Speculation: Team most likely to rebuild

[Linkens Mastery]

This is not a sell everything off sale but sending out 2-4 vets for futures

Calgary should
St louis should
Toronto should
Philadelphia shoulf

Winnipeg, LA, washington has a chance

Blues already are. They had 3 1st round picks last year and have 1 this season that can easily turn into 2 if they move Buchnevich.

The biggest issue is that the Blues Vets don't have much value outside of Buchnevich, but, luckily by the time the Blues should expect to start gunning for the playoffs again those Vet contracts should be coming off the Books with Faulk and Krug expiring.

 

[StreetHawk]

Tampa should take a least one more shot IMO. That's a quality roster. No way they blow it up.

Their 2025 first belongs to Nashville anyways. So, blowing it up does them little benefit if the goal was to be terrible to earn a higher draft position.

 

[madmike77]

Should be Calgary, but i think they might try to be competitive.

I mean they're pretty much in a rebuild now, even if they won't admit it. They just dealt 3 of their top 6 D last season, as well as one of their best forwards in Lindholm.Markstrom is likely to be shipped out this year. Mangiapane could also be on the block. They should be a bottom-5 team this season.

 

[blankall]

Should be Calgary, but i think they might try to be competitive.

Calgary will not be a competitive team next year. If they trade Markstrom, they'll almost certainly have a top 5 pick.

 

[TheBeard]

Tampa should take a least one more shot IMO. That's a quality roster. No way they blow it up.

It's funny, we all think of Tampa as this ancient team because of all the success recently, but Point is 28, Kuch is 30, Vasi is under 30. Hedman is only 33. Guys like Hagell, Cirelli, Cernak, Sergachev... all in their mid twenties. Only Stammer is old and he's still having career years.

 

[blankall]

I think that currently, Calgary should try to compete.

They are tied by way too many bad contracts to be able to really blow it up IMO

Might as well try to win and sell high one of those bad contracts

Calgary has exactly 1 bad contract and it's the only contract that could not be moved. Unless Huberdeau makes a sudden comeback, he's not holding the team back from tanking. Especially if Markstrom is traded and the Flames have only 3 legit NHL level defenders.

 

[ManofSteel55]

They traded 6 UFAs in the past year. They will likely move on from Markstrom this summer. They have Mangiapane, Kuzmenko and Sharangovich as pending UFAs.

They have young players in Zary, Coronato, Wolf, Pelletier, Pospisil, and Solovyov playing big roles this year and next. They have Honzek, Poirier, Strömgren, Kuznetsov, Brustewicz, Morin a year or two away. Plus 5 firsts in the next 3 drafts.

That’s not a rebuild? Interesting

Trading UFA's when they knew they weren't re-signing and were a longshot for the playoffs isn't necessarily rebuilding. It feels more like a "re-tool on the fly" type scenario. The signs of rebuilding are there, but I don't think its a full rebuild until they trade away some of their veterans who they aren't going to lose in the next year anyway. Trading Markstrom would be a good sign that they are actually going to rebuild. What they decide to do with their players who are UFA's a year from now is also a sign. If they extend all of them, that's a sign that they aren't rebuilding, but if they trade them this summer, or keep them with the intent of trading them at the deadline, then that's a sure-fire sign that they are rebuilding.

I will say this. The Flames are looking like they won't go "scorched earth" with their retool/rebuild, and that's good for the fans of the team, as its painful to tear it down and start from nothing, and there is no guarantee that a team will actually bounce back to being a playoff team. Look at Buffalo, they had to go into rebuild mode, and they still aren't quite back to where they need to be. So doing what Calgary is doing is probably the best way to do it for them. The only issue/issues are going to be finding a star #1C to build around, and what happens if Huberdeau doesn't bounce back at least a bit closer to what he was when they traded for him. They have a good start on defense with Weegar and Andersson signed long term. Depth defensemen are far easier to find than top pair guys. They have a good future in net as long as Wolf pans out, which I expect he will. They have good middle six forwards in Backlund, Coleman, and the previously mentioned Sharangovich and Kuzmenko. Zary and Coronato are good young players to have and should be big factors for a long time. So Calgary might not need a full rebuild the way some teams need to burn it to the ground a re-start. They already have some decent pieces to build around. The only issue might be finding that "franchise player" that they can build an identity around and who can lead them to success that they have lacked basically since Iginla left - although Tkachuk could have been that guy if he wanted to be.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Conroy's already said the Flames won't be active in free agency. Might sign some vets to short term deals, but that's it.

