Ivan13
Not posting anymore
I see the Red Wings as the Avs when they made pushes for Hannan and Smyth. A mediocre team that's trying its hardest to cling to their once good past, instead of embracing reality and moving towards a full rebuild.
This is a poorly run franchise, so much so that people can't even tell when exactly our rebuild started, or if it failed and started again, or if it is/or will be starting again this year.
I don't believe even Sakic knows exactly what he is doing, or what he wants to do.
I think it's pretty clear it started in '09, failed miserably, got re-booted when Sacco got the sack and it's been coughing and dragging itself ever since. Now we're in a limbo not knowing which direction we should take.
Hi guys, Visiting DRW fan here.
I was trying to write up a post on how long rebuilds take, and wouldn't mind your input and explanations into my rather boring timeline.
When do you define Colorado rebuild starting/ending.
Colorado Avalanche
Missed Playoffs in 07,09,11,12,13,15,16 Inbetween those times, 2 first round exits.
Key Pieces:
Shattenkirk (#14) 07;
Duchene (#3) 09; O'Reilly (#33) 09; Barrie (#64) 09;
Landeskog (#2) 11;
MacKinnon (#1) 13;
Last 3 picks are 23, 10,10 (Rantanen, Jost) So who knows there.
They have had 3 TOP 5 Picks, and some solid drafting of Shattenkirk (traded for Johnson), O'Reilly, Barrie. Yet This Rebuild is going on about 10 years now if you count Shattenkirk as a starting point. If you count Duchene as a starting point its 8 years.
Would like some input and context (I am not a Colorado Expert)... I was doing a little write up of several teams.
Colorado's rebuild began in 2009. They traded a couple of vets around then, jettisoned a HOF coach in favor of one with very little experience starting then, lived at the cap floor for years starting then, tanked at the end of seasons starting then, and therefore got really high draft picks starting then.
However, Colorado has always been a bit schizophrenic about their rebuild(s). Since they've never (literally never) been able to draft and develop a two-way 1st pairing defenseman - nor a legit high-end starting goaltender for that matter - they had to trade for those in the midst of their 2009 rebuild. Neither was in the system in 2009, and the organization had never once successfully drafted and developed them, so......... they traded high picks and quality prospects during a rebuild. Not an ideal thing to do to help a rebuild along, but there was really little choice, given their aforementioned ineptitude. Here we are 8 years later in 2016, and the Avs still have not successfully drafted and developed either position, though we are hopeful with Bigras and Pickard. I suppose one choice (as opposed to trading picks/prospects) during the 2009 rebuild would have been to solve that ineptitude issue, but alas....
I suspect a full rebuild - correctly done - takes 4-5 years. And to be successful, I am an open proponent of tearing it down and fully rebuilding. Otherwise, you end up sitting here 8 years later and having the team still rebuilding, sniffing outside the playoff bubble, generally mediocre in every way.
This is a poorly run franchise, so much so that people can't even tell when exactly our rebuild started, or if it failed and started again, or if it is/or will be starting again this year.
I don't believe even Sakic knows exactly what he is doing, or what he wants to do.
Great post, just one thing. Q left on his own accord in 08 and was replaced for a year with Granato in another move reeking with nepotism. Also, when Q left he said that the management thinks they have better players at their disposal than they actaully have, and looking back at it now, he was dead on.
There's been no vision to Colorado's rebuild. They've changed directions 3 or 4 times since 2009, sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small. Among other things, I can remember initially trying to build a speedy puck moving team, then completely flipping and building a slow-as-molasses D corps, trading for picks for players (Varly), acquiring rentals sensely, failing to get value out of departing players (e.g. Stastny). Top it all off with poor FA signings. We started with one flawed drafting philosophy and now have another. It's been fairly infuriating to watch.
I think we're very clearly in a rebuild right now. Two key forwards are under 20, and three key top four upside defensemen are 21 or under. We traded a good #1C for futures that haven't seen the NHL yet just a year ago. It may not be a scorched earth reboot, but signing over the hill veterans aside Sakic has pretty much been running a rebuild since he started as GM.
Our rebuild should have started right after lockout...no Forsberg, no Foote anymore, aging Sakic and Blake...
I'm not going to argue the other points from Chet but the pundits did not applaud Soderberg and Beauch signings. They were considered some of the worst. I believe one if not both showed up on some "biggest FA mistake" lists. That said, they were wrong and I'm still happy with the signings. Hopefully Beauch can hold up but the first year was good.
I'm not going to argue the other points from Chet but the pundits did not applaud Soderberg and Beauch signings. They were considered some of the worst. I believe one if not both showed up on some "biggest FA mistake" lists. That said, they were wrong and I'm still happy with the signings. Hopefully Beauch can hold up but the first year was good.
I'm OK with the Beauchemin and Soderberg signings also - so far.
But a three year contract is a three year contract. I think there's a tendency for fans to be OK with a three year contract if the player did reasonably well in the first two years, regardless of what happens in that third year. And IMO, that's wrong. Unless the player played far above expectations in one year or something.
I'm pretty sure Beauch did... he was the best overall defensemen on the team last season and was only 2 points behind a career high offensively. He was brought in to give EJ a partner that could suffice for a while, but Beauch was really our #1 last season.
I'm not going to argue the other points from Chet but the pundits did not applaud Soderberg and Beauch signings. They were considered some of the worst. I believe one if not both showed up on some "biggest FA mistake" lists. That said, they were wrong and I'm still happy with the signings. Hopefully Beauch can hold up but the first year was good.
I know they made the "bad signing lists" at the time of signings, but by midway through the year most agreed they were both solid pickups.
It just proves the Sakic is good at making shrewd signings that might get overlooked or undervalued. The guy knows hockey players and it's showing with these under the radar signings. I wish he could get some bigger name players here that aren't way over the hill but that doesn't take away the fact he has been solid with the bargain bin types. Plus he landed a really good signing in Colborne this year. He's taking a risk with the two dmen, but both are low risk as both are on 1 year contracts.
I think the real test for Sakic comes next offseason. He'll have some space with some bad contracts coming off the books, we'll see what he does with that space. Unfortunately looking at the 2017 crop of UFAs there isn't a ton of quality assuming some of the big name guys like Benn, Alzner, and Burns are probably going to be locked up before UFA. A guy like Marchand would be interesting, as would Kulikov, Shattenkirk if he makes it, Del Zotto would be semi interesting, Oshie would be a solid target. But outside those few guys it's pretty ugly.