Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesPuck12
I don't think blowing everything up and tanking for couple of seasons is the best way to rebuild a team from hockey and business perspective. You have to compete for the playoffs every year and rebuild while you can still be competitive.
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Easier said than done though. Which teams have been able to do it in this post-dynasty parity era? And is them being able to do it a result of specific types of decisions and tactics? Or is it just trying to be balanced combined with some great draft picks that they've kept around?
I suspect it's the latter.
And even then how much of it is just randomness? What's the difference between the Ducks last year and the Ducks this year? Whatever changes there's been hardly seems to justify the huge swing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Super-Rye
Ownership should be weary of isolating their fan base. If they start losing fans left right and center it won't be because Iginla and others are gone, it'll be because the team has once again returned to the joke they were from the mid 90's to early 2000's.
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That's what I mean, by not trusting the fan base I mean the owners think the fan support will go away if they lose.
They (rightly or wrongly) think that by keeping Iginla, and by association trying (successfully or not isn't relevant to making the decision because no one can predict the future) to rework the team while remaining competitive is the way they can have a chance of keeping the fan support.
Every path has risk, and every decision works out or doesn't, but a full rebuild you almost certainly will have more lean years where (the owners assume, maybe rightly) fan support will erode, whereas if they try to just reload and continue to shoot for some playoffs they at least have the chance of having success enough to retain their fans (and keeping Iginla is part of that in being able to sell tickets around the name).