Flames traded away all their UFA's for primarily futures. It's a rebuild but for PR reasons, they'll call it anything else.

I expect they will need to sign some depth guys just to put an NHL caliber roster on the ice, but now is the time to let some of the more NHL-ready prospects have a chance to show they belong in the NHL long term, so it makes sense that they wouldn't go hunting for the big names this summer.

capitals or pens

I think anyone saying Pittsburgh is just secretly hoping the Pens will trade Crosby to their team, ha ha.

 

[dirtydanglez]

I expect they will need to sign some depth guys just to put an NHL caliber roster on the ice, but now is the time to let some of the more NHL-ready prospects have a chance to show they belong in the NHL long term, so it makes sense that they wouldn't go hunting for the big names this summer.


I think anyone saying Pittsburgh is just secretly hoping the Pens will trade Crosby to their team, ha ha.

i think it's as obvious that sid will retire a pen as it is that the pens time has come and gone.

 

[ManofSteel55]

i think it's as obvious that sid will retire a pen as it is that the pens time has come and gone.

Well yes, its obvious. But people can still dream, right? Can you imagine Sid with McKinnon or McDavid?

 

[dirtydanglez]

Well yes, its obvious. But people can still dream, right? Can you imagine Sid with McKinnon or McDavid?

yea that would be insane. this season would have made sense for both crosby and the avs too.

 

[StreetHawk]

yea that would be insane. this season would have made sense for both crosby and the avs too.

If he's playing past his contract, I do think it's best for Sid to move on. If he's retiring after next season, I prefer he finishes with Pitt. But, really up to him to decide what he wants to do.

 

[pth2]

The thing is, overall, teams don't choose to rebuild. As long as they can patch things together and hope for the playoffs, GMs will have the mandate to try and put a decent enough team on the ice and retool rather than rebuild. Montreal didn't want to enter a rebuild - but unexpectedly losing 3 core players the same summer kind of made the decision for management (and I think even had Bergevin not been fired, he'd have been forced into a rebuild, anyhow).

Hardcore fans want rebuilds to get strong teams later, casual fans just want a competitive enough team to keep them entertained.

 

[go4hockey]

LA can load back up in 3/4 yrs . I am sure CHI,SJ,ANA etc plan on doing just that.

It's a lot easier for Cali teams to attract pending UFAs than many other places. Fix you core going goalie outwards and aim for Pacific title in 3/4 yrs.

On the last part. LA has never been a big destination for free agents. Once guys get here the love it (beach life) but we haven’t drawn a ton of UFA’s

 

[StreetHawk]

In light of the re-jigged lottery odds, in a small sample size of 4 years, 7/8 winners were the bottom 3, with NJ at 5OA getting the other one. So, new rules have done what the NHL wanted and bottom teams are getting the top picks.

So, if you are going to be bad, you have to be bottom 3 bad, which this season was like 60 points bad.

 

[Mike Liut]

This is not a sell everything off sale but sending out 2-4 vets for futures

Calgary should
St louis should
Toronto should
Philadelphia shoulf

Winnipeg, LA, washington has a chance

The Blues are in year 3 of a 5 year rebuild. Their prospect pool is looking legit to add to Thomas and Kyrou.

 

[Robtom18]

This is not a sell everything off sale but sending out 2-4 vets for futures

Calgary should
St louis should
Toronto should
Philadelphia shoulf

Winnipeg, LA, washington has a chance

Stlouis just nneds to get rid 9f hayes and krug. Dvorsky bolduc and dean will play next year and we are going to resign buch ans then lindstein stenberg will make te following year with snuggerud.