Why is the PR more important than the results? Who gives a **** what the management people say or don't say. Whether you call it a rebuild a retool a whatever it's all just different means to an end. The end being transitioning to a new core.
That's what management should be judged on. You're either happy with the list+ I posted above, or your not. Whether you say we got *here* through rebuilding or retooling is nothing but irrelevant semantics.
It's not "PR", it's direction. It's the objective goal. To use your terminology: It describes the given end, and it implies the means to that end. It's the plan. The difference in our perception is that you think the end would be no different given any means, regardless of the goal set. I think the end would have been noticeably different given a better goal and better means to that goal/end. You see that as the best list possible. I see that list as a combination of bled assets and the devaluation of the draft. It could be much better than it is...
It's not semantics. Do not assume the end would have been the same given a different process from a better manager.
Well, I know how I define a rebuild, but it's a bit of a fluid concept for me. I don't really attach many firm rules to what I call a rebuild vs a retool. A couple differences, sure, but considering those terms literally change your worldview, I figure you have a very concrete definition of what each includes and excludes.
A rebuild is not a fluid concept. There is a common understanding of what it entails with regards to the NHL. A "rebuild" as it is used in the NHL vernacular signifies a primary focus to the future. In almost all cases, this means a priority placed upon draft picks. Almost at the expense of near everything else. It's because draft picks provide the best probability of the best future assets (you have admitted this already). Therefore, the acquisition of said picks becomes paramount. These are the assets that best serve the intended goal. Makes sense right?
The present is also devalued by comparison. Veterans are liquidated into future assets and cap space is leveraged for more future assets. Those are the basic tenets of a rebuild.
This is the common understanding of a rebuild as it applies to the NHL. If you want to contend that this is not the common understanding of a rebuild, make your case -- as it references NHL practice and precedent. It does not matter much to me what your particular definition is. That is irrelevant. Please contest the definition using NHL examples as counter-points.
Atypical to what? He's transitioning cores, there's no typical. Every re-core is a unique series of breaks and opportunities. Locking yourself into a box that costs you opportunities to improve your organisation is a very poor management strategy. Ultimately, assembling a core IS all that matters; how you get there is just what happened on the way.
If this core Benning has more or less assembled is good enough to challenge for the Cup in their prime, then he's done a good job. If it isn't, then he hasn't. Whether he says he's rebuilding or retooling has nothing to do with the ultimate evaluation of his core. And trades like Pouliot shouldn't be judged through the lens of some unexamined concept abstractly defined with mathematical certainty.
There is a "typical" in rebuilding. It's a primary focus on picks and the development of those picks. This is not to the exclusion of all other opportunities either. You're making a mistake by categorizing my position as such. A primary focus =/= only focus. A GM can make atypical moves to bolster his rebuild. However, when the atypical becomes the primary focus, as it has with Benning, then we cannot categorize that as a rebuild. It's something else.
Your last paragraph is surprising. Poor managers stumble onto good core players all the time. How? By having poor teams. If a manager is so woefully inept at his job that his teams are garbage, he drafts high. That puts him in a great place to get core players right? His failure is rewarded by a higher pick, which then generally leads to the opportunity to accrue prime assets. Which is funny to me because Benning's mandate was to have his team's compete -- only to have his teams crater, which then leads to the opportunity to get Pettersson, which then gets touted as the new core. He gets lauded for it. For failure. The last guy by contrast fails, and is fired. Do you think they would have called Gillis the "great rebuilder" if all he did was have his teams fail only to draft high and produce the new core? No. So why is this the case for Benning?
You are confusing happenstance with method and intention.
