelevant, the Devils being good in the regular season doesn't surprise me, they would have been good last year but they were NEVER healthy.

Talk to me in April/May when Keefe gets out coached, AGAIN.

Even in the series he won, he won it because Vassi was AWFUL.

the man NEVER makes adjustments.

 

[black hawks matter]

Obv it was the Germans who had the baddest tanks. Seriously tho, once your top picks are in there mid-late twenties and are due the big long term contracts that they have a high likelihood of underperforming once they are in thier 30s you need to have it put together by them or else you are either moving/losing those guys and starting over or you are signing them and stuck in the dreaded bubble of mediocrity.

The best way to do it is build from the back end out, or maybe not best but at least ideally if you are lucky. That way your dmen who take longer to develop get the time they need. Then when they are ready you add your high end forwards who are ready sooner. As mentioned before like with the kyndasty hawks.

 

[Bond]

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.


Group psychology in sports is woefully, woefully misunderstood.

Flames should be consistent cup winners if this way true haha

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

When Holland signed a 28 year-old Justin Abdelkader to a 7-year contract.



Holland: "if it's too long, you worry about it 6 years from now."

Except it was bad before the ink dried. Even in that interview he can't come up with reasons related to Abdelkader's performance to justify that contract.

 

[Pokecheque]

Avs finally tanked starting in 2008, came away with the best draft class in franchise history in 2009 (Duchene, O'Reilly, Barrie) and we thought the future was bright. Turns out it was, just not for another decade-plus and without a single player from that draft on the roster, though the trades of all three brought in key players for the Avs' 2022 Cup win.

I don't remember exactly when I realized it went wrong, probably not really until 2014 when the shine of Roy's first season behind the bench wore off.

 

[JKG33]

For the Leafs, in hindsight the signs were there prior to acquiring each of the big 4.

With Matthews, it should've been obvious when he chased money in Europe since he was "too good" for the CHL or NCAA. Marner was a diva in London already, the nonsense with his dad comes to mind. Speaking of, the shit apple didn't fall far from the shit tree with Nylander either, his dad was always a money first type too. And Tavares was already too far gone, having wasted the first decade of his career with a loser team.

The 4 of them have all of the talent in world, but only care about padding regular season stats and bank accounts.

 

[benfranklin]

Sabres. It was the Okposo signing I believe. Instantly knew they were "going for it" too soon after the Eichel draft. One more tank and who knows, they couldve had Eichel/Matthews as their 1-2.

 

[norrisnick]

There's an interesting pattern with the two most successful tanks of the last 25 years (Hawks and Penguins).

Both got a least one superstar with a high, but not first overall pick (Malkin 2nd overall, Toews 3rd overall)
Both had a superstar go first overall (Crosby, Kane), though obviously Crosby is in a class of his own
Both had a superstar draft pick after the first round (Letang 2nd round, Keith 2nd round)
Both had multiple good players get drafted outside the top 10 as well (Seabrook/Crawford/Byfuglien/Brouwer/Bickell/Hjallmarsson and Whitney/Talbot/Goligoski)

Pittsburgh has the higher highs in drafting, and obviously Fleury and Staal are outliers in this regard.

But both teams combined superstars at #1 with 5+ good picks elsewhere.

Getting three superstars in the draft (Crosby,Malkin,Letang Keith/Toews/Kane) in a few years is a huge get. Filling the team with other great picks goes a long way too. Both teams had to retool significantly after their first Cup, but the depth charts from strong drafting helped a lot.

You can add Tampa to this too. Hedman and Stamkos were high picks, but Vasilevsiky was a mid 1st rounder, Kucherov a 2nd round pick, and Point a 3rd rounder.

Calling Pittsburgh a successful tank is very generous. They weren't tanking. They were divesting of assets because they were getting sold off to the highest bidder. They clusterf***ed themselves into a contender with some pretty suspect help from the league as well...

 

[Dread Clawz]

One of the challenges appears to be having the talent coming through the pipeline while also having a sufficiently positive veteran presence to help develop those players in the right way.

If you are too flush with mediocre veterans, it may prevent you from getting into the top 5 in drafting on a regular basis and acquiring the necessary talent to get out of the playoff bubble cycle.

But if there are too few, or they are the wrong guys, the potential that everyone is raving about never really pans out and the youngsters only learn about how to lose.

