It's almost delicous to see how bad the Oilers are doing. On one hand I feel bad for their fans, as it really sucks being that bad for that long. But on the other had, the abuse I've seen them give to Leaf fans and Flames fans for years makes it really hard not to take pleause in their awfulness.
And it really makes me smile seeing them in comparison to the Leafs. For a long time I have been against the classic rebuild that many fans preach. The "lose to win", the "gain as many draft picks as possible" model, whatever you want to call it. It just doesn't work. It takes far longer than expected, and it just doesn't build the kind of team that many think it does. People will point to LA and Chicago and Pittsburgh, but those teams didn't actually succeed by this method. They succeeded by combining smart drafting, trades and signings. When you rely on only the drafting, you're setting yourself up for failure. Look to Columbus for years, or Atlanta/Winnipeg, or Florida. These team's did this method and it hasn't worked for them.
I'm not against drafting, it's clearly crucial to winning. The winning teams always draft well. But they also trade well and sign players. LA only started winning when they went after Scuderi, traded for Richards/Carter and combined signings with the other necessary parts of managing a team. Chicago did the same when they started out by signing Hossa, Campbell etc. Pittsburgh too by trading Whitney for Kunitz, althought they are more of an exception because of Crosby.
The idea of losing to win is lazy and it doesn't produce winning. It starts with this idea that you can't fail by picking first, or by picking high and it gets you to hoard players, often over valuing them and picks. They should all be used as assets, not given preferrential treatment simply because they are picks. They have value, but they often get overvalued too.
Good teams don't just go the drafting way to rebuild. They use every avenue available to them. Just like Burke did.
Edmonton is a perfect example of this. They have no defense, they're goalies aren't doing anything right now, and they can't even score. Which is funny because you'd think with an offense built around three 1st overall players, that they'd be able to do something more than 2.5 goals a game. Which isn't an improvement over the last two seasons tehy have played.