Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
The concept a tank for a high draft pick was certainly invented much earlier.
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Most infamous case being the Pittsburgh vs. New Jersey turtle race in 1984.
The first team I can remember tearing its roster down to the studs and rebuilding from scratch was the Quebec Nordiques in the late 80s. They traded away every good player except the very young Joe Sakic, and wound up drafting 1st overall three years running.
In '88-89, their top scorers were Peter Stastny, Walt Poddubny, Jeff Brown, and Michel Goulet, with Sakic fifth. All were over 60 points.
In '89-90, Sakic scored 102 points. Of all the players who finished the season on the Nords' roster, the #2 scorer was Michel Petit, with 36.
I don't recall the word ‘rebuild’ being used at the time. This was basically the first time any GM had dismantled his team to that extent.
Before that, teams would have ‘youth movements’, shipping out older players
after they had prospects who could plausibly take their place. The idea of getting rid of the old players and
then drafting their replacements hadn't really caught on.