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.

 

[RED WINGS STOMP]

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.

This is kinda where I am at with Stevie. His free agency game plan this offseason has to change.

Let's play hypothetical here for a minute, let's say Cossa continues to have a strong AHL season and has a good playoffs. Maybe even gets a NHL start or two and does well. So the natural progression would be to make him the backup next year with Lyon and Husso's contracts running out.

If Steve goes out and signs a journeyman backup to a three year deal or something similarly stupid and blocks Cossa in this instance, then we may have a serious problem with him.

 

[TheOctopusKid]

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.

Not that I have low expectations, but this is really about momentum in my eyes.

Coming into 2019:

Our D core was Danny Dekeyser, Mike Green, Jonathan Ericsson, Dennis Cholowski, Filip Hronek... I'm sure I'm forgetting some rockstars in there. And our "prospects" that we were left with were... Jared McIssac, and I think Vile Saarjinavi at that point? And there was no one else worth mentioning.

To say that our current D core and our prospect pipeline is worse than this is just not accurate. When you're two best "defenders" has a chronic damage to his back that prevented him from moving and walking correctly, and the other with a debilitating hip injury. That D Core was atrocious and we had literally a decades worth of prospect failure that left us with nothing to develop (I still weep over the 00's D prospects - Kindl, Smith, Outlette, Marchenko, etc. etc.)

2019-2021 was just trying to get it back to respectable:

But we then by 2021 we had

Seider, Leddy/Walman, Hronek, Staal, Lindstrom, and some other randos and in the pipe we had Edvinsson, Wallinder, Sebrango, Buium, Viro, Tuomisto, etc. in the pipe at that point.

That's 3 years.

Now stepping over that to now?

Seider, Edvinsson, Chiarot, Petry, Johansson, Holl - with a pipe of: ASP, Wallinder, Buium.

Are we better than we were in 2022? I would argue that Seider/Edvinsson is superior to Seider/Leddy, but we've probably lost a step on offense going from Hronek to Chiarot and Petry (but probably up a step in D). The 3rd pair is basically a push at this point.

All of this to say - I don't think this D core is the worst by a long shot if for no other reason that many of the D are still young and improving as oppose to old and broken and declining.

Maybe just my opinion though

 

[Frk It]

I can only imagine how much better this team would be if we added someone like Chycrun or Montour on the back end.

There is just no way we walk out of this summer with Gustafson as the only addition to the back end.

 

[Winger98]

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.

even with some ridiculously good draft luck Edmonton went through a stretch of missing the playoffs 12 out of 13 years and Chicago 9 out of 10. Even the Leafs missed it 10 out of 11 years while they rebuilt. NJD has been out of the playoffs 10 of the past 12 years.

Even when you have the hockey gods smile on you and drop some seriously elite talent in your lap you tend to suck for quite awhile.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Add to this that the defensive problems aren't all on the defense. They're getting shelled in part because our forwards can't win a puck battle. So entire shifts are spent chasing guys around in their own end.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

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

The Tampa Bay Lightning "rebuild" is quite a strange one. After 2006 and 2007 1st Round exits, there was no plan to tank in the years to come, but weak goaltending & defense plus horrific drafting in the years prior led to an unintentional tank, Richards being dealt, Tortorella being fired, finishing tied for last in the league, winning the Stamkos Lottery & picked 1st in 2008.

Going into 2008-09, there was no plan to be bad again, as the Lightning added Recchi, Prospal (again), Vrbata, Malone in the offseason while trading Dan Boyle. They unintentionally tanked again, ending up picking 2nd & picked Hedman.

2009-10 was still bad, Lightning picked Connolly (yikes) at 6th in 2010. 2010-11 great season leading to Game 7 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Final, 2011-12, massive step back, 2012-13, bottom out in the lockout shortened season, 2013-14, very good team, back in the playoffs in Cooper's first full season as head coach, 2014-15, Cup Final appearance.

Lightning notable drafting in "rebuild":

2008: Stamkos (1)
2009: Hedman (2), Panik (52)
2010: Connolly (6), Gudas (66)
2011: Namestnikov (27), Kucherov (58), Nesterov (148), Palat (208)
2012: Koekkoek (10), Vasilevskiy (19), Paquette (101)
2013: Drouin (3), Erne (33)

Yzerman hit on the Downie trade that resulted in getting Detroit's 1st that turned into Vasilevskiy, as well as turning Conacher into Bishop. Some massive luck with a few draft picks and the development of Tyler Johnson from undrafted Dub overager into 1st liner. Plenty of meh to bad picks by Yzerman/Murray during the rebuilding years

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

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

Likely none or certainly no more than those who were still a bottom 6 team at that same point...

 

[TheOctopusKid]

Minnesota wild/Dalls Stars. (Neither really pushed over for Stanley cups.) Neither have been bad for 6 plus years, consistently make playoffs.

