Quote:
Originally Posted by TheScorpion
Planning to be bad at the right times is a necessity in today's NHL. Failing to do so in the name of respectability is just terrible strategy.
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What do you mean by planning to be bad at the right time? Are you saying Tampa, Colorado, Carolina, Boston have all ruined their teams by not being having a shot at Bedard?
The idea of committing to a rebuild every so often, I think that's very legitimate when your top players get to a certain age. But that doesn't mean trading every player you have and drafting #1 for multiple years. Or planning in advance to have an awful team 6 years down the road when Johnny hotshot who's ripping up peewee might be in the draft.
People are congratulating the Kings on this last rebuild. If you look at it I don't think they ever tried to be a last place team. They kept Kopitar and Doughty, even Dustin Brown. But traded off a lot of other guys at the end of their deals like Muzzin, Martinez, and Carter. But they also traded picks for Arvidsson, signed Danault, and gave a first for Fiala to sign to a big ticket. They're not in the playoffs because Villardi and Byfield and a number one overall pick are leading the charge. It's those other three plus the emergence of Kempe whom they drafted with a late first when they were still trying to compete leading that team.
Granted it's a big attractive U.S. City so they can leverage that to accelerate things. The Rangers are similar where their top picks are not the reason they turned things around. It's them getting Fox for a bargain, signing Panarin, and stealing Zibanejad from Ottawa.
In terms of your small market outpost types...I guess you could say Edmonton might be the one who is closest to putting together a team that competes for multiple years. But that hinges largely on how they do this year. Winnipeg was inconsistent getting to the playoffs and got past round 1 twice. I think in time Ottawa will have proven to jump the gun with their Debrincant and Chychryn trades AND not get to the upper half of the East. For me I think Edmonton is mostly McDavid luck, and I don't think they planned for that with their shrewd management.