2 Things I hope we have learned from this season

[Frk It]

2 Things I hope we ALL have learned from this season, and our current position:

1) “Re-building on the flyâ€, or “re-building while staying competitive†is not, and was never a viable plan to actually fully transition this team. It was a nice thought. It was nice in theory. We got some extra years to the streak and had a good run. But unless you get very lucky and/or have a significant advantage in scouting (like we did circa 1989-2001), it is just not realistic to completely (or successfully) transition the core of a hockey team.

2) In light of Point #1… We need a new core. We do not currently have the components for a competent core on this team. The prospects in the pipeline are largely wildcards, and are all likely several years away from making the team and/or having an impact for this team. It is far more likely that they (Hronek, Saarijarvi, Cholowski, Svechnikov, etc.) become supplemental pieces to the core, than core pieces.

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[Frk It]

Now some positive thoughts on this subject:

So we didn’t find PK Subban or Jamie Benn to form our new core without the need to drop in the standings and draft high. Oh well. We have found some really good players in the later rounds with the picks we’ve had, like Athanasiou and Nyquist in the 4th round. Mrazek in the 5th round. So guys… imagine what we could do with a top 5 pick? Or a top 10 pick? As much doubt as I have with how this team is run in some areas, I have faith we would do something awesome with a pick that high if given the chance.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

As an aside, it's so weird to think about the rebuilding on the fly thing. The Wings certainly did it once, but it's like they decided that since they now knew it was possible, they could do it every time from then on. That's like thinking winning the lottery once makes it easier to do it a second time.

And it takes a special kind of arrogance to think that you can rebuild on the fly *twice* before anybody else ever does it once. Like they really thought they were that much better than every other front office.

 

[TheOtherOne]

1) “Re-building on the fly”, or “re-building while staying competitive” is not, and was never a viable plan to actually fully transition this team. It was a nice thought. It was nice in theory. We got some extra years to the streak and had a good run. But unless you get very lucky and/or have a significant advantage in scouting (like we did circa 1989-2001), it is just not realistic to completely (or successfully) transition the core of a hockey team.

What is your proof? A sample size of 1? Apparently the years up to 2008 don't count, otherwise you could say we did it successfully. So we have an 8 year sample. How many teams have tried to rebuild within that 8 years? How many teams had high draft picks in those years that disqualify them? All of them? So one team tried to rebuild on the fly one time, and it didn't work. And that's proof that it can never work?

I don't think it would have taken a miracle. All we needed was a couple of our D drafts to perform to expectations. If Mrazek was actually decent this year, and if Datsyuk didn't leave, and if Kronwall didn't decline so fast, and if Kindl was playing for us like a first round draft pick, we could still easily be a playoff team. It sucks that those things didn't happen but they weren't inevitable. It could have turned out differently.

By the way, I just flipped a coin, but it didn't come up tails. I guess that's proof that flipping a coin and getting tails was doomed to fail from the start and I never should have tried it.

 

[Frk It]

What is your proof? A sample size of 1? Apparently the years up to 2008 don't count, otherwise you could say we did it successfully. So we have an 8 year sample. How many teams have tried to rebuild within that 8 years? How many teams had high draft picks in those years that disqualify them? All of them? So one team tried to rebuild on the fly one time, and it didn't work. And that's proof that it can never work?

I don't think it would have taken a miracle. All we needed was a couple of our D drafts to perform to expectations. If Mrazek was actually decent this year, and if Datsyuk didn't leave, and if Kronwall didn't decline so fast, and if Kindl was playing for us like a first round draft pick, we could still easily be a playoff team. It sucks that those things didn't happen but they weren't inevitable. It could have turned out differently.

The proof is that we didn't do it? That our core post Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Kronwall can't and doesn't look to be able to get the job done. So we will resort to having to draft high like every other team despite preaching that rebuilding on the fly was viable.

The test was always what shape are we in after Datsyuk and Z (and to a lesser extent Kronwall) were gone, or declined to the point where they're no longer high end players. We're there. We are getting the answer this season.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I'm sorry you missed my point. Try reading again. You have proved that it DIDN'T work. You have not proved that it "was never a viable plan".

