Where did Yzerman go wrong with the rebuild?

[Nut Upstrom]

I was expecting some regression this year, but not the low quality shit show we have been seeing so far.
I was expecting him to bring in at least one quality Dman this year, not the low quality shit show we've been running the last few years.

Even having expected a step back, this has been horrible to watch thus far. If it goes on much longer just keep the current coaching staff and ride this shit show to the best draft position we can get (minus the one or two positions we slip back after better teams jump us in the lottery).

 

[Oddbob]

Can the users saying “proper rebuilds don’t take 6 years” list examples of teams who have completely bottomed out and returned to being a consistent playoff team (or better) within that time frame? Thanks

They can't without including Edmonton (ridiculous good fortune) and Toronto (again ridiculous good fortune) and Pittsburgh (ditto) and Chicago (ditto). The level of stars was not the same when we were at the bottom and all of them got top spot in the draft at least once during that time. Rangers were going to do the scorched earth thing, but then Panarin and Fox said we will only play in NY, so it doesn't take a genius to pivot away from plans when you both get a #1 overall pick and 2 really good players who force their way onto your team.

If they could at least show one team that both makes the playoffs consistently and is somewhat of a threat, and did it without a top tier pick at the top of the draft, then maybe we could talk about it. However there just isn't, which is why so many teams don't want the scorched earth rebuild, because it is a long painful return to being even decent.

Plenty of GMs have mentioned when doing a full rebuild you are looking at 5-8 years (in the cap era) and needing more than one really good player to turn out.

 

[raymond23]

There's two sides of the rebuild, Yzerman is succeeding at one (seemingly) and miserably failing at the other

Side one - prospect pool - is looking fantastic. My confidence level is sky high in Yzerman's ability to draft 1st rounders. Draper and crew in the later rounds is questionable but there have been some good signs this year. It's too bad some of those 2nd round picks look like throwaways, would have loved one or two more flyers on high ceiling guys. I really think this it the best prospect pool we have had in over a decade+.

Side two - roster building - could not be going worse. I don't think Yzerman is getting enough shit in here for just how bad he has been at finding pro talent and how awful these contracts are. I understand rebuilds take time and we need to be patient but you can't be this bad at spending money and expect to keep a job for much longer. $33 million for Larkin, Raymond, Seider and Debrincat is good value but then its $45+ million for old, slow and useless depth. Husso, Holl, Chiarot, Rasmussen, Copp, etc... I understand having one or two of these types of contracts but we have like 8. It's Ken Holland post 2013 bad. It feels like a nightmare looking at puckpedia.

 

[schuelma24]

There's two sides of the rebuild, Yzerman is succeeding at one (seemingly) and miserably failing at the other

Side one - prospect pool - is looking fantastic. My confidence level is sky high in Yzerman's ability to draft 1st rounders. Draper and crew in the later rounds is questionable but there have been some good signs this year. It's too bad some of those 2nd round picks look like throwaways, would have loved one or two more flyers on high ceiling guys. I really think this it the best prospect pool we have had in over a decade+.

Side two - roster building - could not be going worse. I don't think Yzerman is getting enough shit in here for just how bad he has been at finding pro talent and how awful these contracts are. I understand rebuilds take time and we need to be patient but you can't be this bad at spending money and expect to keep a job for much longer. $33 million for Larkin, Raymond, Seider and Debrincat is good value but then its $45+ million for old, slow and useless depth. Husso, Holl, Chiarot, Rasmussen, Copp, etc... I understand having one or two of these types of contracts but we have like 8. It's Ken Holland post 2013 bad. It feels like a nightmare looking at puckpedia.

Good post. The only pushback I'd give is I'd argue that in the long term, none of his admittedly horrible contracts should hobble the contention window. Now, if he does the same thing next year when he has a lot of space..yeah I'll rapidly lose faith in the plan lol.

 

[TheOctopusKid]

I don't think anyone is saying that Chiarot or Petry or Copp or whomever are elite players, but we are being hyperbolic here by calling them the 'worst' or 'trash' or... whatever. (Full disclosure: I want many of these guys to be shipped off as well so we can move on into our next phase of development).

