What NHL teams do need full rebuild right now?

[blankall]

The Flames. Were already sorta there but this team won’t get out of its own way and is looking to finish outside the playoffs without finishing bottom 10 this year, thereby giving our first to Montreal.

Plenty of time for the wheels to fall off though

Their record is horribly skewed by that hot start. Also, you can't force Wolf to be bad. The Flames have the second lowest cap hit and are pretty close to the cap floor.

It's pretty hard to out suck a lot of these bad teams though. Making even bottom 10 this year is a bit of a feat.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Their record is horribly skewed by that hot start. Also, you can't force Wolf to be bad. The Flames have the second lowest cap hit and are pretty close to the cap floor.

It's pretty hard to out suck a lot of these bad teams though. Making even bottom 10 this year is a bit of a feat.

Something about being born in it, molded by it....

 

[gary559]

I think it tells you more about fans and their idea of what needs to be done to build a successful team if you think 16 teams need to tear it all down.

That was my point. A full rebuild should only be done in extremely dire situations, with a hard cap every team should be able to compete unless grossly mismanaged into a corner, which does happen from time to time but it's not as common as people think.

 

[GOilers88]

That was my point. A full rebuild should only be done in extremely dire situations, with a hard cap every team should be able to compete unless grossly mismanaged into a corner, which does happen from time to time but it's not as common as people think.

 

[StreetHawk]

They do indeed take a long time, because if you're really going to strip it down, unless your prospect pool is already stronger than it would appear, you'll take about 5 years building up your prospect pool of 23 and unders, and another 3-5 to translate those young players into a winning core.

Take the isles and preds. Isles for 2018 and 2019 not getting much from wahlstrom or holstrom. Dealt 20/21 firsts for jgp and Palmeri. 22/23 dealt for Romanov and Horvat. Really not much younger than Romanov and Dobson who are 24 right now. Jump to 27 for Barzal. Is there really much in the prospect pool for the Isles? So if they sold off guys they are going to be waiting a really long time to get back to the PO as they build it back up.

Nash, l’Héroux? Svechkov? Kemell? How high end are these kids for them?

Definitely would take a long time to turn it around.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Take the isles and preds. Isles for 2018 and 2019 not getting much from wahlstrom or holstrom. Dealt 20/21 firsts for jgp and Palmeri. 22/23 dealt for Romanov and Horvat. Really not much younger than Romanov and Dobson who are 24 right now. Jump to 27 for Barzal. Is there really much in the prospect pool for the Isles? So if they sold off guys they are going to be waiting a really long time to get back to the PO as they build it back up.

Nash, l’Héroux? Svechkov? Kemell? How high end are these kids for them?

Definitely would take a long time to turn it around.

Nashville's prospect pool is decent which could accelerate it a bit if they decided to tear it down, but yeah, barring any surprise it's unlikely anyone ends up being super high end.

 

[HuGo Sham]

I think Lebrun wrote recently that GMs watched what happened in Buffalo, Detroit and Ottawa vs Dallas and what's happened so far in Washington and feel smart retools are the way to go.
Obviously very risky and requires finding talent late in the first round and beyond - like Boston did.

I don't think any team really wants to do the full rebuild, but if i had to guess, the list would include Pittsburgh, Nashville, NYI - maybe Boston. I'm basing this on a lack of high end talent in the pipeline.

As some have mentioned, a rebuild takes minimum 5 year.

I'm glad hughes has stayed the course in Montreal. Habs need one more big draft + patience with the pieces coming up.

 

[WarriorofTime]

That was my point. A full rebuild should only be done in extremely dire situations, with a hard cap every team should be able to compete unless grossly mismanaged into a corner, which does happen from time to time but it's not as common as people think.

The NHL has a lot of things that can really incentivize teams to basically never tank.

1) It's a hard-capped league in a depth driven sport. No special luxury tax or additional room to play with for re-signing your own guys. Good teams are always going to need to churn over their depth that they won't be able to retain because their cap gets tied up by their core players into their own UFA years. And your depth matters, a lot. You need about 10 useful forwards, 5 useful defenseman and a useful goaltender because shifts are pretty regularly rolling at even strength.

2) The loser point and how it necessarily bunches the standings together. A win is just a win, but some losses are essentially half a win, half a loss. This means that the middle of the standings are going to be really bunched together. Most teams are never that far out of it during the season, if "it" is the 2nd wildcard position. This has a double whammy effect where the NHL standings by their nature, heavily incentivize teams that go to overtimes. If every game goes to overtime, and you had a 50/50 shot to win, you'd have a point percentage of .750, which is better than the President's Trophy Winner almost every year. The way to build a team that goes to overtime is to build a team that plays low scoring games (i.e., is good defensively). Much more likely to go to OT 1-1 or 2-2 than 4-4 or 5-5. Building a team to play in low scoring games doesn't require the power of superstars to the same degree as a team that tries to outscore the opposition, so it's fairly achievable even without a lot of elite talent in place already.

3) The fact that in most American cities, Hockey is the 3rd or 4th most popular professional sport. The stomach for "let's ride this out 5 years to start showing progress and then *maybe* in another 3-5 we'll be a powerhouse" is not particularly appetizing. It's much more comfortable for an ownership group to decide that they'll just continue to draft players, sign free agents, maybe make a trade but not do anything to jeopardize the present or future too drastically, and see what happens.