 

[jkutswings]

What is your proof? A sample size of 1? Apparently the years up to 2008 don't count, otherwise you could say we did it successfully. So we have an 8 year sample. How many teams have tried to rebuild within that 8 years? How many teams had high draft picks in those years that disqualify them? All of them? So one team tried to rebuild on the fly one time, and it didn't work. And that's proof that it can never work?

I don't think it would have taken a miracle. All we needed was a couple of our D drafts to perform to expectations. If Mrazek was actually decent this year, and if Datsyuk didn't leave, and if Kronwall didn't decline so fast, and if Kindl was playing for us like a first round draft pick, we could still easily be a playoff team. It sucks that those things didn't happen but they weren't inevitable. It could have turned out differently.

By the way, I just flipped a coin, but it didn't come up tails. I guess that's proof that flipping a coin and getting tails was doomed to fail from the start and I never should have tried it.

Conversely, what exactly are realistic expectations for defensemen drafted where they were taken? I would argue 2nd pair, which might boost things incrementally, but doesn't fix the crux of the issue, which is that we don't have high-end talent to build around.

 

[Frk It]

I'm sorry you missed my point. Try reading again. You have proved that it DIDN'T work. You have not proved that it "was never a viable plan".

I'm failing to see how it's not the same thing. It didn't work, so therefore REALISTICALLY it was never a viable plan. It was possible if we had had drafted Subban, Benn and others like I mentioned. But we did not. If you want to nitpick on how the first point is phrased I can edit that part. But the clear main point there is that we didn't do it.

What would be needed to validate that point in your opinion? I phrased it that way because personally I never bought into it as a viable succession plan to our previous core.

 

[jkutswings]

I'm sorry you missed my point. Try reading again. You have proved that it DIDN'T work. You have not proved that it "was never a viable plan".

But 'technically possible' and 'viable' or 'realistic' are two different things. Post-cap Cups have been via high picks (everybody, save Boston) or a laundry list of trades (the Bruins). And the latter definitely appears more the exception than the rule, both in terms of results and likelihood.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I'm sorry you missed my point. Try reading again. You have proved that it DIDN'T work. You have not proved that it "was never a viable plan".

Are we doing that thing where we hold opinionated message board posts up to rigorous peer review? Yikes. Nobody has quantitative proof that the plan couldn't work (not the least because that's absolutely absurd as a concept), but he's pointing out that there are strong intuitive reasons to believe that it wouldn't have.

Unless you have something to address those reasons, you're just holding onto the idea that there might have been some disappointingly small chance that the plan would have worked. Is it really worth getting all aggressive and worked up for that?

 

[Run the Jewels]

Are we doing that thing where we hold opinionated message board posts up to rigorous peer review? Yikes. Nobody has quantitative proof that the plan couldn't work (not the least because that's absolutely absurd as a concept), but he's pointing out that there are strong intuitive reasons to believe that it wouldn't have.

Exactly, it's like saying just because you didn't win the lottery doesn't mean it isn't a viable strategy to accumulate wealth. There's a way to do things that is proven effective and then there's the path that has incredibly bad odds. Winning the lottery has incredibly long odds. Making sound decisions year after year isn't as sexy as winning the lottery but guess what, it has a much higher success rate.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

But here's a thought. I think it's relatively uncontroversial that picks later in the rounds aren't as good (that is, you have a lower chance of getting a good NHL player, on average). Those are the picks that successful NHL teams get. Detroit was such a team.

On top of that, it's difficult to draft good players no matter where you are. Many teams don't do it for years on end, and they end up in trouble for it. I know lots of teams say getting 1-2 NHL players per draft is doing really well. Most teams don't do that well on average.

Combine those two ideas. The Wings have worse picks than the rest of the league, AND it's hard for them to draft good players with those picks, regardless of position. Now combine that with the fact that the Wings would have had to replace at least 10 NHL players in that time, which means they probably would have had to outperform the average (and they needed several stars as well, so we're being merciful here). When you factor in the probabilities of that, you're looking at a very low chance of doing all of those things.

