Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
There's no doubt that most American teams have the advantage of being able be bad for five year period without fans revolting as there's usually MLB, NBA, NFL in those cities to distract sports fans. In Canada it's hard for teams to hide from fan outcry.
I believe the Athletic a few years ago did the odds of American teams winning 30 straight cups and it was extremely low odds which shows that there's more going on besides randomness. This season is probably the closest we have to a handful of Canadian teams good enough to maybe win. If it doesn't happen this year though then it could go decades longer which is defying odds.
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Two Canadian teams are ascendant - Toronto and Vancouver. So long as their core players are playing near this level, they will continue to matter and be a problem.
One team has the two best forwards on the planet and if they keep even one of them they will continue to be a problem.
The Jets have their core locked up long term and will be difficult for at least another three years.
4/7 are playoff teams, all of whom can do a lot of damage.
Montreal’s rebuild looks to be on the right track - as someone who’s got Slafkovsky in a keeper league, fears of him being the wrong choice at #1 are completely unfounded. He’s nasty, and he’s only going to get better. Suzuki is underrated, and Caufield is a terrific natural goal scorer.
The Senators have been so bad for so long that at some point, they won’t be able to help themselves from being competitive.
Leaving Calgary. Our ownership’s mentality is often criticized, but fundamentally “try to achieve the best results with the resources you have available” is not wrong. If we had better players, that attitude would carry further.
Even when we’re good, this roster is always one player short. They seem to constantly be playing one guy in the top-6/top-4 who doesn’t belong there. And part of this is because they try and speed things up to avoid the institutional rot that exists in places like Buffalo. Which is understandable, but probably cost them millions in lost playoff revenue.
But there is no speeding this up. Even if we win the lottery and get Celebrini, there’s no way a proper rebuild takes anything less than three years, and even that feels wildly optimistic - Vancouver is only now starting to figure it out, and this is Quinn Hughes’ sixth year in the league.
This takes time.