DAL is a good example but I wouldn't exactly say that their current team's success was built on the fly and they maintained a strong team:

Their past core peaked out in 07-08 (WCF) where they then had the following:

08-09: Missed
09-10: Missed
10-11: Missed
11-12: Missed
12-13: Missed
13-14: Lost 1st Rd
14-15: Missed
15-16: Lost 2nd Rd
16-17: Missed
17-18: Missed

Starting in 18-19, I would say is the "current" Stars, and even then, they missed 20-21 (will give a pass there, COVID season is a weird one)

So.... in 10 years, the missed the playoffs 8 times.

When Dallas started this decade of missing, at the start of the 08-09 season, Dallas had in their system:

Eriksson (23yo)
Richards (28yo)
Ribeiro (28yo)
Morrow (30yo)
Neal (21yo)
Ott (26yo)
Benn (20yo)
Niskanen (22yo)

This isn't exactly a bare cupboard for them to "restart" their rebuild like what Yzerman came into. In this instance, Jamie Benn has been their star scoring winger for the better part of 15 years.

So basically they missed 80% of the time despite having a really good core of in their prime. In that period of time from all those missed years, their current team is built around a massive trade for Tyler Seguin, keeping Benn, and landed on Lindell (4th), Heiskanen (1st), Hintz (2nd), and Robertson (2nd).

I would say we are in "Year 6" of the 10yrs - and we have a number of current analogs to what they did as well, and we started with much less.

Larkin - Seguin, Debrincat - Benn, Heiskanen - Seider, Hintz - Kasper, Lindell - Edvinsson, and Robertson - Raymond (roughly in age generally at this time). They even has Oettinger in their farm system, and we have Cossa.

DAL had A LOT of misses in their picks during that time as well, and in that sense, I would argue we're ahead of them with ASP, Augustine, MBN, and most important is Danielson.

I'm not saying that all of these are 1:1, they aren't. And remember this is more comparatively of the player vs. where they were in the rebuild but don't think that DAL didn't have a long climb out either and in terms of retooling, spent quite a few years struggling to find the right mix of things. Only recently did they really move forward when their 2010 core stepped into their prime and they added in old-timey free agents around them (Duchene, Dadonov)

 

[raymond23]

Imagine this team with Necas and Hughes

We probably don’t have Mo/Lucas but I’m still salty over those drafts

 

[Hockeyville USA]

DAL is a good example but I wouldn't exactly say that their current team's success was built on the fly and they maintained a strong team:

Their past core peaked out in 07-08 (WCF) where they then had the following:

08-09: Missed
09-10: Missed
10-11: Missed
11-12: Missed
12-13: Missed
13-14: Lost 1st Rd
14-15: Missed
15-16: Lost 2nd Rd
16-17: Missed
17-18: Missed

Starting in 18-19, I would say is the "current" Stars, and even then, they missed 20-21 (will give a pass there, COVID season is a weird one)

So.... in 10 years, the missed the playoffs 8 times.

When Dallas started this decade of missing, at the start of the 08-09 season, Dallas had in their system:

Eriksson (23yo)
Richards (28yo)
Ribeiro (28yo)
Morrow (30yo)
Neal (21yo)
Ott (26yo)
Benn (20yo)
Niskanen (22yo)

This isn't exactly a bare cupboard for them to "restart" their rebuild like what Yzerman came into. In this instance, Jamie Benn has been their star scoring winger for the better part of 15 years.

So basically they missed 80% of the time despite having a really good core of in their prime. In that period of time from all those missed years, their current team is built around a massive trade for Tyler Seguin, keeping Benn, and landed on Lindell (4th), Heiskanen (1st), Hintz (2nd), and Robertson (2nd).

I would say we are in "Year 6" of the 10yrs - and we have a number of current analogs to what they did as well, and we started with much less.

Larkin - Seguin, Debrincat - Benn, Heiskanen - Seider, Hintz - Kasper, Lindell - Edvinsson, and Robertson - Raymond (roughly in age generally at this time). They even has Oettinger in their farm system, and we have Cossa.

DAL had A LOT of misses in their picks during that time as well, and in that sense, I would argue we're ahead of them with ASP, Augustine, MBN, and most important is Danielson.

I'm not saying that all of these are 1:1, they aren't. And remember this is more comparatively of the player vs. where they were in the rebuild but don't think that DAL didn't have a long climb out either and in terms of retooling, spent quite a few years struggling to find the right mix of things. Only recently did they really move forward when their 2010 core stepped into their prime and they added in old-timey free agents around them (Duchene, Dadonov)

Dallas is extending their contention window with drafting Johnston and Stankoven in 2021, assuming both become 60+ points per season types who play well both ways.

Like you said, Dallas missed on a lot of picks and still does miss fairly often, like most teams.

 

[Our Lady Peace]

Add to this that the defensive problems aren't all on the defense. They're getting shelled in part because our forwards can't win a puck battle. So entire shifts are spent chasing guys around in their own end.