I don't know how anybody can say the Wings had a good shot at pulling that off. They had almost no shot. I mean, think about it: rebuilding on the fly has such a small sample size because it's a crazy plan. It's not realistic. That's why other teams don't attempt it. You need a miracle for all those things to go right in succession. Good luck getting two in the space of a decade.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

What is your proof? A sample size of 1? Apparently the years up to 2008 don't count, otherwise you could say we did it successfully. So we have an 8 year sample. How many teams have tried to rebuild within that 8 years? How many teams had high draft picks in those years that disqualify them? All of them? So one team tried to rebuild on the fly one time, and it didn't work. And that's proof that it can never work?

I don't think it would have taken a miracle. All we needed was a couple of our D drafts to perform to expectations. If Mrazek was actually decent this year, and if Datsyuk didn't leave, and if Kronwall didn't decline so fast, and if Kindl was playing for us like a first round draft pick, we could still easily be a playoff team. It sucks that those things didn't happen but they weren't inevitable. It could have turned out differently.

By the way, I just flipped a coin, but it didn't come up tails. I guess that's proof that flipping a coin and getting tails was doomed to fail from the start and I never should have tried it.

The Red Wings doing it between the Yzerman and Datsyuk cores was significant and anomalous and garnered a lot of media attention because it typically does not happen in pro sports. That is the whole thing. 25 years of consecutive playoff appearances is incredible rare in any sport. In recent years, it's really just us and the Spurs who have successfully transitioned between cores, but even the Spurs had Manu, Parker, and Duncan for most of that transition.

Of course it doesn't work outside of outlier examples, don't be obtuse.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Ok let me explain more thoroughly the point I'm trying to make.

One team out of 30 wins the Cup. Does that mean the other 29 teams are failures? Some of them had good plans. They only failed because other teams had better plans.

It's also a parity league, so ideally each team has a 3% chance to win. So if a team has a plan and it gives them a 4% chance to win, you could say it was a good plan. They might win, they might not, but it was a good plan.

If you assume perfect parity, a team that rebuilt has a 16% chance of winning a Cup sometime in the next 5 years. If you did a great job and put together a brilliant rebuild, maybe you increase that chance to 50%. That would be awesome. But there's still a 50% chance you don't end up with a Cup, and when that happens, people like you can say "it was never a realistic plan: See? No Cups."

What was our chance of winning a Cup in the 2011-2016 time period? If it was 16%, then it was average and we were just a product of a parity league. If it was 20%, then the rebuilt-on-the-fly plan was a good plan that had a realistic chance of working. If it was 30%, even better.

See how much wiggle room is here? Can you tell me what that probability of winning was for our team in this situation? Based only on what we knew 5 years ago?

If you think you can, then you're fooling yourself.

Long story short: Just because the plan failed doesn't mean it was an unrealistic plan.

 

[Frk It]

Long story short: Just because the plan failed doesn't mean it was an unrealistic plan.

The assumed amount of luck it would take for the plan to work, as opposed to plans that don't exclude you from drafting high, in my opinion make the plan unrealistic.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Ok let me explain more thoroughly the point I'm trying to make.

One team out of 30 wins the Cup. Does that mean the other 29 teams are failures? Some of them had good plans. They only failed because other teams had better plans.

It's also a parity league, so ideally each team has a 3% chance to win. So if a team has a plan and it gives them a 4% chance to win, you could say it was a good plan. They might win, they might not, but it was a good plan.

If you assume perfect parity, a team that rebuilt has a 16% chance of winning a Cup sometime in the next 5 years. If you did a great job and put together a brilliant rebuild, maybe you increase that chance to 50%. That would be awesome. But there's still a 50% chance you don't end up with a Cup, and when that happens, people like you can say "it was never a realistic plan: See? No Cups."

What was our chance of winning a Cup in the 2011-2016 time period? If it was 16%, then it was average and we were just a product of a parity league. If it was 20%, then the rebuilt-on-the-fly plan was a good plan that had a realistic chance of working. If it was 30%, even better.

See how much wiggle room is here? Can you tell me what that probability of winning was for our team in this situation? Based only on what we knew 5 years ago?

If you think you can, then you're fooling yourself.

Long story short: Just because the plan failed doesn't mean it was an unrealistic plan.

Now you're playing semantic games. When we say "unrealistic plan" we mean "unlikely to obtain the desired outcome." That's binary. It either is or is not unlikely to obtain that outcome. If we say less than a 15% chance is "unrealistic", then we judge our outcome along that constraint. You're effectively saying that a 14% chance isn't unrealistic, it's just less realistic than hoped.

