Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhett44
Unfortunately that is how you build a contender these days.
Florida was awful before they got Barkov/Ekblad.
Colorado was awful before they got Makar and MacKinnon.
Tampa was awful until they got Stamkos and Hedman.
Pittsburgh was awful until they got Crosby and Malkin.
Kings were awful before Kopitar and Doughty.
Capitals were bad until they got Ovechkin and Backstrom.
Blackhawks with Kane and Toews.
The only recent cup winners that did not tank were the Blues fluke year, and the Golden Knights. And they did not win until Eichel begged to be traded to there.
People can hate tanking all they want, but the success speaks for itself. Elite players are not going to beg to come here like they all do for Vegas. So outside of hoping for a one year fluke, if you want a cup you need to tank.
|
The only teams on that list that actively tanked were Chicago and Pittsburgh. You could maybe argue Colorado for MacKinnon, but even then, they were just bad.
The rest, Florida, Tampa, Washington, LA, and even Colorado in the Makar era, were just consistently mediocre or poorly managed while trying to compete. They didn’t tear down their rosters with the intention of losing. They tried to build playoff teams, failed for years, and ended up with high picks as a result.
So yeah, top picks helped those teams eventually become contenders, but that doesn’t mean tanking was the strategy. It was more like long-term failure, not some smart, deliberate rebuild plan.
Tanking just guarantees pain and it definitely doesn’t guarantee a Cup or even a good team.
- The Sabres have been tanking/rebuilding since 2011
- It took Edmonton 10 years and a generational talent to make the playoffs after 8 years of tanking
- The Red Wings have been rebuilding for nearly 10 years with nothing to show
- The Coyotes were tanking for most of the past 15 years with nothing to show from it
- The Blue Jackets tanked for years and have never put together anything close to a championship team let alone a team that can even regularly compete for the playoffs
- The Flyers tank has left them one of the worst teams in the east for years and while they've stocked the cupboards haven't had any success to show for it.
Tanking is a massive gamble that has had a lot more failures than successes in this league.