I'd like to bang the drum a bit more here and say a glaring omission in our lineup is that we don't have a legit #2C right now (I like JTC as a #3C) to carry matchups and drive offense outside of our top line

Not to mention our top lines don't have any sizeable forwards that are skilled wrecking balls at 210+ lbs and like 6'2/6'3. Only one is Ras who plays like he's 5'11 and is usually on the 4th line. Fischer has good size but he's 4th line at best

Top 6 looks like:

Debrincat 5'7 - 180
Larkin 6'1 - 199
Raymond 5'11 - 188
Kane 5'10 - 177
Compher 6'0 - 190
Tarasenko 6'1 - 219

Too small and easy to play against with our lackluster coaching strategy. If we added a Tuch on the wing or if the corpse of Couturier still had some gas left in the tank he could fit down the middle too. Only examples but I wonder who's got that kind of player we can add that won't be a total dud

 

[saska sault]

Out of curiosity, how much are the players we signed a result of Yzerman vs the pro scouts. Of course as the GM, the scouts are an extension of yourself as the boss. You cant watch every draft eligible player, prospect you have drafted, pay attention to pro leagues and also scout the NHL alone. Maybe time for a rebuild in that area of our scouting? The salary cap is rumored to be approaching 95 million next year, with a healthy amount of cap space and expectations only growing (regardless how this year turns out) maybe its time to make moves there before those same scouts have a hand in spending future cap space.

 

[Game suspension]

No other GM in a serious hockey market would have a leash this long.

Kyle Davidson in Chicago will lol

The Tampa Bay Lightning "rebuild" is quite a strange one. After 2006 and 2007 1st Round exits, there was no plan to tank in the years to come, but weak goaltending & defense plus horrific drafting in the years prior led to an unintentional tank, Richards being dealt, Tortorella being fired, finishing tied for last in the league, winning the Stamkos Lottery & picked 1st in 2008.

Going into 2008-09, there was no plan to be bad again, as the Lightning added Recchi, Prospal (again), Vrbata, Malone in the offseason while trading Dan Boyle. They unintentionally tanked again, ending up picking 2nd & picked Hedman.

2009-10 was still bad, Lightning picked Connolly (yikes) at 6th in 2010. 2010-11 great season leading to Game 7 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Final, 2011-12, massive step back, 2012-13, bottom out in the lockout shortened season, 2013-14, very good team, back in the playoffs in Cooper's first full season as head coach, 2014-15, Cup Final appearance.

Lightning notable drafting in "rebuild":

2008: Stamkos (1)
2009: Hedman (2), Panik (52)
2010: Connolly (6), Gudas (66)
2011: Namestnikov (27), Kucherov (58), Nesterov (148), Palat (208)
2012: Koekkoek (10), Vasilevskiy (19), Paquette (101)
2013: Drouin (3), Erne (33)

Yzerman hit on the Downie trade that resulted in getting Detroit's 1st that turned into Vasilevskiy, as well as turning Conacher into Bishop. Some massive luck with a few draft picks and the development of Tyler Johnson from undrafted Dub overager into 1st liner. Plenty of meh to bad picks by Yzerman/Murray during the rebuilding years

Has anyone here ever considered that BrisBois was the talent in TB and not Yzerman ?

Watch a TB game. Hagel is a star and the two kids (Moser and Geekie) they got for Sergashev are really good and cheap. BrisBois won that trade by a landslide. Just saying.

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

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

Proper rebuilds don't take six years just to get back to the playoffs, especially when the supposed best GM in hockey was hired. Also, the draft isn't the only way to accumulate talent.

This isn't difficult to understand. You're free to continue to have blind faith and continue to kick the can down the road - the rest of us who operate in the here and now are more than justified in being fed up and out of patience.

 

[schuelma24]

Proper rebuilds don't take six years just to get back to the playoffs, especially when the supposed best GM in hockey was hired. Also, the draft isn't the only way to accumulate talent.

This isn't difficult to understand. You're free to continue to have blind faith and continue to kick the can down the road - the rest of us who operate in the here and now are more than justified in being fed up and out of patience.

So, hypothetically, if on the last game of the season last year Philly hadn't pulled their goalie and then they beat Washington in OT and the Wings made the playoffs..everything would be a ok?

 

[PullHard]

Proper rebuilds don't take six years just to get back to the playoffs, especially when the supposed best GM in hockey was hired. Also, the draft isn't the only way to accumulate talent.

This isn't difficult to understand. You're free to continue to have blind faith and continue to kick the can down the road - the rest of us who operate in the here and now are more than justified in being fed up and out of patience.

Giving me one or two examples shouldn’t be hard then, right?

 

[SirloinUB]

So many bad contracts I don’t even know where to start

Considering this team has 7 guys signed past the end of next season and only 5 guys signed beyond the next 2 season this narrative seems wildly blown out of proportion.