 

[PlushMinus]

Yep, even though they are doing alright currently. If the goal is to become a serious contender they will need a full rebuild.

Please elaborate on why a team that is tied for 1st in the league, with 23 million in cap space next season, needs to do a FULL rebuild? I'm dying for an explanation.

 

[Byron Bitz]

Please elaborate on why a team that is tied for 1st in the league, with 23 million in cap space next season, needs to do a FULL rebuild? I'm dying for an explanation.

It’s only December, standings dont mean much at this point, it’s a small sample size. They barely made the playoffs last season and got swept in the 1st round. The year before that they finished in the bottom 10 in the league. Ovechkin, Backstrom and Carlson are all really old and don’t have much time left. Unless you think a core of McMichael, Strome, Chychrun, Sandin, Protas is good enough to contend I would suggest you rebuild.

 

[Oneiro]

Nashville
Boston
Calgary
Islanders
Pittsburgh
To a lesser extent, St. Louis.

Zombie teams, all of them. This is your mushy middle that can go on for as long as management can't see reality.

Respect to WAS, I didn't expect their changes to take them off this list. I think they're on borrowed time, like Winnipeg, but can't put them on this list in good faith.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It’s only December, standings dont mean much at this point, it’s a small sample size. They barely made the playoffs last season and got swept in the 1st round. The year before that they finished in the bottom 10 in the league. Ovechkin, Backstrom and Carlson are all really old and don’t have much time left. Unless you think a core of McMichael, Strome, Chychrun, Sandin, Protas is good enough to contend I would suggest you rebuild.

Probably shouldn't comment on the state of the Capitals if you're going to be mentioning the bolded right now.

 

[BKarchitect]

I wish the Islanders would have embraced a tank to get Long Island boy Hagens. I’d love to see a marque superstar prospect for that franchise to build around, even better a kid who was an Islanders fan…but as long as Sorokin and that group of vets are in the team, they are going to be mediocre and not nearly bad enough to totally capsize.

 

[LeighDx59]

Nashville wont even have to sell alot of players off the way their going.

 

[Dust]

I could see Pittsburgh doing it next year and then managing to snag up Mckenna with the 1OA pick.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I could see Pittsburgh doing it next year and then managing to snag up Mckenna with the 1OA pick.

Trendy to expect right now of course, but reality is even if they're one of like 5 teams that decide they're ok to suck next year, that still only amounts to like 1/6 chance (the last being the lotto draw wild pull) of picking first.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Boston needs a thorough house cleaning thanks to Cam the clown and Don S weenie.

Yep. If Boston can't win with either Cassidy or Montgomery, who can they win with? At some point, you have to conclude that it's not the jockeys, it is the horse.

 

[PlushMinus]

It’s only December, standings dont mean much at this point, it’s a small sample size. They barely made the playoffs last season and got swept in the 1st round. The year before that they finished in the bottom 10 in the league. Ovechkin, Backstrom and Carlson are all really old and don’t have much time left. Unless you think a core of McMichael, Strome, Chychrun, Sandin, Protas is good enough to contend I would suggest you rebuild.

I agree we need to wait until the end of the season to see if the players who are currently posting big numbers actually do so over the whole season. Even if their numbers come down a little they are all going to be considered breakout seasons (Strome, McMichael, Protas).

Backstrom is on LTIR and final year of contract - he's not coming back. Carlson will be replaced by Chychrun if the Caps sign him to an extension (which I expect they will do their best to).

I think your definition of a contender is a team with multiple superstars on the roster, but teams win Cups without them: Vegas and St Louis are recent examples. Edmonton and Toronto are examples of teams who have the superstars but still can't win Cups.

This thread has been derailed a bit - it's supposed to be about teams that need a full rebuild now. I don't think the Caps fall into that category and with players like Miro (continuing to improve) and Leonard (v likely to make the team next season) I think they're going to avoid having to do a full rebuild.

 

[MessierII]

Hate to say it but Boston is at that point

 

[Chet Manley]

Really seems like Pittsburgh has already tried to give that core a last shot when they acquired Karlsson. They're probably ready to select another top 20 player of all time.

 

[amnesiac]

Flames come to mind

 

[Fatass]

Pens, Rangers, Preds, Flames.

 

[jaywills1020]

Drury is doing much better. Which is not to say he's doing good, but Gorton was complete horseshit. Absolutely horrible drafter and he saddled the team with Trouba's contract. Andersson and Kravtsov were all-time misses. David Quinn was a dreadful hire. A real rebuild never happened.

They basically wasted four years before Drury started some semblance of a retool with his mid-to-late first round picks.

Serious question. What has Drury done that made you say “wow that was a great move/signing”

 

[Machinehead]

Serious question. What has Drury done that made you say “wow that was a great move/signing”

Getting rid of Trouba and Goodrow with no retention was pretty great actually.

 

[barkovcanfinnish]

Pittsburgh is the easy answer.

The Flames and Islanders I think should embrace a rebuild very soon, as they’ve both been pretty middling the last few years and their main players are either declining or showing imminent risk of a decline.