But I think we are seriously overvaluing the UFA market of defenseman and what is or isn't available. Its not typically as simple as:

"Go get an top pair D, Stevie! What's wrong with you? You're so stupid!"

Even pointing to other free agent D signings in the open market, rarely is it as simple as:

"We should've paid Roy 7 for 49! We really needed him!"

Time and time again, we've had numerous incidences and follow up backstory to any NUMBER of things that may include or preclude a player wanting to sign with us. We see the numbers are go 8 > 7, make it happen! You never know what else is baked into it and you think "Well, I WOULD do it for more money, obviously they would.", until you end up with a Trouba situation and it has literally nothing to do with money, and everything to do with family, or you have Mike Babcock as your head coach and no amount of money would compel a player to sign with you any more than you would take a job with a poorly run company for a boss you know you hated.

I'm not saying that specifically with Roy, but this idea that it was just as simple of "Do your job and offer more and sell Detroit!", sure, to a degree, but there's a lot we don't see and you can't assume he's being negligent.

Look, I HATE the Petry Chiarot pairing, it really just looks fundamentally broken and how that pair operated on a deep MTL playoff run is entirely beyond me and I cannot wait till be can sunset both of those players because trying to ask them to be a 2nd pair today is just horrible to watch.

That being said, I don't know if literally any of the other options out there are better for us at this point or were ever better. Good defenseman are in short supply in this league and trying to acquire them takes time and patience. You can dip into the free agent market, but what D in his prime (26-30), who has options, and knows he's going to rack up a big contract is going to sign with a bottom dweller like Detroit in 2019-2022? - they often don't. And the ones who do, aren't ones that you generally want.

So to get the D we needed, Yzerman focused on drafting them: Seider, Tuomisto, Johanson, Sebrango, Wallinder, Edvinsson, Buium, ASP, etc. and he's tried trading for them repeatedly.

We acquired Nick Leddy: who was fine, but a lot of this board claimed he had negative value, and was our worst player and needed to be cut, etc. etc. We traded for Staal and Petry as veteran stopgaps, and even traded Leddy for more draft capital and Walman, who we all loved until we traded him away again.

The issue here is that the options to add players for low cost that are better than Chiarot or Petry, or Holl, etc. - are few and far between. And yes, we could dump all of these guys (which I could be talked into), but know that they replacements for them are going to be considerably worse. Like, whoa, worse. Like a return to the Stecher, Oesterle, Gustafsson levels. Those are the guys who would sign for cheap and short term, looking for a role and shot and they would get utterly caved in.

Our path forward here is still on the back of Seider, Edvinsson, and ASP. It will be finding cheap, complementary players and prospects through whatever channels we can, but getting bottom pair and depth D doesn't seem to be our issue. From a Defense standpoint, and I'm happy with where we are? No, I would've hoped we could've gotten at least one 2nd pair D to help give some stability there and a clear mentor to accelerate some of the younger prospects development (like being able to run Johansson there, or call up Wallinder to let him work out a bit more with better support). Am I surprised that this is the state of the D? No, this is about being patient in the long game and hopefully catching a good trade or an undervalued asset somewhere. And I certainly don't blame Chiarot or Petry, or Holl. They are what was available, and it's not up to snuff but i can say that there isn't anything out there that I can see that is much better. Or if it is, it'll cost us an arm and a leg to get (1st Rders, Prospects, etc.)

 

[PullHard]

Minnesota wild/Dalls Stars. (Neither really pushed over for Stanley cups.) Neither have been bad for 6 plus years, consistently make playoffs. Thats off the top of my head. San Jose sharks until this recent run through. Infact I'd say outside of this recent management, San Jose would be the poster child organization for that.

If you feel like YOU know that answer you could tell us. I'm not sure it's none, maybe the majority of teams take 6 or more years I actually don't know.

I don’t recall either of those teams completely bottoming out, definitely not in the recent past where we could realistically draw a parallel because yzerman is operating under a similar cap or lotto system.