 

[izlez]

Regarding "re-building on the fly"

of Current standings, top 3 teams in each division:
Montreal Ottawa Boston
Pittsburgh Rangers Columbus
Chicago Minnesota St. Louis
San Jose Anaheim Edmonton

of these teams, how many are loaded with top 5 picks from the past 7-8 years? How many have been playoff bubble teams that made small changes over time to put together an improved team


of Current standings, bottom 3 teams in each division:
Buffalo Detroit Toronto
New Jersey Carolina Islanders
Dallas Winnipeg Colorado
Los Angeles Vancouver Arizona

How many of these teams are loaded with top 5 picks from the past 7-8 years? How long have we been hearing that they are a year away from putting it all together?



If you were to describe one group as "tanking for the last 8 years" and one as "re-building on the fly for the last 8 years", which would be which?



It's almost as if there is no specific formula and rooting for your team to lose is dumb
It's almost as if sports are a thing where teams are literally competing against each other.

 

[chances14]

if one of kindl or smith had turned out to be a top pairing defenseman, i think the rebuild on the fly might have have worked. however it was apparent 2 seasons ago that neither of them were going to amount to much of anything. that was when holland should have gone into full rebuild mode. instead he has saddled the team with long term contacts to depth players

gonna be hard to re build on the fly when you have a stretch of first round picks like this

2005 - Kindl
2006- No pick
2007-Smith
2008-McCollum
2009- No pick
2010 - Sheahan

 

[InjuredChoker]

i think we've learned those 2 things year(s) ago.

 

[Frk It]

if one of kindl or smith had turned out to be a top pairing defenseman, i think the rebuild on the fly might have have worked. however it was apparent 2 seasons ago that neither of them were going to amount to much of anything. that was when holland should have gone into full rebuild mode. instead he has saddled the team with long term contacts to depth players

I don't even really fault Holland for holding out on re-building for so long. It was always going to be hard to re-build this team with Datsyuk and Zetterberg, and I never at any point wanted to move those players. I just never personally believed that re-building on the fly was ever going to be the answer.

For me, those are 2 very different things.

 

[HIFE]

2 Things I hope we ALL have learned from this season, and our current position:

1) “Re-building on the flyâ€, or “re-building while staying competitive†is not, and was never a viable plan to actually fully transition this team. It was a nice thought. It was nice in theory. We got some extra years to the streak and had a good run. But unless you get very lucky and/or have a significant advantage in scouting (like we did circa 1989-2001), it is just not realistic to completely (or successfully) transition the core of a hockey team.

2) In light of Point #1… We need a new core. We do not currently have the components for a competent core on this team. The prospects in the pipeline are largely wildcards, and are all likely several years away from making the team and/or having an impact for this team. It is far more likely that they (Hronek, Saarijarvi, Cholowski, Svechnikov, etc.) become supplemental pieces to the core, than core pieces.

Thank you. Just want to mention a post/thread like this is so much more intriguing, honest, real, than the articles penned up by supposed journalists recently. Tatar's hat-trick a sign of things to come? Puleeze. Injuries or not this team is an embarrassment Holland should to own up to it and admit defeat.

 

[Frk It]

i think we've learned those 2 things year(s) ago.

At what point would you say? I think the only time I ever bought into the viability of it for a hot minute was right after we drafted Larkin.

 

[HIFE]

i think we've learned those 2 things year(s) ago.

It has to be repeatedly stated because fans like myself were in denial or hadn't studied much of the details of management. This reality may have been obvious to some of you but many are only now (fully) coming to grips.

 

[Wingsfan 4 life]

IMO, we need a new GM and scouting staff before even thinking of a new core.

I have zero faith in Holland and Co. entering any kind of rebuild. Even mentioning it is pointless while he's still at the helm.

When Holland is gone, let me know. I'd love to talk rebuild, but until then, I'm content in riding this out until all 4 wheels and spare are long gone.

 

[Sami]

2005 - Kindl
2006- No pick
2007-Smith
2008-McCollum
2009- No pick
2010 - Sheahan

2005 - Vlasic and Letang
2007- P.K. Subban and Jamie Benn
2008- Roman Josi
2010 - Kuznetsov