I agree, this is really the biggest key. It's a delicate dance and crucial for the last step of the rebuild.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The best way to do it is build from the back end out, or maybe not best but at least ideally if you are lucky. That way your dmen who take longer to develop get the time they need. Then when they are ready you add your high end forwards who are ready sooner.

I remember when Jim Rutherford refused to draft top defensemen because they would be at the end of their ELC by the time they started to enter their prime. He didn’t want to pay them before he knew what he was getting.

 

[kerrabria]

It doesn't take a genius to understand that lottery picks don't automatically live up to their draft hype. The players should only enter the NHL if they're NHL-ready, not sooner.

A rookie center should be sheltered by two veteran centers who take the difficult minutes, and the rookie should have legit wingers who do things well. The linemates don't have to be veterans per se, but they should be effective NHLers with skillsets that compliment the rookie. Defensemen should have a stable, high IQ veteran partner for as many years as the cap allows. And they should never be deployed as the Top Pair at 5v5 until the rookie dman can actually handle it.

TL;DR Your Top 5 pick has talent, but he isn't actually good yet, and he won't just magically figure it out without substanial support.

 

[Konnan511]

This most recent offseason. It was painfully obvious we took a step back with our free agent signings. (Red Wings).

We had all of the momentum from the end of the season, and then we let go character guys and guys with production and replaced them with no one of consequence and downgrades.

 

[NVious]

Generally you know by year 5 of any tank exactly what you have, the problem is that you always hold out hope you have more:
1.All your young and good players become great (not just good)
2.All your prospects pan out
3.All your trades and signings pan out

Unfortunately if you don't have an amazing talent already and just a bunch of good talents, you'll be mired in mediocrity always hoping that the team is always 1 more development year of the current roster, 1 more top F/D/G away and 1 more good signing away from contending.

It's rough because you know if you trade those pieces they'll go on to have success, but simultaneously if it's not going to happen with you, who cares? In Toronto we saw that with Kessel, but if he had stayed he would've taken an awful team to an ok territory and maybe instead of Nylander/Marner/Matthews we end up with Ritchie, Provorov, PLD.

Honestly maybe we're overrating a lot of elements and underrating luck, Edmonton looked awful with all those 1sts, top picks, but when they got McDrai all of a sudden the same organization became amazing. Without top end talent I see a bunch of teams kind of stuck in perpetual mediocrity, i.e the Sabres, Sens, Wings where at times they look decent-good and you'd hate to trade away any of the players, but simultaneously if nothing massive changes like Colarado Mack all of a sudden living up to his potential (happened by year 5) and obviously drafting Makar, then you can't expect the teams to take the next step. And expecting that is obviously extremely unrealistic.

It's tough rebuilding a rebuild, but by year 5 you gotta get realistic with what you have because IMO being stuck as a decent-good team with no chance of winning the cup is worse than a perpetual rebuild, at least in theory the perpetual rebuild can right itself (i.e Edmonton), but being decent-good is even worse.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

This lady should be a regular commentator. Would love to get her take on the Slavkofsky contract, Lane Hutson’s ranking, MSL, etc

 

[Hasbro]

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Vibes are high in SJ because there are zero expectations and some of their kids look good.

I would argue that a big part of it is they’ve been competitive or won outright vs some of the top teams in the league.

There have been tons of teams with impressive rookies and no expectations, that just get caved in each night. The difference is that the Sharks have put the league on notice that they aren’t a team to be overlooked, in a way that most tanking/rebuilding teams aren’t able to do

 

[Jumptheshark]

I'm referring to teams that sold vets, missed the playoffs a bunch and lost, and didn't really every compete for the Cup after.

What are some signs the rebuild is going sideways?

As an oiler fan I believe the Oiles did not embrace the rebuild quick enough. For me the re build started on Feb 27 2007. It took the Oilers a few years to realize they were doing it wrong. Signing Penner and Souray were dumb moves. But much of it was down to owners interference where guys who left the organization said they were going to do one thing but Katz said do something else. Best example is the Yalupov draft pick. The night before the draft, Bob Stauffer who works for the oilers spent nearly his oilers now show talking about Ryan Murray. Saying is was just what the oilers needed. Oilers took Yakupov over Murray and it came out quickly that Katz told the team who to take. There are other examples of Katz interfering with what players to get and let go

 

[paulmm3]

The second news of the Sam Reinhart bridge contract got announced rather than a long term deal.

 

[matt trick]

Holy shit that just got worse and worse. The arrogance...