 

[raymond23]

I don't think anyone is saying that Chiarot or Petry or Copp or whomever are elite players, but we are being hyperbolic here by calling them the 'worst' or 'trash' or... whatever. (Full disclosure: I want many of these guys to be shipped off as well so we can move on into our next phase of development).

But I think we are seriously overvaluing the UFA market of defenseman and what is or isn't available. Its not typically as simple as:

"Go get an top pair D, Stevie! What's wrong with you? You're so stupid!"

Even pointing to other free agent D signings in the open market, rarely is it as simple as:

"We should've paid Roy 7 for 49! We really needed him!"

Time and time again, we've had numerous incidences and follow up backstory to any NUMBER of things that may include or preclude a player wanting to sign with us. We see the numbers are go 8 > 7, make it happen! You never know what else is baked into it and you think "Well, I WOULD do it for more money, obviously they would.", until you end up with a Trouba situation and it has literally nothing to do with money, and everything to do with family, or you have Mike Babcock as your head coach and no amount of money would compel a player to sign with you any more than you would take a job with a poorly run company for a boss you know you hated.

I'm not saying that specifically with Roy, but this idea that it was just as simple of "Do your job and offer more and sell Detroit!", sure, to a degree, but there's a lot we don't see and you can't assume he's being negligent.

Look, I HATE the Petry Chiarot pairing, it really just looks fundamentally broken and how that pair operated on a deep MTL playoff run is entirely beyond me and I cannot wait till be can sunset both of those players because trying to ask them to be a 2nd pair today is just horrible to watch.

That being said, I don't know if literally any of the other options out there are better for us at this point or were ever better. Good defenseman are in short supply in this league and trying to acquire them takes time and patience. You can dip into the free agent market, but what D in his prime (26-30), who has options, and knows he's going to rack up a big contract is going to sign with a bottom dweller like Detroit in 2019-2022? - they often don't. And the ones who do, aren't ones that you generally want.

So to get the D we needed, Yzerman focused on drafting them: Seider, Tuomisto, Johanson, Sebrango, Wallinder, Edvinsson, Buium, ASP, etc. and he's tried trading for them repeatedly.

We acquired Nick Leddy: who was fine, but a lot of this board claimed he had negative value, and was our worst player and needed to be cut, etc. etc. We traded for Staal and Petry as veteran stopgaps, and even traded Leddy for more draft capital and Walman, who we all loved until we traded him away again.

The issue here is that the options to add players for low cost that are better than Chiarot or Petry, or Holl, etc. - are few and far between. And yes, we could dump all of these guys (which I could be talked into), but know that they replacements for them are going to be considerably worse. Like, whoa, worse. Like a return to the Stecher, Oesterle, Gustafsson levels. Those are the guys who would sign for cheap and short term, looking for a role and shot and they would get utterly caved in.

Our path forward here is still on the back of Seider, Edvinsson, and ASP. It will be finding cheap, complementary players and prospects through whatever channels we can, but getting bottom pair and depth D doesn't seem to be our issue. From a Defense standpoint, and I'm happy with where we are? No, I would've hoped we could've gotten at least one 2nd pair D to help give some stability there and a clear mentor to accelerate some of the younger prospects development (like being able to run Johansson there, or call up Wallinder to let him work out a bit more with better support). Am I surprised that this is the state of the D? No, this is about being patient in the long game and hopefully catching a good trade or an undervalued asset somewhere. And I certainly don't blame Chiarot or Petry, or Holl. They are what was available, and it's not up to snuff but i can say that there isn't anything out there that I can see that is much better. Or if it is, it'll cost us an arm and a leg to get (1st Rders, Prospects, etc.)

So you just have really low expectations for Yzerman in my eyes, if I'm being honest.

I understand having too high expectations like you said at the beginning. But having the worst d group in the league, statistically, in year 6 at the helm is not okay. And it's totally okay for people to be mad and frustrated at it.

I think you're right that the job is really hard and it's not easy to find good depth players. But thats why you're the GM. Get creative, find a way like plenty of other teams have. Don't ice one of the worst d cores in the league six years in.