Appreciate the responses and I don't feel like I'm doing a good job of hashing out what I'm trying to piece together in my head. With my original post that spawned these replies, I was thinking more of the past few years but can definitely understand how it was interpreted into the past 8 or so. That's entirely on me. Still, Holland's repeated musings that rebuilds are unpredictable and difficult have proven to be pretty right. And we've seen teams not really be rewarded for being
awful for long stretches. Of the four or five teams who have accumulated fewer points than us over the past three years, I think there's like one 1st overall pick and a handful of top3 picks out of a possible 15 or so. A lot of teams had horrible seasons, only to fall back in the draft to go after guys like Barret Hayton and Alex Nylander. Not necessarily bad players, but also not the picks where those teams were expecting to have to make.
I'm with you, I think a rebuild was inevitable, and I'm not saying that Holland couldn't have balanced things a bit better - especially towards the last couple of years of the streak where dealing guys like Gator and/or Helm probably could have netted some returns that
could have gave the team a head start on this actual rebuild. But over the past couple of years we (myself included) have griped about signings like Daley, Green, Nielsen, etc., wanting the team to just go all in on the tank. Yzerman has came in and essentially did that. He signed a couple of vets to fill out the roster,but clearly downgraded from last year without really trying to find equal replacements for Kronwall and Nyquist. And now we're realizing just how awful this can be.
@The Zetterberg Era has mentioned being reminded how Colorado was similarly awful a few years ago, easily finishing worst in the league...and I pointed out how they still drafted 4th that year. They still got a really good player, getting a bit lucky in the process, but would we think the same this year missing on Lafreniere and Byfield? And I know someone has mentioned it elsewhere how it seems more and more really good players are being taken throughout the first round, though fewer are now sprinkled into the later rounds. On other words, scouting is just getting better.
This is a long way of saying that tanking might not be as great a method of building a new team as it appears, and not descending entirely into the basement might have its own upsides.
I don't think it's so much going for it, as just not allowing the team to fall entirely into the basement. As I said above, I'm not saying Holland couldn't have found a better balance for a number of those years. And I'm not saying Holland should be given unconditional praise for his last six or seven years; though, I think the last couple of years here he did a very good job of balancing the rebuild with trying to ice at least a competitive team. And by competitive I don't mean cup contending or even playoff contending, just a team that consistently goes out and puts up a fight and has good, hard fought games. They don't get destroyed night in and night out.
I don't think it's realistic to have expected this team to do a hard rebuild 8 years ago, though. In the 10/11 season, this was a team that was still putting up over 100 points. They went over 100 points in 11/12. They fell to a 95 point pace in the strike shortened season. Should they have done some things differently in those years? Oh yeah, but those were still pretty decent teams. You're not going to see someone tank a 100 point capable team.