I was bringing it up because people need to understand how hard it is to re-build without them (they clearly don't). If they did, they would see Yzerman is doing about as good as you can hope with drafting Raymond/Seider so far.
But yet look at this thread, you have people saying the re-build is shit. Which I don't think they would be if they understood the difficulty of the task.
I guess I might not have done the best job conveying it, but this was really my point ^^^^
People are frustrated because:
A. we should have started the rebuild the year after Lids retired and we didn't land Suter. (12/13)
B. we didn't actually start rebuilding until 16/17
C. Holland's drafts and trades outside of the Tatar haul were fairly subpar during his portion of the rebuild. He actually did a better job drafting during the "try to keep us in the playoffs phase."
D. we have yet to draft top 3 during our rebuild, despite finishing in that area multiple times.
Now we are here in year 3 of what really began our rebuild with Yzerman getting hired but we seemed to have been stuck in futility for basically a decade now without any top 3 picks to show for it. So I understand the frustration.
I however think Yzerman is doing a pretty great job, but not a perfect one. For drafting outside the top 3, I think he has managed to land 3 potential franchise changing talents in Seider, Ray, and Ed. That is very hard to do. I like that he is embracing the wings drafting strength which is our Euro scouts. Hopefully he can help bring out our NA scouts some as well, because we have struggled there outside of the first round or two for years. I did not like the Cossa pick and I still don't. I would have rather seen us take a center or another forward there and not trade up. Wings have had a terrrrrible track record for drafting and developing goalies. I'd rather make trades like the Ned deal to address the goalie situation. I also have liked his trades for the most part. I loved the Mantha deal, Fabbri deal, Ned deal and even the Leddy deal. We needed a vet dman and while Leddy has been somewhat disappointing I still think it was important for the overall health of the team to get another vet guy that can eat some minutes. This isn't to say Yzerman hasn't had some flubs. The Perlini deal was a total stinker, but nothing that will have a major long term impact on the team.
Holland flubbing the Zadina, Svechnikov, Ras, and Cholo picks hurt this team. I still think Zadina and Ras could become decent players, but neither are going to be top line players. We may be lucky if they are 2nd or 3rd line players long term. And to be fair on Zadina, I was thrilled with the pick when it happened. (less so on the others) That will certainly take the wind out of your rebuild. At least Bert and Hronek turned into very solid 2nd rounders. I don't include Veleno in the above since he was so late in the draft, but even he is a bit of a bummer. Again I think he has the tools to be an NHLer but I don't think he has the tools to be a 2nd line center. I just don't see the offensive game.
This is not an easy job for Yzerman at all. He did not inherit a Stamkos or Hedman type player. He got good players in Bert, Mantha, Larkin, and Hronek but none of them are franchise builders. So while I get the frustration from a fan group with very high expectations, I think Yzerman has this team basically where it should be. On the bubble, close to the playoffs needing a few key pieces still. At least I have the confidence Yzerman will try to address these items (via FA, Draft, or Trade), I didn't have that confidence with Holland. He hadn't won a trade since the Stuart deal...
