Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Completely tearing down and rebuilding straight through draft picks is very risky as we've seen from places like BUF, EDM and others.
The major problem is that if you go for the top 5 pick multiple years in a row you are losing a lot. Then you're bringing these high picks into a losing environment where lo and behold they learn how to be losers, accept losing, don't know what it takes to consistently win at the NHL level. Heck even here we've seen despite our couple playoff runs with our young core, it's hard to install a consistent winning mentality and attitude even though we only briefly bottomed out.
It's super dangerous to just lose, lose, lose and hope you can eventually bring in a winning culture. Just bringing in high draft picks does not ensure it. And with the draft lottery you aren't even guaranteed a top 3 pick for a bottom 3 finish.
Retooling is quite clearly a much better way for the Flames to go. We already have many good key pieces. Cull the losers, the guy's who won't consistently play the right way. We're close to being a good team now, why would we intentionally set the franchise back by 5 years? Any calls to do a full rebuild are crazy talk to me.
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Except you're missing the key point with his strategy. You use your abundance of assets now to load up for the near future so you have an influx of young talent coming in at once, use your assets to make trades to bring in established players, use your cap space to sign guys, etc, all in a short window.
The big problem with scorch earth rebuilds is that they usually happen out of necessity because the team has bottomed out and now they are slowly trying to build with limited assets. You've lost guys to free agency, you've waited to the final year of contracts and got low returns back, your stars have aged and left or declined, etc.
Most teams land stars through a bottom out rebuild but dont have the assets to supplement the rest of the roster. This strategy gives you a ton of assets to fill in the roster as well as cap space to sign guys. Players are way more likely to sign when they see so much promise as opposed to regular rebuilds that have a couple good players and nothing else.
The Oilers dont suck because of their elite talent they suck because of a lack of depth. I see the logic of landing superstars in the most probable manner and being ready to surround them with talent right away. But yes it would never happen for various reasons.